Didn't I see you down in San Antone' on a hot and dusty night?

by Dick Mac

Yesterday, Mick Jagger . . . that's Sir Michael Philip Jagger, thank you very much . . . celebrated his 69th birthday.

Who Is The Best Front Man?

by Dick Mac

The Top 50 front men? For New Music Express (NME) the fiftieth is Richard Hell of The Voidoids. He would probably make my list. Who would be on my list?

The lead of Tin Machine? Rolling Stones? Patti Smith Group? T.Rex? The New York Dolls? Sly & The Family Stone? The Stooges? Plastic Ono Band? Velvet Underground? Sex Pistols? The Heartbreakers? Blockheads? Blondie? Joy Division? The Ramones? The Jam? Queen? The The?

There are people on the NME list that never would occur to me to select. I'm not even sure I could come-up with 50!

So I'll do my Top Ten:

01 David Bowie
02 Mick Jagger
03 Patti Smith
04 Lou Reed
05 Iggy Pop
06 John Lennon
07 David Johansen
08 John Lydon
09 Freddie Mercury
10 Diana Ross

That list will be different as soon as I publish this article, but I think Bowie will always be at the top. I also think that Patti Smith might bump Mick Jagger out of second place. Or perhaps Iggy Pop would be #2.

The John Lennon on the list is the John Lennon who was the front man for Plastic Ono Band, not The Beatles. I did not include Yoko Ono with him, even though she and Lennon were almost always listed as co-leads of Plastic Ono Band). Also, if you have been fortunate enough to see any of the current Plastic Ono Band shows over the past few years, your opinion of her might change. Seeing a 79-year-old Japanese woman dancing and singing with a rock band is a show you shouldn't miss. I know that most of you hate Yoko Ono, but I don't care. :-P

The NME #1 was an impressive choice that reflects, I think, a rather sophisticated analysis of such a list. I won't tell you. Go find out: 50 most electrifying frontmen (and women)

I am not embarrassed to say that I did not even know some of the NME Top 50!

Who are your Top Ten? 20? 25? 50? 100?

Day 11 - A song from Your favorite band : Memo From Turner, The Rolling Stones

by Dick Mac

The 30 Day Song Challenge has been presented to me by my friend Beff. The month of April will be dedicated to those thirty songs.

I don't remember how old I was the first time I saw "Performance," but it was my mid-teens, in the mid-seventies, at a second-run movie house, late at night, stoned.

I had never heard of the star, James Fox (Chaz) or the pretty French girl Michele Breton (Lucy); but everyone knew Mick Jagger (Turner), and the Italian beauty Anita Pallenberg (Pherber) although not quite a household name, was well-known in her own right.

I had no idea what the movie was about, I couldn't find any consistency in the plot, the sexual dynamics were not remotely clear to me, and the gangsters weren't anything like the gangsters in Hollywood films. The cars and clothes were amazing, the people either exaggeratedly attractive or unattractive, the drugs and money rampant, and the housing stock impressive.

It had something to do with some mafia types and money and a reclusive rock star and his two girlfriends living in Powis Square, Notting Hill.

Still, I left the theater as stoned as I was going in and probably knew less about the movie after viewing it than I did before purchasing my ticket.

I got the soundtrack as soon as I could find it, which wasn't easy; and I really only wanted it for one song: Memo From Turner (although I didn't know the name of the song before I purchased the record).

The song is as sensible and nonsensical as the movie, and is a very typical Rolling Stones song (in retrospect).

Not-So-Great Moments In Rock History: Dancing In The Streets

by DM

David Bowie and Mick Jagger recorded this video in eight hours for the Live Aid events in 1985, which is impressive, and it's a great song, and they seem to be having great fun; but, the end-result is not so much a moment in rock history as it is a high-camp send-up of a soul classic:



I adore it!

Memo From Turner

A great song from one of my favorite films, the movie "Performance."

Memo From Turner

Didn't I see you down in San Antone on a hot and dusty night?
We were eating eggs in Sammy's when the black man there drew his knife.
Aw, you drowned that Jew in Rampton as he washed his sleeveless shirt,
You know, that Spanish-speaking gentlemen, the one we all called "Kurt."

Come now, gentleman, I know there's some mistake.
How forgetful I'm becoming, now you fixed your bus'ness straight.

I remember you in Hemlock Road in nineteen fifty-six.
You're a faggy little leather boy with a smaller piece of stick.
You're a lashing, smashing hunk of man;
Your sweat shines sweet and strong.
Your organ's working perfectly, but there's a part that's not screwed on.

Weren't you at the Coke convention back in nineteen sixty-five
You're the misbred, grey executive I've seen heavily advertised.
You're the great, gray man whose daughter licks policemen's buttons clean.
You're the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine.

Come now, gentleman, your love is all I crave.
You'll still be in the circus when I'm laughing, laughing on my grave.

When the old men do the fighting and the young men all look on.
And the young girls eat their mother's meat from tubes of plasticon.
Be wary of these my gentle friends and all the skins you breed.
They have a tasty habit - they eat the hands that bleed.

So remember who you say you are and keep your noses clean.
Boys will be boys and play with toys so be strong with your beast.
Oh Rosie dear, dontcha think it's queer, so stop me if you please.
The baby is dead, my lady said, "You gentlemen, why you all work for me?"