Classic Albums Augmented V: Their Satanic Majesties' Request

Their Satanic Majesties Request: Rolling Stones
This latest post might make the series a bit like the law of diminishing returns. I don't think Sgt Pepper's is anywhere near The Beatles' best album, and this Stones' LP is the first album not generally regarded as a classic to receive the Lad Litter track listing makeover. However, this is the only album that would find itself transformed by the addition of two songs from a contemporaneous single release.

It's not a stretch to describe Their Satanic Majesties as a disappointment. The Stones ended up producing the album themselves after Andrew Loog Oldham, their Svengali-like producer-manager, threw in the towel early on during the aimless, indolent sessions. In a foreshadowing of what was to occur during the making of the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Electric Ladyland in 1968, the Stones used the studio as party central, all hangers on and good times, when they showed up at all.

But even so, 1967 had been a fairly turbulent year.

There was the February Redlands drug bust that saw Mick Jagger sentenced to three months in jail for being in possession of tablets only available on prescription in Britain, but which he'd purchased legally over the counter in Italy and then left in a jacket pocket. Keith Richard copped a whole year for allowing his premises to be used for the consumption of marijuana. These convictions were subsquently quashed on appeal, but it was a scary time.

And not to be left out, Brian Jones was convicted and fined when a May 1967 police raid discovered marijuana in his London flat. To make matters even worse, Jones' girlfriend Anita Pallenberg ended up leaving him for Richard during a decadent Moroccan holiday, heightening tensions within the Stones. And like The Beatles 12 months before them, it was the year they announced the taking of an extended break from touring. As Bill Wyman observed in the documentary 25 X 5 (1988): "With all the things that were going on, it's a wonder we put any music out at all, really."

While all of the high legal drama was being played out, the Stones' US label, London Records, released the hastily assembled compilation-outtake collection Flowers, so that the public wouldn't be starved of product while Their Satanic Majesties took shape. The Who even showed admirable solidarity by releasing a cover of The Last Time to keep the Stones' music in the public eye.

As a result of the success of Beatles albums like Revolver and Sgt Pepper's, more attention was being paid to LPs by both artists and the public by this time. So much so that 1968 would see albums outsell singles for the first time ever. To reflect this, Their Satanic Majesties became the first Rolling Stones album with uniform track listing for both the UK and US markets. Finally, in December 1967, 10 months after recording had begun, the album finally saw the light of day.

But after all of the factors affecting Their Satanic Majesties' genesis had been overcome, the Stones had really only caught the tail end of the boom. Other groups had already put out psychedelic opuses in the wake of Sgt Pepper's June 1967 release: The Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun had been in the shops since July; Jefferson Airplane had beaten them to the punch by a whole fortnight with After Bathing At Baxter's; Cream's Disraeli Gears came out in November; and even The Jimi Hendrix Experience with Axis: Bold As Love managed to sneak in a whole week ahead of The Rolling Stones after Track records delayed their second album's release.


Although Their Satanic Majesties initially reached 2 and 3 on the UK and US charts respectively, sales nosedived from there as bad reviews and word of mouth took its toll.

I've always loved the cover, the Stones' first gatefold. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if quite a few sales were made on the basis of the cover alone. Okay, it's obviously inspired by Sgt Pepper's and it's true there are many similarities: the extravagantly-costumed Stones facing the camera; fantastic technicolour backdrops and props; and hidden artwork like Beatles faces visible in the foregrounded flowers. The inside cover is a very busy montage of almost every possible motif that could be construed as psychedelic, including a maze that can't be navigated, while the back cover employs a tapestry-like design. Rare early versions of the front cover included a 3-D version of the photograph, but this was soon scrapped after printing proved too expensive. 

In essence though, Their Satanic Majesties is truer to the spirit of psychedelia than Sgt Pepper's, which drew on a wider range of random influences. However, its unevenness in production values, performance quality and material make it pale by comparison.

Brian Jones plays an extraordinary range of instruments across all ten tracks, (mellotron; organ; electric dulcimer; recorder; percussion; piano; theremin; sitar; and [presumably] guitar in there somewhere too!)  and this would be the zenith of his status as a multi-instrumentalist -the overall sound of the album is saturated with his contributions. However, even he hinted in a Jan 1968 interview that the album was very hastily completed in the final month before its release.

