Sympathy For The Collector..

WHAT I COLLECT....

You could quite safely call me an 'anorak'. When I see just about anything Rolling Stones related, I consider buying it. The tatty and much repaired old exercise book in the picture is my 'catalogue'.

I got 'the bug' in the summer of 1990. I was 23. I've been a music lover since I was about 12, but I thought I'd been all through the 'obsessed fandom' thing in my teens. (With David Bowie. I loved/still love David Bowie.)

The first Stones record I got, I think, was an excellent, original "Sticky Fingers" I bought from a guy who was giving up part-time DJing, and selling off his collection, around 1988. In 1990 I went on holiday to Morocco, and read Phil Norman's "The Stones". I came home and I decided to buy the entire Stones catalogue on CD. I started with 'Exile On Main St'.

All through the 1990s, only the original Abkco issues of the pre-1971 catalogue were available, and the post-1971 catalogue were all on 'Nice Price' from CBS. (Younger readers: CBS-Epic is now a big chunk of Sony Music!) It's broadly known now (it was pretty broadly known even then!) that neither of these series (Abkco or CBS) of CDs were what one could call 'state of the art' remasters, but were the only CDs of The Rolling Stones available. Somehow it took me 12 years to complete the 'recorded works'. Frustratingly, The Stones stubbornly refused to retire, and kept releasing new albums, just as I was catching up!
I was (still am, really) also annoyed by the fact that Abkco's CDs were the US editions ('London' rather than 'Decca'), with the exception of the debut album. To complete the collection, one was obliged to buy bafflingly pointless compilations like "Flowers" and "December's Children (And Everybody's)".
Of the CBS CDs, some titles (like "Love You Live" and "Sucking In The Seventies") proved very hard to find. But I finally did, and had the lot (about 50 discs, plus Abkco's 3 disc box set "Singles-The London Years") by 2002.

Imagine my dismay, later that year, when Allen Klein decided that Abkco would issue their SACD remasters. Properly transferred. In the British editions. Now that I'd laid out god knows how many hundreds of pounds for the old lot. Same sinking feeling again in 1994, when Virgin overhauled the post-71 catalogue. Bugger.

I've stuck with my original set, though.

I've a thing for books. There seems to be hundreds of published titles on the subject of The Rolling Stones. These last 20 years I've filled a big wooden chest with them. I've got lots of mint condition 'coffee table' books, many rare and unusual titles, a signed copy of '2Stoned' by Andrew Loog Oldham.

Posters/lithographs: I've scarcely an inch of wall space left now, covered with all manner of stuff. My favourite is undoubtedly my lithograph of "Sticky Fingers". I also have lithos of "Exile.." and "It's Only Rock N Roll".

Bootleg CDs/DVDs: Some great items, like the hard to find "Cocksucker Blues". Also excellent quality audios of the Marquee, 1971, Hyde Park, etc. Bootleg vinyl, I've just the one: "Philadelphia Special II" on the famous Swingin' Pig label. It's a cracker, though.

T shirts: Dozens of them. You name it. Rarest is one I got in 1994 at a concert held at Cheltenham racecourse to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the death of Brian Jones. A real 'one off'.

Can't think of anything else for now, although I'm sure there's stuff I haven't mentioned. What I do know is that I'm not finished collecting, and probably never will be. There will always be something else.....

Rolling Stones albums/Collectables

THEIR SATANIC MAJESTIES REQUEST (London NPS-2. Dec. 9th 1967)

It's often said to 'polarise opinion' among Stones bods, this album.
It doesn't, though. Most fans are in agreement that the album is fairly weak, but the original edition, in it's 3d cover, has become a bit of an icon and is extremely collectable.

The cover image, created by Michael Cooper (famously at a cost exceeding $50,000!! In 1967!! Now THAT'S serious dough!!!) was reportedly captured using a new, state-of-the-art '3d' camera. I'm no expert, but I think any camera capable of taking 3 photos could have handled it, as it's basically 3 photos stuck on top of each other.
Back then, though, in the winter of the summer of love, that would just be so far out man. So far out.

