Rolling Stones warm up gig

[gweimer]

If Richards wanted such an integrated player, why were the Stones so hot to have Rory Gallagher?  The stuff I've read indicates that it was the Stones who botched that chance.

[Aussie Mark]

If Richards wanted such an integrated player, why were the Stones so hot to have Rory Gallagher?  The stuff I've read indicates that it was the Stones who botched that chance.

In hindsight, Ronnie Wood has indeed been a great fit for the Stones, but they did write their best material while Taylor was around.

[Rob]

- he's in his mid seventies now...

So are they . . . .almost

[uwe]

There are various versions of "Rory & the Stones" about.

1. One was that the Stones management contacted Rory while he was recording Calling Card (his finest album in my opinion) with Roger Glover (formerly of an unknown Brit stadium rock band) and said that the band "would like to come over and jam with him". Rory was obviously chuffed at the honor while Glover moaned about having to rearrange all the miking in the studio which had been painstakingly set up for recording. But in the end they rearranged the studio for the jam, except that the Stones never came! This story is confirmed by Glover in the new liner notes of the remastered Calling Card and Glover generally doesn't talk nonsense nor did he take drugs. Rory is unavailable for comment.

2. Version 2 is that the Stones called Rory to join them in Amsterdam where they were parading candidates, but that Rory refused: "I've got an album to do, guys! Some other time."

In the end it doesn't matter, Rory wouldn't have joined them though he was certainly the type of bluesy-virtuoso player Jagger (not Keef though) favored (among Jeff Beck, Harvey Mandel and Mick Ronson):

- Rory was an introvert and insecure about himself, it would have been Mick Taylor all over again. Ronnie Wood doesn't have an overbearing ego, but he's not insecure about himself.

- Rory would have been an image issue for the Stones, he didn't have a cool haircut and would never give up his plaid shirts however much his record company berated him to "look a bit more rock star". He didn't dress up for stage, period.

- Introvert and plaid shirts or not, Rory was a dictator/single-minded. He broke up Taste because the other two wouldn't submit even more to him (as if Taste hadn't already featured him enough). And At the height of that particular Rory Gallagher band line-up's success he kicked out Lou Martin and Rod d'Ath and scrapped a wole album recorded with them (recently released as "Notes from San Francisco" and at the behest of his record company even containing horn arrangements and a commercial US FM radio-friendly production). He wouldn't allow co-writing, sang all his material and there is not a single album sleeve out there that doesn't show him alone.

- Rory wasn't money-driven. He made lots of anti-commercial or plain dumb decisions in his career, inter alia refusing that songs be released as singles, kicking out the keyboarder who refined his music so much (and getting the same guy back in when Rory's commercial fortunes had already dropped), binning a "too American production" and reverting to trio work which did him no favors because his music benefitted from an organist and piano player (and Lou Martin was an excellent piano player).

Rory giving up singing (or being restricted to singing a song an album), writing lyrics, his frontman role and songwriting (or even being restricted to contributing one or two compositions per Stones album, something neither Wyman and Taylor nor Wood were ever allowed to do on a regular basis), as well as getting a haircut and glamming up a little to play Gimme Shelter is unfathomable to me though musically it might have been a dream. (Deep Purple considered him as a replacement for

Blackmore
- how by coincidence his name has popped up again!  - and decided against him for pretty much the same reasons in the end.) Rory wasn't as relaxed about himself as, say, Joe Walsh who did/gave up all that to join The Eagles in exchange of an allotment of perhaps two own songs per Eagles album, Rocky Mountain Way being integrated in their live set and, of course, lots and lots of money. (Walsh and The Eagles had the same management when he joined them, so it was basically an engineered merger, but one that has lasted like engineered marriages sometimes tend to.)

But man, he would have kicked some butt with the Stones!

[nofi]

interesting that you often refer to dp as a stadium or arena band, uwe. is that the old axiom 'the bigger the better' at work.

[uwe]

I should have put it in italics, Nofi! It has a long story. Resident board Deep Purple grouch Dave W. has in the past consistently referred to DP as "stadium rock" and he didn't mean it kindly, more as English flare-trousered buffoons churning out Smoke on the Water to a musically largely oblivious, but huge audience. I don't subscribe to that description/reduction of Purple at all as you will probably imagine, but "stadium rock" has become the term for what Dave dislikes here and it covers Kiss, DP, LZ, Grand Funk Railroad, Foghat, what have you. Whenever I use "stadium rock" as a term it's a jab against Dave which he - like a lot of my jabs, see "Gwyneth Paltrow" or "Che poster at refrigerator door" - conveniently ignores. Dave, please confirm this to Nofi to put his mind at ease re his megalomania suspicions about me!

