Keith Richards autobiography

[AndyM]

Anyone taken the plunge yet ? I feel I'll have to, but without masses of enthusiasm.

[Adam Blake]

Had a dip. The old gargoyle is very funny. Sometimes unintentionally, sometimes not. Hard to tell. Refuse to buy it.

[AndyM]

Refuse to buy it.

My shoplifting days are long gone.

[Adam Blake]

Yes. Mine too. But for Keith Richard's autobiography could we not make a recidivistic exception?

[AndyM]

Hey, great name for a band in there !!

[Adam Blake]

Yes, hem hem. Glad you approve.

One line I read that made me laugh was when he was describing Charlie Watts's outrage at his wearing of Anita's clothes. Keith said, not unreasonably, "if I sleep with someone then surely I have the right to wear their clothes."

[AndyM]

There's a logic there. Not an everyday one, but a logic all the same.

[Jamie Renton]

I read Jon Crace's Digested Read in the Guardian & Craig Brown's Diary in the last issue of Private Eye, so don't really feel the need to read the book itself.

[Adam Blake]

Thanks Jamie for alerting me to the Crace version. It seems no less than a public service to this forum to reprint it in full:
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Man, I only sleep two hours a day so I've been conscious for several lifetimes. Shame I've missed most of them by being completely out of it. But hey, this is my best guess at what happened so you cats better chill and come for the ride. It ain't free, but we've all gotta pay our dues to the Man.

Dartford. Town of short sentences. It was hard, man. When I got kicked out of the school choir, I thought, "Fuck these cats." That was me done with authority. My guitar. I slept with it, man. You've gotta. It's like running a whorehouse. Fats, Muddy. Music, I was on the black side of town. Mick. He was the greatest R&B singer I ever heard. And I don't mean maybe. Charlie, Bill and Brian. When we were playing Alexis's club it was like we were on another planet. We moved to Edith Grove. Man, that was poverty. Pooftahs living above. Bank robbers below.

Andrew Oldham threw Mick and me together. Said, "Write songs, dudes." Man, my guitar was a mangling, dangling, tangling kinda thang. Tuned it to C. Played a couple of minor breaks. Bobby twiddled some knobs. Charlie hit some back beats. Bill stood in another room. Guess you kinda had to be there.

Satisfaction. Wrote it in my sleep. Then it was hard to tell. They don't make downers like they used to these days. Mandies, reds, Tuinal. Yeah! And the acid. I was tripping with Johnny Lennon. What a lightweight. The chicks. Anita was some sexy bitch. She made the make on me. Then Mick and his small cock made the make on her. Couldn't resist. He was like that. So I had the boinky-boinky-boing with Marianne. I guess we're quits. And she never had the Mars bar. Get me, brother?

We'd had enough of Brian. Long before he died. We heard later some motherfucker said he killed him. Who knows? But even if he did, it would only be manslaughter. Cos Brian was a whining son of a bitch. He could take his narcs, mind. Heroin. Man, it was all around. Gram Parsons. You couldn't find a nicer cat to do cold turkey with. Then, like, it was we gotta get out of town. The pigs were out to bust us. The Man wanted all our cash.

France. Mick was starting to fuck us all off. He got off on flattery. I got off on smack. And how. Exile was epic. Anita looked after Marlon. Yeah, I had a kid. Cool. Perfect accessory for stashing my drugs. I had discovered open tuning. So I played these chords. Mick would sing something in the basement. Bill and Charlie would be in the kitchen. Someone else would be twiddling knobs somewhere. Then someone would move a mike a quarter of an inch. Yawn.

The 70s were hard, man. I hung out with rastas. It is because I is black. And Toronto. Man, what a fuss about an ounce of smack. And it ain't like I was mainlining. Strictly skin-popping. Bill bought me some gear in Canada. One and only time he did anything. It was emotional. Late 70s. Had to stop the heroin. Killing me, man. Luckily, I still had the coke, spliff and Jack Daniels. So I still didn't have a clue what I was doing.

The Stones almost died in the 80s. Mick and me weren't talking. Mick was sucking establishment ass. Anita was just being heavy. So I dumped her. First time I met Patti was in Studio 54. Surrounded by faggots. I was trying to escape Britt Ekland. Nice chick. But Britt, my agenda is full. With Patti I felt safe. It takes a special kind of chick to put up with a rock star only really capable of thinking about himself.

Mick and I kinda made up in the late 80s. Though he's basically still a tosser. And the last 20 years get written off in just a few pages: we haven't made a decent record in years, and the Stones have become kinda dull. But I'm still that dude. Fighting authority. Playing with guns and knives. Hanging out with crims. Counter-cultural in the way only some tax-exile stoner with several hundred million in the bank can be.

Digested read, digested: Inside every ex-junkie. . . is a trainspotter waiting to get out.

[garth cartwright]

Just got it. Actually didn't buy it for myself but a neighbour who is an old rocker asked me if i could get him a copy next time i was in the West End as he suffers from arthritis. My commission is that I get to read it first.

Wasn't expecting much considering all the hype but I'm up to 1964 and it is excellent - not just the memory of 50s Dartford and family and listening to 78s but the enthusiasm for the music. Adam, you will love it because he talks about what a huge difference playing with Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts made to his playing. Really discusses it. And he goes on about studying the guitar styles of Bo, Chuck and Jimmy Reed - at one point he even suggest those not obsessed with guitar technique skip over while he rambles on about trying to learn JR's tricks.

This book has a beating heart. I'll report again once I've read more as to whether the heart continues to beat throughout.

[Adam Blake]

Adam, you will love it because he talks about what a huge difference playing with Ian Stewart and Charlie Watts made to his playing. Really discusses it.

Oh, I'm sure I'll read it eventually. It's just that I've fallen so deeply out of love with everything the Stones have come to mean. I learned so much from Keith when I was a teenager. He was a true musical conduit. But I have so little respect for him now. He has utterly stagnated as a musician as far as I can see. Yes, maybe the same could be said of Chuck Berry but Chuck was a) a much finer musician to start with, and b) has never made any fuss about his playing. It's just something he does. To hear Keith go on, you'd think the rapport between him and Charlie was on a level with Willie Dixon and Fred Below or (insert your favourite rhythm section). He made some great records up to about 1972, and The Stones were a great live band for a bit longer (say, up to when Mick Taylor left in 1974) but that's IT.

He is funny, though. Like I said. And that can go a long way in mitigation.

[garth cartwright]

OK, just finished.

As predicted it peters out once the hard drugs come in. That said, his detailing of trying to be a father to Marlon - he took him on the road from the age of six - is moving. As is the disintegration of Anita Pallenberg into drug addled madness. He's too much of a gentleman to mention how her fabled beauty dissolved almost overnight.That his kids appear to have grown into ordinary, decent adults is a testimony to why people like Keef so much - he's a loyal and loving character. An idiot. But a likeable one. That he is a multi zillionaire who has long been musically redundant and turned into a political reactionary vis a vis his support for Blair invading Iraq is sad. But few of our heroes - and the Stones 64-72 remain the greatest rock band ever! - age gracefully.

The first half of this book is definitely worth reading. Having read it all I've certainly learnt about the creative process of playing guitar and how you look for a sound and a rhythm - his discussion on adopting a 5-string open tuning is fascinating. For all his faults KR comes across as a likeable, big hearted man.

[Adam Blake]

Best lines so far:

"He'd been playing with Linda Ronstadt, Stevie Nicks. Chick bands. But I knew he wanted to rock."