My first band happily played mostly Shadows’ covers until The Beatles arrived and then we smartly switched to a diet of Beatles’ covers – much to the chagrin of our guitarist, who sulkily resigned from the band in the face of throbbing three-part harmonies sung in glotalised scouse accents - not to mention the complete absence of Fender guitars.
Hearing a recording of the Stones for the first time was a revelation. I think Not Fade Away was their first single in NZ and I obsessed over the stuttering acoustic guitar start and the throb of Charlie’s drums, the up-front maracas and the harp licks. I don’t think I had much of a picture in my mind as to what they looked like until I saw the quite radical album cover*, but in any case it was the actual content of the record that inspired me more. I still rate the first album very highly and it’s not just for sentimental reasons. Things were pretty primitive in NZ studios in 1964 but I don’t think London studios were that flash either, so what you got on the first album was the band as they actually were, honed and cohesive from repeated live performances and very exciting.
The band’s membership has changed significantly in the intervening years and the band’s uniqueness has been diluted as a result, which is probably of no consequence to the vast majority of Stones’ fans but worth a mention nevertheless. Charlie’s still there thankfully, and while it’s true there’s nobody quite like Charlie Watts, nothing much has been made of Bill Wyman’s contribution on bass – well, nothing much positive, anyway. Keith Richards was quite scathing of Wyman in his book ‘Life’ but I get the impression that Keith’s quite protective of the ‘band’ ethos and that he wasn’t impressed that it was Bill and not Keith who made the decision that Bill was leaving the band. Keith was occasionally given to taking over the bass duties in the studio when Bill didn’t provide what he was looking for – there’s the cinematic record in Godard’s excruciating movie Sympathy for the Devil in which the band’s attempts to fashion the title song are recorded in detail, including Brian Jones’ collapsing against a sound baffle and strumming his guitar part with his eyes closed as if he’d rather be a million miles away – which he well may’ve been. Keef consigned Bill to maraca duties that session while he played the bass lines.
Incidentally, I say recorded mercilessly, but the actual moment the song makes the transition from a fairly turgid chord progression to the magic piece that excited us all is somehow missing, as if the cameramen fell asleep at the crucial time, which renders the whole shoot absolutely pointless. Actually, the whole movie’s pointless - you can forget Godard’s other plot line that runs parallel to the recording session - it’s polemically driven garbage.
Anyway, listening to the early Stones’ recordings you can hear what an exciting rhythm section Watts and Wyman were. Wyman used to cradle his Framus bass guitar like an upright bass, which was his instrument of choice, and this made his penchant for long descending runs an easy option, mechanically speaking anyway, which was pretty important because Bill’s a tiny man.
These runs coincided with the instrumental breaks which typically lifted the Stones’ music to a crowd-inciting peak. There’s a little remembered live track from the Stones’ Got Live If You Want It! EP, a Hank Snow song called I’m Movin’ On and I remember it as being a prime example of Wyman’s proclivity for walking the bass.
Incidentally, that’s one of the things I particularly liked about the Stones. They could take a country trucker song like I’m Movin’ On and turn into a rabble rouser and take a dinky little jazz number like Route 66 and turn it into a driving rock/blues classic – they were very imaginative interpreters.
What do I remember about the Stones’ performance in Christchurch on February 1st 1965? Well, I remember the Invaders doing a forward roll in unison while they were playing. I remember the peroxide blond singer from the Newbeats going bright red in the face when he sang his high notes in their big hit Toast and Jam. I might remember Roy Orbison’s performance; except he was on so many of these shows I might be remembering another show. The Stones came on last of course, and for a start they looked different ‘cause they weren’t wearing identical suits, which made them appear almost anarchic by comparison. Adding to the atmosphere of non-conformity they appeared to be quite relaxed verging on bored, but that simply could’ve been the realisation that they were in the repressed city of Christchurch in New Zealand, about as far away from the world they were familiar with as it’s possible to get. I remember that Brian Jones wore his trademark hooped jumper and I was interested to identify the guitar parts – and harp parts – that he played as opposed to Keef and Mick.
I’m sure they played Not Fade Away and a selection of songs from the first album – or I’m pretty sure. I don’t really remember the specific details. I was too busy digesting all the information right there in front of me that had radically changed the parameters of my musical world forever.
* the English and NZ covers at least bore no title or band name, except maybe on the spine
