Showing posts with label rolling stones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rolling stones. Show all posts
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So Much For Mick Jagger's Business Sense



Instead of a 50th Anniversary victory lap, the Rolling Stones have some very expensive egg on their face as it's being reported that the band is having extreme difficulty selling tickets in the US for their current tour, and I for one couldn't be happier. Don't get me wrong, I love the Stones. I've seen them three times since 1997, and I count their '97 Rich Stadium and '99 Air Canada Centre shows as some of my all time favorite rock and roll experiences, but these latest shenanigans have only confirmed that in the end, I am a Beatles man.

Yes, when given the choice between the crass and exploitative capitalist exploits of the Stones, fueled no doubt by the London School of Economics history of Mick Jagger, and the four working class blokes from Liverpool who were the Beatles... I'm going with the Beatles. Of course if the Beatles were still with us, they'd possibly be ticket gougers too, but in the philosophically idealized vision of the Beatles I've got frolicking about Hard Days Night style in my imagination, they totally wouldn't have been. Come on now. Paul's a vegan stoner. John's a commie peacenik. George is a the equivalent of a zen spiritualist, and Ringo hails from a rather rough and tumble neighborhood called The Dingle. Those guys wouldn't have charged $200 for the cheap seats.

No, the last time I saw the Stones at the Skydome and paid $80 for seats at the other end of the stadium, I knew that was it for me. The show was OK, but really it paled in comparison to the fiery and potent Stones shows I'd seen at Rich Stadium and the ACC, and I vowed never to get soaked again. That said, when this 50th anniversary tour was announced I felt compelled to look into it... and I laughed and laughed at the audacity illustrated by the preposterous ticket pricing. Yes, the US economy has rebounded from the 2008 financial disaster, but hell, these 1% friendly prices are too much to even take seriously. Occupy THIS Mick (this being the obscene gesture I'm brandishing at my laptop as I write this).

I remember reading a Rolling Stone interview with the band back in the 90's and I recall it making hay out of the fact that LSE grad Mick is all up in the business end of the Rolling Stones business, and that Mick was a big fan of a "well turned deal" that maximizes the band's payday. Well, fear of playing to half full arenas has the band dropping prices to $85 (which is still a tad high for cheap seats in my opinion) and taking a haircut on the gross, and to this I say "you can't always get what you want." They went too far, they priced out the fans who previously gladly shelled out their hard earned money to fill all of those stadiums for all those years, and now the Stones are on the precipice of going out with a whimper.

They forgot the golden rule that "money can't buy me love, and now the Rolling Stones are paying a steep price. Oh well.




Cliff Parks
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What Makes A Band?


Last week, Stone Temple Pilots announced that Scott Weiland was fired from the band. He responded in a statement that he was confused by how he could be fired from a band in which he co-wrote many songs, fronted, and co-founded. He later then tried saying that the incident was part of a publicity stunt. In fact, Scott Weiland just last night played Core and Purple in their entirety at the Rapids Theater, so would Stone Temple Pilots still be Stone Temple Pilots without him? What if they got a new lead singer and continued with the STP name and played their songs? What if Scott Weiland continued playing STP music with a different band at the same time? Could two STP exists and would both parties have a legitimate claim? All of this got me wondering about what a band’s identity is. Is it the name or is it the people who are in it that make a band? Are certain band members more important to a bands identity than others?


Take R.E.M for example.  This band is a consistent group of people. Throughout their entire run, the same four people were a part of this band. When their drummer, Bill Berry, quit, R.E.M didn’t end, but they didn’t replace him either. Instead, they continued on as a trio. For R.E.M, they wouldn’t be R.E.M if a band member changed.


Some bands don’t have such a unity amongst members. In fact, the band seems more to like a backing band for a lead vocalist. The Foo Fighters are this type of this band. They should really be called Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters because besides their bassist, Nate Mendel, he is the only consistent band member and if he was gone, the rest of the band would be done. Foo Fighters has seen several drummers and guitarists come and go over their span but throughout, the same identity of Foo Fighters remained.


When the members of Rage Against the Machine, without their lead singer, teamed up with Chris Cornell as lead vocalist, they didn’t keep the Rage Against the Machine name, but rather became Audioslave. The three Rage Against the Machine members switched one member and changed their name while Foo Fighters switched several and kept going. The lead singer seems to be the key to a bands identity.