You'll have noticed that this isn't a review of the music on this album, but rather of the gramophone record itself. I've tried on several occasions to write an essay about the music, but can't.
I just don't care enough for it. Mick Jagger, talking about the atmosphere it was recorded in, has said that music had become a secondary consideration throughout 1967 and that it is remarkable that any LP was produced at all. Mick is also reluctant to dismiss the album completely, claiming it reflects 'the spirit of the time'.
All spot on, of course. Maybe music wasn't eluding them, but boy, songwriting was. Jagger/Richard gems are very thin on the ground here. The album is essentially a jam session with 4 or 5 songs through it. There are times it sounds excrutiatingly close to an open audition for "Hair" or "Godspell".
And that AINT the way god planned it.

Anyroad; to it's scarcity and dizzying prices: (last mint condition, mono, 3d cover UK edition of 'Majesties' to sell on eBay went for £140. ($275-ish) It's worth remembering this LP had advance orders in excess of 100, 000. The Stones were the biggest turn in the world by 1967, after all.

So, that's 100,000 copies before the record shops even opened. The crippling cost of turning out the 3d cover meant that Decca and London wouldn't be prepared to keep it up for long, and it's a fairly safe bet that no 3d cover copies were being shipped by 1969. Remember, though, that this album did very healthy business (rubbish or not, it was The Stones....) during that first brief spell.
You could easily be talking about quarter of a million copies.

Yet....I've only ever seen two 3d covers. The US one I managed to buy for myself last week ($50, if you must know) and a mint UK one at Glasgow VIP record fair in 1996, clearly marked '£65. No Offers.' by the dealer.

Which pretty much has it doubling in value in the last decade or so. Sounds rare to me.


**Other/related: 'Their Satanic Majesties Request' was the first Rolling Stones LP to be issued with the same tracklisting worldwide. It is the only Stones LP with the producer credited as 'The Rolling Stones'. It was the last Stones LP to be offered in stereo and mono by London Records in the USA. It marked the end of the Stones' relationship with Andrew Loog Oldham. And probably with Brian Jones, too. Although Brian officially left the band in mid 1968, he effectively left during the recording of this album, claiming he felt alienated by the direction the band were taking. This despite his (Jones') hours of work on it, seemingly free of constraint and with carte-blanche to improvise in the absence of a solid, song driven 'agenda' from Jagger and Richards to follow.

Brian's probably the only one TSMR did any favours.....

It's still pretty poor, mind.

I'd get hunting now. You'll be looking at 300 quid next year.........

LET IT BLEED
(Decca SKL 5025) (stereo edition)
dec. 1969
produced by Jimmy Miller

'Let It Bleed' is often compared to 'Beggars Banquet'. It is the 2nd Stones LP to have been produced by Jimmy Miller, and it is approximately the same length as it's predecessor, but that is pretty much where the similarities end.

While it's true that listening to both 'BB' and 'LIB' one can tell they're by the same band, and probably by the same producer, 'Let It Bleed' seems, on first listening, to be obviously inferior. It does seem better furnished with originality, and "songs", but seems to be recorded more haphazardly than it' s predecessor, and not to have all been 'played' at once, and recorded immediately, which "Beggars Banquet" does.

'Beggars Banquet' is often noted as having been the last album which Brian Jones played on. It wasn't, of course. Jones plays on 'Let It Bleed'. (On "Midnight Rambler" he plays marimbas)
While Brian's successor, Mick Taylor, also appears on 'Let It Bleed', the fact is that for most of the time recording it The Stones were without a permanent 2nd guitar. The onus was on Keith Richards to pretty much write, play and record any material which would form an LP for release in 1969. Coupled with the fact that they had to organise the biggest tour anyone had ever undertaken in the winter of '69, it all makes the release of even a fairly mediocre LP look unlikely, never mind the staggeringly brilliant one which appeared in record shops in December 1969.

