| November 19th, 2005 08:31 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Too much history lies in Stones' vault
Mark Brown
Rcoky Mountain News
November 19, 2005
Paul McCartney goes on tour and pulls out Beatles rarities, pre-Beatles tunes and new songs - along with plenty of hits.
Neil Young does a new album in its entirety at Red Rocks, then plays an equally long set full of fan favorites.
Bruce Springsteen goes on tour and digs deep into his past and still does the songs fans love, including every song off of Tunnel of Love.
U2 played new songs, giant hits, but reached back for The Electric Company, 40 and other early favorites.
The Rolling Stones? They're doing Jumpin' Jack Flash, Brown Sugar and You Can't Always Get What You Want. Again. Again. And again.
With one of the most adventurous catalogs in rock, the Stones too often play the game appallingly safe. The Bigger Bang tour, hitting Pepsi Center on Thanksgiving (tickets are still available through Ticketmaster), might be the first indication that they, too, have gotten fed up with such predictability.
While there are a core of songs they're sticking with - the mentioned hits, along with Start Me Up and a smattering of new songs from their best album in years, A Bigger Bang - there seems to be some cracks in the plaster.
While they're taking songs they've often played on tour - Tumbling Dice, Honky Tonk Women, Miss You - they're at least mixing up the order. And they're also slipping in the occasional lost gem - Sweet Virginia, As Tears Go By.
But for some reason, the Stones always have been reluctant to look deep into their own artistic mirror. It's a puzzle: All their peers (The Beatles, The Who, Bob Dylan) have dug through the vaults, putting out classic material that gives fans greater context on how it all happened.
Not the Stones. Even the Rarities album that's being released soon is nothing more than a compilation of previously released tracks - many of them already included in the "collectible" disc that came with the expanded version of the otherwise expendable Flashpoint live album.
With a couple of rare exceptions, most notably the Gimme Shelter and Rock and Roll Circus DVDs, the Stones have kept the vault locked up tight. Instead of releasing classic performances, they film new DVDs and record new live albums, then go out and tour on those yet again.
In an interview with the News earlier this year, former Stones bassist Bill Wyman says the reason is Mick Jagger's stubborn refusal to revisit older material or excavate the vaults. It's especially puzzling, given that millions of fans would buy Exile on Main Street remastered and expanded with alternate takes, live tracks and the like. And with $400 concert tickets, the band doesn't seem adverse to making money.
Wyman, the band's historian who has put out voluminous work on the band in book form, has a bit of a say in what happens to the actual music, but not much.
"I'm obviously involved in all the stuff that I was involved in originally, but those decisions are always made by Mick, and Mick hates old tracks. He won't have anything to do with them," Wyman said. "That's why it took nearly 30 years for Rock and Roll Circus to come out. He didn't like it originally. So it was never given permission to come out."
Even legitimately released material such as the movie Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones, one of the finest rock movies of all time that captured the Stones in a 1972 peak and a fan favorite in theaters at the time, is still under lock and key. Bootleggers have run rampant, releasing their own surround-sound mixes of the movie on DVDs struck off of film prints.
That's less than the tip of the iceberg. The Stones always have made superb concert recordings, yet don't release them. Some 1973 European shows with guitarist Mick Taylor were professionally recorded and repeatedly broadcast on the King Biscuit Flower Hour, giving bootleggers plenty of fodder for releases. But they remain officially in the vault. The 1978 Some Girls tour is considered by many the Stones' last great hurrah before the malaise of the '80s and money-grab of the '90s. It was documented extensively, allowing bootleggers to release pristine, four-CD compilations such as Gorgeous Girls. Let's not even talk about Paris 1976, Madison Square Garden 1969 or the absolute wealth of outtakes and alternate takes from the studio. To hear Wyman tell it, tapes exist where you can hear magic taking place.
"They all came about in the same way," Wyman said. "You're in the studio and Keith (Richards), principally, comes up with a riff. You just mess with it. You might mess with it for a week. Then it all jells. Charlie (Watts) gets the right rhythm, I'm playing the right thing, Mick starts to mumble a few word ideas and within a day or so you've got a track.
"Other times . . . they came in with a song roughly together like Satisfaction was. But it was a country ballad when they wrote it. They thought it was a nice album-track filler.
"By the time it came out, it wasn't a country ballad at all. It had completely changed in the studio. While it's changing, you're inventing parts to fit it. It all happens in the studio."
And until Jagger changes his mind, it's staying in the studio, Wyman said.
"He does not like to release old stuff. I do, because I'm an archivist. I would be delighted to do it, but I don't have that capacity."
[email protected] or 303-892-2674
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| November 19th, 2005 08:38 AM |
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| Poplar |
damn right. fuck the "busines" of Mick & Keith.
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| November 19th, 2005 09:54 AM |
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| mac_daddy |
great article. thanks for posting, 10km. |
| November 19th, 2005 10:02 AM |
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| glencar |
Bill has so much time on his hands these days; Mick should just let him do the "dirty work" and they'd all make scads of money. |
| November 19th, 2005 10:03 AM |
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| justforyou |
Gotta respect Mick for going forward and not resting on the past. |
| November 19th, 2005 10:10 AM |
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| glencar |
Yes, he only does that in concert... |
| November 19th, 2005 10:11 AM |
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| marko |
"They all came about in the same way," Wyman said. "You're in the studio and Keith (Richards), principally, comes up with a riff. You just mess with it. You might mess with it for a week. Then it all jells. Charlie (Watts) gets the right rhythm, I'm playing the right thing, Mick starts to mumble a few word ideas and within a day or so you've got a track.
Thats how a BAND WORKS,how they used to do it.Thats why
ABB isn´t good enough,its just mediocre.Period. |
| November 19th, 2005 10:20 AM |
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| corgi37 |
Just means we got decades of shit to listen to! Jaggers distaste of old things is well known. I reckon he would look back on 69, 72, 75, maybe even 78, and cringe. It reminds him of when he was young, and didnt have to dye his hair. |
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