The Stones did it on a tour a few years ago. With a lot of doubt that they still "had it" and complaints about the corporate prices for tickets, word got out that they would do an intimate warm up show playing more blues and less of their standard stadium set list.

Sydney was abuzz and the show got front page with the coup de grace being acker dacker's Angus Young ( home town boy) jamming on rock me baby.

Prince is currently touring Australia and has so far done one of his aftershows at Sydney's Ivy league Club. 1 am to early morning, hours of funk jamming by his band with occasional efforts from the vertically challenged purple one. He is in Melbourne as I type. He was rumoured to have intended playing an aftershow last night but pulled out and all the talk is will there be/ where will there be aftershow tonight.

He's been in the front pages for 3 days now -not bad for someone without a hit here for yonks and regarded as an 80's /90's phenomenon.

These special short notice gigs really have some marketing value and the music and entertainment journos, who always get entry, just love em.

With the news today that one of Australia's largest companies has allegedly used members of the Hells Angels (or bikie gangs as they are known down under) as enforcers and debt collectors, I got to thinking about how, over the years, some of the biggest names in rock have openly courted these unsavoury characters with their swastikas and reputation for ultra violence. What was the attraction?

The Beatles had problems in 1968 when a chapter of the American Hells Angels accepted a casual invitation from George and took up residence in the Savile Row Apple building. A year later the Stones encountered more serious trouble at Altamont when they naively hired bikers as security, with fatal results.

The British Hells Angels are a much more ramshackle, amateur bunch than their US counterparts, of course, but no less unattractive and unpleasant for all that. I was reminded of this today when watching the Stones In The Park concert DVD. The Age Of Aquarius was definitely cold in its grave when the self-proclaimed "Greatest Rock & Roll Band In The World" paid a bunch of ugly, violent thugs to manhandle their fans in Hyde Park in July 1969. What on earth were Mick and the boys thinking? Did they assume that some of the Angels' violent edginess would rub off on them? Why did they even seek such an association? It's all a very long way from The Stones' camp decadence, isn't it?

If we jump to the present day we find that much of the organised crime in Australia's major cities is controlled by the "outlaw motorcycle gangs" (to use the quasi-official media terminology) with the police almost powerless to act against them. Gangland revenge murders between chapters are happening almost daily and the Hells Angels are clearly out of control in this part of the world. I don't know what the situation is in America, but I'm guessing it's a similar picture.

I wonder if any of today's rock stars would dare risk a flirtation with the Hells Angels now?

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/visy-uses-bikies-as-deb...

Came across this note on the excellent 'Letters of Note' website and thought it would be of interest to the Massive:

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/04/keep-bill-wyman-away-from-keith.htm...

Just who is Robin Day I wonder?

Inspired by the '5 Best' HJH thread and randomly watching 'Shine A Light' last night, I was thinking of posting a thread asking for our top five Stones tunes of all time. Now, thanks to an urge to stoutly defend 'Some Girls' (It is the koala's knackers, if you ask me) I am actually doing so. So, here we go!

"Think I bust a button on my trahsers..." etc etc

Formbyman’s mirth-inducing Bjork post on the Nature vs Nurture thread got me thinking. Everyone must have a story like that about their parents.

Here’s just one of mine. Hard to believe now, but this was something of a national cause célèbre at the time. In early 1965 three of the Rolling Stones were arrested for urinating in a garage forecourt after being refused use of the toilet. When the case came to court the garage attendant testified "when told they couldn't use the toilet Mick Jagger said 'we piss anywhere man' and the group took it up as a chant".

"After the incident they drove off in their car making a 'well known hand gesture' out the window", he continued.

Well, my mum was absolutely mortified by all this and it was decided that Rolling Stones' records would be banned from the house forthwith. This was tough luck on me as I'd just saved up my paper round money to buy their single of Not Fade Away.

Thankfully the embargo didn’t last long and normal service was resumed a few months later.

My favourite Stones song is Sleep Tonight. It's a beautiful weary ballad from Keith, a hugely affecting mixture of tenderness and threat which doesn't feature, or miss, Mick or Charlie. I'd link to it, but it's damned to such obscurity by being stranded on Dirty Work that I can't find a listenable copy on YouTube.

What's your dunghill rose?

