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| stonedinaustralia |
Further to the thread started by Mr. Tek and hotlicks request to hear his “how I met the Stones story” – here it is – interview taken from “Radio Birdman” by Vivien Johnson.
You’d have to admit it’s a beauty and hard to top by anybody’s criteria.
Some brief background – Deniz had moved to Sydney from Michigan to study medicine and as he mentions ’73 was his first summer in Australia
“Deniz Tek: My meeting with Keith Richards at the Hyattt Kingsgate was one of the highpoints of my life. That first summer I was working in a glue factory. It was a terrible place, working among decaying animal parts all day. You’d go home, take a shower for thirty or forty minutes and still you couldn’t get it off – you’d go to the beach and everybody shuns you, there’d be like a demilitarized zone around me about twenty feet. The pay was $52.00 a week. I was saving all my money…just working in the glue factory – and the Stones were coming out. I used my money that I’d saved to buy tickets in all the cities to see all the shows. Lee Taylor went with me, he was independently wealthy from his job at the General Post Office. We went on the tour – I hitchhiked (he was flying) around the country to every gig. I took a movie camera and made tapes and a Super 8 film.
We would meet up at the gig. It’s the kind of thing where you’d get there at noon to get down the front and wait all day. I had this white boiler suit that I’d borrowed from the glue factory and made a perfect Rolling Stones emblem on the pocket. It being a boiler suit, I figured that would enable me to get in early, people would think I was one of the roadies – and it worked. In Melbourne we pooled our money and bought a bottle of Old Grandad - bourbon – because “Exile” had just come out and there was a photograph on the cover of Mick and Keith standing around the microphone in the recording studio singing and Keith’s holding this bottle of Old Grandad, So we get there early when they’re setting up the gear – I had my boiler suit on so I was able to get in and pretend like I was setting up the gear . Ian Stewart was setting up the amps(…). We called out to him and he came over, talked to us for a little while. We had this bottle of Old Grandad and we said, “We’d like to give this to Keith”. Looks at it , goes “Yeah, he likes this, this is one of his favorites. I’ll put it on his amp.” So he put it on top of Keith’s amp. About four songs into the show he sees it. Goes over and looks out into the crowd, takes a big swallow of it, puts it back up. He didn’t give a thumbs up but he made a gesture of thanks to whoever put it up there. And we’re “See that! Did you see that!”
Get to the last show in Sydney, and I’d really like to meet them. I had to sell my guitar. I knew they were staying at the Hyatt Kingsgate and I called the hotel. From reading articles, I knew the name of the guy that maintains Keith’s guitars and makes his custom guitars. The Stones always travel under assumed names, so you can’t just call the hotel and get onto their room, but I figured this guy won’t be under an assumed name. So I just called the Hyatt Kingsgate and said “I’d like to speak to Newman Jones.” Get right on to him. I have this guitar it’s rare one, 1948b National Town and Country, do you think Keith would be interested in buying it? He goes, “Yeah, he really likes those. How about bringing it down to the hotel after the show tonight?It’s our last show, we’re leaving the country tomorrow, so you have to bring it tonight.” I said “OK. I’ll be there.” After the show, at (a friends) house, they said, “What have you got your guitar with you?” I said “I’m going down to sell this guitar to Keith Richards.” And they go “Yeah, sure.”
So I spent my last money on a taxi down to the Hyatt. I walked into the lobby – this is about 1 ‘clock in the morning – the lobby of the hotel was all karate experts, ‘cos they had rented a karate school for security. And the Stones had the three top floors of the Hyatt, but these guys were down in the lobby and they’re not letting anybody up on the elevators. So I go up to ‘em and they’ve got walkie talkies and these T-shirts with the karate school on the back, go, “I’m supposed to be here to sell a guitar.” So the guy radios upstairs and says, “Just wait over there.” So I sit down and wait> About 45 minutes later, this beautiful African woman comes down, she’s got this East African accent and she says. “The guy with the guitar can come up now.” She’s wearing like an African costume, y’know? So I say, “See you guys later.” They’re looking at each other – “Why’s he get to go up?” So we get in the elevator, go all the way up to the top, the door opens and there’s another security check – the guy checks me and I haven’t got any weapons, then Newman Jones comes up and looks at the guitar. He says, “Yes, this is really good. We’ll take this and show Keith.” From that moment I was IN – I was in the inner circle. You can stay there as long as you like – they don’t care. The security comes from their managers and all the peripheral organization – once anybody’s in there it’s not a problem.
