A rare New Music Review [but it's an old, old band]

Hackney Diamonds – The Rolling Stones [2023]

Short take: It’s the Rolling Stones, they’re motivated and the producer kept the bullshit away.

  

   It’s been a long time since we had an album of new material from the Rolling Stones. Not yet another compilation with one or two new songs to force completists into buying Tumbling Dice or Jumping Jack Flash for a 10^th or 20th time. Not yet another live Stones record. It’s been so long that vinyl is back in style!

   What’s been the hold up? Keith said “when the singer says he’s ready, you go and record.” For his part, Jagger said they had demos that were okay but they needed to knuckle down and set a deadline [which was how Jagger and Richards had gotten over their mid 80s bickering charged into Steel Wheels] and Richards agreed. New producer Andrew Watt picked about 20 songs from a hundred plus [Did I mention it’s been a long time between albums?] demos and the band got to work.

   I admit I had to be a tad skeptical about new Stones music after Bridges to Babylon and A Bigger Bang [sorry N8]. But my hopes were raised by Angry. Angry is Rock & Roll – capital letters intended for emphasis. Does it sound like they’re some auto-tuning going on? Yes. Maybe it’s just there for effect. But the band is just kicking ass. One wondered if / how much the late Charlie Watts would appear on the record [answer: 2 cuts]. I for one could tell from one listen that this is Steve Jordan on the drums – Steve has a heavy right foot. But the other joy was that the lyrics weren’t just sophomoric generic “Let’s rock / I wanna rock you” lyrics. But Jagger is still in fine voice – I mean he knows he has to take care of his instrument!

   I really avoided getting into the hype so I could judge the album on its own merits. I did track a compressed version this evening after work while finishing up some things before going to the record store and I must say I was impressed even with a low-fi version. I thought this was easily the most cohesive and best album since Steel Wheels.

   But then… hearing the words “featured” or “special guests” is usually a bad sign. But they’re not there to overwhelm the Stones or dazzle with some virtuosity. If you weren’t told that Paul McCartney was playing bass on Bite My Head Off, you wouldn’t be able to tell it was Paul McCartney. There’s none of those inventive bass lines one remembers from the Beatles. It’s just a straight ahead rocker that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Some Girls with a nice simple guitar straight ahead solo by Ronnie. Probably Ronnie. Elton John on a Rolling Stones record? Actually both Get Close and Live By the Sword are nice middle of the road numbers. I really don’t hear the piano on Get Close and it’s pretty deep in the mix on Sword, although there are a few fills here and there. It really could be anyone playing. Sword is one of the numbers that Charlie Watts is heard on [Mess It Up is the other and the drums sound distinctly different on those cuts] and the number that Bill Wyman played bass on. Stevie Wonder adding the gospel touches on piano on Sweet Sounds Of Heaven, the same touch that Billy Preston [R.I.P.] would have added in the 70s. It was probably a gas for those guys to get people almost their own age in to play and swap old war stories. Lady Gaga – immensely talented but her voice lacks… how can I say this… the soul of a Merry Clayton [or touring vocalists Lisa Fisher or Sasha Allen]. That’s my opinion only!

   Mick’s exaggerated English accent on [especially Whole Wide World] is probably the worst offense on the record. Which really isn’t saying a whole lot. Dreamy Skies could have slipped into that syrupy shit kicking voice he uses occasionally but fortunately it doesn’t.

   Keith’s vocal on this record, Tell Me Straight is a haunting little cut in the mold of Slipping Away. A damn fine vocal from Keith, too.

   At the end it’s just Mick and Keith and the blues – covering Muddy Waters Rollin’ Stone [aka Rolling Stone Blues].

   The best way to sum up this record it’s the Rolling Stones and that’s it. No bullshit. Just some almost guys still doing what they’ve been doing for 60 years – that’s 6 decades! That's older than me and a lot of you reading my take on this record!

   Let’s also not forget, this is the Rolling Stones still breaking ground. There are a couple of 80 year olds [Dylan, Paul] still making records but there is NOT another 60 year old band full of seventy and 80 year old men still making records.

   The real fucking shame of it is that it took Charlie Watts’ passing for the Stones to realize that their time really is limited and they’d better get serious about their work. One hopes that when this publicity blitz is over, they get back in and see if they can polish up some more diamonds. Because in the end, it’s only the legend and the music that’s going to be left.

   IF Hackney Diamonds turns out to be the last “official” album [i.e. not a Tattoo You style collection of left overs that get finished], it is a good one to go out on. This record sits proudly next to the ones you know and have loved for years.

   Bill Graham put a line on the marquee of the Winterland announcing a set of Grateful Dead shows: “They aren’t the best at what they do, they’re the only ones who do what they do.” As a 60 year Rock & Roll band, the same can be said of the Rolling Stones.

 

   As to the marketing: Am I amazed [or disappointed] with the number of cover variants ? Oh My God, yes! “In limited numbers” sure seems like a cash grab, creating instant collector’s items. Couple of picture discs, one color variant and one other cover variant. There are three CD issues also, the plain jewel box, a digipack with a 64 page booklet or a deluxe package and a CD-DVD [hi-res Dolby (surround?) mix and booklet. On the other hand, if people want to plunk down their hard earned cash, the Stones and the record company would be fools not to take it.

 

To Carla
   Xmas 1971

   One has to think that a book inscribed like that had been chosen carefully and given in love or great friendship. But it’s in my collection now. I have to wonder how it ended up in the used book store.