I agree with the oft stated view that after Exile On Main St. the Stones were never quite as special any more. Yet I do believe that at least up to and including Tatoo You much fine music was still recorded. Here's one of those gems, many of which, like this example, flirted successfully with funk and even disco. Of course Tatoo You was mostly made up from earlier post-Exile seventies material that was revisited and re-worked. So it seems fair to say they didn't actually suck in the seventies, though standards did slip at times. The 'clip' below is Slave from Tatoo You - something of a classic I feel. Anyone want to speak up for some more post-Exile Stones high points?

I was clearing out some old music papers today and in the process of jettisoning a pile of Q mags, I found this one with the Rolling Stones on the cover.

"Lock up your grandmothers", screams the headline. Fair enough, bring on the old git jokes. It's a familiar cry where the Stones are concerned, after all.

But hold on, this was printed in 1989, that's 22 years ago. Most of the band were still under 50 then and Woody was barely 40. That's not old at all by today's standards.

As we know, it's an Englishman's inalienable right to dress in women's clothing whenever the mood takes him. Nowhere is this more evident than in the world of rock & roll. Here are just a few examples of rock stars in drag. I'm sure there are plenty of others.

The Rolling Stones - September 1966: "and this is pretty much how we'll look in 2011"

Queen do Coronation Street. Freddie is clearly enjoying himself

Bowie always claimed it was a "man's dress". Yeah, right

Keith Moon. This is just wrong, isn't it?

With the opening of the Olympic Games just over a year away, I thought that the readers of Word should get together and organise the opening ceremony.

We don't need acrobats, dancers, choirs of children or hordes of animals. What Britain does best is music, so let's have an opening ceremony that is a great big concert!

A couple of songs each from the biggest British artists of the last 50 years.

Obviously we need acts who are recognised the world over and it would be good to get a representative sample across the decades, so here is my suggestion for the running order for the Olympic opening ceremony 2012 (by the way, I may be a bit biased as I have got 2 tickets for it!)

Starting with the 1960's,
Paul McCartney (maybe with Ringo on drums)
The Rolling Stones

1970's
Led Zeppelin
David Bowie
Elton John
Pink Floyd (if they can stop arguing)

1980's - a bit tricky this one, but how about
George Michael
Duran Duran
Maybe U2 as well - they're nearly British

1990's
Radiohead

2000's
Coldplay

2010's
Adele

And all finished off with the full line up reconvening on stage for a rendition of One Day Like This with Elbow (not an internationally recognised act yet, but the song seems an appropriate choice).

Any views, comments, suggestions?

Sorry if this has come up before, but I've been brooding over it for most of a 5-hr drive...

She's Not There by the Zombies popped up on the shuffle, on one of the rare occasions when the Dame allowed someone else to have a go. (Still a lot of work to do on Shuffle Probability Theory, IMHO.)

Great song, but oh, that instro break! A sudden tsunami of look-at-me electric piano noodlings, all over the place and nothing like what you want to hear. A great relief when he gets to that major chord and the song starts again. I thought Rod Argent was supposed to be good at that sort of thing?

That got me thinking about other ill-advised instrumental breaks in otherwise great songs. It's All Over Now comes to mind. A great chunk of Keef, but seems to belong in another song altogether - they swap that great loping beat for something much chunkier and four-square just to accommodate it.

Any other suggestions?

So, i'm DJ'ing next week and for the hell of it, i've decided (in my two hour set) to only play cover versions *will anyone notice*

I'm definitely going to start with two of my favourite covers of all time.

and

but where shall i go next?

Here are mine - number one is by NZ band Dragon ("April Sun In Cuba"). number two is the Stones' "Bitch" and number three is the HJH "Hey Bulldog".

I'm part way through Keef's excellent book. I've been a massive Stones fan ever since their first single, and rate their debut album as one of the best in their entire catalogue. The most recent ones, I've bought out of loyalty, but like most of you I suspect, my favourite period is their 1960's / early 70's output.

Yesterday I stumbled across several early rock & roll and r&b tracks by them on YouTube, stuff that I didn't know existed. Tracks like 'Roll Over Beethoven' and Crackin' Up'. It would seem that these were taken from BBC radio recordings and I was wondering if there are any plans for an official release similiar to the Beatles at the Beeb ?