After a couple of drug-bust-heavy years off the road, the Rolling Stones were at a few turning points as of July 5, 1969. Their back-to-basics Beggars Banquet album signaled the end of the rainbow dream of Their Satanic Majesties Request, and a return to a therapeutic blues mode that would last them long into the ‘70s. Most importantly, guitarist Mick Taylor of John Mayall’s Blues Breakers had replaced a drug-soaked Brian Jones, and Jones had been found drowned in the pool of his Sussex home two days before their previously booked free performance in Hyde Park. The Stones decide to go on with the show. As shown below, Britain’s leading independent Granada Television was there.

Granada put the biggest rock concert in England’s history to that point (250,000 people, with Woodstock planned for a month later) into context by chatting with the band, the fans and members of the amazingly efficient Kent chapter of the Hells Angels. Unfortunately, the Stones’ next huge concert would demonstrate that the Kent Angels neglected to exchange notes with their West Coast brothers about how to best secure a large crowd…
 
Please note: Live Video seemed to be the only free video site that’s hosting the full documentary. Unfortunately, the user experience after the jump is less than optimal—the video just starts and buffers a lot. It seems best to just pause the screen and let it load before playing. Please remember that it’s free, and that for best results you can buy the DVD by clicking the link below.
 
Get: The Stones in the Park [DVD]

 
How did I manage to post this before Novicoff or Metzger ? Bet your ass I’ll be viewing this doc as soon as I’m able.

 
Bonus: My fave one-two punch from Exile

 
Today marks the first time The T.A.M.I. Show has seen a proper release since it was in theaters over 40 years ago, although bootlegs have been easy to come by since the late 80s. James Brown’s inspired performance—perhaps the finest moment of his entire career—will knock your socks off.

Filmed at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, October 29, 1964, the performers also included Chuck Berry, Gerry And The Pacemakers, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Marvin Gaye, Lesley Gore, Jan & Dean, Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas, The Supremes, The Barbarians and The Rolling Stones. The DVD, put out by the mighty Shout Factory contains restored footage of the Beach Boys performance which was cut from the theatrical release.
 

 
We haven’t had a Stones related post in days now, time to remedy that with this fantastic live (not lip-sync) performance of Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Keith Richards describes who inspired the songs cryptic lyrics

Jack Dyer, who was my gardener, an old English yokel. I once said, ‘ave you ever been to town? Town, to an Englishman, means London, right? He says, Oh Yea, I was up there when war finished. That cathedral’s something. He meant Chichester, the local big town, seven miles away…We’d been up all night and it was in the morning. Suddenly this sound of boots went by the window, clump clump clump and woke Mick up, What was that?! I looked out, that’s Jack, that’s jumpin’ Jack. Well he’s leaping about a bit. Yeah, I said, it’s “jumpin’ Jack” and then “flash” came and suddenly we were wide awake and we started to work, you know. You never know when they’re going to come.

 
First the Beatles, next up The Rolling Stones—or at least Exile On Main St.  Saw this weekend that Universal Music is giving Exile the deluxe packaging and remastering treatment for release later this year.  Well, I’m of mixed emotions not sure how I feel about this.  I do love, love immeasurably, that album’s sprawling, bluesy murk—is Exile something that can profit, really, from being cleaned up any further than it was in ‘94?  Or are there sounds in those tracks—sounds as buried as they are essential—whose magic another scrubbing might forever eradicate?

While I/we have a few months to ponder that one, here’s something delightfully raw, circa Exile: little-seen rehearsal footage of that album’s “Loving Cup.”  Similar footage has been floating around on YouTube, but this is a recent addition, with a clapboard opening and (often) excellent sound quality.

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds: You Never Give Me Your Money: Metzger on the Beatles Remasters

 

 

 
Rock archaeologists take note of this gallery of 21 never before seen photographs of the Beatles and Rolling Stones:

The behind-the-scenes, intimate and unguarded shots, have been unearthed after spending 45 years in a duffel bag of The Beatles and Rolling Stone’s former tour manager.

The collection of more than 50 pictures, which are being revealed to the public for the first time are part of 3,500 taken by Bob Bonis, the US tour manager who helped organise the so-called British invasion of America in the Swinging Sixties.

