I don’t think there’s anything wrong with performing as long as you can, as long as you stay relevant. I can’t name one song from the Stone’s last four albums, but they still sell out every venue they play. Mick is starting to look like a raisin and Keith is looking like an exhumed Bozo the Clown. Ron Wood looks like a deflated blow-up doll. High definition technology is not friendly to our beloved Stones.
But do we still love them? Can you love a band that charges outrageous priced for anything associated or licensed by them? They were charging one hundred dollars at one point to join their fan club. This literally got you nothing. No freebies of any kind. No early ticket sales, no special seating, and if you think you were ever going to get to meet one of the world’s leading Prima Donnas’ well step aside because I tend to spit when I laugh that hard.
Just try to get a ticket to see the Stones at face value. After all the fucking crooks get done with them you’re lucky to be able to even see the stage for anywhere from two hundred to two thousand dollars per seat. I figured out once that the money for the first three rows at Giant’s stadium would generate enough money to pay the band. That leaves a whole lot of scratch on the table and the Stones want every last penny they can get their shaky, wrinkled hands on.
Personally I think your ticket prices should reflect the reception of your last album. If it sucked donkey dick well it’s time to lower the fucking prices you old whores! If this was the case Mick couldn’t afford his daily inter-penile shot of Viagra.
I think it’s funny that all these old rock stars are dropping their artistic integrity and selling their songs to be heard on every advertising campaign with an open wallet. They realize the money avalanche has been thwarted so the hell with it. Let Cadillac play some Led Zeppelin tunes. Led Zeppelin’s demographic is now the people that buy Cadillacs. This wasn’t exactly the case in the seventies, believe me.
We are all getting older but our music is staying at the same popularity level it was when we were little kids. The Stones had already been a band for fifteen years before I was old enough to see them in concert. When I finally did see them for the first time they had at least five bands open up for them.
The show went on all day long, well past dark. I figure at today’s prices the equivalent cost would be about fifty-two dollars per ticket. Today that won’t even get you entrance to the “official” fan club.
Here’s a novel idea: someone should start an unofficial fan club, charge half price for membership and actually offer the fan something for his money!! The Stones would sue your ass silly in a fucking heartbeat!
In the last interview of Keith Richards I read, the author remarks that Keith is looking well. By that I can only guess that he meant that he didn’t look like he had just “spiked-up” (shot heroin) or was nodding off (good heroin). But he did notice that during the interview, while they talked for just a little over two hours, Keith finished a whole bottle of Jack Daniel’s and didn’t seem affected by it at all.
Yep, that’s why he’s still my hero. But what about you? We can’t all be drunken freaks, peering out at the scary world from behind Venetian blinds now can we? I always told myself, sometimes out loud, that if I can just outlive Keith Richards then I’ve won. Won what I have never even tried to define, but it will be a sweet victory dance nonetheless!
Not that I wish my hero any harm (Die already you wrinkled fuck!) I would never even think that. I might write it, but my writing and my thinking have nothing to do with each other.
You can never take away from the fact that Jagger/Richards have written some of the most incredible Rock songs extant. I wish there were new bands putting out tunes like “Sister Morphine” or “Gimme Shelter”, but there just isn’t.
I read these reviews today of modern albums and I’m fucking sick to death of the new words created by music critics. Power-pop-punk. Excuse me, but if it is punk it is by definition not pop. It’s punk, that’s why that use that name. Real punk spits on pop. It’s like describing something as a water-fire combination, I think when you read power-pop-synth-groove used to describe a new release you can pretty much guarantee it’s crap. If the reviewer can’t figure out what in the fuck it is how the hell are we supposed to sit through this shit?
I think the consistent success of bands like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles, coupled with the resurgent popularity of the music from the old guard. Dylan, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin George Harrison, Allman Brothers, the list can go on forever, just as their music has.
I have a young cousin, eighteen years old, that listens to the same music that I do. The fact that she can see through the bullshit and appreciate the musical legends and masterpieces of our time gives me hope for music in the future.
I can’t understand how the music industry sells some of the stuff I read about in “Rolling Stone”. Of course they lost all credibility years ago when it comes to music, just look at who has graced the legendary “Cover of the Rolling Stone”. I usually mention the Jonas Brothers, but I just pick on them because I think they suck out loud and are an embarrassment to modern music.
When I saw these little jack-offs on the cover it really made me sick. Don’t try to sell me some fucking teeny-bopper bullshit. When did Rolling Stone start to gear their content towards children? What really killed me about this particular issue was that there was also a great article about Gregg Allman. The Jonas sisters marked the cover and a music legend like Gregg Allman, someone with real talent, is relegated to the “basement”.
I can’t understand exactly what reading demographic Rolling Stone is trying to attract. On one hand there will be a scorching expose by Matt Taibbi on America’s financial crisis and then a massive spread on Justin Beiber. Do Beiber fans understand national financial data? I kind of doubt it, they’re nine years old.
This Beiber kid belongs in a magazine geared towards his own age group. I don’t want to see this little shit in a magazine I pay for! Why the fuck should I? I’m pushing fifty, why on earth would I care about pre-teen music acts? I shouldn’t even know that the Jonas’s or Justin Beiber exists. Of course I don’t like their music, I’m not supposed to. It’s for little girls and I haven’t been a little girl in quite some time now.
So, the only acts worth seeing are now are musicians in their late sixties. Journalists have to make up new words to describe today’s tunes. Kiddy music acts grace the cover of what was once a great rock-n-roll magazine. The internet has turned the music business upside down. Even the music execs can’t figure out how and who to fuck over these days.
I’m tired of hearing all these new bands that are playing music that is lauded in the press and boring as hell in reality. I keep wishing for next Beatles to appear but I think I’m aiming too high. We used to have dozens of incredible acts in the sixties and seventies. Since then we’re lucky if we get two per decade.
I feel sorry for young people today for not being able to experience the ecstasy of hearing legendary music developed in their own time. When I was a high school senior we had Pink Floyd’s “Wall” album and the last Led Zeppelin recording come out during that year.
Keep listening to the old stuff, my young readers. As of this writing the Jonas Brothers have had to cancel tour dates due to poor ticket sales. I don’t think we’ll be seeing them or Lady Gaga or Katy Perry this time next year. Not on the cover of Rolling Stone anyways.
I’m glad I never got too attached to them…
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