Holy shit is this revelatory. Wonderfully demonstrates how the Rolling Stones sound is more than just the sum of its parts, with the component tracks of one of their key songs, “Gimme Shelter,” from 1969’s Let it Bleed album.
The vocal harmonies of Mick Jagger and Merry Clayton are nothing short of astonishing, heard naked here. Clayton’s performance was one of the most significant contributions of a woman to a Stones number. “Rape, murder; It’s just a shot away, It’s just a shot away…” Listen to what happens to her voice at about 2:30 to 3:00 minutes in. Fantastic! (Clayton’s great cover version of “Gimme Shelter” would enter the Billboard Top 100 charts the following year).
The separate tracks for bass, guitar, 2nd guitar and piano, and drums, too, after the jump…
Film footage of the photo shoot for the record jacket of “Have You Seen Your Mother, Baby, Standing In The Shadow?” The film was released as a promo for the record.
The infamous photo was shot in 1966 by Jerry Schatzberg.
I got an advance copy of Ladies & Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones on Blu-ray yesterday from the publicist for Eagle Rock Ent. and I must say, it’s probably the best longform Rolling Stones performance on the market or that we’re ever likely to see.
Originally shot on the 1972 USA tour in support of the Exile on Main Street album, during four separate shows in Ft. Worth and Houston, Texas, the film was shown theatrically in midnight screenings throughout 1974. The “QuadraSound” four-channel magnetic soundtrack required a a 3300-watt sound system to be delivered on a truck to the cinema which was run by professional sound engineers who tailored the mix according to how big the venue was (and also how full the seats were). The releasing company, Dragon Aire Ltd. had four of these systems touring at once.
The 1972 North America tour was the Stones at the absolute pinnacle of their powers as live performers—as even Mick Jagger admits, they could be a pretty sloppy live band at times. Here, with a setlist culled from their best albums, (Beggar’s Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street) they really putt their shoulders into it, clearly full of piss and vinegar to spare . It’s just a great Rolling Stones performance, full stop. If you are a fan, this is exactly what you want.
This film hasn’t really been seen (except for an Australian VHS release that’s been widely bootlegged) in about three decades, so the experience of these performances hasn’t been devalued by constant repetition on Vh1 Classics. Aside from that, let’s not forget the presence of virtuoso guitarist Mick Taylor (arguably the best musician ever to play in the band). And it sounds very, very good in the newly remastered 5:1 surround. (I’m a little less sold on the picture, which looks fine, but has that slightly jagged looking quality that always results from a 16mm film getting blown up to 35mm).
All in all, I’d say that if you are “so inclined” that this should be a definitive “buy,” fanboy. I didn’t feel that way about the recent Exile on Main Street reissue in the least, but this DVD, especially on Blu-ray, really can’t be beat.
Here’s a somewhat murky—but asskicking—clip of “Happy” from the film.
Tattoo You? More like “fuck you” if your names happen to be Ronnie, Charlie and Bill!
Business Insider asked former Windows head, Brad Silverberg how he and his team got the Rolling Stones song “Start Me Up” for use in the company’s marketing campaign for Windows 95. What transpired makes for a rather amusing tale:
The Stones are a Corporation, with Mick as CEO, Keith as COO. Their business happens to be music. Those two make decisions. The other band members are essentially employees.
The Stones had not licensed their music for TV commercials. Mick was reluctant to license the song to us because of “artistic purity.” But Keith apparently has a higher burn rate than Mick, or not as good as an investor. He told Mick he could use the money and ultimately convinced Mick to do the deal. At the same time, the Stones were at a low point in their career and looking to become relevant again, and Win 95 looked like it could be a big hit and give them a helpful association and visibility.
The final version of the song was delivered for the commercial. We noticed though that it was not the studio version, but rather a more recently recorded live version. We pushed back and got the familiar studio version. The reason we got the other version was some of the band members in the newer version were more recent, and Mick/Keith got much higher royalties for themselves from that version than the studio one. Nice try. But it was tense till the very end.
Tying together a couple of DM memes, here is notorious chanteuse Claudine Longet doing an interesting thing by combining two John Lennon tunes to a predictably charming outcome. Rather chilling lyrically considering her conviction a few years later for misdemeanor negligent homicide. She didn’t mean to hurt you!
