On the evening of July 12, 1962 a group led by guitarist Brian Jones performed its first gig at the Marquee Club in London. Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts would join the band in the coming year; Bill mainly because he had a good amplifier. The lead singer on July 12 was a skinny, androgynous 17 year-old named Mick Jagger. The Rolling Stones wore sport coats and ties and did not do lewd things with the mike stands or their guitars. The last song in the set was titled "Happy Home."
Mick Jagger appears five times in A Book of Ages: meeting Keith Richards, attending the London School of Economics, writing lyrics about his inability to obtain satisfaction, buying a chateau in France, becoming a grandfather, and getting a knighthood from the Queen. The sorts of things any striving working class bloke might aspire to. Keith Richards appears four times, Bill Wyman once.
Showing posts with label Keith Richards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Keith Richards. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Johnny Depp
Today's the birthday of Johnny Depp. Born in Owensboro, Kentucky in 1963, he appears three times in A Book of Ages, beginning at age 15. (Johnny Depp's family moved 30 times by the time he was 15.) Some of his more famous personas also appear: Hunter S. Thompson (7 times) and Keith Richards (4 times.) Celebrity has an interesting way of intersecting.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Hope I Die 'fore I Get Old
It's the birthday of Pete Townshend, the lead guitarist of The Who, writer of operas, smasher of guitars, editor of books, born in 1945. He wasn't as handsome as bandmate Roger Daltrey or contemporaries Lennon and McCartney, or as sexually perplexing and magnetic as Mick Jagger. He was simply an angry working bloke with a mean guitar. Still is. Nowadays he is also an important fundraiser for the hard of hearing.
Rock stars are interesting to chronicle because their lives are one long battle against age. Loud Peter Pans who refuse to outgrow tight pants, criminals who write poetry, travel armed with guitars and banned substances.
Townshend broke his first guitar in concert at age 19. It was an accident, but the crowd loved it, so he made it part of the act. On his twentieth birthday, on a train between London and Southampton, he wrote the anthem of his generation, which featured the nihilistic line "Hope I die 'fore I get old."
But he didn't. Keith Moon and John Lennon and others did, becoming permanent youthful icons. At 31, Townshend suffered permanent hearing loss during a concert at Charlton Football Ground. At 35 he nearly died of a drug overdose at the Club For Heroes. At 38 he dissolved The Who and became an employee of the publishers Faber & Faber. Did he become a man of letters? Not really. Eventually he went back out on the road, as all rock stars do. Is that Townshend I sometimes see pitching Time Life Rock 'N Roll collections on late night TV? When you live that long and play that hard it becomes harder to surprise people.
Rock stars are my favorite subcategory in A Book of Ages. Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Lennon and McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Pete Townshend are our Keats and Shelley and Byron. Doing outrageous things, but somehow managing to remain poetic, funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting.
Rock stars are interesting to chronicle because their lives are one long battle against age. Loud Peter Pans who refuse to outgrow tight pants, criminals who write poetry, travel armed with guitars and banned substances.
Townshend broke his first guitar in concert at age 19. It was an accident, but the crowd loved it, so he made it part of the act. On his twentieth birthday, on a train between London and Southampton, he wrote the anthem of his generation, which featured the nihilistic line "Hope I die 'fore I get old."
But he didn't. Keith Moon and John Lennon and others did, becoming permanent youthful icons. At 31, Townshend suffered permanent hearing loss during a concert at Charlton Football Ground. At 35 he nearly died of a drug overdose at the Club For Heroes. At 38 he dissolved The Who and became an employee of the publishers Faber & Faber. Did he become a man of letters? Not really. Eventually he went back out on the road, as all rock stars do. Is that Townshend I sometimes see pitching Time Life Rock 'N Roll collections on late night TV? When you live that long and play that hard it becomes harder to surprise people.
Rock stars are my favorite subcategory in A Book of Ages. Eric Clapton, Kurt Cobain, Lennon and McCartney, Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Pete Townshend are our Keats and Shelley and Byron. Doing outrageous things, but somehow managing to remain poetic, funny, sometimes tragic, always interesting.
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