   Was it gifted someone on a moving day?  “I know you loved this and it will remind you of me.”

   Was it left somewhere on a moving day? Was someone leaving in a hurry and just left all sort of things are left for the landlord to clean up?

   Was it purposely left on a moving day? “I don’t want to be reminded of you every time I see this on my bookshelf!”

   Or was it carried many places? Was it a treasured memento between two people back to the start of a long and amazing journey together. Or was it a treasured memento of a time and place and someone just for Carla?

   Did it find its way to the bookstore because a home had to be cleared out for the downsizing move or passing?

   We all have these things – boxes of old letters and Christmas cards and our books and records – that someone will have to go through when our soul has moved on to the next phase. In my case, notebooks full of my years of thoughts and observations.

   A lot of things will end up in the trash. But some may find their way to Half Price Books or Forever Young.

   I wonder if someone will pick one up of my CDs and say “I wonder how this ended up here in the used record store?”

   Someone might just pick up Carla’s book the same way I did.

 

Random Record Revisited

Fighting – Thin Lizzy [1975]

   By 1975, Thin Lizzy was a band on the move. After guitarist Eric Bell unexpectedly quit literally on the eve of 1974, bassist / songwriter Phil Lynott and drummer Brian Downey recruited Scotsman Brian Robertson and American Scott Gorham [soon to be Lynott’s main onstage foil but unfortunately also his drug buddy] and delved into a harder edged sound which would come to full fruition with 1976’s masterwork Jailbreak.

   The opening track, a cover of Bob Seger’s Rosalie has two versions: the original album version clocks in at 3:11, the American mix a mere 2:57 – by my simple calculation, the American version is sped up about 16 beats [4 bars] per minute. The American mix is noticeably brighter, undoubtably mixed for radio. With a funky little backbeat, it’s really not far off of what Aerosmith was doing. For Those Of Us Who Love To Live kicks off with some great twin guitar harmonies before falling into a short shuffle. Two verses and two choruses, some more really tasty twin lead work over some really pumping bass by Lynott and then it’s over. Suicide dated back to the Eric Bell years – it was called Baby’s Been Messing and had different lyrics [obviously] and it lacked the twin guitar ‘duel’ that is the last two minutes of the song. Wild One harkens back to the Irish roots and Whiskey In the Jar but also contains one of Lynott’s recurring motifs – a mid tempo set of chord change that will recur in Fight Or Fall [Jailbreak], Fool’s Gold [Johnny the Fox], Downtown Sundown [Bad Reputation] and Didn’t I [Chinatown]. Fighting My Way Back ends side one with the tough hard rock that Lizzy will perfect on Jailbreak.

   King’s Vengeance [musically] seems to be something Queen might have done on one of their pre-Night At the Opera albums. Maybe the chords owe a bit to Seven Seas Of Rhye? Of course Lynott’s reedy voice is nothing like Freddie Mercury’s and Lynott writes lyrics from a definite blue collar, working poor point of view. [“Down and out in the city / Won't you give a boy a break/ Juvenile on trial before committee / Taken all he can take / But the king shall have his vengeance / Especially on the poor / Some say preaching to converted / Me, I'm not too sure”] Vengeance flows into Sprit Slips Away, another slow/mid tempo number noted by the chiming main riff that recurs throughout and some really tasty and tasteful guitar solos and fills – the volume swells of the outro also seem to hold a little of the Queen / Brian May influence.  Brian Robertson’s solo penned Silver Dollar follows a jumping little boogie shuffle that seems to quote the opening riff of Joe Walsh’s Welcome To the Club [So What, 1974].   The phasing / chorus effect also seems to harken to something Walsh might have done. Freedom Song is another good mid tempo twin guitar workout. Lynott’s vocals reach that great level that power the best of Lizzy’s works. This is another one of those songs that points to what Thin Lizzy is capable of and will briefly become. It’s one of those songs that leads to something greater. Lizzy also has a great tradition of not usually ending on the ballad – Nightlife’s Dear Heart being an outlier [one also might call Bad Reputation’s Dear Lord a ballad but it’s just a mid tempo subtle rocker not really a ballad]. But despite the title, Ballad Of the Hard Man is as good a slice of hard rock as anything else Thin Lizzy ever put to tape. Great wah-wah by Gorham or Robertson [or both]. Might be one of those really under-rated Lizzy tracks that only true Lizzy fans get.

   The European Deluxe Edition released in 2008 includes a second disc including the B-side of the Rosalie single, the funky reggae track Half Caste [another commentary on social class]. Unexpected from a hard rocking band like the Lizzy but a fun track. That faster US mix of Rosalie. Three Live at the BBC tracks – Rosalie, Suicide and Ballad Of the Hard Man. And yes the guitarists pull off that great dueling at the end of Suicide and that wah-wah stuff on Hard Man. On the BBC tracks, one really gets the sense of how Lynott’s bass lays the bed but also pumps the whole band along. And a few incomplete out takes and / or demos.

   The BBC stuff is where the band really shows their power. A live album of this tour UK Tour ’75 was issued in 2008 but it’s recording quality leaves a lot to be desired – Lynott’s bass seems to be buried under the guitars. But I can same the same thing of 1978’s high energy, oft praised Live And Dangerous.

   As for Fighting, it’s not the same quality of Jailbreak but it’s the step the band had to take before getting to that peak. Taken with that grain of salt, it’s an enjoyable record, as enjoyable as Jailbreak’s follow up Johnny the Fox.