the unstoppable stones

Because of its lo-fi, raw and untutored quality, the Black Monk Time album by a group of five former GIs who had been stationed in Germany in the early Sixties has been widely hailed by the likes of Jack White, Iggy Pop, Jay Reatard, Fred Cole of Dead Moon and many others who favour its elemental quality. The fact that it has been largely...
> absoluteelsewhere/2720/we-need-to-talk-about-the-monks-2011-gabba-gabba-hey-hey-were-the-monks/

In June 1964, when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still only 20, the Rolling Stones took time out from their short American tour to head into the famous Chess studios at 2120 South Michigan Avenue in Chicago. With famed engineer Ron Malo, who had worked with many of the blues giants who had walked through Chess, they recorded five songs...
> fromthevaults/4396/the-rolling-stones-empty-heart-1964/

Most people lie about their school days: no one wants to admit they were ordinary. Better to say you hung around behind the bike shed, that teachers and kids hated you for your music, clothes or whatever. Oh, and you smoked. Just makes you seem more cool and interesting -- and most people weren’t. One of the lies people...
> fromthevaults/3110/the-pretty-things-dont-bring-me-down-1964/

When he was just nine – 26 years ago – Ben Waters briefly saw something in a pub which changed his life. He was at his auntie and uncle's 25th wedding anniversary in the Wynyard Gap in Somerset, just across the border from his home county of Dorset, and the great pianist Ian Stewart was a family friend who sat down and played...
> absoluteelsewhere/4145/ben-waters-interviewed-2011-one-more-time-for-the-boogie-woogie-man-ian-stewart/

Although the Stones' psychedelic album Their Satanic Majesties Request of late '67 has taken a bad rap, they didn't entirely abandon the trippy sound even as they put it behind them and moved into a more blues-based rock for their next single Jumpin' Jack Flash and the album Beggar's Banquet (which had Street Fighting Man on it). They might...
> fromthevaults/4107/the-rolling-stones-child-of-the-moon-1968/

This too slight, slightly self-justifying, frequently honest and altogether typically disappointing rock autobiography has taken on much more meaning since its 2008 publication, especially with Ronnie's new solo album in late 2010. In the closing chapters here especially he spends a lot of time proffesing his love for his wife Jo, how she...
> writingelsewhere/3819/ronnie-an-autobiography-by-ronnie-wood/

Aside from the obvious reason (40th anniversaries), there is another explanation for some much Stones stuff from the late Sixties/early Seventies: that was when they became the bad boy phenomenon which most people associate with them. There is also a lot of footage and music, and by the late Seventies and early Eighties things were less...
> film/3775/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-rolling-stones-a-doco-by-rollin-binzer-shock-dvd/

Most reviews of this frequently funny, sometimes insightful and too often rambling autobiography -- Keith + tape recorder + ghost writer Fox -- have concentrated on the obvious: the sniping at Mick Jagger which occurs a little in the first three-quarters but reaches a peak in the final throes where the autobiography/chronological account runs...
> writingelsewhere/3727/life-by-keith-richards-with-james-fox-through-the-past-cheerfully/

In his superb single Cry Tough of '76, the American singer-guitarist Nils Lofgren (a member of Springsteen's E Street Band since '84) namechecked the British pub-rock outfit Dr Feelgood, showing an awareness few other Americans had. Dr Feelgood, from Canvey Island near Southend, at that time had released three albums in the UK and made a...
> essentialelsewhere/806/dr-feelgood-stupidity-1976/

Keith Richards once offered a neat observations of Mick Jagger: "Mick's a lovely bunch of blokes." Jagger, by all acounts, has that uncanny ability to switch his langauge and accent depending on who he is talking to: with the turn of his head he can go from plum-in-mouth when chatting with a lord or lady to a Jamaican accent if the...
> film/3247/stones-in-exile-a-documentary-by-stephen-kijak/

The live album -- or double live as was standard in the days of vinyl -- has had a chequered history in rock: some live albums defined an artists career (Frampton Comes Alive, Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous) and others added little to the sum of our knowledge (most of Dylan's). Some artists regularly drop live albums (Paul McCartney, who...
> absoluteelsewhere/2742/the-rolling-stones-get-yer-ya-yas-out-2009-the-69-garden-party/

You -- well, I -- admire a rock'n'roll r'n'b band that names itself after the late lead singer of the British pub rock band Dr Feelgood whose Stupidity album from '76 is mandatory in any Essential Elsewhere collection. And this four-piece who make their energetic pub-rock sound at jazz and blues festivals (and I am guessing excellent...
> music/2722/brilleaux-decade-brilleaux/

When this band emerged as Paul Revere and the Raiders in the Sixties they were a rocking, sometimes salacious and rather terrific garageband (albeit one which dressed kinda funny) and so, quite rightly, a compilation of their Greatest Hits appears at Essential Elsewhere. By 1970 the world had turned through hippies, horn-augmented bands like...
> music/2594/the-raiders-indian-reservation-collage-raven-emi/

We have been down this occasionally interesting path previously with the Chrome Dreams label which has delivered DVDs about bands such as the Small Faces, the whole German electronic movement (Kraftwerk, Can et al) and Frank Zappa, as well as CDs of Bob Dylan's jukebox and a compilation of his Radio Hour music (no intros by Bob though). None...
> film/2571/the-rolling-stones-in-the-sixties-chrome-dreams-dvd-triton/

English singer-songwriter Molinari's debut Walking off the Map was a beguiling, blatantly Dylanesque affair which found great favour at Elsewhere -- but this time out he's like a pub quiz: which song am I referencing now?Usually it's Dylan but he lifts shamelessly from Sam Cooke, Hank Williams, the Stones' in 65, young Donovan . . . And you...
> music/1715/pete-molinari-a-virtual-landscape-shock/

Tributes will come fast for this legend of rock'n'roll and all will -- or at least they should -- note that for the past four decades the man barely sold an album despite his position as a figurehead. Over a decade ago he released the terrific A Man Amongst Men which featured guests Keith and Ronnie from the Stones, Richie Sambora, the...
> blues/1570/bo-diddley-dec-30-1928-june-2-2008/

Some might say that the last thing the world needs right now is another live Stones collection. After all Get Yer Ya Ya's Out (released a whopping 38 years go!) is the hardcore fan's classic, and we've had Love You Live, Still Life, Flashpoint, Stripped and No Security since. And it was only four years ago that we had Live Licks, a...
> music/1569/the-rolling-stones-shine-a-light-universal/

These Allstars aren't really, but two of them are the sons of the great James Luther Dickinson whose last album was one of the Best of Elsewhere 2007: a swirling implosion of country, psychedelic rock, blues and cornmash liquor. The boys haven't fallen too far from the tree but sometimes bring a swag more gritty psychedelic blues into the...
> music/1560/north-mississippi-allstars-hernando-songs-of-the-south/

From the back row of Chicago's United Centre, about four storeys above the stage, Mick Jagger - not the biggest of men anyway - is the size of a matchstick held at arm's length.But even without his roadmap features projected on the screen behind him, this is undeniable Mick. He struts'n'thrusts across the stage and still possesses that animal...
> absoluteelsewhere/402/the-rolling-stones-live-in-chicago-2002-men-of-stone/