Román Leão

Tag: rolling-stones

  • 58 to 60: Not Dark Yet

    29.05.2026

    Paul McCartney just dropped a new collection of music that his fans are warmly receiving as a late-career masterpiece. The forever Beatle will turn 84 next month. Neil Young, the baby here at a mere 80-years-young, released a new live set with his latest band, The Chrome Hearts, today as well. Bob Dylan turned 85 last Sunday and is out on the Never-Ending Tour right now reportedly doing his most inspired playing in years. The fucking Rolling Stones, for God’s sake, have a new album coming out in July in time for Mick’s 83rd birthday, the same day as my 60th.

    I am sure that none of these artists imagined that they would still be at it this far down the road, but I am heartened by their ability to keep at it. There is something about playing music that truly feeds the soul. I was almost tempted to say “keeps you young,” but obviously that is not the case. It keeps you young at heart, perhaps, but youth itself isn’t what this is about. Now into their respective eighth decades, most of these artists look rode hard and put back wet, but that’s what gives them gravitas.

    That is a big reason that the video the Stones released for their lead single, In the Stars, is so dispiriting. In it, an AI-created ’70s-era Rolling Stones plays the song for a happy crowd of vintage clothing enthusiasts. It’s too bad because it’s not a bad song, but someone decided that the Rolling Stones looked too old to what… be rock stars? They helped invent that shit.

    The Stones have been at it a minute longer than I’ve been alive. I’ve grown up watching them go through their changes, and loving a good portion of it. I mean, I’m no longer dewy, and I’m just supposed to forget that, as far as I’m concerned, Keith and the boys have always been around? It’s disrespectful, and not in a cool, anti-establishment way.

    I hate to even think it, but once you start playing with this particular fire, you are opening yourself to the question, what else here is AI? Does the hit machine keep cranking along after our heroes can’t physically do it any more. If there was a market for it, I’m afraid that someone would make that Devil’s bargain. I think we have to be clear about where we stand as fans.

    Fuck AI. Long live rock and roll!

  • Life—Keith Richards

    Whether or not you will be captivated by Rolling Stones guitarist and all-around bon vivant Keith Richards’ autobiography all the way to the end of its 547 pages swings on a couple of factors.

    Number one: How much do you still like and care about the Rolling Stones?

    Number two: How much you can stomach reading about the sordid intricacies of heroin addiction?

    If those two caveats check out, then this book has a lot to offer in the way of insightful musings on the emergence, “maturation,” and decline of rock ’n’ roll, as well as dispatches from the gutter as harrowing as anything William S. Burroughs phlegmatically coughed up in junk-sick reverie.

    Occasional partner-in-crime Tom Waits puts it best towards the end of the book when he describes Richards as “a frying pan made from one piece of metal. He can heat it up really high and it won’t crack, it just changes color.” Spiritually changing his color from pasty postwar English white to the richer tones of the blues artists he and his friends immortalized became an obsession early on, and one that somehow, against all odds, he managed to pull off.

    Richards recalls fondly of being accepted on the “other side of the tracks” much more openly than in the “Whites Only” areas of the still-segregated American South. Richards writes in his journal about coming to the United States for the first time, “Finally I’m in my element! An incredible band is wailing… so does the sweat and the ribs cooking out back. The only thing that makes me stand out is that I’m white! Wonderfully, no one notices this aberration. I am accepted. I’m made to feel so warm. I am in heaven!”

    This ability to fit in wherever he finds himself belies a truthfully warm and open heart on the part of a young Keith Richards. You never get the sense that this English kid is culture slumming, he has done his homework, paid his dues, and remains respectful and—as an outsider in an uptight society still struggling to shrug off the ’50s—simpatico. At least until the drugs kick in.

    Later in the narrative, Richards bemoans the way that the other half of his musical partnership has become too enamored with controlling all aspects of the now multi-million dollar business interest called the Rolling Stones. This is after spending most of the ’70s in a narcotic fog, forcing his band mates to practice, record, and exist on “Keith time.” He doesn’t seem to realize that he has passive-aggressively set the agenda for years by placing himself outside of the “normal” constrains of time, laws (local, Federal, and international), sleep, etc.

    What saves this tale from being just another tale of debauched rock royalty (not that there’s anything wrong with those) is Richards’ voice. Life is written very much in Keef’s voice, along with reeling asides, obscure English slang, and most of all, heart. As much as they squabble and moan about each other, the Rolling Stones have been tempered by a half-century of dealing with each other’s shit.

    Richards explains, “Mick and I may not be friends—too much wear and tear for that—but we’re the closest of brothers, and that can’t be severed… Best friends are best friends. But brothers fight… At the same time, nobody else can say anything against Mick that I can hear. I’ll slit their throat.” Judging from his track record, and the sticker in his boot, he may end up doing just that.