We’ve suffered through a couple too many “first person” columns lately, so here’s one that’s all about music.
The remaining members of the Stones (RIP Charlie) are planning a world tour next year that’ll include Melbourne, Paris, New York, and Rio de Janeiro. Considering that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are in their 80s, I would buy refundable tickets.
It would make sense to write an appreciation of the Stones, a band I truly love, before writing about bands they inspired, but this column doesn’t work that way.
VARIOUS ARTISTS from the NUGGETS COMPILATION: Let’s start right off by cheating. The vast majority of bands inspired by the Rolling Stones never cut an album, let alone one good enough to sit alongside anything in the Stones’ catalog. But more than the Beatles, more than the Kinks, and more than the Who, the Rolling Stones inspired teenage nobodies with barely-there talent to pick up a guitar, drum stick, or microphone and try their hand at being the next Rolling Stones. Occasionally, it worked. The best of these bands made Stonesy-sounding singles like the Remains’ “Don’t Look Back,” The Sonics’ “Strychnine,” and Count Five’s “Psychotic Reaction” that stand alongside “Time is on my Side,” “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and “Off of my Cloud.” In the 1960s, the British invaded America, and the Stones turned their kids into partisans.
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS’ GILDED PALACE OF SIN (1969): Here’s an album that influenced the Stones as much (if not more) that the Stones influenced it. In the late ‘60s, Richards and then-Byrd Graham Parsons discovered they had the same interest in American country music (and booze and cocaine). The rock and roll Richards gave the county boy Parsons a crack at recording the Stones’ first country song that wasn’t a pastiche, “Wild Horses,” and Parsons gave Richards the permission to wear a Nudie suit.
THE FLAMIN’ GROOVIES’ TEENAGE HEAD (1971): Jagger noted the similarities between this group of San Francisco whites doing their version of black blues and rock and the Stones’ own Sticky Fingers. You probably haven’t heard of this album because unlike Sticky Fingers, it doesn’t have a dick on the cover. Dig “High Flyin’ Baby”‘s tasty slide, the Robert Johnson cover, and the title track, whose angry protagonist will “mess you up for fun,” even though he’s dating a “teenage love machine.” Let’s be honest, the chances of the title not being a double entendre were next to nil.
FACES’ A NOD IS AS GOOD AS A WINK…TO A BLIND HORSE (1971): This one’s a layup because it already features then-future Stone guitarist Ron Wood. Like the Stones, Faces can get greasy (“Miss Judy’s Farm”), soulful (“Love Lives Here”), and cover Chuck Berry (“Memphis”). They also write their own proto-”Start Me Up” with “Stay With Me.” Oh, and singer Rod Stewart (yeah, that one) seems just as likely to fuck you as Mick, but more likely to go down on you first.
THE NEW YORK DOLLS’ NEW YORK DOLLS (1973): While Jagger often donned makeup and Richards his girlfriends’ clothing, they never went full femme. Meanwhile, the Dolls did so in six inch heels. Singer David Johansen had Mick’s chopped cadence and wide flappy lips, and guitarist Johnny Thunders had Keef’s taste for Chuck Berry riffs and opiates. Honestly, the Dolls are the only band on this list cooler than the Stones.
AEROSMITH’S TOYS IN THE ATTIC (1975): The funny thing about Aerosmith is that musically they’re more sophisticated that the Stones, but lyrically they’re much less. The Stones would never write an interlocking riff as complex as “Walk This Way,” but they would also never tell a woman to suck on their “big 10-inch…record.” Also, their singer and guitarist looked like someone left Mick and Keef in the microwave too long. Aerosmith wrote ten great songs and three of them are on this record.
THE GUN CLUB’S FIRE OF LOVE (1981): If the Stones reached back to pull the Chicago blues into the rock & roll ‘60s, the Gun Club reached back further to drag the Delta blues into the post-punk ‘80s. Jagger may have had “sympathy” for the Devil, but Jeffrey Lee Pierce might’ve actually been the Devil. Also, both bands loved an open guitar tuning.
THE REPLACEMENTS’ LET IT BE (1984): It hurts my Boomer-identifying soul that indie, alternative, and grunge, in general, don’t give a shit about the Stones. And it hurts my Gen-X-identifying soul that those genres don’t give a shit about The Replacements either. If Mick and Keef actually grew up like the Replacements, they might’ve been the Replacements. If the Replacements actually grew up like Mick and Keef, they might’ve gotten real jobs. Some people make rock and roll because they can, others because they need to.
THE ROLLING STONES’ STEEL WHEELS: I’m being a smart ass, but this is the first album where the Stones set out to make a “Stones” record instead of a pop record. In the three years between 1986’s very 1986-sounding Dirty Work and 1989’s Steel Wheels, Mick and Keith fell out with each other, and released solo albums. Mick made the poppy Primitive Cool and Keith the rootsy Talk is Cheap. Critics largely trashed Mick’s album the lapped up Keith’s. The Stones regrouped for Steel Wheels and never tried to be a pop band ever again. At the time, Steel Wheels’ music would’ve been pejoratively called “retro rock.” Now all rock is “retro rock” and we aren’t so precious about originality.
THE BLACK CROWES’ SOUTHERN HARMONY AND MUSICAL COMPANION (1992): Actually, naw, this one doesn’t deserve to be on the list. All the criticism about retro rock can be applied to the Black Crowes: they lack originality, edge, balls. Even in their self-homage phase, the Stones still wrote their fastest ever song (“Flip the Switch”) and called the sitting US president a “piece of shit” (“Sweet Neo Con”). Meanwhile every BC song feels like it goes on for 23 minutes and has lyrics aimed at winning over the dumbest waitress in the bar. At least they got a few pussy hairs on one of their album covers.
THE JON SPENCER BLUES EXPLOSION’S EXTRA WIDTH (1993): Jon Spencer covered the entirety of Exile of Main St. with Pussy Galore, a band that was reportedly so sexy and cool that they didn’t have to make music even vaguely listenable to be feted by the NYC tastemakers. For those who like their music to sound like music, I recommend his follow-up band’s Extra Width. Like the Stones, Spencer ran afoul of culture critics for bastardizing black music. I get it, but think this mixed race bastard is a child of love.
WILCO’S BEING THERE (1996): In the decade of irony, Wilco released a Stonesy-sounding album much more earnest than anything the Stones ever released. With the exception of maybe the Who, I don’t think any ‘60s rock band was as self-conscious about being a rock band as the Rolling Stones. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons they were never fully adopted by indie rock; they were already in on the joke. Well, Jeff Tweedy and Co. never thought of rock and roll as a joke, and the twin rhythm guitar attack here on “Monday” and “Outtasite” feels cribbed from the Stones at their early ‘70s height.
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS’ BRIGHTER THAN CREATION’S DARK: Has any band, including the Stones, made a more Stonesy-sounding song than “3 Dimes Down” in the 21st century? The guitars are a little fuzzier and the singer’s voice is a little twangier, but squint and you’ll see “the Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World” looking back at you. It’s amazing that for a band responsible for roughing up rock & roll, their most widespread impact on modern music is roughing up country.
