I’m surprised Scorsese’s mother didn’t have a scene in which she cooked meatballs for Spooky Violin Lady; that’s how wasteful Martin Scorsese was with the time he had for Rolling Trucker Bob Thing. Two hours! The man had two hours–give or take–to tell the story of one of the greatest rockyroll tours of all time, or at least of 1975, and he squandered it on fooferall and squiddly-doo. Perhaps that’s what being a success is: No one will tell you to cut Sharon Stone.
MICK FUCKIN’ RONSON. At least Spooky got a couple lines, but Mick Ronson didn’t even get introduced. MICK FUCKIN’ RONSON! Allow me to catch you up, if you’re unfamiliar.
First, Mick Ronson was the best guitarist David Bowie ever played with (and I am including Stevie Ray Vaughn, thank you). This is the two of ’em, along with the rest of the Spiders, doing Moonage Daydream at the legendary Hammersmith Odeon:
Sure, TotD, that was pretty gnarly. But they were onstage. Anyone can be cool onstage. And so I shout HOW DARE YOU? and I spit on your children. Phlegmy spit, too, not just saliva. Colorful and sticky. Now your children are crying and your wife wants to fight me. Is this how you planned on the interaction going? I bet it wasn’t. Stop questioning me, goddammit.
Because, yes, Mick Ronson was also cool offstage.
Boy, howdy.
(It should noted that both men are properly wielding their cutlery, which sets them apart from most of their peers. None of The Kinks knew how to use a fork. Further, it should also be noted that someone has given David Bowie a medal.)
“Mick, I love you very much.”
“Thank you, David.”
“And to prove it, I’m going to completely ghost you after this tour. Won’t hear from me for decades.”
“But…why?”
“It’s something singers do. And movie stars. Men who get called ‘genius’ a lot, basically. We all do this to our creative collaborators.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sure you’ll catch on with a talented artist who’s pleasant to be around and deal with financially.”
NOPE!
It’s Lou Reed, everybody.
(Oddly, Mick seems to have regressed vis-a-vis flatware, and his handling thereof.”
Before Bowie dumped Mick Ronson, the two of them wrote Lou Reed an album. Ever wonder why Transformer was so excellent, and all Lou’s other records so numbingly mediocre? It’s because Bowie and Ronson wrote and arranged the songs, and then Lou came in and poetried over the top of them. You really thought Lou came up with Perfect Day?
Lou Reed doesn’t know that many chords.
We may assume that Lou punched Mick Ronson in the head several times, made at least two fumbling passes at him, viciously mocked his Mormonism, and then ran to a telephone to tell Lester Bangs what a bad boy he’d just been.
(Mick Ronson was a Mormon, which I did not think was an option available to a Yorkshireman born in 1946. The North of England was unbelievably distant from Utah in 1946, but Jesus finds a way, even when He’s weird, knock-off Mormon Jesus.)
Having had his fill of psychopathic Americans, Mick Ronson then partnered up with Ian Hunter, who wrote dark, funny songs that were forever fretting about the state of rockyroll. In addition, Ian Hunter wore splendid trousers:
Splendid. And they looked like this together:
Which is splendid, too.
The two men, Ian and Mick, became fast friends and palled about doing Rock Star stuff. Writing tunes, and conspicuous anal, and getting a place in New York. (“Getting a place in New York” is a classic Rock Star move. Garcia and Bobby shared one with Clarence Clemons in the ’80’s. True story.) One evening, the Brits met Bob Dylan at the Bitter End. Due to the loudness of the crowd, and Bob Dylan’s insistence on mumbling through his nostrils, neither man understood a word. They nodded politely, lifted their eyebrows in agreement, added the occasional “Go on.” Bob talked for a while, then left.
“Fuck was all that, then?”
“Not a clue.”
The next morning, a van arrived at the pad. Ian had scored with a fox, and had not come home. Mick Ronson was by himself. The man who had driven the van to the pad knocked on the door. BAPba bap. Friendly knock, but professional. Mick Ronson is wearing only his shorts when he opens the door.
“‘Ello.”
“Come on, Mick. Grab your guitar.”
“Wot now?”
“Let’s go. Please.”
Mick Ronson didn’t want to cause a fuss, so he got his guitar and asked for permission to put on his pants and put on his pants and then he got in the van. The first show was in Massachusetts, and it was cold. All Mick Ronson had was a frilly shirt and tight dungarees, so he was cold. He wondered if he should bring it up with Bob, but decided not to. After the show, the man who drove the van came for him, and said,
“We’ll be back in the van now.”
“Ah. Yeah? Ah, no. Maybe not. I’d quite prefer, if you wouldn’t mind–”
“We’ll be back in the van now, please.”
“Oh, all right.”
That night and into the next day, the man drove the van in great looping circles around New England. The radio would pick up the French stations from across the border, and then dying into Massachusetts. We are always, Mick Ronson thought to himself, dying into Massachusetts. Time came for sound check, and the van approached the venue. The show. The van again. This continues throughout November.
Mick Ronson accepts this life now; no one will speak to him for fear of joining him in the van. The per diem is left in an envelope in the van. He does not know who leaves it there. The amount varies, and occasionally is not money but a medium-sized scorpion. Mick Ronson fears Spooky Violin Lady. He has seen her bite several back-up singers’ auras off; she is surely a psychic dracula.
The second week of December, the van is driven by the man to New York City. The show is at Madison Square Garden. Mick Ronson engages in full-on psionic war with Spooky for the entire set, abetted greatly by his bold but successful choice of Double Denim:
She collapsed, spent. [NOT PICTURED]
After the drums and backline had been struck, Mick Ronson stood, waited, guitar in hand, This was when the man came by, brought him to the van. Have arrangements changed? Mick Ronson looked for the man backstage for quite a while, and then went outside and searched the streets for the van. There were many double-parked on both sides of 39th Street, but none were his van. It was getting late, and Mick Ronson was tired, and so he walked south a couple miles to the pad he shared with Ian Hunter.
He was home.
“Oi, Ronno.”
“‘ello, Ian.”
“Where ya been, son?”
“On tour wit’ Bob Dylan.”
“Were ya now?”
And that’s the story of Mick Ronson’s time in the Rolling Thunder band.
Stop that.
You’re right. Mick Ronson deserves more respect than that. Listen to him on Hard Rain:
The solo’s at 3:00 in, but that’s not Mick Ronson’s brilliance: check out the tiny fills and doodlings he shoots all over the rhythm section. It’s an ejaculatory style of musicianship, and it’s rather disrespectful towards poetry. The sound is Marshall Stacky and phases, and mixed far too loud; Mick Ronson’s Les Paul and Spooky Violin Women’s spooky violin were the band’s voice.
Listen to this. It’s Isis. You know the song. Put on your headphones and listen.
Mick Ronson is on the left, and Spooky is on the right, and you can go and tear down the Rockyroll Hall of Fame, because that’s it right there. That was the sound everyone else was going for. Those shaggy boys and languid girls, they got it right that tour, and on the next one–arenas down south in 1976–and then never again because Bob fired everyone in the band and never spoke to them again. Geniuses do that sort of thing. Our hero, having lived through a similar firing, recovered quickly. It also helped that–over the course of two separate tours–he and Bob had never had an actual conversation
Back to his pal Ian, and to England, where they had a Top 20 hit with Once Bitten, Twice Shy and continued having great hair and enjoying themselves. Mick Ronson also produced. Did Jack & Diane for that roustabout Mellencamp. “Feisty young man,” he would later say about the small Indianan.
Mick Ronson produced this song, and Ellen Foley gives us hope:
(AN ASIDE: There’s a whole story going on with Ellen Foley. There is intrigue and trauma and machination in that story. I say we crowdfund an Ellen Foley documentary.)
For most of the 80’s, Mick Ronson putzes around the music business. Writing, producing, playing, whatever he can add. Give the man the nod, and he’ll do his thing. Last public performance was with his mate Ian Hunter at the tribute they threw for Freddie in 1992. First gig was in Brough Village Hall; last was at Wembley Stadium. The next year, liver cancer. 46 years old.
The extended canard about Bob ripping off KISS’ makeup a semi-underage Sharon Stone deserved to be in the film; more music would have simply gotten in the way of the improv. In fact, goddammit, I think there was too much Bob Dylan AND too much music in my Bob Dylan music documentary! More extended takes of Bob trying to explain baseball to an Italian journalist, or Ramblin’ Jack singin’ Commie work songs! But whatever you do–NO MATTER WHAT–don’t show me Bob and his band playing his music. That’s not what we’re here for!
Dude, what the fuck?
I’m being contrarian.
Not on my watch, which is strapped around my cock-and-balls.
Why?
Pleasure and punctuality..
Sure. I love the semi-fictional insertions to the narrative.
Ugh.
And you know who else did?
Ah, shit.
AH LOVED EV’RY SECOND OF IT!
“AH’M A COP, NOW.”
This will end poorly.
“IT STARTED PRETTY DANG BAD, TOO! AH SHOT THREE PEOPLE, BUT TWO OF ‘EM WAS IN TH’ MEMPHIS MAFIA, SO IT DIN’T COUNT. AH ALSO BOTCHED A HOSTAGE SITUATION.”
“There was a hostage sitaution?”
“AH TOL’ CHARLIE HODGE T’ GO AN’ KIDNAP SOMEBODY SO AH COULD STEP IN AN’ BE TH’ HERO LIKE IN TH’ COMIC BOOK.”
How did that go?
“CHARLIE WAS BEATEN SEVERELY! HE PICKED HISSELF A REAL HOSS OF A TARGET. A STURDY WOMAN, TWO BILLS EASY. EASY TWO BILLS. THAT DUMB LI’L NUGGET JUS’ ABOUT BOUNCED OFFA HER. LOOKED LIKE A RACCOON RUNNIN’ INTO A MOOSE. LADY BARELY FELT IT, MAN.”
You should have played with Mick Ronson.
“SEND HIM TO MY DOJO.”
Sure.
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