"Jumping Jack Flash" may be my all time favorite Rolling Stones tune, other than "Monkey Man" or "Brown Sugar." 1968 was the year the Stones really came into their own as a rock and roll entity to match, and even surpass, The Beatles. Here they are seen pretty much abandoning the group's trend-following foray into psychedelia of the previous year, getting back to a more basic rock and roll sound. I've always wondered if it wasn't stuff like this from the Stones that inspired Paul McCartney to think of "Get Back" as an album concept for the splintered and splintering Beatles at the beginning of 1969. This is a version of "Jumping Jack Flash" I've not heard. The new vocal background parts are really cool. This is called "Jumping Jack Flash (Make-Up Clip)" for a reason:
Bill Wyman
Charlie Watts looks simply lovely, obviously inspired by Elizabeth Taylor's Cleopatra: Brian Jones was phoning it in from outer space by this point and did in fact appear to be a space alien.
The meaning of the lyrics was summed up by Jagger: "The idea of the song has to do with our public persona at the time. I was getting a bit tired of people having a go, all that, 'oh, it's not as good as their last one' business. The single sleeve had a picture of me with a pen digging into me as if it were a sword. It was a lighthearted, anti-journalistic sort of thing."
Released in July 1974, "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" reached number sixteen in the United States and number ten on the UK Singles Chart. The B-side was the ballad "Through the Lonely Nights," which was not featured on any album until the 2005 compilation Rarities 1971-2003.
"It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" was promoted by a memorable music video directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, showing the band dressed in sailor suits and playing in a tent which eventually fills with bubbles. This video was one of Mick Taylor's last appearances as a member of the band.
I think it's possible Mick is singing live here. I realize he isn't miked, but the vocal on the performance is different from the familiar one on the original recording.
Tattoo You is an album by The Rolling Stones, released in 1981. The follow-up to Emotional Rescue, it proved to be a big critical and commercial success upon its release and is still celebrated as one of The Rolling Stones' finest full-length releases, despite its prolonged recording history.
Tattoo You is primarily composed of outtakes, some dating back a decade, with new vocals and overdubs. Along with two new songs, the Rolling Stones put together this collection in order to have a new album to promote for their worldwide American Tour 1981/European Tour 1982 beginning that September.
From 1964 to I'd say 1997's Bridges to Babylon album, every generation of teenagers had their incarnation of The Rolling Stones - their own personal Rolling Stones. Mine was Tattoo You-era Stones. That album cover was everywhere my freshmen year in high school. I can remember sitting in the nurse's office at school, flipping through Life magazine's article about the 1981 North American tour.
Reading about how Tattoo You was made up primarily of recordings done during previous albums, it's pretty clear these guys were resting on their laurels, coasting, etc., throwing together what in hindsite is a classic album, all for the purpose of having something to promote on their upcoming world tour. Being now roughly the same age these guys were in the Tattoo You videos is an interesting thing to experience. For one thing, they don't seem as old now!
"Start Me Up" was recorded in 1975 during the Black and Blue sessions. So essentially, a knock-off tune from a mediocre, mid-70s Stones album ended up being one of their most successful releases, ever. I'm so grateful I still think about high school days and not Microsoft when I hear this now. The little thing Mick does at the beginning of the song's video is hilarious:
"Hang Fire", "Little T&A," "Black Limousine," and "No Use In Crying" all came from the Emotional Rescue sessions in 1979. The "Hang Fire" video:
The Goat's Head Soup outtake "Waiting on a Friend" was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, at Dynamic Sound in 1972. It was scrapped (not having lyrics) in favor of other material. MTV played this video a lot in the early '80s:
Yep!
My blogging mate across the Atlantic, Blognor Regis, is always good for taking the trivial components of any pop culture icon/subject to its most infinite (and not so infinite) extreme. His trivia oneupmanship often leaves me breathless and in a cold sweat. Well, not really, but I'm always impressed/astounded at the pop history crumb he has noticed that I've failed to sweep up. In the case of the "Waiting on a Friend" video, he reminds me that the tenement block where Mick and Keef "meet" is the same one as on the cover of Physical Graffiti. I am humbled and honored, sir! Thank you for filling in the holes, again.
I haven't watched it in a while, but I think this is one of the more upbeat scenes (those are few and far between) from Gimme Shelter (1970), in whichKeith Richards throws a hotel room television set from a balcony. If this isn't from Gimme Shelter, I'd guess it's from the unreleased Cocksucker Blues (1972) :
According to YouTuber miraworld, this Top of the Pops performance by The Rolling Stones (doing "Honky Tonk Women") came only a few hours after they were told Brian Jones was found dead in his pool. Business is business, even the business of rock and roll. No one was as ruthless as Mick Jagger. And I guess Brian just got gradually worse and worse. They probably weren't suprised. Still, it was Brian's band...
last professional photo
This is one of those great, late-60s Stones tunes that reminds me why they were "The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World." It has the great rolling rhythm their stuff began to have when Brian was replaced by Mick Taylor.
