Now, having suckled on the teat of rock through the late 60s onwards I was struck by how rare it is to hear of rock star bad behaviour nowadays.
No-one drives Rollers into swimming pools, throws TVs out of hotel bedroom windows or employs fish for ‘recreational’ purposes any more it seems and even if they still do, the Press seems to prefer writing stories about losers like Amy Winehouse or Pete Docherty sticking chemicals up their noses.
Druggies are boring – unless they do interesting things – and the two I’ve mentioned above just seem to take drugs and indulge in ASBOesque behaviour.
Meh…
And although fighting still goes on in bands, the great days of a band member getting twatted with a cymbal and then needing hospitalisation – as in the Kinks – and other notable masters of the band ruck, such as the Stones and the Who, seem to be over.
A bit hard to throw a well-aimed but coke-fuelled punch when you’re ‘brown bread’ admittedly, as in the case of some members of the Who, but where’s the motherfucking spirit gone, eh?
Go on, Corpse Boy! Hit him!
No, as B&D point out, you have to look back through the anals (sic) of history to find rock’s real bad boys.
I still think this chap takes some beating:
Yes, it’s Keef – Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones.
Once dubbed ‘the World’s Most Elegantly-Wasted Human Being’, he’s defied everything to survive to play today.
What he hasn’t ingested in the name of getting totally fucking ripped off his tits isn’t worth mentioning…
It’s alleged that he once took a contract out on the people who stole some of his guitars – although he’s been known to pack a gun himself…
He’s destroyed countless hotel bedrooms and their contents…
He’s had a fistfight with Chuck Berry – who used to be a bit handy himself…
He’s managed to stay out of gaol many times for various offences involving gun possession and drugs…
He’s packed more into his life than most fucking countries do in a whole cunting century…
This guy should not be alive.
But he fucking is!
Someone – I think it was Bill Hicks – once said that if we ever have total global nuclear Armageddon then the only animal life left alive to enjoy the aftermath will be cockroaches and Keef.
OK, so some people think he’s a bit of a dinosaur and a joke and maybe a tad past his sell-by date.
So fucking what?
He’s had cracking on for 50 years making a fortune out of what he loves to do, travelled the world several times over, taken all manner of drugs and enjoyed the experience and survived, made the acquaintance of some of the finest minds of the 20th and 21st centuries and is still alive and making music.
When you ask people who Keef is, most people will tell you he’s ‘the guitarist in the Rolling Stones’ and that’s it.
Well, there’s a bit more to the guy than that.
He’s co-composer with Mick Jagger of many of the finest rock and pop songs ever written and he’s also a very fine singer and guitarist.
Admittedly he’s a bit ragged live onstage in both those departments but I have a few ‘unofficial’ recordings that reveal he has a fine voice – especially suited to ‘alt.country’ type material – and exceptional skill and flair as a guitarist – particularly when it comes to the blues.
He’s one of the very few players to really nail the seminal and virtuoso style of Robert Johnson and although it’s not easy to find examples of Keef playing in this style this exists:
As a guitarist myself I can categorically state that playing this shit is not at all easy.
The lick at about 19 seconds in is sheer perfection.
Keef can also use a guitar – as you can see, a Tele does very nicely for this – to clear the stage of unwanted cunts:
Rock stars today?
Bunch of precious, pantywaist, poncey, prancing prats.
Hundreds and Thousands (on the trifle of life) 