comment #1

Mgmax says ...

Great, now Scorsese's remaking Ralph Bakshi's American Pop.

comment #2

craiged says ...

The story is by Mick Jagger so it sounds a lot like a thinly vailed Rolling Stones Bio-pic

comment #3

Reedyb says ...

Maybe they could play the movie backward and end when the music is good.

comment #4

caslab says ...

Mgmax, I was about to say the same thing.

Once was so much more than enough.

comment #5

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Reedyb: That's actually a brilliant idea. Like "Betrayal" but in an epic form a la "Benjamin Button." That's really good.

comment #6

erniesouchak says ...

Uh oh. I'm envisioning lots of migrating facial hair and bad wigs.

comment #7

Larry says ...

So what? There's no way it could be worse than The Departed.

comment #8

Chris Molanphy says ...

Two friends getting older, grayer and fatter as the years roll on and the music gets shittier?

CAREFUL, old man. Remember who's predominantly reading your blog. Hint: not all Boomers. Not even majority Boomers, I'll bet. Nothing pisses off us born-in-the-'70s types (or '80s, etc.) like rockist Boomer hegemony. Just...watch it.

comment #9

Breedlove says ...

I saw this on AICN but it's not really news. This Scorcese/Mick Jagger project was announced a couple of years ago with Jude Law supposedly playing a Jagger-esque character.

comment #10

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Molanphy: My attitude is all about "what's next" and "where's the shit? I own no real estate. I believe in constantly challenging or questioning status quo whatevers. I relate more to GenXers and GenYers than I do to boomers, for the most part. I always like to turn the volume up to 8 or 9. I swear by The Who. My hair is 95% dark. I have no bald spots or pot guts, and I have no turkey neck. If I never again watch a football game on ESPN I'll be totally fine. I ride a fairly cool-looking motorcycle around town. If a dirty bomb were to hit this town I'd roll with it while 95% of the twenty- and thirty-somethings would be squealing and hyperventilating and worrying about their dry cleaning.

comment #11

jeffmcm says ...

The above is the funniest thing I've read all day.

comment #12

Joe Leydon says ...

Jeff, you are so cool, when sheep sleep, they dream of you.

comment #13

Geoff says ...

Jeff, baby, you're money.

comment #14

cjKennedy says ...

You tell 'em, daddy-o.

comment #15

T. S. Idiot says ...

I demand photographic evidence of the Wild One in action.

Wells to T.S. Idiot:
here it is -- a German guy on the way back to Dusseldorf sold it to me for next to nothing.

comment #16

Breedlove says ...

Amazing rant, Jeff. I second the motion for pictures of you on your bike. Will you be checking out 'Wild Hogs' on Friday?

comment #17

CambridgeCat says ...

Jeff,

Listen to Mos Def's Black on Both Sides twice and call me in the morning.

comment #18

The Bandsaw Vigilante says ...

It's too bad Jeff doesn't like DIE ANOTHER DAY.

DIE ANOTHER DAY is a cinematic tour-de-force that is so fucking cool, most theaters were unable to show the movie because the film instantly vaporized any projector that dared try to show it.

comment #19

MAGGA says ...

For christs fucking sake, Jeff. Everything was better in the past in your mind. As long as we have Sonic Youth and Apex Twin you can keep The Who as far as I am concerned.
P.S. Yawn

comment #20

DarthCorleone says ...

Right on, Jeff. I love that little manifesto. I like to think I would roll with the dirty bomb (god forbid) as well.

comment #21

rocco says ...

'The Who'? That's almost as precalculated as 'Casablanca'...people who mention 'The Who' are either too macho to say 'The Beatles' or too contrarian to say 'The Stones.'

I love 'The Who'...I think Pete Townshend is one of the more underappreciated song writers of the era, but fuck, he doesn't even rate when you're talking Lennon-McCartney or Jagger-Richards, despite the latter being a soul-less, commercial tandem who were grateful for Lennon's scraps (literally).

If you're gonna hang yourself out there, at least say 'Yes,' 'Electric Light Orchestra,' 'Frank Zappa,' or even someone relatively recent like 'Morrissey'...give people a chance to lampoon your taste, don't give us something as tame and vanilla as 'The Who'.

Well, at least you didn't say 'The Dead'...

comment #22

The Movie Man says ...

Jeff, you have to know your gonna get some shit for that response, nothings less cool than proclaiming how cool you are, but I'll leave that for the wittier commenters. On topic, I think this particular film could really be something in Scorsese's hands. That said, I think we'll be seeing this the same week we're seeing INDY 4 and INGLORIOUS BASTARDS.

comment #23

Geoff says ...

Keith Moon fucking ownz.

comment #24

MrThompson says ...

Frank Zappa was way too fucking cool for Jeff. The man went from writing great rock songs to serialist classical music a la Boulez. That's the sort of "fuck you" to the establishment other rock stars could only dream of.

comment #25

Joe Leydon says ...

West Coasters: Watch "Law & Order: Criminal Intent" tonight (Tuesday). They're riffing on -- believe it or not -- D.O.A.

comment #26

jjgittes says ...

