This We Dug: The Rolling Stones

(David Rinck recalls the moment that made him a rocker.)

The other day, I picked up the obligatory copy of Keith Richards’ new autobiography “Life.” OK, no surprises — there’s some really interesting stuff in here, but it predictably enough reads sort of like “This I Took.” Maybe he should get a program?

Also, I happened to see the new(ish) Martin Scorsese live film of the Stones. “Shine A Light,” about a month ago, and I really didn’t think it was very good. I mean, come on guys: Christina Aguilera? Really? And poor ol’ Keith looks like he’s just exhausted. Well yeah, when you talk about the Stones nowadays, it’s hard to ignore the fact that these guys are getting a bit torn and frayed. But let’s be fair here …

The story of the Rolling Stones and me goes back a very, very long time. Rewind to my very first impressions of music, some of my earliest memories, and there they are. In fact, even though it goes back into faded sectors of my memory chip, I can pinpoint exactly the first time I heard the Stones. I was only six, but I still remember this like it was yesterday.

Summer in San Diego, I’m with my dad and my grandfather, and we’re driving home from a day at the beach. Mission Beach to be exact, and we were in that old Jeep Cherokee we used to have (and that I would one day inherit). My dad was in the front seat at the time diving, and we were just pulling off the freeway at the College Ave exit, and he puts on the car radio. “Satisfaction” comes on. And that exact moment, my dear friends, was THE precise moment I really heard my very first rock-‘n’-roll song.

“Electrified” is the word that comes to mind here. It was like a bolt of lightening came out of the sky and froze me. Keith Richards hitting that instantly recognizable riff, perhaps the most recognizable in all of rock and roll, Charlie’s drums banging out that rock steady turnaround after Mick’s “no, no, no!” Wow, I was struck, struck, struck, and I was in love, love, love … And the funny thing is, my dad turns around and goes, “I hope you kids never get into this rock-‘n’-roll stuff.”

This is still one of my very favorite, or OK, even probably my very favorite song (sorry, Dad).

In the next few years, every chance I got, I stopped and listened when they played the Stones on the radio. And play they did, timeless songs, so classic they almost seem like a cliché now, songs like “Ruby Tuesday,” “Paint It Black,” “Get Off My Cloud,” Heart of Stone,” “Jumping Jack Flash,” “Street Fighting Man,” “Gimme Shelter,” “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” and “Sympathy For the Devil” on albums like 12×5; Rolling Stones Now!; December’s Children; Aftermath; Between the Buttons; and of course Let It Bleed and Beggar’s Banquet, arguably their finest albums.

And what’s this? A lot of their records have these songs that are not credited to Jagger/Richards, but who are these guys? And through the Rolling Stones I discover Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters, Buddy Holly and lots more through covers like “Little Queenie,” “Not Fade Away,” “Route 66,” and “Carol”. In my opinion, the Stones’ versions are the definitive versions of “Just My Imagination,” “20 Flight Rock” and “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg.”

Sometime when I am still in grade school I think, I started trading in my comic books for records, and I pick up Sticky Fingers and Exile on Main Street, arguably their finest albums, and what’s this? This rocks a little harder, tunes like “Rip This Joint,” “Tumbling Dice,” “Happy,” “Brown Sugar,” “Bitch” and “Dead Flowers” (a song that I would forever associate with girlfriends (because of that line “I know you think you’re the queen of the underground”), and one of the very first songs I would actually learn to play.

Soon I’m in junior high, and a big night out for us was spending the night at a friend’s house and staying up late and watching Saturday Night Live (in the great old years, with the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players), and for a real big night, “Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert” is on after that. Well, one night I was at Dave Klowden’s house (he’s my very oldest friend, we actually met in the sixth grade when our parents lived a block apart in Del Cerro), and who’s on SNL but the Stones themselves? That was when they had just recorded Some Girls, arguably their finest albums, and I remember them doing “Beast of Burden” and “Shattered.” I wish I could go see them in person, but they skipped San Diego on that tour, and I was too young to go to L.A. and see them.

Fast-forward to 1981. By now, I’m a committed punk rocker and in fact the idea of a band of my own is starting to gel in my head, but the cry for “no more Stones, Who or Beatles” doesn’t stop Pat Works and I from jumping in that same Jeep Cherokee that I had first heard “Satisfaction” in, and driving up to see the Rolling Stones at the L.A. Coliseum. They were touring for “Tattoo You” then, arguably their best album. That was such a fun show. Remember that trip. Pat?

It’s often said that back when we were in grade school, you were either into the Stones, or you were into the Beatles. Is this true? I don’t think I was really even aware of the Beatles when I was in grade school. They were just some nice guys in a band that broke up long before I could have seen a rock concert. On the other hand, punk rock defined my generation musically, but I easily saw in our Doll forefathers David and Johnny, some Mick and Keith. In fact, over the years, I learned a few things about music, what it means and what it represents, and the Stones were there at every intersection.

And though every one that grew up sometime in say … well, like the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s or ’90s, knows the great tunes of the Stones canon, I bet everyone also has one (or maybe 10) favorites that were never on their greatest-hits albums. My list would include “Out Of Time,” “Jiving Sister Fanny” (from the strangely overlooked Metamorphosis LP, arguably their greatest album), “Waiting On A Friend,” “You Got The Silver,” “Before They Make Me Run,” “Little T&A” or for that matter ALL of the songs Keith sings.

So okay, I actually haven’t bought a new Stones album since Stripped (arguably their finest live album), and Keith’s new book is a bit gratuitous for my taste nowadays, and the Scorsese film seems to just underscore how old these guys have gotten. But let’s be fair here, yes the Stones have gotten older, but then they’ve been there in the background (and often in the foreground) for almost 40 years of my life. This is a band that I have literally grown up to.

I remember their slogan used to be at one point “The Greatest Rock-‘n’-Roll Band in The World,” and well, I’d be hard pressed to disagree. And like most of us here, I can honestly say, it may be only rock-‘n’-roll but I love it, and The Rolling Stones and rock ‘n’ roll are to me simply synonymous.

— David Rinck

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