I’ve been a Rolling Stones nut for practically my entire life, and have dozens and dozens of hours of Stones bootlegs, but for whatever reason this awesome live take of Lady Jane, performed during their fourth appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967, seems to have slipped right past me. YouTube has been very kind to Rolling Stones fans!
Dig Brian Jones on dulcimer as a cheeky Mick Jagger sings of being an Elizabethan-era kept man. After Jones died, they dropped this song from their stage repertoire. Lady Jane, taken from Aftermath, was a 2-sided single, sharing the A-side with Mother’s Little Helper. The Italian picture sleeve is seen above.
After a couple of drug-bust-heavy years off the road, the Rolling Stones were at a few turning points as of July 5, 1969. Their back-to-basics Beggars Banquet album signaled the end of the rainbow dream of Their Satanic Majesties Request, and a return to a therapeutic blues mode that would last them long into the ‘70s. Most importantly, guitarist Mick Taylor of John Mayall’s Blues Breakers had replaced a drug-soaked Brian Jones, and Jones had been found drowned in the pool of his Sussex home two days before their previously booked free performance in Hyde Park. The Stones decide to go on with the show. As shown below, Britain’s leading independent Granada Television was there.
Granada put the biggest rock concert in England’s history to that point (250,000 people, with Woodstock planned for a month later) into context by chatting with the band, the fans and members of the amazingly efficient Kent chapter of the Hells Angels. Unfortunately, the Stones’ next huge concert would demonstrate that the Kent Angels neglected to exchange notes with their West Coast brothers about how to best secure a large crowd…
Please note: Live Video seemed to be the only free video site that’s hosting the full documentary. Unfortunately, the user experience after the jump is less than optimal—the video just starts and buffers a lot. It seems best to just pause the screen and let it load before playing. Please remember that it’s free, and that for best results you can buy the DVD by clicking the link below.
Today marks the first time The T.A.M.I. Show has seen a proper release since it was in theaters over 40 years ago, although bootlegs have been easy to come by since the late 80s. James Brown’s inspired performance—perhaps the finest moment of his entire career—will knock your socks off.
Filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, October 29, 1964, the performers also included Chuck Berry, Gerry And The Pacemakers, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Jan & Dean, Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, The Supremes, The Barbarians and The Rolling Stones. The DVD, put out by the mighty Shout Factory contains restored footage of the Beach Boys performance which was cut from the theatrical release.
We haven’t had a Stones related post in days now, time to remedy that with this fantastic live (not lip-sync) performance of Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Keith Richards describes who inspired the songs cryptic lyrics
Jack Dyer, who was my gardener, an old English yokel. I once said, ‘ave you ever been to town? Town, to an Englishman, means London, right? He says, Oh Yea, I was up there when war finished. That cathedral’s something. He meant Chichester, the local big town, seven miles away…We’d been up all night and it was in the morning. Suddenly this sound of boots went by the window, clump clump clump and woke Mick up, What was that?! I looked out, that’s Jack, that’s jumpin’ Jack. Well he’s leaping about a bit. Yeah, I said, it’s “jumpin’ Jack” and then “flash” came and suddenly we were wide awake and we started to work, you know. You never know when they’re going to come.
First the Beatles, next up The Rolling Stones—or at least Exile On Main St. Saw this weekend that Universal Music is giving Exile the deluxe packaging and remastering treatment for release later this year. Well, I’m of mixed emotions not sure how I feel about this. I do love, love immeasurably, that album’s sprawling, bluesy murk—is Exile something that can profit, really, from being cleaned up any further than it was in ‘94? Or are there sounds in those tracks—sounds as buried as they are essential—whose magic another scrubbing might forever eradicate?
While I/we have a few months to ponder that one, here’s something delightfully raw, circa Exile: little-seen rehearsal footage of that album’s “Loving Cup.” Similar footage has been floating around on YouTube, but this is a recent addition, with a clapboard opening and (often) excellent sound quality.