So…i get in there, They’re having a party. There’s about twenty or thirty people in there. It’s a suite: in the one room is Keith and Mick Taylor, and Bobby Keyes is passed out on the bathroom floor – half in and half out of the bathroom – you have to step over him to get to the toilet. And in the adjoining room, a party’s going on, and they’re playing the tape of the concert which had just been done – it’s a board tape, really good quality tape, really loud, and people are drinkin’ and talkin’. So Keith looks at the guitar – he shakes my hand and it’s like shaking the hand of someone who’s not there, not present in the room. His eyes are like focussed about 100 miles on some distant horizon. His eyes are like a really weird colour – the colour of purple – and his skin was a real light mauve. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, or socks, he was bare foot, and he had on the clothes he was wearing at the concert – he had not changed his clothes. He shook my hand and talked to me a little bit and then he said, “Bring me an amplifier.” – So some guy goes a-running out of the door and five minutes later he wheels in this amplifier…(…), plugs it in, and then he plays along with the tape of the concert and plays through the whole thing – plays my guitar to the whole rest of thew concert. He’s adding in all these things, it’s sounding great.
So he’s occupied for the time being, I’ll socialize a bit. So I went in to the party and Mick came up to me and introduced himself, said I’m Mick Jagger, who are you and what’s going on, what are you up to. Talked to him – he’s a real short slight guy – he’s like a little kid – much smaller than my previous impression. But he is very nice.When the tape finished, he said “Let’s go to my room and I’ll show some movies.” So everybody leaves and the place is completely deserted now except for me and Keith, Mick Taylor and Bobby Keyes passed out on the floor. So then he sits down, just sits on the edge of the bed and plays the guitar – they have this bowl of joints that were the size of cigars – they’d brought them from Jamaica where they’d just done the “Goats Head Soup” album – he was smoking these joints and drinking bourbon. I asked him about some of the things he was doin’ – he was very open, showed me how to do an open G tuning and how to get the sound he gets – he would tell you things, he wasn’t keeping any secrets. I had spent many many years learning top play Keith Richards guitar style. I’d spend hours and hours – hundreds of hours – copying learning how to play his guitar solos and rhythm patterns, note for note. I would be mystified by the beauty of the timing, with the precision of the guitar work, and through practicing and practicing and practicing, hoping one day to understand the secret of it, or find out how he did it. There was these things that I’d been trying to figure out for so many years, that were now told to me. It’s obvious – once you know how to do it, it’s obvious, but you can’t get to that from here – you have to have some special knowledge added in to fins out. So I learned the open G style – he was playing some of the things off “Exile” – he played “Ventilator Blues”
Finally, the sun’s coming up and he says, “How much do you want?” And I said “Well, I’d really like to trade you for one of your guitars – I don’t want any money but I’ll take any one of your guitars that you want to trade.” He said, “Well, I would, but they’re all packed up, they’re all on the airplane, we’ll be leavin’ in a couple of hours.” I said, “Well, don’t worry about it, just send one to me when you get back to San Tropez. I’ll trust you.” And he goes “no, I don’t want to do that, because it will never happen. I’ll get there and I’ll forget. I can’t organize things like that, So I’ll give you some money and you can buy another guitar if you want to with it.” So he picks up the telephone and says “This is Keith, I need some money.” So this guy comes running up the stairs, running into the room with this big handful of (money) (…) So he peels some off, gives it to him, writes it down in a book how much he’s given to Keith – goes out. Keith hands me a pile of $20 bills and says “Hope you get yourself a nice guitar and thanks for this one.”