So it was probably inevitable that there is a lot of dross on the album: Sing This All Together and it's eight-minute reprise; the mockney vaudevillian On With the Show; and the shapeless Gomper must have seemed unintelligible to Stones fans back in the day, and they haven't weathered well either. Much early commentary was critical of the Stones for "selling out" to the latest fad. Jagger himself lamented in a 2003 interview that Their Satanic Majesties was an unhappy by-product of the Stones having too much freedom, too much time on their hands: "believing everything you do is great".

But as with much of the music of the psychedelic era, the good stuff is mind-blowing. For starters, the album contains two fabulously iconoclastic Stones songs that do a lot more than just fit the psychedelic groove: She's A Rainbow, with Nicky Hopkins' music box piano riff, complementary child-like harmonies sped up for effect, and backwards string arrangements courtesy of John Paul Jones; and 2000 Light Years From Home, a haunting space-rock song that authentically evokes colourful yet desolate science fiction fantasies in both form and content.

Of the other tracks, Citadel comes closest to a straight rock song with its bluesy riff and crashing chorus, while In Another Land is the only Bill Wyman composition and lead vocal to ever make it onto a Stones album - and delivers more than just curiosity value - there's a baroque feel overall with tinkling harpsichord and a surprisingly catchy chorus. 2000 Man has a strong folk-rock sensibility and probably deserves better than to be buried on an album that even Stones fans wouldn't play regularly.

However, over at Psychobabble, there is a comprehensive track-by-track analysis of the album that, dare I say it, leaves no Stone unturned.


So if there was ever an album that needed a quality infusion, it was this one. And their double-A side single release from earlier in the same year could have provided it.

We Love You; Dandelion

This August 1967 release was designed to be a thank you to fans of the group, who had been very supportive during the Stones travails at the hands of the wicked Establishment. With a manic opening piano riff that represents Nicky Hopkins' debut on a Stones record, We Love You betrays the Moroccan influences on Brian Jones' mellotron playing that were evident through much of Their Satanic Majesties. The song also features jailhouse sound effects and uncredited backing vocals by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. According to Lennon in a 1968 interview, We Love You is the Stones' equivalent of the Fab Four's earlier All You Need Is Love.

Although We Love You charted well in the UK, its flip side Dandelion was very much the A-side in the US. Dandelion was recorded late in 1966 and so predates the Satanic Majesties sessions by a few months. It always struck me as a follow up and companion piece to Ruby Tuesday and a precursor to She's A Rainbow, with its nursery rhyme lyrics, high harmonies and overall baroque feel. It must have had a significant influence on Keith Richard, who would soon after nam his daughter Dandelion. She would later opt for the less trippy Angela in adulthood.

So Which Tracks Would Miss Out?
The album is 44:06 in length. We Love You and Dandelion come in at 4:35 and 3:32 respectively, putting them way over my self-imposed 45-min limit. Seeing as how Sing This All Together (See What Happens), is 8 minutes and 33 seconds of complete crap, it can take a powder with no harm done.

"But This Goes to 11..." Meme

I don't mind memes too much. Our own take on a defined set of questions. Variations on a theme, something I've always found fascinating in movies.

So thanks to Kath Lockett over at Goofing Off in Geneva for throwing this my way. She put me onto this ages ago and it's been languishing in my drafts folder forever.

1. When and why did you start blogging?
I'd been enjoying reading many brilliant blogs for about two years from say, 2005 to 2007 until finally it occurred to me to give it a go myself. I like the idea of having a creative outlet and an audience for it, however small.

2. What is your middle name and why did your parents select it?
Joseph. Apart from being a good old-fashioned Mick name, I think it must have just flowed with my first given and family names. And thanks to mum and dad for making it happen that way. Flow is important where names are concerned. When we were choosing names for Moe; Larry; and Curly there needed to be no alliteration, and nothing that would sound funny when put together, like Evel Knievel or Loudy Tourky.

