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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
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20 Responses
this played at anthology film archive last winter. first time it was ever shown to an audience in a theater. l
right, i remember. I thought we listed it on flavorpill, but i think it was just people in the office talking about it. did you go? i’m assuming frank was there?
this is NEWS? this ha been on the internet for YEARS! youtube has had it since 2005. Get with the news, dudes.
your information is all wrong, as usual.
37 years off the intervet? where were you four years ago?
[...] that we can’t reproduce it here. (We can tell you that one word is “Blues.”) The good folks at Flavorwire have found video clips from the documentary that have — for the time being — reappeared on a French Web [...]
Our point was that it's now streaming, so you don't have to illegally download it, etc.
[...] has been leaked online. It’s sure to be taken down soon, but until then, you can find it on flavorwire.com. Tags Cocksucker Blues, Keith Richards, Robert Frank, Rolling Stones Share or [...]
[...] just so happens that a lot of, well, rock star type of stuff happened during that tour, like, as Flavorwire so elegantly puts it, “Mick Jagger snorting coke amidst nude roadies and Keith Richards [...]
The film was shown at the AFI in Washington, DC about 20 years ago, friends and I saw it all on the big screen.
Весь фильм в 9 минут? Или я чего-то не понял, или только часть фильма была выложена. Something is wrong, yeap.
так ведь часть всего выложили
its the first part of the documentary, click the link to get the rest
[...] סטונס בשנת 72 ונאסר להקרנה על יד… זמין כעת לצפייה [...]
"How a film managed to avoid an online leak for 37 years is beyond us"
- Well, maybe that's because "online" didn't exist for about 25 years out of those 37???
[...] The banned Rolling Stones documentary Cocksucker Blues, featuring hookers and coke snorting has found its way online. See part of it HERE [...]
[...] flavorwire.com. The Rolling Stones – cocksucker blues part 2 sélectionné dans Rock / [...]
Part 1 wont play! Any suggestions?
[...] filma erakustea debekatuta zegoen Robert Frank zuzendaria fisikoki presente ez zegoen bitartean. Internetek, noski muga hori ere gainditu [...]
I saw the film, “CS Blues,” accompanied by director Robert Frank, at a Boston, Mass. theater about 20 years ago. So poster “mcg” above didn’t see it for the first time in a theater as claimed.
In fact, I obtained a bootleg copy of the film “CS Blues” on VHS before the Internet became public.
The film is also available by torrents, for those who know how to use that method.
“CS Blues” is a somewhat worthwhile film (mostly as a document of a touring show business act, apart from the music segments), but also slow-going in parts.
I think the alleged apprehension of The Rolling Stones about the film’s release is probably part of the band’s well-known, self-generating publicity scheme.
There is no reason a release of the film, especially today, would garner much controversy, certainly not enough to result in the band’s inability to enter or re-enter The United States, as allegedly expressed by Keith Richards.
Besides which, any fears of prosecution for the film’s display of drug usage by certain band members may be allayed by the fact of the statutes of limitation having long ago passed for misdemeanor possession.
Anyone who’s ever seen an early John Waters film (“Pink Flamingos,” “Female Trouble”) or Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Salo: 120 Days Of Sodom” has witnessed more cinematic decadence.
While on the subject, I expect one day to also see a Broadway version of “Pink Flamingos,” complete with score (maybe Perez Hilton in drag singing “What’s The Scoop About The Poop?”) and eventual Disney or Nickelodeon film production of the same. The day may only be a “Hairspray” away.
In fact, the various video of al Qaeda decapitations (of American press, soldiers and contract workers in Iraq) leaked on the Web in the last decade are probably the most horrifying examples of filmic excess, making “CS Blues” seem very mild by comparison.
If any members of The Rolling Stones ever did or still think “CS Blues” is controversial, those Stones have been gathering moss and/or have an inflated sense of their self-worth, as the world around them has changed considerably the least 40 years, since that film was shot.