The Stones or the stoned?
Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To
The Stones or the stoned?
Oh, no.
THOUGHTS ON THE STONES, MOTHERFUCKER.
We already did Thoughts on the Rolling Stones.
Hey, man, blame Jesse Jarnow.
I always do.
Best Stones tune. You can disagree, but then I’ll brand you like you were in a sex cult. The wire hanger’s smoldering in the toaster oven. Try me.
Please take the hanger out of the toaster.
I NEED MY BRANDING TOOLS.
Just continue.
Enthusiasts, you may be wondering how the decision was reached, so I will share the rubric for BST with you:
None of that real early shit Earliest you can go with the Stones is 1967. Before that, there was too much Brian Jones. (WARNING: Rock Nerds will often champion Brian Jones as the true talent behind the Stones. When this happens to you, strike the RN on the muzzle with a rolled-up newspaper and say in a stern voice, “NO!”)
Obviously no Ron Wood stuff Don’t get TotD wrong: everyone loves Woody. The man’s a mate. Always good for a piss-up. Friendliest bloke in rock and roll; give you the pirate’s blouse off his back, Woody would. But the fact remains that his joining the group was the moment the Stones turned into their own tribute act.
So we’ve narrowed our window of possibility from fifty years’ worth of songs to six.
Can’t be a Keith tune Duh.
Wha? Huh? An axiom: You’re not supposed to understand every word. If you do, the song is by definition not the Best EVAR Rolling Stones tune. As a lyricist, Mick works best in jabs: shiny diamond phrases about fevers in funkhouses poking out from the slushy, mushy fake drawl he affects for most of the Stone’s songbook. This means the over-enunciated Sympathy for the Devil is out.
Is this my drummer? Sympathy is also out for the same reason You Can’t Always Get What You Want is out: Charlie Watts doesn’t play on it. (Jimmy Miller, the producer also responsible for the cowbell hits in Honky Tonk Women, filled in when Charlie couldn’t quite figure out the groove.) No Charlie, no Best EVAR.
The thing at the end Y’know the thing where the drums kick in? It’s gotta do that.
This leaves Salt of the Earth off Beggar’s Banquet, and Let it Bleed, but SOTE is out because…
The Rolling Stones’ Best EVAR song shouldn’t be about the maladies of the working-class It needs to be about sex. Or drugs. If I wanted to hear about poor people, I’d listen to Billy Bragg.
We have successfully whittled: Let It Bleed wins the day.
Or maybe Bitch. The horns on that shit give me a Rock Boner.
I feel like getting drunk and listening to the Stones; not gonna.
I don’t do a lot of things I feel like doing anymore.
For the best, they tell me.
Alabam’ don’t give a damn.
Virginia, you slut.
Let’s be honest about the subtext of Desert Trip, Enthusiasts, also known as Oldchella: See ’em before they die! These are some creaky-ass white men with guitars, and there are malignancies growing within them; the elasticity has dripped from their skin, and their forearms hang and sway. 2016 is outside with a machete and a hard-on, and literally any rock star could be taken at any moment.
This way to the egress, suckers.
I’m sure I’ll talk about it some more, especially if it’s streamed. (My guess is that, like Coachella or Lockn’, they’ll announce a stream two days before.) I have very little personal or musical interest: as I mentioned, I saw the Stones and Floyd two decades ago, and they’re still doing the exact same shows; the interesting musicians in The Who are dead; I’m allergic to Paul McCartney. Neil Young will be performing, and I get yelled at when I discuss my feelings about him, so I’ll just note that Neil Young is performing. Bob Dylan will also be making that noise he makes.
“HHHHEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHHeeeeeeeehhhhh.”
Or singing torch songs, or maybe he’s rearranged all his old tunes for an oompah band: something irritating like that.
But the bullshit, Enthusiasts? Oh, will I be paying attention to the bullshit and there is so much; you can luxuriate in it. Now, Oldchella is out in Indio, CA, which is on the edge of the desert, halfway to Barstow. It’s not near anything, so you have to travel there and stay there for the weekend, and the amenities being offered are varied in price and comfort.
TotD has spies everywhere, though, and one of the Haight Street Irregulars has passed along this information about the ultra-high end lodging package, which is not available to the public due to the clientele’s need for discretion. I mean, you could stay in this shitty place…

…if you were some sort of scum person, or C.H.U.D., or Dickensian orphan; people of means–decent people–need something a little more upscale, which is why Desert Trip offers the Praetor’s Suite Experience®.
Have your social secretary call for pricing about the package, which includes:
For a small additional fee, guests can make Paul McCartney watch them eat a bacon cheeseburger.
Joe’s got a cough, sounds kind a rough,
Yeah, and the codeine to fix it.
Doctor prescribes, drug store supplies,
Who’s gonna help him to kick it
Mick Jagger doesn’t get enough credit as a lyricist. There’s some gold in those mumblings. (And don’t overlook Mick Taylor on the slide guitar.)

A lot of bands took silly drag photos, but the Dead’s turned out poorly.
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