- On July 26, 1968, Mick Jagger flew from Los Angeles to London for a birthday party thrown in his honor at a hip new Moroccan-style bar called the Vesuvio Club—“one of the best clubs London has ever seen,” remembered proprietor Tony Sanchez. Under black lights and beautiful tapestries, some of London’s trendiest models, artists, and pop singers lounged on huge cushions and took pulls from Turkish hookahs, while a decorative, helium-filled dirigible floated aimlessly about the room. As a special treat, Mick brought along an advance pressing of the Stones’ forthcoming album, Beggars Banquet, to play over the club’s speakers. Just as the crowd was “leaping around” and celebrating the record—which would soon win accolades as the best Stones album to date—Paul McCartney strolled in, and passed Sanchez a copy of the forthcoming Beatles single “Hey Jude/Revolution,” which had never before been heard by anyone outside of Abbey Road Studios. Sanchez recalled how the “slow, thundering buildup of ‘Hey Jude’ shook the club”; the crowd demanded that the seven-minute song be played again and again. Finally, the club’s disc jockey played the flip side, and everyone heard “John Lennon’s nasal voice pumping out ‘Revolution.’” “When it was over,” Sanchez said, “Mick looked peeved. The Beatles had upstaged him.”
-excerpt from the article Beatles, or Stones from the Believer
The answer is obvious. . . . . . . . . . . . The Kinks.
"Jo Wood – who was married to Ronnie for almost 25 years, until 2009 — has just published a memoir called Hey Jo, in which she tells the story of her mother Rachel Karslake spending a month with Jo and Ronnie before the birth of their first child. According to Jo Wood, right after dishes were cleared from their welcome dinner, “Keith declared, ‘And now for dessert!’ [and] pulled out a big bag of coke and slammed it on the table.” The elder woman managed to hold her tongue until a couple of days later, when Richards offered a marijuana joint to Ronnie’s mother-in-law, who gave him a piece of her mind and threw the joint into the pool. Jo Wood writes, “Keith had decked people for less but, to his credit, he just sat back and proceeded to roll two more joints. ‘Here you go, Rachel,’ he said. ‘Here’s one for me to smoke and one for you to throw into the pool.’” - STONES
Despite what Piero Scaruffi says, I still believe The Beatles to be the eminent musicians of their age. There is actually a good amount of interesting theory going on behind the music that isn't apparent to a casual listener. They had the songwriting and the technical ability, but didn't rely on those, complimenting them with good pop sensibility, making the majority of their music incredibly accessible.
Kind of a dick move on Paul's part. Funny though.
I definetely prefer The Rolling Stones. Even though the quality of their music wasn't as consistent (and that they suck nowadays), I loved their dirty raw approach to music. It's just my style.
I never much got into either band, so I might have a more objective view on this. I'm honestly more inclined to grief the thread and just write "The Fall" or "Orange Juice" - which isn't really griefing at all, because despite what fans of either B or RS happen to believe, I'm pretty sure The Fall, Orange Juice, and any number of British groups decades hence might have done well enough on their own without the prior presence or 'influence' of John, Paul, Mick, or Keith. FWIW, the Chemical Brothers - an electronic act - might have leaned more on The Beatles than either The Fall or Orange Juice ever did, and that's to all three groups' credit. That said, I've heard more Beatles tunes than I have Rolling Stones, but the more I hear of the Rolling Stones the more I like 'em. They're often gritty, at times shitty, and their music speaks to some primal stuff the Beatles couldn't ever touch. I say this as a guy who lives a lot inside his head, but there's no rule that says you've got to side with the indoor kids at every turn. The Beatles are to music what Wes Anderson is to movies, except Wes Anderson's made me laugh and the Beatles never have. The Rolling Stones worked with Godard and clearly had a sense of humor. I'm also more inclined to side with the duo bearing less Christian names than "John" and "Paul". As embarrassing as Los Stones have been through the nineties and the naughties, John Lennon would without a doubt have topped them in that regard. Just, you know, imagine: John and Yoko, aging. Together. They might have played bizarre mom-and-pop jazz at the Clinton inaugural ball in '93, and we'd never have got that insane Fleetwood Mac reunion. Today, John Lennon might be reduced to comment on the latest Mumford & Sons, or he might have got into techno a la David Bowie in the late 90's. He'd probably attend a rave. He'd be wearing cardigans and harboring complex grudges against practically every artist who's ever touched a laptop, or alternately he'd be the one wielding a laptop and all the rockist dinosaurs who made him the legend that he is would flip out, and it would all be every bit as annoying as The Rolling Stones doing what they've done to your parents' ears ever since John died. So I guess the answer's "neither", but if it's got to be binary then this outsider chooses the Rolling Stones, despite the fact that I'd have a hard time naming more than three of their songs from memory.
So you couldn't name more than 3 Stones tunes, you've heard Beatles tunes but it doesn't sound like you pay them much mind, yet you are willing to claim that neither are substantively influential enough to have shaped current music. Meaning that without them, what is happening would still be happening, is this right? Isn't that a bit like me saying I don't really listen to Miles Davis but contemporary Jazz would still be the same without him?
Right, and yes, and no. Mostly hyperbole for the sake of argument, and an utter lack of respect for the canon. I'm just saying there's a difference between referential influence (which bores me) and more fundamental influence. Both Beatles and Stones laid foundation for the machinery of music making, sure, but do they have anywhere near the lasting impact on Important Music for which they're credited? I doubt this.
Wasn't me. What was the "appropriate" tag? I missed it.
If that story is true and not just folklore, I doubt Mick was all that peeved. I'm sure when the Beatles heard Sympathy for the Devil they thought, 'great song, wish we wrote it' and when the Stones heard Revolution they thought, 'great song, wish we wrote it.' All I know is, how bad ass would it have been to be at that club?!
I'd be pissed. Sure, he likely admired the work and I'm sure the Beatles thought the same of Sympathy but you don't show up at a dudes birthday party when he's dropping his new album and then casually throw on Hey Jude! C'mon!
It's not one of my favorites either but I think it has more to do with how incredibly over-played it is than anything. I bet if I heard it for the first time, in the context of when it was released, I would be pretty blown away.