bus vibes #19 - Ro££ing $tone$, 1982

hello there

oh dear, sorry. if i had known, look you see, that this would be round nineteen of these bus vibes things, i would surely have at least considered, if not contemplated, the notion of having a bit of a listen to some Paul Hardcastle. if you need that explaining to you, don't, as it won't be quite so mildly amusing.

i mentioned earlier in the week, or at the end of last week, or if you like in the death throes of the month before this one, the album Tattoo You. i was, then, of a mind to hear it once more, so that's what i went with. the peculiar thing is that i was going to start reading another book, but hey ho.

i, in accordance with many others, described Tattoo You as being possibly the last truly great Stones album. that, in retrospect, is somewhat unfair on Steel Wheels, which was a record on which the band seemed to still care about making music.

it's rather well known that this album was basically ten years of outtakes and otherwise unfinished tracks hastily cobbled together for a release as Mick, for some reason, refused to go on tour unless there was a record out at the same time. strange, as the concert album released of the tour, Still Life, is one of those rare instances of a superb live album, and would have justified the tour in itself.

a times this record does feel like a bit of an outtakes affair, with some dreadful moment on it where Jagger attempts a Bee Gees falsetto thing that doesn't work as well as it did on, say, Emotional Rescue. at times, however, it really does make a mockery of the idea that outtakes and previously unreleased material by bands and artists is never worth exploring, as there are some true gems on here. like, for instance, the opening track, which would be Start Me Up. yeah, one of their biggest and well known songs was never intended to be released. go figure.

other gems on here are Hang Fire, which is an amazing rocker, and the ballad thing Waiting On A Friend, which had an amazing video for it that saw Keith Richards shaking hands with some of his black friends, and then everyone getting together in a bar that was owned by the incumbent third choice of second guitarist in the band.

and then there's Little T & A, which you may or may not like. not on the basis of this low quality clip, though. but give this a spin anyway, listen to the quality which was almost discarded.

if you can make any vocals out in that you will note, if not observe, that it is Richards singing that one, not Jagger. i would think Jagger did not argue too much about not singing "tits and ass with a soul" or "the bitch keeps bitching".

it is quite frequent - not more often than not, but still frequent - that what oozes through this record is a traditional 70s mix of sexism, a patriarchal sense of superiority and a good deal of misogyny. because it's the $tone$ i suppose it gets casually written off as "oh, it was a different time then, you have to allow for it", but if some black rapper or white rocker did covers of some of the stuff on here they would get knacked for inciting hatred and contempt for women.

the picture here? what this one? it's one that Spiros sent me of at leas two, or as you can see three, gents on the bus he was on. i am uncertain as to why he sent it, so i thought it best to just put it here.

why is it that Spiros is on the bus, the more regular reader of you may well ask? it's a fair question. as far as i can work out he's had one fight too many with them hackney carriage drivers, and so any destination he usually called them from has now been blacklisted. also, his travels and adventures on the tube came to an end, quite nicely and most conveniently, around about the time that a good number of reports started emerging of gentlemen, as it were, playing with themselves whilst they sat and read the "art section" of the newspaper. it was around the time that people started recording gents doing this that Spiros decided the tube was no longer for him. a co-incidence, i am legally obliged to write here.

back to Tattoo You, or Tattoo as it was supposed to be called with no one being at all sure who added the You part, and is it worth getting? yes if you can find it cheap, as things like Hang Fire and Slave, the latter of which has some smart bass on it, tend not to feature on compilations. also, some of the tracks - at least two - feature the second choice for second guitarist in the band on them, despite the fact that by this point the third choice for second guitarist had been in the band for some 5 years. bet he felt good about that.

after that i fancied listening to the modern day equivalent of the Stones when they were decent; the only band on the go where it is also the case that the guitarist is far, far more interesting than the singer. alas, i had not put Kasabian back on my ipod after the most recent case where them bastards at Apple had done an update which blanked my ipod. so, 1982 With A Bullet it was to be, then. or selected highlights.

i just googled, right, and it seems Stumpie was born in 1986. what a pity, for if he had been decent enough to have been born in 1982, they could have had some smart "Oscar killing predicted by Australian compilation album".

yes, it's another album that i have tucked away on vinyl, and yet here it is, magically on my ipod.

what's it got on it? actually a fairly good balance of well known international hits and a fair few songs by artists that were only really ever big in Australia. one of my all time favourite tunes of all time, for instance, is on here, in the form of Body & Soul by Jo Kennedy off of the Starstruck soundtrack. another notable massive and seemingly Australian only hit is What About Me? by Moving Pictures. that band did have some international success, however, with the song that Kevin Bacon went mental too in the farm barn in Footloose. i think it was Never, but am not sure.

also, it has Come Back Suzanne by Bill Wyman on it.

man, that bass is something else. so what if he can't sing, sounds like he is making up the words as he goes or reading them off a bit of scrap paper and mumbles for the bits he's not at all confident about? that bass man, that bass. it's just awesome.

as i am not going to start reading a new novel on a Friday i guess more vibes, for those interested, will follow soon here, then. at this stage i have no idea at all what i will be having a bit of a listen to.although maybe i should re-add the words of Kasabian, which means fighting the good fight against itunes.

many thanks indeed for taking the time to read.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!