CSotD: Time is no longer on their side
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I have met John Hambrock, creator of "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee," and his wife and colorist, Anne, but did not ask them for ID. Still, I suspect neither was born when the Rolling Stones appeared on Ed Sullivan performing "Little Red Rooster."
At least, they don't look 47.
This isn't that performance, but it will do, and not only do you get a lip-synched version of the Stones' cover of that Howlin' Wolf/Willie Dixon classic, but a short interview with Brian Jones and Mick Jagger, too.
Many tears have gone by since then.
I seem to remember an interview with Mick in 1968 or 69 in which he made some dismissive comment about how he didn't expect to be up on stage singing "Satisfaction" when he was 60 years old. Well, you can't always … right …
A few years ago, I was up late enough on New Year's Eve that I figured I might as well stay up another half hour and watch the ball drop. So I flipped around the stations and landed on one that featured the Rolling Stones playing live.
And I thought, "This would be really cool if it were the first time they'd been together in 20 years or something, but it isn't and this isn't."
I'll admit to being a Brian Jones loyalist, and "Let It Bleed" was the last Stones album I bought.
But here's the deal: I'm perfectly willing to accept that he became difficult-to-impossible to work with towards the end, and, given how soon after his dismissal he died, they'd have had to deal with his absence one way or the other anyway.
The fact remains that there is a stark difference between the gritty little working-class British Blues Revival band he put together and "The World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band" that formed after his departure.
It was really two different bands and you're not required to like them both. Or you can kind of like them both while strongly preferring one over the other. (But fergawdsake pick the good one.)
My associations with the second band are pretty limited. I remember some co-workers heading off to a Stones concert in the '80s and glamming it up as if they were headed to a Halloween party. I think that was the tour that featured inflatable dolls or something, with inflated ticket prices to go along with the theme. It seemed like quite an event, but not quite a rock concert.
And, yeah, it brings out the Andy Rooney in me, so I'll switch to a much fonder association with the new, improved Stones, which was that there was a house full of women on 28th Street in Boulder in 1970 who had clipped the words "Get Your Yah-Yahs Out!" from an ad for the album and stuck it on the underside of the toilet seat in their bathroom.
I think that was the last time I was amused by the Rolling Stones, and very much by proxy.
I guess I don't get the whole "Greatest Rock and Roll Band" thing. I'd think that would be someone like Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels who had a much more elemental approach to the medium. They weren't trying to be geniuses or great artists. They were just trying to kick ass, which they did.
Anyway, I feel bad for the current adult generation. There was a barbecue for the local high school seniors in the park this past June and they had an oldies band playing. It occurred to me, as I walked past all those kids and their parents, that, unless they also brought their grandparents to the barbecue, that band was playing nobody's memories.
I mean, fair is fair, and it's time to re-set the term "oldies." Where the hell are the cheesy cover bands playing "Broken Wings" or "Everybody Wants to Rule the World"?
Meanwhile, now that Andy's hung it up, maybe 60 Minutes could turn that last five-minute segment over to Mick and Keith.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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