Flavorwire » Mick Jagger

Vintage Photos of Rock Legends Found at a Swap Meet

Alison Nastasi — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 00:00:30 +0000

Musician and rock archivist Jim Laspesa has been sharing some drool-worthy pics on his Facebook page. The most recent batch comes from a swap meet in Pasadena, California and shows several rock and roll legends mixing it up (with one even wearing a bathrobe). The source of the images is unknown, but whoever shot the likes of Jagger, Bowie, and Jimmy Page must have attended the best damn parties ever. Hit the jump for more vintage photos you wish you owned.

Image credit: Jim Laspesa [Spotted via Dangerous Minds]

David Bowie and Ronnie Spector

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Jimmy Page and John Bonham

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Keith Richards and David Bowie

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

The Righteous Brothers

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

The Plasmatics

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Jimmy Page and Mick Ralphs

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Jagger and Simon Kirke

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Alice Cooper

Image credit: Jim Laspesa

Charlie Watts

Rock ‘n’ Roll Muses Who Achieved Success in Their Own Right

Jennifer Lewis — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:30:49 +0000

There’s always that girl — the one in the songs, the one in the photographs, the one in the memoirs. The one who walks into a room and sets it aglow. She’ll tear up a rock ‘n’ roller’s heart, put it back together, and inspire the hell out of him, leaving her lasting mark on both his discography and biography. Yes, we’re talking muses, but not just any ol’ muses; we’re noting those who graduated from their tumultuous lives as expert inspirers to become successful in their own right. Check out some professors, artists, and cake shop proprietors after the jump.

Jane Asher

When actress Jane Asher was first introduced to The Beatles, all four mop-tops proposed at once. To the others’ dismay, Paul McCartney won her eye, and in 1963 they became one of the world’s most-loved couples. McCartney wrote “And I Love Her,” “We Can Work It Out,” and “Here, There, and Everywhere” while dating Asher, but their engagement ended when she caught him with another woman. Asher has starred in dozens of TV shows and films since then, including 2007′s Death at a Funeral. She has written three successful novels, is president of both the UK’s National Autistic Society and Parkinson’s UK, and started a successful party cake company. You go, girl.

Mick Jagger Having Unlikely Late-Career Pop-Culture Moment

Judy Berman — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:30:33 +0000

We’ve seen Mick Jagger’s name in the news a lot lately — and the funny thing is, the items we’ve been reading have nothing to do with his mediocre, new supergroup, SuperHeavy, who released their first album last month. First, there was Maroon 5′s inescapable (and dreadful hit, “Moves Like Jagger.” Then there’s Marc Spitz’s biography, Jagger: Rebel, Rock Star, Rambler, Rogue, which came out last month. And now, Gothamist reports that a group is trying to hijack New York City’s annual Halloween parade with a gaggle of marchers dressed as Jagger. But they’re not just going to slip into Mick’s leggings; they’re also planning to perform such hits as “Emotional Rescue,” “Dancing in the Street,” “Satisfaction,” “Time Is on My Side,” “Paint It Black,” Miss You,” “She’s So Cold,” “Start Me Up, and “Beast of Burden.” We would love to see this happen but have one additional suggestion: Please also enlist a gang of ’80s-era David Bowies to truly make “Dancing in the Street” worth everyone’s while.

Childhood Photos of Famous Rock Stars

Caroline Stanley — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 15:03:09 +0000

A few days ago we shared adorable pictures from the early years of some of our favorite writers with you, including an amazing photo of Ernest Hemingway in a dress. Today, we thought it might be fun to revisit the concept, but this time turning our focus on the music world. We don’t know about you, but we never really picture rock ‘n’ roll stars as having childhoods; wearing clothes that your parents have picked out for you and going through an awkward stage is the opposite of bad-ass. So, if you’re curious as to what Courtney Love looked like decades before she ever met Kurt — or you’d like to see how freaking cute he was as a little kid — click through to check out our roundup now.

Kurt Cobain [via]

Ranking Musicians’ Memorable Film Roles from Best to Worst

Alison Nastasi — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:00:05 +0000

Mick Jagger hasn’t been in a movie since 2001′s The Man from Elysian Fields. Yesterday, Deadline reported that the Rolling Stones frontman may be in line to play a Rupert Murdoch-like character in Tabloid, which is being written by A History of Violence scribe Josh Olson. This got us thinking about other musicians who made the crossover into film. Jagger’s played everyone from Turner in Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s excellent Performance, to a “bonejacker” (oof) in Freejack — which currently holds a shameful 15% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Here are other songbirds that also made the leap from stage to screen, in order from best to worst. Leave us your list in the comments.

Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist

Charlotte Gainsbourg comes from the blue blood of song making thanks to papa Serge Gainsbourg, but has been holding her own since her musical debut with dad on the song “Lemon Incest.” She just released the EP Terrible Angels, her new album Stage Whisper is coming this November — along with the theatrical release of Lars von Trier’s Melancholia in which she plays the distraught Claire. Her award-winning performance in Von Trier’s earlier film Antichrist, however, is our focus due to her breathtaking and terrifying performance. The physical and emotional transformations that take place for her character are striking and deeply felt.

Watch the Video for the First Single by Mick Jagger’s Superheavy

Judy Berman — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:00:28 +0000

Mick Jagger’s Superheavy — the supergroup that also features Joss Stone, AR Rahman, Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley, and Dave Stewart of Eurythmics — have just released their first music video, for “Miracle Worker,” and it doubles as a mission statement for the band. We meet all the members one by one, in their element: Marley is hanging at a reggae record store, while Stone is looking fresh and young in front of a flower shop. And look, here’s witch acupuncturist(?) Jagger, gyrating wildly in a hot-pink suit, in a creepy room filled with candles and skull! (Is the Cryptkeeper imagery supposed to read as self-parody?) Of course, everyone eventually comes together for a massive concert in the streets, where Indian ladies in saris dance with b-boys and all of Superheavy hops onstage. The video is a bit heavy-handed, but undeniably fun, even in its most bizarre Jagger moments.

