|
Why The Boomers Love Their Stones
By Dave McElfresh
I WAS AT an anti-rock Christian revival meeting in Decatur,
Illinois, in 1966, when a frothing evangelist played "Paint
It Black" as an example of nihilism in contemporary music.
Dweeb high-school bozo that I was, I'd never heard the Stones.
I was impressed. The next day I anxiously traded most of my Baskin-Robbins
paycheck for both December's Children and Aftermath.
Since then, as a now dweebness-free (but obsessive) music writer,
I've not missed a release of theirs in 30 years, including all
the repetitive best-of collections and dead-end career detours
like Black And Blue and Emotional Rescue. And no
way will I miss whatever follows Bridges To Babylon. The
Stones, you see, are the only band to successfully give the finger
to Father Time, proving album by album that being badass doesn't
have to diminish with age. They are the rock group that discovered
that rock and roll is the real Fountain of Youth, personifying
how those who keep rock's fuck-you tattoo from fading will be
kept badass in spite of moving into the liver-spot years.
The cover art of 1974's It's Only Rock And Roll has become
their ultimate career statement. The band, looking wasted (this
time from a long journey, not drugs) stumble down the steps of
some hidden Xanadu swarming with 117 nymphs (told you I was obsessive);
suggesting that the Stones have found that timeless place where
they'll be worshipped forever. And they will be. "Time Is
On My Side" turned out to be unintentionally prophetic--as
well as comforting for their aging adorers.
Will all rock and rollers and their fans end up looking stupid
and toothless in time? It's been the major question looming
in the unconscious minds of all baby boomers who once swore never
to trust anyone over 30/40, etc. and who, like Pete Townsend,
hoped to die before they grew old. By loving the Stones enough
to drop a minimum of 60 bones a ticket, we hope to prove we're
not turning into our parents.
The Stones definitely deserve those skillions of dollars their
tours earn them--if for no other reason than shouldering the burden
of defying age on our behalf. The Who break up and conveniently
regroup whenever their bills accumulate, their wild element having
been buried along with Keith Moon. Paul McCartney's a definite
lightweight whose concerts are meant to be watched over a picnic
lunch of brie and wine. Zappa's dead. Even next-generation proto-punk
John Lydon returns to the stage pudgy and dressed in a clown suit.
Where else do you find the badass factor after an artist or group
hits 40?
A fiction writer creating the quintessential badass group for
a novel couldn't beat the Stones' real life history. In fact,
they present three entirely different flavors of badass behavior,
one for each charter member of the band.
1) Badass through indifference. Charlie Watts doesn't
give a shit about playing for the Greatest Rock-And-Roll Band
In The World. Watts walks onstage with all the energy and excitement
of someone entering a Circle K. What could be cooler than that?
You know that he's not jiving by how unaffected he sounds in interviews,
and by the un-Stones-like suits and ties he prefers to wear. Watts
cares mostly about playing jazz, a musical form the Stones haven't
come within miles of touching. His several recorded jazz outings
haven't sold beans and he couldn't care less. How concerned about
appearing hip can you be if you get a butch haircut, as Watts
did years back, long before severely shorn locks were acceptable?
In spite of anything Watts does, Keith Richards continues to refer
to him as the backbone of the band and as his source of inspiration.
2) Badass by testosterone. Mick Jagger jogs many a moonlight
mile, but does so in private, staying lean and mean without associating
himself with Nautilus equipment. (Even Keith Richards exercises
enough to show off his one-hand push-ups to interviewers.) He
remains a terminally handsome bastard, rock-legend skinny, and
far more desirable than most men his age. Several years ago, I
saw Jagger in the bookstore across the street from the Sunset
Boulevard Tower Records. He stood at the magazine rack in his
black jeans and green silk shirt, reading the dirt on the usual
dozens of celebrities, all of whom he probably knew personally.
He looked small and frail for someone who had appeared literally
nine stories tall in the Live At The Imax presentation.
But evidently a number of females have been more than satisfied
with his stature, height and otherwise. Not that long ago, wife
Jerry Hall gave him the ultimatum regarding his publicized affairs
with Uma Thurman and a French model. Jagger, though a grandfather,
can't seem to keep it in his pants. Worry when he calls a press
conference in favor of celibacy--until then, he still acts like
he's a third his age. None of the rest of us can get away with
it, much as we post-dweebs would love to.
3) Badass by refusing to die. God bless Keith Richards,
the ultimate rock and roll figure, bar none, living or dead (and
he looks the part of the latter). Only '40s jazz saxophonist Charlie
Parker has come close to matching Richards' reputation for successfully,
perennially, telling death to kiss his ass. The rock and roll
lifestyle has become Richards' formaldehyde. In spite of his variety
of vices, he refuses to let anything age him. Watch him, wild-haired
and cigarette in mouth, lean into the opening chords of "Start
Me Up," and see how old he seems to you.
Ask those lucky Stones fans how much it would take for them to
sell their tickets to the upcoming Arizona concert. The last one
I asked said she'd consider it if someone offered $100,000. The
least amount I heard was half that. Obviously, there's more at
stake here than just hearing a rock-and-roll band. Selling your
ticket when you're a Stones fan becomes a Faustian bargain: Are
you really gonna sell your chance to watch a band show how age
can be cheated? Not likely. Yeah, it's goofy, and what philosophy
calls an "illogical syllogism": The Stones don't age,
you like the Stones, therefore you don't age. But screw logic,
allow us our fantasies. It's only rock and roll.
The Rolling Stones play to a sold-out Sun Devil stadium,
in Phoenix, on Friday, November 7.
|
|