Salon.com > Rolling Stones

“A Good Day to Die Hard”: Bruce Willis smirks the Russians to death

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 15:00:00 +0000

So Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis – with 188 years of life on the planet between them — have all released new action-adventure movies within the last month (pairing themselves conspicuously with younger co-stars), and God help me, I sat through all three. Willis is the baby of the trio at 57, and it’s reasonable to expect that the bewildering and idiotic “A Good Day to Die Hard,” the latest installment of a franchise that has yet to fail at the box office, will prosper where “The Last Stand” and “Bullet to the Head” have bombed. It’s also the worst of the three films, by far, at least if you’re sticking somewhere in the vicinity of old-fashioned ideas about the coherence of plot, characterization and setting, but I recognize that's irrelevant. (For the record, Stallone’s “Bullet to the Head,” while totally cartoonish, is more fun and better made than the other two.)

“Crossfire Hurricane”: Stones doc doesn’t give much satisfaction

Wed, 14 Nov 2012 20:47:00 +0000

Hail, hail the Rolling Stones, for making it to the half-century mark, relatively intact.

Pioneering a career that has lasted as long as it has, filling arenas 50 years in, with shows that still have edge and swagger, is a remarkable achievement. Maybe more of an achievement than breaking through in the early days, remaking American blues, forcing themselves to write their own material, and creating a mystique that became almost bigger than the band, though not big enough to ward off the epic bad vibe that was Altamont.

It is those early days and the first 25 years of the band that are the sole focus of the new golden anniversary film they threw themselves, “Crossfire Hurricane,” making its debut on HBO Thursday night.

The Rolling Stones cover the Beatles in never-before-seen video

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 16:55:00 +0000

The only thing better than watching intimate footage of a young Mick Jagger and guitarist Keith Richards performing is watching them perform music by their billboard chart rivals the Beatles. (Though they're rumored to be personal rivals as well, Flavorwire notes that Keith Richards shared a great respect for the Beatles.)

The never-before-seen footage comes from the upcoming expanded release of "Charlie Is My Darling," the "legendary, but never released film" by Peter Whitehead. Whitehead documented the Rolling Stones' tour across Ireland in 1965 weeks after their hit "(I Can t Get No) Satisfaction" topped the charts.

Watch the Stones' laid-back rendition of “I’ve Just Seen a Face” and “Eight Days a Week”:

h/t Flavorwire

Will any band ever break up?

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 00:00:00 +0000

The thick scent of eucalyptus and pollen drifts upward from a downtown Los Angeles flower shop to an upstairs rehearsal space: The five-piece band Spain, on a hot July night on a dodgy street, are launching into “It’s So True,” a brooding early number, following it with “Ten Nights” and “The Only One.” Intricate, understated lines coil from the lead guitar while the drummer plays brushes, jazz-style; the rhythm guitar summons the Velvet Underground’s spare, eerie third record, and in some of the structures you can hear the ghost of ‘50s country, thanks to leader Josh Haden’s family roots in Missouri’s Ozarks.

A good Spain song is like falling into a trance: It’s a blend of disparate, vibrato-rich sounds that, when played right, sounds inevitable. It’s also a sound very few people have heard lately: This band broke up more than a decade ago.

Shepard Fairey gets his sticky fingers on the Stones

Fri, 06 Jul 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Can anyone believe the Rolling Stones are 50 years old? Now that Shepard Fairey designed the Stones' official 50th-anniversary logo using their famous tongue, first seen on the Sticky Fingers album sleeve in 1971 (designed by John Pasche, a student from the Royal College of Art in London), we gotta believe. Yesterday I asked him about this incredible milestone:

Are you a Stones fan?

Yes, for over 30 years.

How did you refine the tongue?

I didn't ... it's perfect.

Did you have to show it to the lads?

Of course. I spoke to Mick often. He has a great design vocabulary and is very decisive.

How many iterations?