{"id":2266,"date":"2009-08-07T10:28:30","date_gmt":"2009-08-07T14:28:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-08-10T17:07:34","modified_gmt":"2009-08-10T17:07:34","slug":"kind-of-a-drag-charlie-watts-drags-the-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/kind-of-a-drag-charlie-watts-drags-the-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Kind of a Drag: Charlie Watts Drags The Stones&#8217; <em>Rock &#8216;n Roll Circus<\/em> into the Crapper"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zuTiTfbfy7Q?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Some of you may recall my work in exposing the so-called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/03\/05\/the_charlie_watts_hoax\">Charlie Watts hoax<\/a>. Considering that the beats on Stones records have long been among my favorite beats of all time, I&#8217;ve always been disappointed whenever I hear the Stones play these same songs live. It&#8217;s easy to point the finger at <strong>Mick Jagger<\/strong> for his shucking and jiving, which probably takes away from his already-limited ability to deliver the songs in his highly effective, super-cool, studio &#8220;head&#8221; voice, but I think Watts is the real culprit in the Stones rarely sounding &#8211; to me &#8211; like the supposed great live band that their vast team of publicists has spent 35 years promoting. The tempos are usually too slow, even by the standards of the original studio recordings. This breaks one of rock&#8217;s most important unwritten rules of live performance, that is, that tempos should be sped up by at least 20%. Watts rarely throws in the trademark fills that &#8220;he&#8221; has crafted on the studio recordings. For a band whose best work on record is driven by the drummer&#8217;s efficient beats (regardless of who the actual drummer might be), live Watts has to work his ass off to sound like your kid brother sitting in with your band on drums for a song or two before your real drummer shows up for rehearsal.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/44qEgxRn1AU?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nIt&#8217;s generally agreed that The Rolling Stones turn in the worst performance in their long-supressed <em>Rock &#8216;n Roll Circus<\/em>. Even the 20-second crane shot that introduces <strong>Marianne Faithfull<\/strong>&#8216;s, er, performance, steals the host band&#8217;s thunder. Jagger comes off like a complete clown. <strong>Keef<\/strong> has not yet fully transformed into his <em>Exile on Main Street<\/em>-era superhero persona. <strong>Bill Wyman<\/strong> is never once stirred from his usual Crypt Keeper role. Poor, bewildered <strong>Brian Jones<\/strong>, demoted to maracas on &#8220;Sympathy for the Devil&#8221; without the HR counseling to prepare for his demotion the way <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/11\/30\/linsgrth_exclusive_l_insg_clarence_clemo\">Clarence Clemons<\/a><\/strong> did with The Boss, has about as much brain activity as <strong>Ray Liotta<\/strong> in <em>Hannibal<\/em>.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/noupHDxmUTE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>Despite the band-wide factors that contributed to the Stones&#8217; poor showing in their own vanity production, I lay 90% of the blame for this fiasco on Charlie Watts. <em>There but for the grace of God goes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/index.php\/2007\/07\/10\/let_me_tell_you_there_are_25_similar_con\">Michael Clarke<\/a>!<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>Before the Stones finally call it a day, probably within a week after Jagger and Richards succeed in their pact to outlive all remaining Beatles, I pray that the band will eventually appear live with the real drummer who played on their numerous studio masterpieces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some of you may recall my work in exposing the so-called Charlie Watts hoax. Considering that the beats on Stones records have long been among my favorite beats of all time, I&#8217;ve always been disappointed whenever I hear the Stones play these same songs live. It&#8217;s easy to point the finger at Mick Jagger for <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/kind-of-a-drag-charlie-watts-drags-the-s\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[62,34,45,52],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}