Like it's predecessor, 'Let It Bleed' opens with a piece of music which seems impossibly good, and as a consequence does the rest of the album few favours. "Gimme Shelter" (described in Rolling Stone by Greil Marcus as "the greatest ever rock and roll recording") is so intense, so fraught, so perfectly pressurised that the first time listener's emotions are not entirely available to properly ingest how well Robert Johnson's 'Love In Vain' is re-interpreted immediately afterwards.

"Country Honk" is commonly thought to be a 'C&W version' of "Honky Tonk Women", but is in fact the original version of this song. If anything, "Honky Tonk Women" is an electric rock version of "Country Honk". The violin player, Byron Berline, liked playing outdoors, and he played his contribution stood in the studio car park. The car horn you can hear is from a car driving past while he did so.

First time listeners, mindful of how strongly side 1 had opened, and hardly expecting side 2 to offer anything like as dazzling must have almost fainted when "Midnight Rambler" thudded and fucked it's way out of the speakers. Malevolent and sinister, 'Midnight Rambler' employs that soon-to-be arch Rolling Stones device of at first seeming to glory in the foulest, blackest human traits, but ultimately reveals it's intention, that of warning it's listeners of what people are capable of doing, anytime, anywhere, to anyone.

"..if you ever see the midnight rambler, crawling down your marble hall.....you can say I told you so...."

Tragically, this is all true. Wise words indeed. And none of it is The Rolling Stones' fault. People were brutal way before The Stones sang songs about it.

By the time "You Can't Always Get What You Want" appears, the listener has long since forgotten 'Let It Bleed''s obvious flaws. The album's finale is so uplifting and so galvanising it seems to draw a line under the 1960s, as far as The Rolling Stones are concerned.
The London Bach Choir, who sing on "You Can't Always Get What You Want", were horrified when they heard the rest of 'Let It Bleed', and wanted their name removed from the credits on 'moral grounds'. When they found out they would receive royalty payments for each copy sold, they hastily reviewed their 'morality' and reluctantly allowed their name to appear.

"Let It Bleed" is the album which the likes of Led Zeppelin think they have made, but nothing else has ever come close.

You haven't properly heard rock and roll music until you have heard it.

bootlegs

"COCKSUCKER BLUES"
(Dir. Robert Frank/Daniel Seymour)
This film, produced by Marshall Chess, has never been afforded an official release. (This may be partly due to it's title, but is probably mainly down to the fact that it is extremely ordinary.) Even when it was first distributed, it could be seen only under strict license, at late night showings in members-only clubs, and even then it had to carry the title "CS Blues". The DVD pictured here was acquired in 2004, and appears to be a bootleg of a bootleg, as it's source is clearly a VHS tape. Snowy tracking lines are abundant during the first 20 minutes or so and the tape seems to be threatening to snap at a couple of points. All in all, though it's watchable and listenable.
The film itself, it has to be said, has not aged well. It presents itself as positively juvenile at times in it's attempts to 'shock'. Even though it is now common knowledge that much of the 'decadence' portrayed by the film was carefully staged, the viewer might still have been able to forgive this had it not still have all looked so uninteresting. Producer Marshall Chess was probably using the Maysles brothers' "Gimme Shelter" as a benchmark (as indeed it is, in cinema verite) but if he reckoned that in the absence of the chaos, calamity and brutality that presented itself to the Maysles cameras in 1969 he could pad this picture out with scenes of himself and many other unremarkable people taking recreational drugs and talking at indescribably tedious length about the taking of recreational drugs, lots of 'risque' imagery (man grabs crotch. woman with no clothes on etc) and the like then he was quite wrong.
There is much worthwhile material, of the Stones themselves in conversation, preparing for showtime etc; of the sharp end of the logistics of undertaking a big tour and of course, on stage. The footage of the band playing live are among the few segments of "Cocksucker Blues" which are in colour, with the rest being in fairly grainy mono. This may or may not have been the inspiration for U2's 'legendary' tour film "Rattle And Hum", but who cares?
As a collector, I hankered after a copy of this picture for years, and after procuring it found myself massively disappointed at having wasted so much hankering. Any future 'official' release for it is surely doubtful, but given that such a release would probably have to be on the authority of Abkco, can not be entirely ruled out.