As for the song, it’s not terrible and it’s not great. “Miracle Worker” is exactly what you might expect from such a top-heavy band — a busy mix of styles, from Stone’s jazzy crooning to Marley’s Jamaican-accented flow to Jagger’s growly rock ‘n’ roll showboating. The overarching reggae beat helps to tie everything together, and the song is effortlessly catchy. But if Superheavy really want to win us over, the band members are going to have to do a smoother job integrating their distinct styles.

[via NME]

Classic Images by Rolling Stone’s First Photographer

Caroline Stanley — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:00:29 +0000

Say what you want about fancy equipment or an expensive studio setting — a lot of what makes a photograph memorable is all about having an interesting subject to work with and being at the right place at the right time. Case in point, Baron Wolman, who was Rolling Stone‘s first chief photographer back in the late ’60s, during the magazine’s first three years. Now, over 200 of the iconic images that he captured during this incredibly important period of music history are being released in a new coffee-table book.

“I enjoyed shooting every musician I ever photographed, each in a different way but each with respect for him or her, with great joy in the moment,” he explains. “When I was shooting a concert I didn’t ‘hear’ the music, I ‘saw’ the music. Through the lens I was looking for single visual moments which would reflect the essence of the performance in the pages of Rolling Stone.” Click through to preview some of our favorite photos in the iconic collection, from a pic of Ike and Tina sharing a San Francisco stage back in 1967 to Pete Townshend grinning at the piano in 1968 London.

George Harrison, 1968. Photo credit: Baron Wolman from The Rolling Stone Years (Omnibus Press)

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds in Our Office

Judy Berman — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:04:36 +0000

Today at Flavorpill, we adored Michel Gondry’s video for Björk’s “Crystalline.” We agreed that On the Road and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas are among the favorite books of the secretly jerky. We were not impressed (or surprised) by the trailer for Russian Dolls, the Brighton Beach-set Russian version of Jersey Shore. We celebrated the birthday of Mick Jagger, Helen Mirren, and Stanley Kubrick. We were as ambivalent about Stereogum’s Stroked cover album, celebrating the tenth anniversary of The Strokes’ Is This It?, as we have always been about the band itself. We watched a comedian behave badly at an Apple store without getting kicked out. Amazing line-up additions drove us to contemplate launching a Kickstarter project to fund our journey to December’s Jeff Mangum-curated All Tomorrow’s Parties in the UK. And finally, we read a new short story by Jennifer Egan that has us feeling even more compulsive about list-making than usual.

10 Musicians and the Actors Who Were Born to Play Them

Judy Berman — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 14:30:34 +0000

Whoever cast Al Pacino as record producer/songwriter/murderer Phil Spector in HBO’s upcoming biopic is a genius. Even though the pair aren’t exactly body doubles (they are both relatively small men), it’s an exciting choice. Pacino has made a career out of playing dark, bizarre, and morally complex characters, from Sonny Wortzik in Dog Day Afternoon and Bobby in The Panic in Needle Park to Angels in America‘s Roy Cohn and Jack Kevorkian. We can’t wait to see what he’ll do with the role of one of pop culture’s greatest contradictions — a man who had the capacity to both make beautiful music and kill. The news of Pacino’s casting got us thinking about other musicians and the actors who were born to play them. Ten of our picks are after the jump.

Wayne Coyne and Sam Trammell

Are we the only ones who have noticed how much True Blood co-star Sam Trammell resembles Wayne Coyne? There’s the face shape, the cheekbones, the shaggy-yet-dignified salt-and-pepper hair. But that isn’t all they have in common: Coyne grew up in Oklahoma and, despite his adventures in psychedelic oddness, has always had the air of a Southern gentleman. Trammell grew up in New Orleans and West Virginia and is putting his knowledge of the South to good use playing Bon Temps’s sweetest (and most troubled) barkeep. We think it would be a good fit.

10 of Music’s Most Disappointing Duets

Tom Hawking — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 14:30:50 +0000

If you watched True Blood on Sunday night, you probably heard the Nick Cave/Neko Case version of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” that played over the end credits. We were pretty excited to hear about this collaboration, but unfortunately it proved somewhat less than the sum of its parts – Case’s vocals were decidedly lackluster while Cave, as our own Judy Berman put it, sounded “like the deep-voiced guy on every early-’90s house track.” Ouch. There have been plenty of heinous duets over the years (like this one, which is like the musical equivalent of pairing Beelzebub with Elizabeth Báthory) — but no one expects anything good to come of such things. Somehow it’s more disappointing when it’s two artists you genuinely like and respect who combine to create something that proves a whole less exciting than it sounded on paper. Like this lot, for instance.

Björk and Antony — “The Dull Flame of Desire”

Recording a song with the word “dull” in the title is a risky move, particularly if said song is seven-and-a-half minutes long and based on a Russian poem. Most of Björk’s bold artistic moves over the years have paid off in spades, and we’re big fans of Antony and the Johnsons, but for whatever reason, this song just doesn’t work. Or, in fact, the reason is pretty clear — it drags on and on and on, as Björk and Antony try to out-emote one another with ever more histrionic vocals, and the brass section grows ever more raucous, and we get a headache.