3. Toilet paper folder or scruncher? Provide your reasons
Probably a combination of the two depending on my disposition and the type.

You're sorry you asked, I know.

4. What do you do at home when everyone else is out?
Play MY music. At MY volume.

5. You've been given five hundred bucks (two hundred and fifty quid, say) to spend on nothing useful and just your self. What do you do with the cash?
Amazon, folks. Five hundred bucks would clear my wish list out very nicely. I've listed mostly albums I've always wanted to own but never got around to buying and DVDs of my favourite rock artists. In particular, The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, which is a 3-DVD expanded edition of the film Monterey Pop (1968). I already own it but I loaned it out to someone a couple of years ago and can't remember who.

There is also a DVD set of The Caesars, a 1968 BBC series that closely follows Robert Graves' I, Claudius, that I've had my eye on.

6. It's finally come true. One of the "five celebrities you're allowed to sleep with" has walked into your kitchen and is up for it. Who is it?

This assumes we're in a parallel universe where I'm both single and unencumbered, right? Okay, it's probably way too obvious but the one making goo-goo eyes at me from the kitchen doorway while I'm busy unloading the dishwasher is Jennifer Love Hewitt.

7. Name one famous person (so that all our readers know who it is) that you think 'has their shit together'. Explain why.
This is difficult, but only because I think there are many worthy candidates. Just at random, I'm going to nominate film director Martin Scorsese. There's his ultra-impressive and profoundly influential feature filmography going back to Taxi Driver (1976) through to Shutter Island (2010) but it's easy to forget that he's also helmed exhaustive, beautifully rendered documentaries such as A Personal Journey with Martin Scorsese Through American Movies  (1995); The Blues (2003); and Living In The Material World (2011). Two brilliant careers in one.

8. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?
There's a clock-radio next to the bed that ushers in the new day for me. I'm alternately grateful and resentful for the invention of the snooze button.

9. Who would you like to smack in the face, publicly disprove all of their stupid opinions and freeze their bank accounts?
I'll eschew the personal violence and attempt at impoverishment. But there are just far too many extreme right-wing lickspittle commentators infesting the Main Stream Media in Australia, particularly News Ltd and commercial talk radio. And I would so like to see them all come a complete cropper that to pick one at random seems almost unfair. However, Brendan O'Neill will do very nicely for the moment.

Certainly, this English import is a dream come true for neo-conservatives and it's simply a serendipitously delightful coincidence that all of his opinions, every single one of them, on every single issue, no matter what it is, err on the side of advancing News Ltd's interests and prevailing worldview.

And err he certainly does: the first time I saw him on Q&A he likened the Leveson Inquiry's investigation into phone hacking allegations against News of the World and other News Ltd outlets to the Nazis' persecution of Jews. That should have been the end of the ratbag's sojourn in Australian public life, dismissed as little more than the political equivalent of a front-row soccer hooligan. But he got off lightly by comparison with others who try to use the Holocaust as an analogy.

Which brings us to Brendan O’Neill’s bizarre claim on Q&A that criticisms of Murdoch were somehow equivalent to a Jewish hate campaign. O’Neill’s strident defence of extremist commentary on the Right ignores the obvious historical fact that Hitler’s rise in Nazi Germany was supported by some right-wing media owners.

Unfortunately, this clip concentrates on Stephen Mayne's rundown of News Ltd excesses and concludes before the audience's opprobrium at O'Neill's particularly stupid analogy becomes apparent. But no-one should have been surprised.

O'Neill and his ilk see themselves as brave bulwarks against the evils of political correctness, valiantly tilting at the windmills of the insidious left with only the collective resources of a rapacious, spiteful and vindictive multi-national media organization to back them up.

Jim Parker regularly analyses the Disneyland of spurious justifications so-called libertarians construct to attack their real and imagined enemies.

10. Low slung jeans on boys - how do we eradicate this disease?
I must have mellowed quite a bit. The latest clothing, hairstyles, slang expressions, you name it, they're all like water off a duck's back to me these days. Because as a fashion statement, they're transient, like all fads.