"The bigger the better" - a concept laid to rest in Germany after the unfortunate fate of the Bismarck and the Königstiger's failure to change the fortunes of war! - is not my credo at all, in fact - and just as silly or wanton - the opposite. I don't mind a band to be reasonably popular (Deep Purple were just about at my personal limit), but I have real issues with absolute megastars, U2 (did I yet mention that they have a boring bass player?   ), Phil Collins/Genesis in the eighties, Led Zeppelin, Peter Frampton (when he was still the curly-haired God, I like him fine today as a baldie), Dire Straits, Foo Fighters, Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stones etc., anything that sells out the O2 is suspicious to me. For no other reason than that I am more comfortable with being seen in a minority than to being unseen in a majority.

If "the bigger the better" would be of any relevance to me my flag-waving for commercial no-hopers such as Be Bop De Luxe, Jobriath, Starz, Strapps, Sparks and Doctors of Madness would hardly make much sense, would it? Or Wishbone Ash which no one in America has ever heard of as we have resolutely determined here some time ago. I'm much more frustrated about this forum's utter shrugging ignorance of what I consider the (albeit obviously non-commercial) brilliance of Sparks



than whether someone likes Deep Purple or not. So if you want to do me a favor, just write:

"Sparks make highly original and witty, even quirky music and do not get the recognition at the LBO they deserve. To their credit, they have also never played in a stadium, but Uwe enjoed them quite recently in a Frankfurt club with abouiut a hundred other Sparks nerds and recommends them whole-heartedly, otoh he didn't like Bruce Springsteen in a stadium last summer at all. This message has no Blackmore-content."

[Dave W]

Grouchy? Me? 

True, I've called it arena rock or stadium rock. It's really more about certain styles of music I don't like than the size of the audience.

[uwe]

That is his way of saying: I would despise Deep Purple even if they had an audience of zero!!!

Dave has a hand for pulling the rug from underneath you. 

[Dave W]

That is his way of saying: I would despise Deep Purple even if they had an audience of zero!!!

Dave has a hand for pulling the rug from underneath you. 

I don't despise them at all. It's just not what I choose to listen to.

If you want an example of what I loathe, one would be the caterwauling that passes for singing on NBC's The Voice. Can't get away from the promos and clips if you watch anything else on NBC.

[westen44]

NBC has some good shows on it.  "Revolution" is not too bad, for instance.  But I despise "The Voice."  I don't like anything about it.  Sometimes I catch the last few minutes of it because it comes on right before "Revolution."  Actually, "Revolution" is kind of flawed, too, but I'm a sucker for sci fi. 

[uwe]

I don't despise them at all. It's just not what I choose to listen to.

If you want an example of what I loathe, one would be the caterwauling that passes for singing on NBC's The Voice. Can't get away from the promos and clips if you watch anything else on NBC.

Dave, I fear there is some overlap between The Voice type singing and DP, it's probably fair to say that Glenn Hughes invented it long before Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston!



See, now you even have a reason to despise DP!   I believe anyone singing/squealing "Georgia on my mind" like Glenn did here (my, it must have been good coke on that day!), would win The Voice hands down, don't you?

[Big_Stu]

"Sparks make highly original and witty, even quirky music and do not get the recognition at the LBO they deserve.

Saw Sparks once; on the same tour that prompted this TV appearance around the same time.......



Three highlights of the gig, in this order..........
1) Being asked to make space by a couple of roadies so someone could stand beside me, watch the support band (Finitribe), and dance with me to them & it turned out to be Christy Moore - yes the drummer in that video. 
2) Making the mistake of catching Ron's gaze and being stared out by him, but actually getting a smile off him when I caved in, oh and the brilliant idea of rearranging the letters on his Roland keyboard.
3) Russ's unbelievable vocal range after all these years.

[nofi]

maybe sparks aren't popular over here  is because one looks like hitler.

[uwe]

He changed his moustache long ago because of exactly that.









"It takes a certain kind of man to have the courage to sport a toothbrush moustache in public, something which Ron Mael has been doing for years. Infamously, when Sparks were on Top of the Pops back in 1974 with John Lennon, the former Beatle was heard to remark "Christ, they've got Hitler on the telly!"

More on the subject if you are into dialectic philosophy (that is Hegel, not Hitler):

http://thestuffedowl.co.uk/don%E2%80%99t-forget-his-toothbrush-memories-of-ron-mael%E2%80%99s-face/

[uwe]

Saw Sparks once; on the same tour that prompted this TV appearance around the same time.......



Three highlights of the gig, in this order..........
1) Being asked to make space by a couple of roadies so someone could stand beside me, watch the support band (Finitribe), and dance with me to them & it turned out to be Christy Moore - yes the drummer in that video. 
2) Making the mistake of catching Ron's gaze and being stared out by him, but actually getting a smile off him when I caved in, oh and the brilliant idea of rearranging the letters on his Roland keyboard.
3) Russ's unbelievable vocal range after all these years.

Danke, Stu, that felt good, but then it comes from a Limey whose island adopted the two Californians early on!