I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit it, but I'm still plowing through Keith Richards' sprawling "Life." It's not that I'm not enjoying it -- quite the contrary -- it's just that I've been kinda crazy busy of late, and haven't had that much time to sit down with it for long stretches. I mean, I started it in November for chrissakes. Maybe I'm just a stupid, slow reader.
ANYway, even if you're only a casual Stones fan, I highly recommend it. Inspired by same, I sought out the first clip below not too long back. Honestly speaking, I'm not a member of the Exile on Main Street hallelujah choir. I much prefer Let It Bleed, if truth be told. But, y'know, to each their own.
In any case, in this first clip below, we see Messrs. Jagger, Richards, Watts et al. slumming around the Bowery in 1972 (interspliced between shots of them doing same in Los Angeles). Under normal circumstances, I'd play "spot the address" and try to divine what specific locales are being depicted, but the editing was far too quick for me to attempt. I think there are some shots filmed on the cross-section of Bowery and Houston, but I can't be sure. In any case, it's great stuff -- despite Bill Wyman's laughably ridiculous hair. Crank it.
This next clip -- taken, I believe, from "Ladies & Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones..", I'm just putting up because it finds the boys playing another one of my favorite songs. My friend Cliff put this up on Facebook earlier this week. As I mentioned to him, I'm always amused by the fact that the mere invocation of the name "Mick Jagger" is enough to send my mother into spasms of vitriol. She considers him to be the absolute lowest form of human life (I'm always tempted to sit her down and make her watch the G.G. Allin documentary "Hated" to see if that would make her reconsider the rightful recipient of that title). In any case, the video below will doubtlessly make her foam at the mouth. So, obviously, CRANK IT WAY UP!
Don't feel bad for being a slow reader. I just finished the Marcello Mastroianni biography last week (I started it in August). And I don't even have kids...
Mick Jagger? Lowest form of human life? That's a title I'd reserve only for Mr. James Blunt.
Posted by: James Taylor | January 25, 2011 at 12:02 PM
If you don't like the "Rocks Off" video and song you probably have rocks in your fucking head...killer stuff.
And slow reading? I'm hammering through "Power Broker - Robert Moses and the Fall of NY". 1,200 pages. Started in September...just passed the 400 page mark. Not easy meaterial to digest but essential reading for NYC history buffs...
Posted by: NYCDreamin | January 25, 2011 at 10:49 PM
Great shots of the old Bowery, however fleeting. The filming was by Robert Frank (he did the Cocksuckers Blues documentary), who lived/kept a studio at Bowery and Bleecker, so this was basically the Stones in his back yard.
Posted by: l.e.s.ter | January 26, 2011 at 09:25 AM
bah! haven't finished reading the Richards' book myself (only up to ch. 3, even, for i be teh LAZY!).
and fwiw, Jagger was my teen-aged self's role model. your mom would've loved me. ;*)
Posted by: Ioannis | January 27, 2011 at 06:37 AM