Beatles and Rolling Stones photographs: New shots of John Lennon and Mick Jagger found

Call me disputatious—or not, it’s entirely up to you—my favorite Stones album is Their Satanic Majesties Request. It’s the only one I play all the way through anymore. It sounds great as one great big, trippy chunk. It’s a great headphones album, too. Most Stones fans hate it and see it as a weak attempt to out weird the Beatles after they’d unleashed Sgt Pepper on the world, but to me, it’s just a thing of beauty, with the normal Blues-based Stones sound thrown out the door, and replaced with a colorful sonic palette the likes of which they would never return to. I’m not saying that it IS the best Stones album, I’m just saying it’s MY favorite. (My favorite Stones song, is Monkey Man, followed by Stray Cat Blues, then (Doo Doo Doo Doo) Heartbreaker, dark horses, all, I grant you. I’m also partial to Don’t Know Why I Love You, but the Glimmer Twins didn’t write that one, so it doesn’t count).

If you ask me, the Stones “demonic” phase, inaugurated, if you will, by their association with the Magus of Cinema, Kenneth Anger, was when the Stones were truly on fire. Mick was still quite into his Satan/Lucifer thing well into the Let It Bleed/Gimme Shelter era, but after Altamont, Jagger was often seen wearing a crucifix around his neck, perhaps seeking to put down all the hoodoo Age of Horus energy he’d raised? Have sympathy for the poor devil. Jagger had a current running through his body during the Sixties that killed quite a few of his contemporaries. Today, like a rock and roll Dorian Gray, he hardly looks any worse for the wear.

Here is a seldom seen pop video for 2000 Light Years From Home. It seems so heavily influenced by Kenneth Anger that I always assumed that he’d directed it, but it seems more likely to be the work of photographer Michael Cooper, who not only shot the cover for the Satanic Majesties album jacket (which was originally issued with a fantastic 3-D lenticular cover (I have one!), but Kenneth Anger’s Lucifer Rising film as well. I had a copy of this on a Japanese laser disc, comically followed by a clip of Pete Townsend in full Mod drag sternly criticizing the Stones for their then recent marijuana busts. (It’s always the bluenoses who have the really outrageous vices, isn’ it?). Other than that, I’d never seen it anywhere, but here in the YouTube era (we’re living in the YouTube era, didn’t anyone tell you this?) some kind soul has liberated it for our viewing pleasure. Take a look, it’s great:

The Rolling Stones and Satanism

As loyal Dangerous Minds readers have probably already figured out, I am both a “rock snob” and a bit of an audiophile. So it should come as no surprise when I tell you that the 09/09/09 street date of the remastered Beatles albums—in both stereo and mono—has me counting the hours until I can get my hands on them.

What you might not know if you are of a certain age (or have forgotten if you are of another!) is that the Beatles albums sounded WAY better in mono than in stereo. Both the group and George Martin preferred mono and the stereo mixes back then were often afterthoughts with severely panned stereo mixes that had most of the instruments on one side and the vocals on the other! The stereo mixes always seemed very peculiar to me.

The 1987 CDs were the pits. Just awful, flat aural experiences. And nothing’s been done to rectify that situation until now. It always been ridiculous that the Beatles and the Stones had the worst sounding CDs. A lot of people don’t rate the Stones ABKCO reissues highly, but I thought they were (mostly) done pretty well and it was nice to be able to hear that material with fresh ears. Most of us who grew up with the Beatles, Stones and Led Zeppelin probably probably don’t listen to them all that much now, because it’s so easy to conjure their music up in our “mind’s ear,” but the Love mash-up album from the Circe du Soleil show helped me get back into the Beatles again and I’m really looking forward to hearing the remasters. If I can manage to score some promo copies of these sets, I’ll offer up reviews of stereo vs. mono daily on the site.

Meanwhile, here’s a song that sadly didn’t make it to any Beatles CD ever, their uniquely comic turn—it’s very Goon Show, isn’t it?—on Rossini’s Barber of Seville Overture taken from the credits of Help!: