Sticky Fingers
“Sticky Fingers” is a dark record that finds the Rolling Stones in the mother of all transitions. Freed from both their contract with Allen Klein and London Records and their rivalry with the Beatles, who, upon their break-up, left the Stones as “the World’s Greatest Rock-n-Roll Band.” The record features the official debut of their new guitarist, Mick Taylor, the young blonde blues virtuoso from the U.S.A. who replaced Brian Jones as lead guitarist before Ron Wood claimed that position as his birthright. It also features the debut of Rolling Stones Records, the tongue-and-lips logo and Mick Jagger as consummate businessman.
Fortunately, Keith Richards had not yet fully succumbed to the junk dependency that ultimately claimed Brian Jones and was able to keep Mick Jagger in check and ensure that the Stones remained musically vital and interesting (at least until “Goat’s Head Soup”). Nevertheless, “Sticky Fingers” is the druggiest record the Rolling Stones ever released. It’s one of the druggiest records of all time. In between the album’s opener, “Brown Sugar” (among other things, a euphemism for heroin) and its closer, “Moonlight Mile,” with the singer’s “head full of snow,” at least half of the record’s songs directly reference hard drugs. When they’re not singing about a drug overdose, as on “Sister Morphine,” or about getting over a heartbreak “with a needle and a spoon and another girl to take my pain away,” as on “Dead Flowers,” Jagger and Richards still don’t hide their (mostly Keith’s) drug problems too well.
The album’s second track, the bluesy, druggy “Sway” poetically says “It’s just that demon life has got me in its sway,” but it sounds an awful lot like “It’s just that needle, it’s got me in its sway.” And on “Bitch,” one of “Sticky Fingers'” two great riff rockers, they liken love to being “juiced up and sloppy.”
On its surface, “Bitch” seems like just another of Mich Jagger’s misogynistic songs, but the “bitch” here is not a woman but the feelings of love and lust that she conjures. It’s the man in the song who is reduced to an animal, a horse kicking the stall or one of Pavlov’s salivating dogs. Like “Satisfaction,” the song is built around a Keith Richards riff written for horns. Unlike “Satisfaction,” however, the Rolling Stones of 1971 can actually afford a horn section, which gives the song a lift and a majesty that earns that title of “the World’s Greatest Blah, Blah, Blah…”
The album’s other great riff rocker is its classic opener, “Brown Sugar.” Now here’s a song that employs classic Mick Jagger misogyny along with a distressing racism. Those of you who were too busy headbanging to Keef’s clarion guitar might not have noticed that the song’s lyrics are about an American plantation master having sex with his young slaves (the song, for those of you who are trivially-minded, was originally titled “Black Pussy;” at least Mick remembered some semblance of taste). What makes a good little Labour Party member go so bad? It has to be distance. It’s the same distance that compelled Prince Harry to wear that ridiculous Nazi uniform to a party recently. To the Brits, the Nazi’s were those guys who dropped bombs on London. Wearing their insignia has been a wonderful way to rebel since the earliest days of punk. The Holocaust, with its wholesale slaughter of Jews and European Gypsies, queers and commies has no immediacy to them because it wasn’t their people who were slaughtered. Likewise, the British outlawed slavery long before their rebel colonies, and their slavery was not so pervasive and hereditary. So, to Mick Jagger, it has no immediacy. It holds no immediate connection or shame. It’s camp.
Country music is also treated as camp by Jagger. By this time, Keith Richards had struck up a profound and influential friendship with Gram Parsons, the former Byrd and founder of “alternative country.” Rock-n-Roll’s basic chemistry is one part blues and one part country. The Stones had long embraced the former, but Parsons convinced Keef that country was beautiful and primordial. He had also influenced their earlier hit, “Honky Tonk Women,” but on “Sticky Fingers” the Stones turn in two bona-fide country ballads. One is “Dead Flowers,” which marries its drug references and spiteful lyrics about an ex-girlfriend who thinks she’s the “queen of the underground” with a steel pedal guitar and Mick’s sarcastic affected drawl. It is a touchstone for much of what is ironic and self-conscious about today’s “alternative country.”
Far more beautiful and sincere is “Wild Horses,” for which Mick plays it straight. The song was a rare instance (and perhaps the last) of Jagger and Richards allowing another artist, in this case Parsons’ Flying Burrito Brothers, to record one of their songs before the Stones. The Flying Burrito Brothers play the song straight-forward and sincerely, probably inspiring the Stones to do the same. It was a fitting gift to Gram Parsons. The only other gift he got from Keef was a taste of his super-human tolerance for drugs, which was too much for Parsons, who died three years later.
“Wild Horses” was a Jagger/Richards composition, although Marianne Faithful has recently claimed that she co-wrote the song. This is a plausible claim, since Faithful wrote “Sister Morphine” all by her lonesome, only to watch her own recorded version of the song make no dent in the charts and then have Keith Richards and Mick Jagger (by then, her ex-boyfriend) claim co-songwriting credit on the Stones’ rendition of the song, which has become a classic. However, it seems “Wild Horses” was composed by Keith Richards as a lullaby for his kids. Jagger sang it at Faithfull’s bedside after an overdose (perhaps the one that inspired “Sister Morphine”). When she awoke, she told Mick “wild horses couldn’t drag me away,” but this was just a sub-conscious memory from her coma.
