Keith Richards was on the BBC every night last weekend choosing programmes and chatting, yet there has been no comment on the Afterword about this. I’m amazed.
Was l the only one watching? I very much doubt it, so views please.
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I saw about half an hour of his childhood, and didn’t feel inspired to hang around for the Stones years. He was in full-on Rowley Birkin mode, muttering something about his parents having a bicycle – ‘Wheels! ha ha ha! and .. and.. pedals … Pushing pedals! Hah! Wheels going round! Pushing wheel pedals! ha ha ha…’ And so on, and so on.
It felt a bit like being stuck in front of a couple of pensioners on a long train journey, so I got off at the next stop.
I watched some of the first one. Keith kept interjecting during cartoons and old TV shows. “Ha! I LOVE Sid James” he ejaculated pointlessly during an episode of “Hancock’s Half Hour”.
Elsewhere it was the usual “Look at me, I still smoke” routine as Keith was filmed wreathed in an ever-present halo of fag smoke.
I bailed after Hancock.
Yeah, the actual Keef stuff was really annoying!
I try to like Keith but the artifice gets in the way. His entire life is just an act now. He’s acting out the myth because he thinks it’s what people want to see. And perhaps they do.
There’s not much (if anything) left of the grammar school boy from Dartford any more. Shame.
I think if Keith employed even a smidgen of self deprecation now and then (as Macca does) he would be a lot easier to warm to.
I didn’t watch the Origin of Species doc again, but I recorded The Girl Can’t Help It, and we enjoyed lots of the old music TV clips, comedy and cartoons. Captain Pugwash on a Sunday night? Yes please!
I watched most of the Friday and Sunday Keith bits – I found them rather entertaining, once you buy into his world (wreathed in smoke and cackles). I’d far rather hear Keith talking/pontificating than listen to one ghastly second of the Rolling Stones. On Sunday he talked about the band getting better, improving their performances and how it keeps him going. What?! If Keith can’t accept that it’s a hoary old cabaret and that he can barely play these days, he’s only kidding himself. The Anthony Stern programme on Sunday was fascinating (and including film of DONOVAN at Hyde Park), though I’m still at a loss as to who he is/was – a voyeur with a camera? You had to accept that it was a bloke in the 60s with a load of pretentious friends occasionally saying something, but as an impressionistic montage from the era it was mesmerising – and the soundtrack amazing.
If we’re not already doing it, I’d like to suggest that DONOVAN be capitalised at all times on the Afterword. It seems somehow fitting.
DONOVAN played the Blind Faith Hyde Park show though, not the Stones one a few weeks later.
I should add that DON invented reggae during the show with an as yet unreleased song titled Dancing With The Brown Skin Girl
Blind Faith are also in the Stern doc – footage I suspect that is different to the released BF at HP film (* sound of Johnny C running off to iPlayer*).
Methinks he doth protest too much. I am sure you love them really 😉
I saw it and realised I couldn’t face the old bugger droning on in that weird accent. He was the coolest rock star in the world in the Exile era but I prefer to remember him that way.
I, like you, was amazed that there was no apparent interest in what was quite a feat of broadcasting. Ok, Keef was the front man but the credit must go to Julien Temple who put the whole thing together. It was never dull. Loads of anecdotes, cartoons, Tony Hancock, movie selections and great musical clips of not only the Stones. It was great to see the Rock and Roll Circus clip featuring Lennon, Clapton & Keef (playing bass) again and the Hendrix stuff. There was also the short film of the car driving non-stop through the streets of Paris at dawn with the camera fixed low down at the front. All done in one take. I first saw it at The Screen On The Hill in Belsize Park sometime in the last century. Never forgotten it, though I can’t remember what the main feature was.
God knows how many fags he got through but Keef obviously had a blast making it.
Back in The Word blog days this would have been a sizeable thread. It will be interesting to see how it does here. Maybe it’s a reflection of the changing nature of this place and why I don’t feel inclined to contribute much any more.
If only you’d started a thread yourself at the time! I thought about it, but was too busy just enjoying the bits I watched, and like you assumed that someone else would start one 🙂
I didn’t even know it was on!
So the young folk are drifting cos it’s all blathering about the 60s and Atomic Rooster while the Werthersuckers grumble when the place doesn’t drop everything for a Keef thread. From what I can gather Moose and others downed tools because of nasty, bitchy threads while others have said the consensus on the Jezza thread was boooooring when they were expecting a fight…
Can we do nothing right, people?