Not that he needs my defending, but Pete Townsend ranks quite well with Lennon-McCartney and Jagger-Richards thank you very damn much. I may prefer the Beatles and Stones (I ain't telling) but ......

If you really think about it, Townsend was the first to articulate a comprehensive view of what being a teenager (and by extension an adult then, no?) really was rather than some vague, romanticized impression of it.

The Who singles of the 60s rank with anyones work - and it's because of what he was writing about :

Self abuse in "Pictures of Lily" (I'd say that's much more real world than wanting to hold a girls hand), gender confusion in "I'm a Boy", self loathing in "Substitute" and sneering macho aggression in.....well a whole bunch of tunes.

He invented that stuff.

Oh and the Rolling Stones "being grateful for Lennon's scraps" and being "soul-less" borders on blasphemy.

comment #27

Arran says ...

CambridgeCat: "Listen to Mos Def's Black on Both Sides twice and call me in the morning."

Hell yeah. Chase it with Be by Common and Things Fall Apart by The Roots.

Jeff just reminded my of Simon Pegg's character in an episode of Black Books: "You look at me you say hey...he's a cool guy. He rides a scooter and listens to the Stereophonics."

comment #28

Aladdin Sane says ...

Jeff, you're old. The fact that you have to justify your coolness proves it.

I'm not cool and I'm only 25. But I can roll with Mos.

comment #29

Joe Leydon says ...

By the way, Jeff: Didn't The Who sing "Hope I die before I get old"?

comment #30

rocco says ...

jj...I agree about Townshend, I originally said he's under-rated, or at least under-appreciated, but come on, his talent is, how do i say, limited. There are certainly a handful of songs I would list as greats of all-time, but the scope of greatness is limited to that handful. At his peak Townshend might have rivaled the best, but I'd liken him to a sprinter moreso than a long-distance runner. I never saw them in concert, hell I wasn't even born, so I can't speak to their onstage greatness, which is perhaps their most lasting legacy...

As for Jagger slopping up Lennon's scraps, it's not a matter of opinion so much as a matter of record. "I Wanna Be Your Man" was one of the Stones' first hits, and it was a song that Lennon deemed unworthy of even his own early-Beatles bubblegum triteness. I thought it was fairly well known that Jagger discovering this fact led to a rift between the two that lasted for quite some time.

The Stones' lack of soul relates to the application of their music...smoky bars that smell like stale beer...and somehow I feel like this never bothered Jagger, making me question his artistic sincerity...like Jeff's Chris Rock riff, I can't imagine the Stones focusing on anything more than putting out the most commercially viable rock & roll...masters of it they may have been, but groundbreaking artists? That title is better suited for people like Dylan, Wilson, Lennon, Townshend...

comment #31

jjgittes says ...

I'd agree with most of that.

The "I Wanna Be Your Man" stuff is undeniable, I'd just say the Stones eventually moved on to create their own Art.

I think their great album run from '68-'72 is them really carving out their own niche - I don't think of it as groundbreaking so much as I think of it as definitive.

comment #32

cjKennedy says ...

I Wanna Be Your Man was what...1963? The Stones appeared to take longer to blossom as songwriters because they were making albums almost as soon as they formed to capitalize on the success that...yes the Beatles...had created. The Beatles had much touring and playing as a unit before the general population became aware of them. They seemed almost to spring upon the scene fully formed. By the mid-60's the Stones were cranking out stuff that in its own way is as good as anything the Beatles were doing. Their run from 1968 to 1972 is unparalleled. It's no coincidence they truly came into their own after The Beatles began to fade, but there you go.

I love The Beatles. I love The Who. I love The Kinks. I love The Stones more but only because of their stronger blues base and their swagger and sense of danger. Musically The Beatles are the most technically accomplished, but sometimes Rock and Roll is as much about attitude as anything else. My mom could tolerate The Beatles, but she hated the Stones and that was what was great about them. The Stones have become corporate charicatures of themselves in the last 25 years, but if this is their payback for the 10 to 15 years they truly mattered, then so be it.

Oh how I ramble.

comment #33

rocco says ...

I wouldn't disagree cj, as jj put it I would agree they are "definitive." As self-indulgent as the Beatles were for much of the white album, they never approached the superficiality of the a lot of the Stones stuff. Agree '68+ produced some fantastic, listenable Stones tracks (and albums), but it was always an enterprise to them, and that knocks them down a peg, in my opinion. Sure, the knock on the Beatles is that they were purely studio musicians, but...oh whaever, I love all of that music too...I think we all agree, despite our academic differences here, that there's plenty of great shit for all of us to enjoy. But I still say defining yourself by 'The Who' is a bitch move.

comment #34

cjKennedy says ...

Mick has definitely been all about the enterprise, though I'd argue that for Keith and for Brian Jones, the music came first.

Still, you're right. It's a little like arguing whether a blow job is better than a handy (it is, but that's beside the point).

I do wish The Kinks were talked about in this country more. Their very very early stuff is even spottier than The Stones, but once they got on a roll, they were amazing.