The Avon Theatre in Stamford, CT is presenting rare footage of the Rolling Stones during the Brian Jones years (1964 - 1969) this Wednesday night at 7 pm. This evening is hosted by Bill Shelley of Shelley Artchives, a filmaker who lists The Stray Cats and Joan Jett as subjects and now dedicating time to preservation of archival films. The organization also seeks to compensate the artists fairly during the process, always a good idea. Details are here:
http://www.avontheater.org/special_events.html#apr21
After hearing the new pop sensation Kesha sing about how she wants her pick up boy to look like Mick Jagger on Saturday Night Live over the weekend, I was remembering how I once met the guy. It was around 1985 at a birthday party for my new husband's boss at a NYC music house. This being the 80s, the boss was big pals with Jon Taylor of Duran Duran who showed up with Mick Jagger. (Back then I decided I wanted to be a bass player like Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads and got myself a Japanese Aria pro mini bass like Taylor used to play which is now somewhere in the basement. I had a hard time reading the bass clef and transporting things onto a guitar fret from knowing a piano keyboard but that's another story.)
Anyway, we were all to come in costume as the title of a song. We dressed in our best NYC chic black outfits and bought a pair of handcuffs at a magic store -- you can imagine the shop owner's look as we newlyweds made the purchase. It was to illustrate the current hit by Bryan Ferry, "Slave to Love" or Frank Sinatra's "The Tender Trap" as a back up. So Mick Jagger is wearing a pair of broken mirrored sunglasses. My husband is always good about waltzing up to celebrities, especially fellow musicians. I on the other hand, clam up even though I'm the more chatty of us by far. The chit chatting begins after introductions when Jagger wants us to guess what song he's portraying, "a Stones song" he tells us in his often-imitated accent. We racked our brains, how can we not know the answer basically growing up with the Rolling Stones playing record after record on every radio station there was?
"Shattered," he finally said with that famous grin. We had to admit it was the best costume at the party!