you know what
just like the pink fluid
i realise there are very few if any artists
whose work i like from beginning to end
eg trex i dont mind the 3 albums before beard of stars
i hate anything after the slider….anything…what a waste
bowie….nothing after heroes..bar the odd good song
beatles ..i dont really love the stuff before say revolver so much
i mean i respect it n all that but rarely listen to it
the church…didnt really jump on till heyday
and i love priest but hate fucking some of the others
bruce springsteen…nothing after about 1978
dylan…same as beatles with ultra early stuff
i guess i’m a mid period kinda guy
my friend johnny h suggests i “do” exile on mainstreet
wow….thats a hard one..to do
because i love tumbling dice more than anything
because i reckon its the ultimate slowish sloppy grinding old rocker
honkin’ tonkin’ boogie woogie southern fried sexy fuckin rock
sometimes thats whats its about
rock gotta be about sex as much as space
because sex is part of the holy trinity of sex n drugs n rocknroll
n really
have you found any better triple pastime than this?
so i like my rock to be sexy
and i dunno i guess i thought this was
you gotta roll me and call me the tumbling dice
i can remember blasting this song with delight
when it came on the car radio
my dad would let me borrow his mazda rotary
and i’d cruise canberras highways n boulevardes
dressed in my tshirt levis n thongs (flip flops, you yanquis)
i had a girlfriend lived on the other side of the lake
in truth i enjoyed the drive there in my dads car
more than i enjoyed actually seeing her
anyway i remember turning up one day
i was 17 at the time
and she’d bought sticky fingers
and i just couldnt believe how GOOD it sounded
pumping outta her rich daddys soundsystem
(usually reserved for a bit of sunday classical)
wow!
and the cover with the zip….oh …well i dunno, do i..?
anyway i was lying there with my head in her lap enjoying moonlight mile
when her mother comes in n says
if steven is so tired he has to lay down then i suggest he goes home !
oh ha ha ha isnt funny how memories are blasted onto yer brain forever..?
but for a while
we were 2 teenagers listening to the rolling stones on our own
and feeling like anything was possible
it had this urgency
this immediacy
it was wasnt some old music hall thing
it wasnt some showbiz sham
it wasnt the fuckin’ establishment n their secondrate “pop”
it wasnt futuristic neither
it was fleshy it was earthy it was “authentic”
(ha ha ha)
(as authentic as english guys singing in a southern accent can be, anyhow)
(course i didnt realize that at the time)
so god i love tumbling dice and i love happy
i fell in love with keith richards sometime in about 1972
and i adored him intensely
i wanted to be him n jagger at the same time
i wanted to lead both their lives
exile on mainstreet
the honky chateau in southern france
the warm wevver
the drugs delivered each day
the filmstars n musicians
the gangsters n the girls
you dont even start recording till like 4 in the morning
coz it takes a while for keith to loosen up
mick taylors starting to loosen up too i guess
loosen up for the long haul
charlie n bill…inscrutable really…along for the ride
charlie always sittin’ up the back
doing his trademark smile at jaggers antics
director ” ok now we’ll shoot charlies smile n wink !”
keith sitting in some room cooking up smack in a spoon
oh you never gonna forget that smell once you smelt it
anitas nodded out somewhere..
keiths sitting at the piano
the rush has hit his head
and his fingers stretch out over the keys
and hes playing some old twelve bar thing
and his cigarette is smouldering
and his cold beer is nice n cold
and gram parsons has just ducked off out for a while
and fuck man
its 1971 and yer keith richards …who else would ya wanna be
well maybe one other guy
and that guys sitting in some fancy restaurant
with his south american wife who looks just like him
and hes swishing down the vino expensivo
and he daintily nibbles at his noo-vo quiz-een
and hes dining with prince blah blah n truman whoever
and hes thinking
fuck ive done well for myself
and sometimes
he wonders what its like for brian jones…being dead, i mean
and he isnt surprised to feel he feels nothing at all
and hes impatient to leave
impatient to get back in the limo
n drive back to the studio
he thinks maybe that the boys are having more fun than him
and hes right in a way
keith n gram snorting the top shelf stuff
and blasting the china white
they strum away on their guitars in the warm semi darkness of the studio
in the future a million music journalists will analyze this moment endlessly
but its gone in a nod and a snooze
and mick comes in
and keith wakes up
and hes singing happy
i need a love to make me happy
his thin n ragged voice the very voice of “authenticity”
and meanwhile steven john kilbey is still going to high school
and arguing with his father about getting his hair cut
and it will still be a few years yet
before he becomes totally infatuated with the stones
and devours their mid period records
and tries to ape them for a while
and he loves stones like bands like aerosmith n the new york dolls
and in england silverhead (remember them?)
yeah what a time
gawd its nearly 40 bloody years ago
ancient history
will anyone be writing about the kings of bloody leon in 40 years?
not on your nelly!