There is a famous anecdote involving the Rolling Stones about band member importance. As it goes, Mick Jagger called Charlie Watts and asked where his drummer was. In response, Watts punched Jagger. Fun story but let’s be real here. If Watts left the Stones, no one would notice at the next concert. But if an arena full of people showed up for a Rolling Stones concert and Jagger wasn’t there, people would want a refund.


That is part of a long standing stereotype that drummers are replaceable and so they don’t get much respect within the band. But could Rush be Rush without Neil Peart? This band is an example where if you took away any one of the band members, that band would probably cease to exist. But they too had a different drummer before Peart. That however was before they became famous. The integral members of a band then, who make up their identity, must be around when the band becomes famous. Is anyone going to argue that Pete Best was a Beatle?


Another common denominator in these bands is the lead singer and guitarist who exist at a bands high point. It is those two components that give a band its identity and without both of them the band does not exist. This can be seen in bands like \the Who and Led Zeppelin. Both of those bands continue without their original drummers but still have the lead singer and guitarist and so have kept the name.


But then there are two bands that are exceptions to this. One would think that it would be impossible to have Guns N’ Roses without Slash but they still exist and even released an album without him. Journey’s only consistent member throughout their history has been the lead guitarist though. Their vocalist, the one there for the biggest years of the band is no longer a part of the group and has been replaced.


There is no consistent pattern to what makes a band a band so it’ll be interesting to see what happens with Stone Temple Pilots. 


 Matthew Lenox
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Uncovered Covers: Tegan & Sara cover The Rolling Stones


Black and Blue is one of the less heralded Rolling Stones albums. Oh sure, it has its defenders, but it's never been close to being part of the pantheon of Stones classics. Still, it does have one undeniable gem: the slow ballad "Fool To Cry." While the song was somewhat out of character the band - it's probably the farthest away from rock they've ever gotten, Mick Jagger delivers one of his best vocal performances ever, selling a song that Stones fans might have otherwise been averse to.

 Tegan & Sara wouldn't seem like the most likely band to take on a song like this, as their folk-rock sound is a pretty far from the straightforward R&B of "Fool To Cry," but on this cut, from the soundtrack the HBO's Girls, the duo proves that they are more than capable of handling it, making it their own, while remembering what made the original great.
 

John Hugar
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Are The Rolling Stones Underrated?


This weekend, I picked up a copy of Grrr!, the greatest hits album the Rolling Stones put out to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Now, at this point, most people have heard all too much about how awesome the Stones are, and how they're the greatest rock n roll band of all time, and that leads me to ask: have they actually become underrated? For the young music listener, the Stones are the ultimate Band You hear Way too Much About. Your mom had a crush on Mick Jagger in the 70s, Exile On Main St. is humanity's greatest achievement, then you say them play on Monday Night Football, and you just don't get it. Sure, they aren't the worst band you've ever seen, but they don't blow you away, and you wonder what all the hype is about.

I think that happens to a lot of people, because I talk to plenty of music fans my age, and I never hear too much about the Stones. Everybody gets how great the Beatles were, and David Bowie is rightfully lauded for being the chameleonic genius he is, but when you bring up the Stones, people tend to reply with an emphatic "meh." Which is a shame, because if any and is worthy of the hype they get, it's them. In their heyday, they pretty much obliterated the competition. From 1965 to 1967, they released more vital, essential singles than anyone else, and they were just getting started. They would follow that with a streak of utterly immortal albums. Everything they put from 1968 to 1972 is pure gold, and should be treated as such.

So, why are so many young folks underwhelmed by the Stones? Well, their endless farewell tour isn't doing them any favors. Don't get me wrong, it's great for nostalgic fans, but no prospective listener wants to see a bunch of septuagenarians go on a tour sponsored by every major corporate chain in America. It just doesn't speak to them. Plus, the Stones play what we might call a "raw" type of rock n roll, not unlike what Aerosmith did in their heyday. For some reason, my generation tends to be underwhelmed by that. We don't really like seeing bands unabashedly rock out with no sense of irony, which is a shame, because Mick and Keith still do it better than anyone else.

The point is, while the Stones image may have suffered from the endless touring and sponsorship, they're still one of the greatest bands to ever walk the earth, and I hope people my age can realize that. They may not be as earth shatteringly brilliant as they w ere in the 60s and 70s, but they're still pretty damn awesome, and I can only hope that seeing them open Monday Night Football in lieu of Hank Williams, Jr. won't distract people from that.



John Hugar
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