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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Gimme shelter from the Stones
08 March 2006
www.stuff.co.nz
By KARL DU FRESNE
An article in The Dominion Post last Saturday carried the headline: What's so great about the Rolling Stones?
Good question. I'm still trying to think of an answer.
The Stones were always a band that appealed most to people who liked their rock musicians to strike a particular socio-political stance. The division between 60s pop fans who liked The Beatles and those who liked The Stones was stark: one lot liked music, the others just wanted a band with an attitude. The tone-deaf were more likely to fall into the latter category.
Mick Jagger was a performer, not a singer. His greatest talent was an extraordinary chutzpah that enabled a grammar school boy from a comfortable, middle-class home not only to pass himself off as a working-class rebel, but to sing (if "sing" is the correct word) in a fraudulent pastiche of an accent brazenly pinched from the black American ghettos. It was an astonishing act of fakery, but he got away with it – and he's getting away with it still.
That's not to say The Stones didn't make some good songs. Paint It Black was a great song (even if The Stones pinched the idea of using a sitar from The Beatles, as they did many of their other tricks). So were Brown Sugar and Gimme Shelter. But hang on, we're talking more than three decades ago. What have they done since?
They've become an institutionalised freak show, a grotesque carnival that hits the road whenever their income from record royalties threatens to taper off to a few million a week. Jagger, the one-time sex god, is a comical curiosity – a marginally raunchier version of Cliff Richard. People marvel at his drug-ravaged accomplice Keith Richards for much the same reason as one might gaze in awe at a tuatara; both are living fossils, surviving against the odds. (Come to think of it, there's more than a passing resemblance.)
You can deduce from this that I won't be watching The Stones when they play in Wellington. Quite apart from anything else, $385 would buy me an awful lot of Jim Reeves CDs.
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[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| speedfreakjive |
OK, get me his address. |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
speedfreakjive wrote:
OK, get me his address.
LOL. Don't worry...there's always one in every crowd. |
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| Egbert |
Beatles snobs make me ill. |
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| Joey |
Come Here ........ !!!!!!
COME HERE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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V
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| rollmops |
What a piece of shit that is!!! I still wonder why some persons get offended, outraged or even annoyed by the fact that the Rolling Stones are still famous and successful. That writer sounds like a boring fuck that intellectualizes everything instead of enjoying life.
Mops |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
>They've become an institutionalised freak show, a grotesque carnival that hits the road whenever their income from record royalties threatens to taper off to a few million a week. <
Pretty cool. |
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| Joey |
" That writer sounds like a boring fuck that intellectualizes everything instead of enjoying life. "
Amen !!!!
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| pdog |
Is Joey our Fredo? |
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| Joey |
quote:
pdog wrote:
Is Joey our Fredo?
Come Here ................ !
" COME HERE !!!!!! " :
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| Break The Spell |
He's another one of them little shits that think george Harrison invented the sitar, it was around ages before da Beatles existed. Brian Jones played many different instruments long before The Beatles had formed, there was no "trickery" there as he seems to think there was. Dick Taylor's parents recalled young Mick around 1958-59 performing in the backyard with eye-popping intensity that he would later display in The Stones, this long before James Brown or any other performer he was accused of riping off came along. I don't get when people talk of all the bands people say The Stones stole from, if anything, it was many others that tried to copy their sound!! Their true heroes were guys like Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, but you never see these fools bring them up!!! Life did not begin with the Beatles, they need to see that. Oh, and he ended with saying he planned on spending 385 bucks on Jimmy Reeves cds, that says it all.
[Edited by Break The Spell]
[Edited by Break The Spell] |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
>They've become an institutionalised freak show, a grotesque carnival that hits the road whenever their income from record royalties threatens to taper off to a few million a week. <
Pretty cool.
I'll take that as a compliment...thank you very much. |
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| Soldatti |
Who the fuck is KARL DU FRESNE????? |
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| the good |
Its just another angry Beatles fan who KNOWS the Stones wrote much better rock music than the fab four and he can't STAND IT.
[Edited by the good] |
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| Riffhard |
Rather funny when you consider that the last Beatles tour was in 1966! Yeah,the Stones suck. They are only the most successful touring band of all time,but that does not sit well with Beatles fans that have had no new music since Let It Be. Oh,I almost forgot about those two gems on Anthology. Free As A Bird and Real Love. Yeah they're great! Whatever! Stupid fucknut!!
Riffy |
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| lotsajizz |
the Stones scare people who can't deal with getting old themselves
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| Break The Spell |
quote:
lotsajizz wrote:
the Stones scare people who can't deal with getting old themselves
Thats exactly what I think it is, a lot of frustrated critics / writers who are anywhere from 10-30 years younger than the Stones and in nowhere as good of shape. Plus their jealous of all the accomplishments and how they still set the standard everytime they go out on a new tour. |