Here's a link to the ultimate online shop for Rolling Stones collectables, Esprit:

http://eil.com/artist/Rolling-Stones.asp

And to the very best fan's forum, "Rocks Off":

http://rocksoff.org/messageboard/YaBB.pl?board=general

My trusty companion. Purchased in 1990, this book has travelled the globe with me. Only 150 pages long and not updated since 1984, it nevertheless remains my first point of reference for most Stones-related info. 'The book'.

Rolling Stones albums, 45s & EPs, 1964-present reviewed (in no particular order)

"BEGGAR'S BANQUET" (Decca SKL4955)(stereo edition) December 5th, 1968.

My favourite Rolling Stones LP. I concede that they probably made better albums, with "Sticky Fingers" being generally more rounded and better recorded, and "Exile On Main St" being, well, "Exile On Main St", but in the 38 minutes which "Beggar's Banquet" fills, the Stones at last deliver the music.
The best part of a year had lapsed since this record was completed before it appeared on the shelves, due to a standoff between the Stones and Decca Records over the cover artwork. The band wanted to use a photograph of a toilet cubicle with graffiti strewn walls, taken in a garage in Los Angeles. Decca considered this to be offensive, and would not issue the record. It was noted at the time that the same company had recently released an album entitled "A-Tom-ic Jones", with a cover depicting the mushroom cloud produced by a nuclear explosion. Whether or not a toilet was more obscene than an atom bomb was purely academic: Decca would not budge. The album was finally released in a sleeve with no photograph at all on the front, but with a truly fantastic gatefold sleeve, which opened to reveal the now famous 'banquet' picture (which you can see at the top of this page), by Michael Joseph, of the Stones lounging decadently with not a toilet in sight.
This was the first of the Stones LPs to be produced by Jimmy Miller. Had there not been such a lengthy delay in it's release, it would probably have included "Jumpin' Jack Flash". A band which can afford to forego putting it's most recent hit single on it's latest album, especially one as strong as "Jumpin' Jack Flash" (which, as everyone knows, is the greatest rock and roll 45 ever to have been pressed) is not a band lacking in confidence. A band which produces an album which opens with a song as astonishing as "Sympathy For The Devil" is, obviously, a great band.
The old showbiz adage 'never start with your showstopper' is ignored by opening the album with "Sympathy...", and is pretty much proved to be true; the album comes nowhere near to it's dizzying peak again. All of it is top quality, however, with "Salt Of The Earth" being the only possible exception. It's just short of the rousing finale which "You Can't Always Get What You Want" would provide "Let It Bleed" with one year later. Other highlights are "Parachute Woman", which is pure Elmore James; the fantastically recorded "Street Fighting Man" (which has no electrically amplified instruments apart from the bass) and the filth and the fury that is "Stray Cat Blues"- a number so full of dangerous elements that it actually starts seething as it's fading out. "Factory Girl" is a short sketch about waiting for your girlfriend in the rain and is nice. "Dear Doctor" is darkly comic, and describes narrowly avoiding having to get wed to a 'bow legged sow'. "No Expectations" is a sweet, concise gem, and features Brian Jones playing slide so deftly you'd think there was nowt the matter with him. "Prodigal Son" is played beautifully. "Jig-Saw Puzzle" is Dylan-ish, and probably a wee bit over ambitious, but is played and sung incredibly well.
You need to hear this record.

Other/related:** When the Stones commenced work on "Sympathy For The Devil" in the summer of '68, only one Kennedy had been killed. The tragic slaying of Robert Kennedy occurred right in the middle of the sessions which saw the song completed. There was never any question of the reference to America's most famous political dynasty being removed from the song. It remained, and remains, one of the very best lines of song ever sung. True then and true now. If U2 worked for another ten decades, they still couldn't come up with anything even like as powerful.

**The "many friends" credited for playing on the album are widely held to have included Eric Clapton and Dave Mason.