The Beach Boys performed their 1965 single, "California Girls", on The Jack Benny Program that same year. Watch for the awkward skit with Benny and Bob Hope at the end. Boy, thank goodness for canned laughter, huh Jack and Bob? What would your careers have been without it!? Brilliant idea, Jack Benny Program producers and writers--schedule the Beach Boys, then write a skit in which they and their culture are mocked...
The attitude of scorn and contempt in that reminded me of this "meeting" between Dean Martin and the Rolling Stones on a 1964 episode of The Hollywood Palace. At least Dino is kind of funny.
According to the Performance page at Wikipedia, Warner Bros financed the movie "hoping it could become a Rolling Stones equivalent to Beatles' A Hard Day's Night. They apparently did so without reading a word of Donald Cammell's script, as the explicit violence, sex and use of drugs sparked an outrage when the film was shown to Warner executives. Performance was vaulted for years, and only after several recuts and changes in Warner's administration did it get a theatrical release."
Since I've never seen the entire film, I rely on this site for a presumably excellent synopsis:
"Shot in the summer and autumn of 1968, PERFORMANCE is a mesmerizing portrait of late 60s London, offering a potent mixture of gangland violence, rock 'n' roll decadence, sex and drugs. James Fox plays Chas, a brutal, Krays-type gangster on the run both from the police and from his own associates. While waiting to escape abroad, he seeks refuge in the Notting Hill mansion of a reclusive, burnt-out rock star (Mick Jagger) who lives there with his girlfriend (Anita Pallenberg) and a young French girl (Michèle Breton). In the words of the original poster: 'This film is about madness. And sanity. Fantasy. And reality. Death. And life. Vice. And versa.'’"
Then she moved up to Keith Richards, and was his "common-law wife" from 1967 to 1977. She is rumored to have had a "brief affair" with Jagger during the filming of Performance. Anita got around. I can't imagine how it ever could have been made in to even a raunchyStones version of A Hard Day's Night. In this clip of Performance from 25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones, Mick sounds a little like a droog from A Clockwork Orange. I guess Anthony Burgess based them slightly on the Teddy Boy.
An unreleased documentary was made about the tour, and making an appearance were Truman Capote, Dick Cavett, Terry Southern, Stevie Wonder, and Andy Warhol. The film is alleged to have shown what it was really like to be on the road with the Rolling Stones, rock outlaws, circa 1972. Here's a nice montage of tour footage set to Keith singing "Happy". It is from the excellent 1989 Stones documentary 25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones, which is still not out on DVD, but available on VHS (its original format).
pic by Annie Leibovitz
This is a scan from page 16 of the March 23, 2006 Rolling Stone. Capote was supposed to write a story for the magazine about the tour, but never filed a report. Capote would later say about the tour and the story he was unable to write: "I can't write something unless it has mystery for me. And the Rolling Stones thing had no mystery." I wonder what he was carrying in his satchel?
Here's the promotional video the Stones did for "Jumpin' Jack Flash". This version is from an excellent documentary about them called 25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones. The last bit includes commentary by Keith Richards about the Satanic label placed on the Stones at around the time of this video. For better or worse (no doubt worse), Keith Richards was one of my roll models. I survived.
If kids today are curious about what a rock and roll band is supposed to look like, here you go. Prepare to be schooled (with a strap right 'cross your back).
Transbuddha has a link to a great video via Google Video of John Lennon playing "Yer Blues" with Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, and Keith Richards at The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. These guys appear to be all right while they're performing, but they just seem so strange otherwise. Check out the awkwardly staged and scripted, pretend-casual "chat" between Lennon and Jagger at the beginning. You can't tell me that's normal behavior from either of them.
"Jumping Jack Flash" may be my all time favorite Rolling Stones tune, other than "Monkey Man" or "Brown Sugar." 1968 was the year the Stones really came into their own as a rock and roll entity to match, and even surpass, The Beatles. Here they are seen pretty much abandoning the group's trend-following foray into psychedelia of the previous year, getting back to a more basic rock and roll sound. I've always wondered if it wasn't stuff like this from the Stones that inspired Paul McCartney to think of "Get Back" as an album concept for the splintered and splintering Beatles at the beginning of 1969. This is a version of "Jumping Jack Flash" I've not heard. The new vocal background parts are really cool. This is called "Jumping Jack Flash (Make-Up Clip)" for a reason:
Brian Jones was phoning it in from outer space by this point and did in fact appear to be a space alien.
