I am here as we lurch weekendwards with another big birthday bash that needs mentioning, lest our minds begin gathering moss.
Today's big boy needs no introduction or explanation, so in lieu of the usual cookie cutter doggerel, I'll tell you a story.
One time I was sitting in here watching the concert film, made in 1972, called Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rolling Stones, which had come on AXS-TV or somesuch music channel that night.
This was about two years ago, when my old landlord and his then-four-year-old son lived here.
Junior is six now and even more awesome, but back on the night in question he knocked -- as he often did -- at my door and wanted to hang out for a while.
He hopped up on the bed and plopped down next to me and began checking the movie. What happened next still cracks me up when it crosses my mind and I wish I'd have filmed it.
After about half of Midnight Rambler, Junior leapt from the bed and began to shout "He's doing the Chicken Dance!!!" whilst simultaneously rocking a pretty spot-on rendition of the same.
If I had to describe our hero's standard moves, I'd speculate that they dwelt somewhere between the Funky Chicken and the Running Man, but Junebug's assessment -- as is often the case, coming from the mouths of the innocent -- was and is the most accurate anyone could hope for from a small child.
So whaddaya know? Junior's Chicken Dancer -- also among the three most beloved frontpeople ever to prance before a rock-n-roll band -- is turning the gigando 75 today. You know him as Sir Mick.
Full and honest disclosure: I am not much of a Stones guy. I dig Sympathy for the Devil -- as cinematized by Jean-Luc Godard, especially -- Exile On Main Street, and the two mid-1970s (Some Girls/Emotional Rescue) platters with the disco tunes on them.
But we are gathered together this day to share up the rarities with flair, so it's incumbent upon me to step with stuff that very often doesn't represent my (esoteric, thoroughly uninteresting) personal taste and instead gets the very best of the bootlegs into broader circulation in their tastiest possible iterations.
To that end, we are gonna fire up a CD's worth of unissued KBFH master reels, formulated by them into what amounts to an unreleased live record from the Stones' 1978 Summer tour of the USA.
The Rolling Stones
"Some Live Biscuits"
USA tour highlights
Summer 1978
01 Let It Rock
02 All Down the Line
03 Honky Tonk Women
04 Star Star
05 Lies
06 Miss You
07 Beast of Burden
08 Shattered
09 Respectable
10 Just My Imagination
11 Far Away Eyes
12 Love In Vain
13 Happy
14 Sweet Little Sixteen
15 Brown Sugar
16 Jumpin' Jack Flash
Toatl time: 1:19:36
Tracks 01, 06, 10, 12 & 13 - Masonic Hall, Detroit MI 7.6.1978
Tracks 02-05, 07, 09, 14-16 - Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston TX 7.19.1978
Track 08 - Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis TN 6.28.1978
Track 11 - Rupp Arena, Lexington KY 6.29.1978
Mick Jagger - vocals, harmonica, keyboards and guitar
Keith Richards - guitars, bass, keyboards and vocals
Ron Wood - guitars, vocals, bass, drums and percussion
Bill Wyman - bass, and synthesizer
Charlie Watts - drums
plus
Ian McLagan - keyboards
Ian Stewart - piano
KBFH pre-FM master highlight reels from the Joe Maloney archive
553 MB FLAC/July 2018 archive link
This is a great document, selecting the best performances from several shows recorded 40 years ago this month and presenting them in a form indistinguishable from a real, mixed live record.
I'll be back, perhaps on the weekend, with a bit more ballast for your boat before August arrives, but for now you're just a Rolling Stones' throw from 80 minutes of their particular brand of mayhem, borne to the cloud in acknowledgement of their head chicken dancer -- born this day in 1943 -- and his mileStone birthday today.--J.