He talked to me about how Newman would fix it up – ‘cos I had it held together by pieces of baling wore, chewing gum. I had some bits of old matches underneath the bridge to get it to the right height, it was falling apart – I didn’t have the money to get it all restored, that was good enough for me. I said “I gotta get some kind of souvenir or nobody will believe me. Can I have one of the tour T-shirts?” Couldn’t find a tour T-shirt – he looked through his suitcase – all these great clothes – things you’ve seen in movies and on stage and he goes “Gosh, looks like I don’t have any. I gave my last one away. But here, have this, this is from another tour” a T-shirt from the 1965 tour of the States(…) He says “Here have this.” I say “Thanks.”
By this time the sun was well up. It was about 8 o’clock in the morning. The other’s came in(…) Charlie(…)and Mick Taylor(…) I managed to get one of Charlie’s drumsticks. I gave it to Lee (…) I went down to Landis (music store) and bought a Gibson SG that I used for awhile .Yeah, it was great, fulfilled a dream for me …”
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| throbby |
SIA! Deniz! What a fantastic story! Thanks for posting. |
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| telecaster |
Great story, thanks for posting |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
So Deniz had to give up his guitar to meet Keith?
Well, all FPM had to do was piss.
LOL!
All kidding aside, that was a great story. I am glad you decided to post it. |
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| mac_daddy |
helluva story - thanks. |
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| hotlicks |
MAN YOU'VE REAL BALLS TO PULL THAT OFF-MANY THANKS FOR THE POST.
CHEERS,
HOTLICKS. |
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| fmk438j |
dreams, dreams are made of these |
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| Cardinal Fang |
quote:
Sir Stonesalot wrote:
So Deniz had to give up his guitar to meet Keith?
Well, all FPM had to do was piss.
LOL!
All kidding aside, that was a great story. I am glad you decided to post it.
Sir Stonesalot !!
Deniz & Radio Birdman are the REAL deal. I don't know if you have ever heard any of his band Radio Birdman Marc but they ROCK. Sub Pop has a really good anthology they put out a year or two ago. Radio Birdman sound like The Stooges - MC5 - (early) Alice Cooper Band. I hear their influence on bands later on like (early) The Damned, and especially in an early 80's SoCalifornia surf punk band called Agent Orange. Radio Birdman has a definite "late 60's/early 70's Detroit R-n-R sound". I know a girl here who would like them too. (they even covered TV Eye) Some of my favorite Radio Birdman songs are, "New Race, What Gives, Aloha Steve & Danno, Descent Into The Maelstrom, Love Kills, Do The Pop and I'm sure I'm forgetting a few.
A band I was in back in the 80's used to on occasion cover Radio Birdman's "New Race". Anybody else ever notice the chords of The Stones "Fight" are almost identical to Radio Birdman's "New Race" ??? Wonder if Keith got more than just a guitar off of Deniz ?
Later, Cardinal Fang
P.S. I will email you and Deniz and everyone else after all of this Trivia contest stuff, I promise. I have to ask Deniz about some guitar stuff. For example Deniz did you guys have to pay any royalties for the guitar solo on Aloha Steve & Danno :-) I'll email you my other questions later. |
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| Joey |
Cardy ????????????????????????????????????????
Is that really you ?!?!?!?!?!?!
Man , where have you been ????? This board has missed your Minty Fresh intellect and compelling and illuminating " Rock and Roll " Knowledge .
Besides , you really knew how to write a post .
Welcome Home My Brother !
P.S. Wanna go sailing this weekend on Lake Michigan with my Baby Steelie and I ????? Just the Three of Us -- No Outsiders ..............................What say ?!?!?!
" Tie Me Up and Call Me Suzi Ronnie "
M. Jackyfly ! |
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| corgi37 |
what a great read. It really is shocking they didnt tour Oz again unti 95. Well not shocking, unforgivable. I think Deniz mentioned he was off to Europe soon. Who knows Deniz, you may be able to trade another guitar. Or, at least, score a another t-shirt. Boy, how many times have i had dreams like Deniz reality. |
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| Sir Stonesalot |
I'm gonna have to get some of that Radio Birdman stuff.
Sounds right up my alley. |
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| stonedinaustralia |
quote:
Cardinal Fang wrote:
Anybody else ever notice the chords of The Stones "Fight" are almost identical to Radio Birdman's "New Race" ???
yes
and there's the clear nod to "Gimme Shelter" in the intro of "Monday Morning Gunk"
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