Mick Jagger snorting coke amidst nude roadies and Keith Richards pre-Pirates of the Caribbean III?? That’s not hedonism, no, that’s the Cocksucker Blues. For Rolling Stones fans and those curious what rock stars were once like, the band’s banned 1972 documentary, Cocksucker Blues, has made its way on to the internet. Commissioned by the band to cover their 1972 North American tour, noted photographer Robert Frank directed this piece of cinema verite, which was eventually banned from an official release. Due to the aforementioned rock star antics, the Stones fought to prevent the film from reaching the television/silver screen. As Richards once famously explained, “if anyone in America saw it, we’d never be let in the country again.”
And then it gets weirder: Due to the controversy, the film itself is under a court order which forbids it from being shown unless Frank is physically present. This means that the only way to see it before now was a bootleg (Marilyn Manson allegedly owns one) or the rare organized screening. Fortunately, it’s impossible to mandate this kind of thing on the internet, so it’s now streaming in nine parts. How a film managed to avoid an online leak for 37 years is beyond us. Watch the documentary here until it is taken down. And then uploaded on another site. UPDATE 8/26: Cocksucker Blues is no longer streaming. We are currently waiting for another site to host the video – and we will post when they do! Check back in the upcoming weeks.
View Part 1 and a few stills below.
© Robert Frank
© Robert Frank
© Robert Frank