Rock archaeologists take note of this gallery of 21 never before seen photographs of the Beatles and Rolling Stones:
The behind-the-scenes, intimate and unguarded shots, have been unearthed after spending 45 years in a duffel bag of The Beatles and Rolling Stone’s former tour manager.
The collection of more than 50 pictures, which are being revealed to the public for the first time are part of 3,500 taken by Bob Bonis, the US tour manager who helped organise the so-called British invasion of America in the Swinging Sixties.
Call me disputatious—or not, it’s entirely up to you—my favorite Stones album is Their Satanic Majesties Request. It’s the only one I play all the way through anymore. It sounds great as one great big, trippy chunk. It’s a great headphones album, too. Most Stones fans hate it and see it as a weak attempt to out weird the Beatles after they’d unleashed Sgt Pepper on the world, but to me, it’s just a thing of beauty, with the normal Blues-based Stones sound thrown out the door, and replaced with a colorful sonic palette the likes of which they would never return to. I’m not saying that it IS the best Stones album, I’m just saying it’s MY favorite. (My favorite Stones song, is Monkey Man, followed by Stray Cat Blues, then (Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker, dark horses, all, I grant you. I’m also partial to Don’t Know Why I Love You, but the Glimmer Twins didn’t write that one, so it doesn’t count).
If you ask me, the Stones “demonic” phase, inaugurated, if you will, by their association with the Magus of Cinema, Kenneth Anger, was when the Stones were truly on fire. Mick was still quite into his Satan/Lucifer thing well into the Let It Bleed/Gimme Shelter era, but after Altamont, Jagger was often seen wearing a crucifix around his neck, perhaps seeking to put down all the hoodoo Age of Horus energy he’d raised? Have sympathy for the poor devil. Jagger had a current running through his body during the Sixties that killed quite a few of his contemporaries. Today, like a rock and roll Dorian Gray, he hardly looks any worse for the wear.
Here is a seldom seen pop video for 2000 Light Years From Home. It seems so heavily influenced by Kenneth Anger that I always assumed that he’d directed it, but it seems more likely to be the work of photographer Michael Cooper, who not only shot the cover for the Satanic Majesties album jacket (which was originally issued with a fantastic 3-D lenticular cover (I have one!), but Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising film as well. I had a copy of this on a Japanese laser disc, comically followed by a clip of Pete Townsend in full Mod drag sternly criticizing the Stones for their then recent marijuana busts. (It’s always the bluenoses who have the really outrageous vices, isn’ it?). Other than that, I’d never seen it anywhere, but here in the YouTube era (we’re living in the YouTube era, didn’t anyone tell you this?) some kind soul has liberated it for our viewing pleasure. Take a look, it’s great:
As loyal Dangerous Minds readers have probably already figured out, I am both a “rock snob” and a bit of an audiophile. So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that the 09/09/09 street date of the remastered Beatles albums—in both stereo and mono—has me counting the hours until I can get my hands on them.
What you might not know if you are of a certain age (or have forgotten if you are of another!) is that the Beatles albums sounded WAY better in mono than in stereo. Both the group and George Martin preferred mono and the stereo mixes back then were often afterthoughts with severely panned stereo mixes that had most of the instruments on one side and the vocals on the other! The stereo mixes always seemed very peculiar to me.
The 1987 CDs were the pits. Just awful, flat aural experiences. And nothing’s been done to rectify that situation until now. It always been ridiculous that the Beatles and the Stones had the worst sounding CDs. A lot of people don’t rate the Stones ABKCO reissues highly, but I thought they were (mostly) done pretty well and it was nice to be able to hear that material with fresh ears. Most of us who grew up with the Beatles, Stones and Led Zeppelin probably probably don’t listen to them all that much now, because it’s so easy to conjure their music up in our “mind’s ear,” but the Love mash-up album from the Circe du Soleil show helped me get back into the Beatles again and I’m really looking forward to hearing the remasters. If I can manage to score some promo copies of these sets, I’ll offer up reviews of stereo vs. mono daily on the site.
Meanwhile, here’s a song that sadly didn’t make it to any Beatles CD ever, their uniquely comic turn—it’s very Goon Show, isn’t it?—on Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture taken from the credits of Help!:
