Too old to cut the mustard?

 

Dads! A bunch of embarrassing old farts aren’t they? If they’re not making a tit out of themselves in social clubs with their ties tied round their heads dancing to Gangham Style, they are wearing cream slip on shoes with green socks to look ‘trendy’ to try and impress a young lady who is younger than their grey pubes!

But, not all of them are in the mould of Peter Stringfellow; two of these national treasures have proved recently that they are still quite cool and relevant in today’s world of music.

Recently – crinkly old Rolling Stone Keith Richards and cuddly old Dave Gilmour of the recently disbanded Pink Floyd have both released solo albums to critical acclaim.

They may sound a bit rough round the edges, this is to be expected due to them having a combined age of 302, but what are important here are the production techniques taken up by these two elder statesmen. They play with a proper band and record on tape! Maybe this is due to them knowing every trick when it comes to recording or that they simply know how to sound good – who knows! One things for true though – it works! Gimmicks and gadgets really don’t get a look in and its evident in the sound they create – it’s called quality recording that isn’t just created via a computer and generic overdubs!!!

I know some people may look on these old geezers as being past their best and looking like they have just been dug up, but who says the world of music should be full of clean cut kids with their chizzled looks and their blindingly perfect white teeth? Do we really have to have beautiful, brainless, robot-like wankers being churned off Simon Cowell’s conveyor belt every week backed up by shit karaoke style backing tapes? The answer is no!!! Just look at the popularity surrounding Jeremy Corbyn lately that proves old people are still cool!!!

From a personal point of view the ‘rise’ of these dinosaurs of rock is also quite poignant being somewhat of a wrinkly rocker I! But less about my Gentleman’s area, I’m talking about my continued and much enjoyed participation as lead singer for The Outriders (or my backing band as they have become known as late).

Many years ago, when we did original material, I would never have dreamt about doing cover versions! It was a strict no no! But, the older you get, the more ideas tend to become less frequent! Your desire to be original becomes less important, but your love for music grows stronger!

Maybe not everyone feels this way, but I certainly see it as more credible than being viewed as the oldest hipster in town! Perish the thought!!!!

But getting back to Dave & Keith – the difference between these two giants of rock music compared to my meagre musical history is this – they have the RIGHT to be cool! They can be forgiven for looking like the oldest hipster in town! They have earned the right to have continuous praise and respect thrown upon them simply for what they have achieved over the years and that they still possess a level of integrity most young musicians these days would take a lifetime to achieve!!!

An example of this would probably have to be David Bowie! You can forgive Bowie for creating Tin Machine as he created Ziggy Stardust! You can forgive Bowie for The Laughing Gnome as he is not just a great singer, but a great actor too! you can forgive Bowie for his duet with Mick Jagger as he released Hunky Dory, Space Oddity, Low, Station to Station, Aladdin Sane and countless, timeless pop songs that everyone knows and loves! Bowies is still releasing critically acclaimed music today at the age of 68 even following health scares. His latest work didn’t go down to well, but I thought it was magnificently bold and experimental that only Bowie could pull it off!!

Which brings us to the not so cool side of rock stars getting old – arise Sir Mick!

Mick – as much as I love him, has never done anything outside The Stones worthy of applause! You could even go as far to say that he is nothing without The Stones

Dreadful films including psychedelic babble laden semi-biographical mess Performance and the futuristic Freejack where he played quite possibly the most camp and un-scary bounty hunter Vacendak. As for Ned Kelly, I know Mick was famous for changing his accent to suit his surroundings, but he was the only Australian outlaw to ever sound like he was either from Dublin or Texas rolled into one!

Musically, Sir Mick hasn’t fared much better! She’s the Boss was pretty grim and Wandering Spirit wondered somewhere between the ether and the darkest depths of his own arse!

 

Add to these turkeys the ‘collaborations’ Mick has recently done with Joss Stone and Taylor Swift you get a slight whiff of your pissed Uncle Knobhead dancing with your eighteen year old niece at someone’s wedding! (With them cream slip-ons on)  

But, the old saying ‘too old to cut the mustard, but can still lick the jar’ is the side of these musical titans that I like to still believe in!

Personally I think the saying ‘with age comes wisdom, but not always class’ is more appropriate

 

 

Mol

 

Beggars Belief How the Stones’ Cut Their Teeth - My ode to Beggars Banquet by The Rolling Stones

A few weeks ago a friend of mine (yes, Col) asked why I hadn’t written a blog for some time. Well, the official reason is I came to the end of my creativeness and was becoming a bit self-obsessed with the current shit state of modern music. You tend to run out of things when you get to my age – examples being hair! But, when I was listening to Beggars Banquet a few weeks back, I felt it deserved the Mol’s Sound Words treatment.  

The Stones released Beggars Banquet in the 6th December of 1968. It was a career defining moment!! It was, in a sense, the last true blues album they were to release! 

The record was launched to the press that combined with many bottles of red wine and a massive cream pie fight! One of the great PR stunts of all time if you ask me!! 

Many people recognise Sympathy for the Devil as the main ‘single’, but there is so much more to enjoy, respect and consider when thinking about the future of The Stones 

Cast your minds back to Satisfaction and the heady days of The Stones’ rise to fame and you will hear a band that were infamously finding their feet (albeit glittered in number ones and run ins with the law and the establishment) – they had arrived! 

But, if you consider the ‘satisfaction’ era and the link with the ‘Jumping Jack Flash’/’Gimme Shelter’ era, you will find a completely different band on Beggars Banquet that is nicely sandwiched in between them! 

Beggars Banquet was, if you like, a cross over and a turning point between the singles success of the 60’s to the excess and outright genius of the late 60’s and early 70’s that, in my opinion, defined The Stones at their very best, darkest and controversial that would culminate with the death of peace and love in the bloodbath that turned out to be Altamont

While The Stones were enjoying their post-Jumpin’ Jack Flash heyday, Led Zeppelin released Led Zeppelin 1. A great great album, I’m sure you’ll agree, but The Stones, maybe jealous of their adversaries, went back to their roots by releasing Beggars Banquet. But during this recording, they edged nearer to a darker more menacing side that was beginning to show up on tracks such as Paint it Black and Have You Seen Your Mother Baby (Standing in the Shadows). You could say the Stone’s had a lot to thanks Led Zeppelin for  

Brian Jones was considered early on the Stones’ career as the leader up to this point, but was slowly slipping into an un-controllable drug fuelled nightmare that would ultimately prove his undoing and his sad death! Although penning many singles successes before this, Mick & Keith took the reins at this stage and went onto work on Beggars Banquet 

Another outcome of the downfall of Brian Jones would result in the Stone’s greatest asset – the arrival of Mick Taylor! Taylor, an all together different musician and human being to Jones, would bring a silky guitar style that would, in itself, compliment the guitar style of Keith Richards over the coming years. I’m sure Jones’ death wasn’t coincidental, but the outcome did produce one of the greatest musical backbones a band will ever see!! 

The songs

There have been many comments and films about the opening track on Beggars Banquet - Sympathy for the Devil. A truly wonderful song steeped in controversy and outstanding lyrics from a resurgent Jagger who was slowly becoming the mouthpiece for the younger generation who was beginning to stand up to the establishment (which he has sadly become a member of!). On Sympathy, Jagger examines the talking points of the time to ask the question – if there is so much trouble in the world ranging from the war in Vietman to the assassination of the Kennedys, then surely the devil DOES exist. Whether this is the true meaning of the song, who knows! But I’m sure Jagger would like to think his lyrics were indeed about ‘Mr D’

But, in my opinion, Street Fighting Man is one of the greatest (if not the best) protest song of all time and see The Stones at their very best! Jagger – screeching, snarling like an escaped lunatic, is simply outstanding! Gimme Shelter aside, this is quite possibly his finest moment as a singer

The opening acoustic riff grips you in the same way as any other great intro such as My Generation by The Who or Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin does – right in the bollocks!! You stand up! You wake up! There is no doubt that this song fuelled the protest movement of the late 60’s – and rightly so!! 

But the true beauty of Street Fighting Man is not the fact that it’s a gritty, tough and powerful war cry to the protest movements who were clashing with the brutal American police over the Vietnam War, but the fact that it opened the flood gates to the true protest songs that followed and exist right up to the present day!

Before SFM, the likes of celebrated song writers such as Joni Mitchell and Bob Dylan were writing protest songs with subtle undertones of discontent. But, post SFM came the likes of Crosby, Still, Nash & Young writing songs like Ohio and the likes of The Clash and The Sex Pistols writing about the shit, grim days of the late seventies in Britain. In a sense, it forged a new violent, hard-hitting generation of protest songs that didn’t give a shit about Big Yellow Taxis, but cared more about setting fire to them!

None of the above would exist if it wasn’t for SFM. That is testament to just how important this song really is! 

In No Expectations, The Stones show their more subtle side. This is a truly lovely song that would rear its head in the future on songs such as Wild Horses and Shine a Light. Its content is the epitome of the blues song footprint – slide guitar, soft piano notes and the bittersweet lyrics of loss and heartbreak (“Take me to the station, and put me on a train, I got no expectations”)

Dear Doctor was a bit of a piss take directed towards the blues singers of old asking their physician for a cure for the blues! But, I kind of think this is slightly disrespectful by The Stones – don’t bite the hand that feeds you! The comedy moment on the song is Brian Jones’ impression of the nagging woman Curtis is about to marry, but changing her mind and running off with his cousin Lou in Virginia (much to his relief - haha). “Curtis! I’m sorry to hurt you! But I’ve no courage to speak to your face” Brilliant stuff!  

Prodigal Son sees The Stones taking the blues to the extreme with a stunning drum production! This is where the album’s blues roots truly take hold! “Well poor boy, stood there, hung his head and cried” - Robert Johnson couldn’t have written it better! You could easily imagine Mick & Keith writing this on some lonely railroad cross section in the delta wearing a bib and brace and a straw hat!! 

Stray Cat Blues is an epic piece of rock n roll with Keith in fine form. The opening bars hears Jagger having what can only be described as intimate relations with a  young sexually aroused lady that eventually breaks into Charlie banging away and crashing into a superb intro! It sounds more at place on a Led Zeppelin record never mind a rock n roll band with a ‘Jazz Drummer’

Also, if you think about the history of the sound of sexual encounters in recorded music history, think of Rocket Queen by Guns n Roses and anything at all from the ridiculous Mottley Crue and you know where they got their ideas from when you listen to Stray Cat Blues! 

The lyrics on this song would never have been allowed for release where it released some 3 or 4 years earlier. No record label would go near it due to fear of a backlash at the edgy lyrics! And, once again, it shows The Stones really didn’t care and they went ahead with it just the same! “I bet you momma don’t know you scream like that, I bet she never saw you scratch my back” The dark, hedonistic lyrics on albums such as Goat Head Soup, Let It Bleed, Some Girls and Sticky Fingers originated in Stray Cat Blues! 

Factory Girl sees The Stones make fun of working class women in a strange sense that they somehow wish for a relationship with an ‘ordinary’ girl. It’s a lovely song, but i couldn’t really see Mick or keith swapping Anita Pallenberg or Marieanne Faithful for some bird called Rita who works in the Jacobs factory!

The final track on the album, Salt of the Earth, sees The Stones’ paying testament to their hordes of fans with a left wing anthem that spills into a kind of gospel free for all with the obvious influence of Big Mamma Thornton and Robert Johnson. This is true feel good music for the masses that imagines the Stones’ having genuine fun in their work! “Raise your glass to the hard working people” 

Keith sings the intro with what many people describe as “a voice only a mother could love”. Personally I think Keith has a lovely, kind, gently voice for a man known his toughness street savvy reputation. But, once again, Keith went onto sing a few songs for the Stones and in a solo career that seen him release a few decent albums. Happy off Exile on Main Street being one of the more successful songs

As a Stones’ fan, I do understand the importance of albums like Let it Bleed and Exile on Main Street as they will always be some of the greatest albums ever written and hold a firm place in my life and heart, but, to simply cast Beggars Banquet aside as A-N-other Stones album is ludicrous! This is where the Stones’ truly cut their teeth and this is where they discovered the true sense of blues music that would come to define and enhance their career!

Prior to  the release of Beggars Banquet the controversy that followed the Stones around and the bullshit headlines created by Andrew Loog Oldham were a walk in the park compared to encounters The Stones’ would partake in post-Beggars Banquet. Drugs, drink, dabbling in the dark arts and death were to follow

I’m not saying what the Stones’ got up to following the release of Beggars in commendable, but it was a line in the sand that started them on their long, crazy journey to be the greatest rock n roll band in the world and go onto produce some of the finest music ever written that may well never be matched

That title is still evident and fully deserved today

 

Mol