My worry is what happens when tattoos go out of fashion. Still, it's not like they're permanent or anything...

11. Tell us about an invention for the home that we desperately need.
I've given this some thought. A Fuck-Up Warning Light and Siren™, suitable for indoor and outdoor use, would be very handy at my place.

There is already a half-baked version of this operating inside my head. You see, having committed numerous atrocities against home maintenance over the years, I have developed a useful sense of self-awareness. The warning usually kicks in when I reach a point in a task like, say, drilling two holes in sheet metal a precise distance apart, with little margin for error.

I’ll realize the potential for fuck-uppery as it approaches, and go away and have a cup of tea while I contemplate how I might sidestep the looming cock-up.

More often than not, this approach means I narrowly escape making a balls of whatever enterprise I’m engaged in. So when fuck-ups do occur, I can rationalize them as being statistically insignificant and therefore both unforeseeable and unavoidable. And live harmoniously with their consequences.

The major issue with all of this is when I just sail right on, not realizing until too late that I’ve entered the Republic of Fuckupia’s territorial waters. Hence the need for the flashing light and wailing siren.

Classic Albums Augmented IV: Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The Beatles
This is the latest in a series of posts where I take a look at a classic album and explore what-might-have-been if contemporaneous single releases had been included on that album's track listing. So far, I've talked about: Rubber Soul; Highway 61 Revisited; and Revolver.

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a hell of an album to be piss-farting about with but I think it needs it. In previous posts in this series, I've been at pains to stress that the albums discussed are already super, but that adding one or two kick-arse songs would make them well, super-duper. However, in Sgt Pepper's case, the additions would be a necessary improvement.

Let's be frank, shall we? I don't think there's any doubt Sgt Pepper's was a ground-breaking, watershed album that both led and followed what was at the cutting edge of rock music in Britain and the US around its 1st June 1967 release date. The depth and detail in the recordings and the innovative blend of what would be categorized as baroque pop and psychedelic rock was nicely mirrored by the album's phenomenal gatefold cover. Up until that point, most LPs had a colour image on the front cover and then reverted to black-and-white for the back. No-one explored the idea of album covers as art, much less pored over them for hidden meanings, as happened after Sgt Pepper's.

It was also much-much-anticipated, coming some 10 months after the Beatles' previous LP release, Revolver. This expectancy was even more pronounced than the usual buzz around what the Fab Four were going to come out with next, due no doubt to the knowledge that the Beatles were spending an inordinately long time putting the record together and had hinted that the new record would be different from anything that had come before it.

And so it was. This would be the first "concept album", informed by McCartney's central thesis that it was not so much a new LP by the Beatles as an album by the characters they invented, from which the album took its name. A charming idea, and one that is realized especially by the first two tracks. So all of the songs were designed to fit in with this theme, that the album was a performance by this group Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. So the record is ostensibly filler-free, with each song essential to the narrative. Think rock-operas like The Who's Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Wall.

The only trouble with that is, you invariably have to put up with a lot of songs sung in silly character voices. And for me, although the album hangs together nicely as a whole, and contains great songs like: the title track and its double-time reprise; Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds; Getting Better; Lovely Rita; and A Day In The Life, there are a few that stray too far from the Beatles' sound for my liking, such as: With A Little Help From My Friends; Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite; She's Leaving Home; and When I'm Sixty-Four.

And this is not me trying to be an iconoclast just for the sake of it. For all that's been said and written about this album, it would be a new shade of superb with the addition of a couple of handy Beatles tunes released as a double-A sided single at around the same time.

Strawberry Fields Forever; Penny Lane
This double-A sided single, released three months before Sgt Pepper's, contains two quintessential Lennon and McCartney songs, the former written by Lennon and the latter by McCartney. These are intensely personal songs of a nostalgic nature that would not jar with the album's overall theme.

Strawberry Fields Forever started out as an acoustic guitar demo that everyone in the Abbey Road studio loved instantly when Lennon played it to them. The real Strawberry Fields was a Liverpool Salvation Army children's home with a garden that Lennon had played in as a child. The muted vocals are suggestive of a child's cry and the almost-nonsense-verse lyrics are designed to obscure the impact on Lennon of recent upheavals like the Bigger Than Jesus shitstorm, his marriage breakdown and LSD use. The songs haunting mellotron intro, combined with a languid melody and ominous orchestration evoked what George Martin described as a "hazy dreamworld".

Penny Lane has always struck me as sounding like a really good children's song. Its lashings of warm nostalgia for Liverpool (specifically, a Liverpool bus terminus and surrounds) makes it the song that caused untold street-sign thefts. The imagery conjures a rich cast of eccentric characters and the enigmatic musical structure (ie "very strange" and "meanwhile back" to come out of the chorus) make it one of those "loved by all ages"-type songs.

Indeed, producer George Martin thought this double-A side The Beatles' finest single. The inclusion of these songs on the Sgt Pepper's album would have augmented and enhanced it.

So Which Tracks Would Miss Out?
With a combined running time of 7:08, the two welcome additions could only come in at the expense of one other track, otherwise the 39:42 running time of the album would go over the 45min limit I've stipulated for this exercise.

There are no standout candidates for worst track on the album as such, but When I'm Sixty-Four has always got on my nerves. So off with its head. There, that's better.

Astronomers Devastated As Search for Football World Shuts Down

Astronomers at Mt Stromlo Observatory learned yesterday that their deep-space search for the Football World has fallen victim to budget cuts. The decision has sparked dismay in the close-knit space-science community.

“It’s the end of one of science’s most noble quests,“ a dejected Professor of Astrophysics Scott Palmer said last night. “I mean, who hasn’t wondered about the possibility of a real Football World after so many tantalizingly brief references to its existence? Like, "the Football World is in shock", or "the Footbal World is in turmoil". Now, that suggests an object with a breath-takingly volatile, turbulent atmosphere. Or at the very least, a global climate that mirrors a winter’s day at Waverley.”

But what about recent data suggesting that this possible Football World, despite its extreme distance and unknown location, might exert a strong gravitational pull on large parts of Australia between March and September?

“Oh, there’s no doubt about that. But we’d also developed a theory that radiation of an as-yet -unknown type emitted from the Football World was causing disturbingly extreme fluctuations in human emotion and behaviour.” However, Professor Palmer conceded the only clear evidence to support this were crowd-reaction shots from Channel 7’s match coverage.

Federal Science Minister Ian Cleland said this morning that most staff would be re-deployed to work on the still fully-funded search for the Marvel Comics Universe.

Brushes With Fame V: Christina Amphlett

A pale sun was providing little in the way of warmth for downtown New York City that April morning. It was 1991 and The Love of My Life and I had walked from our midtown Manhattan hotel to Tower Records in Greenwich Village.

I'd bought a swag of CDs at cheaper American prices for friends and family and  stepped outside for a cigarette while TLOML stayed to fossick through the racks a little longer. Across 4th St opposite the store was a huge billboard advertising Divinyls, the new self-titled album by that great Australian band.

I thought it was cute that there I was, an Australian in New York standing in front of a big ad for an Aussie band's album. The artwork featured a striking shot of the Divinyls' voluptuous singer, Christina Amphlett.

It was quite early on a Saturday morning and there weren't too many people around but as my gaze turned west along 4th St I noticed a woman walking towards me on the other side of the street. She had long auburn hair and was wearing a pale mustard coloured leather overcoat. She looked up at the billboard as she drew closer to it and smiled.

"Ha," I thought, "she looks a bit like Christina Amphlett. How's that for a coincidence? Wait, wait a minute, shit ... that's her, that IS Christina Amphlett!"

We were almost the only two people on the street. She had been completely oblivious to me but I'm not embarrassed to admit I was gawping at her. Let's face it, all of Australia had been gawping at her for the better part of ten years. She turned the corner and kept walking.

Not long after, TLOML emerged from the store with her purchases. "See that billboard," I told her. "Well, you're not going to believe who I just saw..."

Christina Amphlett passed away earlier this week at her home in New York City after a long struggle against breast cancer. So long, Christina. I always thought the Divinyls were one of the great Australian bands and you one of the great Australian singers.