While I loved my greatest hits records from the Rolling Stones... in the late sixties and the seventies I wasn't really interested in the Stones. I started to hit my stride as a record collector as the Stones started to release steadily worse records. Beginning with Goat's Head Soup. T. Rex and Bowie meant a lot more to me than these old rockers. So I never got to hear their brilliant run of albums like Let It Bleed & Sticky Fingers, Beggars Banquet and Exile. I did spend a teenage afternoon pashing a girl called Bernadette while she played Sticky Fingers constantly but I think I was concentrating on kissing her while keeping an ear out for her Dad mowing the lawn.
It wasn't until after Little Murders broke up around 84 and I got together with Chris Harrington from Large Number 12s and formed the short-lived Dice Men that I got to hear the Stones properly. I was around his house in Prahran and he started playing Let It Bleed on his acoustic. Great song but I didn't know it. He then played the album over a few beers. Though I liked the album it was hearing Beggars Banquet that did it for me. This was introduced to me by working a few months later with Ronny Williams and Jason Underhill at the Venetian Room and Rubber Soul. Actually, I think I might still have Jason's copy of the album suitably corroded by overuse. Jason worked with me at all those clubs in the eighties and was the original DJ at Lizard Lounge.
Beggars Banquet ..it's really hard to put into words how good it is. Street Fighting Man and those opening acoustic guitars. Sympathy For The Devil a dance floor favourite from most of the clubs I worked in. Salt of The Earth. Stray Cat Blues which I argue is miles better than the live version on Get Yer Yah Yahs Out people always go on about. Brilliant.
No comments:
Post a Comment