The album’s cover artwork is classic Andy Warhol: a black-and-white close-up of a blue-jeans-clad crotch. Inside the album, the same crotch is stripped to the underwear, an erect cock evident. It makes explicit what Warhol’s cover to “The Velvet Underground and Nico” made implicit. Like the V.U.’s “peel slowly and see” banana, “Sticky Fingers'” cover was interactive: the original pressings of the l.p featured a fully functioning zipper. It’s artistic touches like this that we will miss when recorded music makes the final leap to digital downloads. We’ll also miss fully-realized albums like “Sticky Fingers,” which is an essential component for any argument in favor of rock-n-roll as a long-playing album medium.
The Music: The Movie!
“Ray” is not a very good movie, but, as it is essentially a string of re-enacted musical performances, on the chitlins circuit, in the studio and in “mixed-race” concert halls, you won’t really notice until the end of the movie. When the last three minutes of the movie are narrated by on-screen captions that begin “For the next 40 years…,” it feels like the shortcut of lazy screenwriters (which it is), but the truth is that this is a jukebox movie, and, by 1965, Ray Charles had recorded his most legendary work. What was left to re-enact? The Pepsi commercials?
The movie is compelling, but it is entirely because of Ray Charles’ brilliant body of work. A documentary might have better suited the material (certainly a talking head interview with Quincy Jones now would have been more impressive than Larenz Tate’s ill-suited pipsqueak impersonation of “Q”), but, the songs would likely not have the same “pop” if they were merely the soundtrack to a bunch of black and white photographs.
Jamie Foxx’s impersonation of Ray Charles is credible and professional, but it is not great art. I never “lost” Foxx in his character. It was always clearly Jamie Foxx impersonating Ray Charles during historic moments. I’m afraid this movie is indicative of a pattern that will develop and mature with the upcoming Johnny Cash biopic. Yeah, the tunes are classic and the stories are compelling, but I’d rather read a biography and listen to the records.
The End of “The Song About The Record Company”
Wow. Oh, boy. Five bands on four stages. Simultaneously. How could it fail?
Sunday night’s Grammy’s telecast was the second lowest rated, ever. There are many observations one could make about the Grammy’s, but why bother? Dead people win awards, the best new artist will be forgotten in ten years time, the alternative award is an alternative to nothing, blah, blah, blah.
The real lesson from Sunday is that music is just not a mass medium. Sure, everyone listens to music, but their tastes are personal. Television can pump money into a sitcom or TV cop drama, advertise the program endlessly and showcase it at 9 p.m. Eastern (8, Central and Mountain) and millions of people will watch. Likewise, a big budget Hollywood spectacular will almost always recoup its investment, at least after it’s released in Japan.
But no amount of financing is necessarily going to make a record a mass hit. Most big hits are flukes, capturing a particular moment in time and culture. The “Record Industry” basically pours millions of dollars into the artists who have already sold big, hoping that lightening will strike again. The other, smaller artists are basically loaned money with which to record, promote and tour. If they happen to be this year’s fluke to sell a bunch of records, well, then they get paid.
It’s a lousy system and produces mostly lousy music. Between sticker prices and digital downloads, the “Record Industry” might finally die a merciful death soon, and allow the vast universe of innovative indies the space to pursue their art and provide us all with our own personal “stars.”
I’m happy about this, but I want to take a moment to mourn the eventual loss of one of rock-n-roll’s most entertaining traditions: the song about the record company.
I originally dreamed up this column on Sunday morning, while listening to the Smiths’ swan song, Strangeways, Here We Come, which features the delightful record label kiss-off, “Paint A Vulgar Picture.”
At the record company party
On their hands – a dead star
The sycophantic slags all say :
“I knew him first, and I knew him well”
Re-issue ! Re-package ! Re-package !
Re-evaluate the songs
Double-pack with a photograph
Extra Track (and a tacky badge)
Already, the Smiths had watched their singles, B-sides and album tracks get repackaged for both sides of the Atlantic, but they were yet to witness the post-break-up avalanche of “best-of” collections.
Their label was Sire, and its legendary president was Seymour Stein. Ten years later, Belle and Sebastian recorded a song about Sire’s attempts to sign them to the label, simply called “Seymour Stein.”
Half a world away
Ticket for a plane
Record company man
I won’t be coming to dinner
They didn’t sign with Stein, who famously snatched up the Ramones and Talking Heads in the 70’s. In the 80’s, Stein personally wooed the Replacements to his label. On their Pleased To Meet Me album, the
Mats made fun of how they “fell up” into the major labels.
One foot in the door, the other one in the gutter
The sweet smell that they adore, well I think I’d rather smother
(4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12)
Are you guys still around? (I don’t know)
Whatcha gonna do with your lives? (nothin’!)
The “whoops-are-we-supposed-to-be-taken-seriously-now, indies-to-majors” song is notable sub-genre of the song about the record company that Pavement did justice to on 1994’s “Cut Your Hair,” which, in between its Spinal Tap jokes about their recent drummer switch, observed:
Advertising looks and chops a must
No big hair!!
Songs mean a lot
When songs are bought
Another sub-genre of songs about record labels is the “fuck you” to the record label that just canceled its contract with the band. The classic is the Sex Pistols’ “E.M.I.” with its piss and vinegar take on the first of two labels to drop them before Virgin ultimately released Never Mind the Bollocks.
Don’t judge a book just by the cover
Unless you cover just another
And blind acceptance is a sign
of stupid fools who stand in line like EMI
Twenty years later, Spoon found unexpected pathos in their deceptive A&R man, Ron Laffitte, in “The Agony of Lafitte” (and its B-side, “Lafitte, Don’t Fail Me Now”).
When you do that line tonight
Remember that it came at a stiff price
The daddy of all songs about the record company is actually the B-side to the daddy of all rock-n-roll records, “Satisfaction.” The Rolling Stones’ “Under Assistant West Coast Promotion Man” assailed a worthless PR dude in America.
I’m a necessary talent behind every rock and roll band
Yeah, I’m sharp
I’m really, really sharp
I sure do earn my pay
Sitting on the beach every day, yeah
The great irony is if that record’s A-side hadn’t been one of those fluke hits that captured the cultural zeitgeist and convinced the major corporations that music could be big business, well, it would be a curiosity rather than a harbinger.
We Built This City on Rock-n-Roll?
I don’t have much sympathy for the plight of the oh-so glamorous Village and Lower East Side. This is the bitter little Holden Caufield in me winning out over the urban planning nerd and the socialist. I just feel like the invading Darwinist hordes, the yuppies, limeys and spoiled NYU students who priced out the previous residents, will get what they deserve. Either they too will one day be priced out, or they will be left with a community that’s been sucked dry of vitality and art.
Nightlife is what attracts many to downtown, but high rents are forcing prominent nightclubs to close. The Bottom Line closed not too long ago, and now Tonic and Fez are following. New York University actually foreclosed on the Bottom Line, which couldn’t meet the exorbitant rents that the university charged. The truth is that the Bottom Line should have hired new management years ago. The club was a beautiful cabaret with a full stage and generous seating, but it was stuck in a time warp. Musical scenes came and went in New York, but the Bottom Line could always be counted on to host David Johansen. (I saw Alex Chilton there, solo, and Ray Manzarek joined by Jim Carroll – great artists, but dating from the mid-60’s to the late 70’s).
Fez was a wonderfully intimate setting, with full-seating and a wonderful showcase for singer-songwriters. I saw Rhett Miller of the Old 97’s a couple of times there, test-drive new material. I also saw and met John Doe.
Well, they’re both gone, and, much worse, CBGB’s might follow.
Downtown’s latest problems are further vindication of Jane Jacobs, whose book, “The Death and Life of Great American Cities” is the bible of civic activists. Her book was not so much researched as observed. One thing that Jacobs observed was how too much of a good thing in a neighborhood can ruin what was good there in the first place. She used as an example a vital 24-hour neighborhood, with shops and restaurants and homes all within walking distance. Into this bustling neighborhood, at a prominent intersection, would move a bank. The bank would prosper and thrive and soon another bank would move across the street. Perhaps a third and even a fourth would join the block. Pretty soon, the character of the neighborhood has been altered. It is no longer a 24-hour neighborhood because the banks close at 5:00. The street goes quiet in the evenings and, with fewer “eyes on the street,” crime increases. Residents move out of the neighborhood and a vicious cycle begins. Balance is what Jacobs is arguing in favor of.
Balance is lost downtown. The 24-hour party people pay huge rents as admission to an urban playground. Corporate retail chains (your GAP’s and American Appaerel’s and what-have-you) buy their way into the neighborhood to get in on some of that party money. The stores price out the nightclubs. The 24-hour party starts closing early. The neighborhood becomes a bore, and the party people move on.
As it is, the artists have moved on. It seems like all the up-and-coming bands in New York are based out of Williamsburg and Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Not only that, but they cut their teeth playing at Brooklyn clubs like North Six and Warsaw.
Thirty years ago, the members of Blondie rented a loft on Bowery across the street from CBGB’s. Now, if NYC is to be the home of any more future legends, be they Radio 4 or the Black Spoons or someone we’ve yet to hear of, their story is totally unlikely to start in Manhattan. They’re much more likely to be a Brooklyn band, playing Brooklyn clubs for Brooklyn residents.
Perhaps one day, if Williamsburg gets totally gentrified too (not too far-fetched as of this writing), the next generation of rock-n-roll bohemians will live in apartments that face the J train on Jamaica Ave. in Richmond Hill, and cut their teeth playing the Republican Club and the RKO Keith.