I too had sat through the original screening of Origin of the Species, relatively hard going I recall, so it didn’t appeal, not least as the papers gave no idea as to what would be happening when, bar the screening of old films. It sounds as if, as I feared, it was 30 mins of old films followed by an hour of unintelligible burbling, artistically filmed, then some more newsreel, repeat to fade. Better stuff to do with my weekends.
That sums up my view as well.
Saw the original broadcast of the documentary and that was enough.
Not a mention of this night on the blog, outrageous – does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?
Maybe BBC4 could use a guest editor more often without the need for them to appear. Did wonder if the Keith interjections added anything to the evening.
But there was some stuff that hasn’t been seen in years so that made for some interesting programming.
I endured or recorded the whole damned thing. I felt it polite not to mention it here. I’m looking forward to watching the films, but let’s just say the rest wasn’t very enlightening. And Spike Milligan has aged worse than the Black and White Minstrels.
Yes, I fast forwarded most of Spike. great in parts – great in a documentary context – but not back to back sketches…
Watched the first 2 hr episode including Hancock and Q stuff and sterling early Stones coverage Thought it was great, need to check out more. If I could I would download so that I can watch over a long period of time. Unfortunately that’s probably illegal and I wouldn’t do that.
Did’t know it was on…have I ever said there’s too much stuff?
We watched a bit on the Friday. A little of Keith does go a long way. London the Modern Babylon is an excellent clips and montage documentary, like a punk Adam Curtis. A fair description of Julian Temple, or is Adam Curtis a trip-hop Julian Temple.
In order news Keith himself is teenager mosquito spray. Two minutes of him and they were off the sofa and upstairs with their ipads..
I’d rather watch hours of Keef burbling on than much else on TV. I too loved that Claude Lelouch film of driving through Paris at speed (the sound was of a Ferrari but the actual car driven – by Lelouch himself – was a Merc). And there were some great clips of the Stones on RSG, some of which have probably never been seen on terrestial TV since their original broadcast. Which raises the oft posed question – when are the RSG archives going to be released commercially? Aren’t they still owned by Dave Clark?
Does anybody know what that B&W band clip was, of an African-American R&B outfit circa 1965 I’d guess with a female singer and a song about the night (from memory). I recognised Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee in a cutaway shot in the same TV studio, but I’ve no idea who the featured act were. It might have helpful if Julien T had put a caption on it.
It was Little Walter with Koko Taylor I think, singing Wang Dang Doodle. And it was blinking good wasn’t it!
You might be right – I did recognise Walter in one clip (if it was that one, I’d forgotten). Who was the guitar player?
And yes, it WAS good!
Willie Dixon?
Edit: YouTube comments suggest Hound Dog Taylor on guitar, with Willie on bass, if it’s the clip I’m thinking of.
Here it is, Colin. Including the refrain “all night long”, so you weren’t going mad!
Hound Dog Taylor, according to that there internet. But there are 3 altogether, so I’ve no idea who else is playing.
Thanks Bart and Mini, that’s the track. It was mesmerising seeing it in really sharp B&W on the TV. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen/heard any of those players before (except Walter).
But what’s going on? Surely Johnny C should be here telling us what guitars are being played in the clip, and what make of harmonica it is, etc.
Well, if you insist. That’s Hound Dog Taylor on guitar in the Wang Dang Doodle clip. He was known for playing cheap-looking Japanese guitars and his trademark model was a Kawai/Teisco SD-40 which was also sold as a Kingston S4T. As you can see, it’s an El Cheapo nightmare of knobs and switches, but it became Hound Dog’s trademark.
As for Little Walter, he probably used Marine Band harmonicas. They were the popular choice in America, just like the Hohner Echo Super Vampers were in Europe.
http://i.imgur.com/daf4eL6.jpg
Am I mistaken or is it Hound Dog Taylor who has six fingers on his right hand?
I refuse to check Wikipedia, so I’ll let my ignorance stand if I’ve misremembered that.
Dipped in and out and thought it was immensely entertaining. Sure, he’s a caricature but actually I thought that beneath all the Keef cackling and nonsense there was some quite interesting stuff. Very well put together by Julian Temple, although I thought it was a bit much to old in his film about Wordsworth and Coleridge which judging for the first 15 minutes was quite dreadful. 39 Steps and Bicycle Thieves are of course peerless, and the episode of Hancock was brilliant.
Bloody annoying that it wasn’t listed properly. I came across the first Hancock by chance about 10 minutes in, and missed bits of the others as well. It’s not as if this stuff is shown very often, so PUT IT IN THE LISTINGS PROPERLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rant over.
I did enjoy the London Babylon film though.
Hic, hac, hoc!
Rinky tinky on purple grass