Brian Jones Knee-to-Knee Year zero for rock music was 1965, the pivot of the decade, when postwar baby boom culture took over the Western romantic tradition and turned the volume way up. In England, the Beatles and Stones tuned pop music into the new drug culture. In America, Bob Dylan invented rock by making strapping on an electric guitar a quasipolitical statement. In 1965 the novel was dead and the movies hopelessly behind the times. Music, fashion, and pop art carried the spirit of the day, and in the vanguard of this were the Rolling Stones. They had been working nonstop now for fifteen months. They were regarded by other rockers as the best live band in the world. Their concerts were interactive lust fiestas with a backbeat, and no one who saw the Stones play live in those times ever forgot it. During this period, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sat knee-to-knee in hotel rooms and tour buses, writing songs. “It’s the best place to write,” Mick said, “because you’re totally into it.
What do You think about Old Gods Almost Dead (2001)?
