Me and the Rolling Stones

Sam will be doing a live Skype web chat prior to the scheduled April release of his book,  You Can’t Always Get What You Want.  It will be at Feb.28, 6 PM PST, 9PM EST,  Mar.1st  in Sydney (where Sam will be).  Ask him what ever.  Get a dose of reality and a flash back to the yes generation. If you want to be included in the chat, you will have to send them your Skype name (* this is not a spam thing ) and you will be included, time permitting as it is ‘first come first serve’.  the site should be up later tonight but for now,  if you want to get a jump on the queue:

Users can send us their Skype usernames via the chat box during the show or in advance to: info@expandedbooks.com.

Sam is a pleasure to listen to and an actual insider into the Grateful Dead and Rolling Stones.

My partner just did an interview for zombiepopcorn.com.  He tells some great stories about how we did films in the ‘old days’. Here is a link to one of the films we did that we own exclusively..  http://getsmean.com

Here are the links to the website and the interview done by Tony Anthony..

http://zombie-popcorn.com/?p=6685 Website

http://www.ustream.tv/flash/video/4707555

it’s over two hours long and in this interview he only talks about our stuff after 1 hour 27 minutes but the beginning is great for the fans.

But you can try sometime and Sam Cutler has penned a book with that title.  Sam wrote the book in Australia and asked me to represent it for the rest of the world.  After I read it and found it to be a great read and full of facts that even I didn’t know, I agreed.  We got a publisher and it will be released in North America on March 31.  We are also doing an iPhone-iPod Touch app for the book that will include Sam reading the book for the audio application. This is the man that has the facts of the urban rumor of the Rolling Stones hiring the Hell’s Angels as he was one of the principles.  Hear/ read the truth!

Sam will be coming to the States in April to promote the book with a drive down the west coast with stops at local radio stations.  Sam will be treating this similar to old time record promotions.. Stay Tuned…

To all you autograph collectors, including those local politicians who insisted on autographed Rolling Stones photos, pushy promoters, the Press and those that received autographed photos during the ‘65 thru ‘71 tours… I signed all Stones signatures on the majority of the photos given out.  They had no patience back stage to handle signing and rather than fight the myriad of requests,  I signed their signatures !!

A friend of mine contacted me and said that he had been on a YouTube search, looking for footage of Jimmy Miller in the studio.  He had worked with Jimmy and was looking for memories.  Ironically, he found the footage that had Jimi Hendrix backstage with the Rolling Stones, some footage of the original Get Yer Ya Ya’s cover shoot, Keith playing the piano, , Georgia Bergman, chatting with Mick, and outside with Jerry Garcia, Mick, the dearly missed Ian Stuart, Stanley Booth, Ethan Russell, Charlie Watts and myself waiting for the helicopter to take us to Altamont.  If you listen closely to what Mick is saying at the beginning, it validates that the visit the night before was magical and we were surprised to hear that the music hadn’t started by 2 PM.  I didn’t remember this footage and was pleasantly surprised to see it.  I hate my voice..
The fact that the search was because of Jimmy Miller, brought back the memory of my first visit to a foreign country ( the UK :-0). I felt like ‘a stranger in a strange land’. A few months earlier I was a Miami boy, on the beach, wearing flip flops and shorts, dancing in clubs to their music and now I was going to my first business meeting with The Rolling Stones in the recording studio. When I walked in I was greeted by the record producer, Jimmy Miller. Turns out Jimmy was a Miami boy as well and I had a fellow American to ease me into eggs and bangers and the first place in London to have hamburgers (that was a big one!). I think it was called the Great American Disaster. Jimmy’s father was a major force in Las Vegas and used to get us the ungettable tickets..one time he had us sitting at Wayne Newton’s parents table for the opening night of Wayne Newton’s show..

Hendrix,Garcia, Stones before helicopter to Altamont

CLICK TO HEAR Shedding Hippie Blood Huey Morgan tells the story of the Rolling Stones’ 1969 Let It Bleed tour, a milestone in rock history that defined an era, and its tragic finale at the Altamont Speedway.

The band’s previous tours had been brief, incandescent sets played to mostly screaming teenage girls. But as the 60s grew to a close, the Stones’ music had evolved. They played longer sets, which charted their influences by including tracks by their blues heroes, and as Bill Wyman said; “for the first time the audiences were actually listening to what we playing”.

1969 was the year of the free rock festival. The Stones’ Hyde Park concert in London in July was followed a month later by Woodstock and, as their Let It Bleed tour rolled triumphantly across America, the Rolling Stones decided to end the decade with a massive free concert to thank their US fans for their continuing support.

The concert, held at Altamont Speedway in the scrublands of Northern California on 6th December, was meant to be the West Coast’s answer to Woodstock but the event turned out so differently, some believe it signalled the end of the peace and love era. It was badly organised, Hell’s Angels were providing security, and trouble started early on. Four people died including a young black man who was stabbed and kicked to death, at the front of the stage, as the Rolling Stones played Under My Thumb.

The programme features contributions from those who were on the road with the Stones on this groundbreaking tour including Mick Jagger’s personal assistant, Georgia Bergman; the tour’s business manager Ron Schneider; production manager Chip Monck; tour manager Sam Cutler; journalist Michael Lydon; photographer Ethan Russell; director Albert Maysles; and the Guardian’s Eamonn McCabe.

Shedding Hippie Blood provides a fascinating insight into what Rolling Stone magazine at the time called “the biggest rock tour music has seen”. It was a tour that defined an era with The Stones basically inventing stadium rock as their ground breaking journey unfolded. But it also represented the dark side that had emerged from a counterculture without control, conscience or conviction.

As we pass thru the 40th anniversary of the ‘69 Tour, I reflected on the “the good old days” and realized why every generation remarks as to how much better it was in the past.  The one thing every generation has in common with the last is that there are fewer People when their generation starts..ergo–better times, less people.

Riverdale is one of the few places on the outskirts of Manhattan that really allows you the comfort of the suburbs while still being city accessible.  Most of the people that move to Queens, Brooklyn and “just over the river” New Jersey with the promise of, “I’ll be in the city all the time” are never seen again.  My wife and I resided here to have some sort of calmness during the storm of rock and roll.  We had two afghan dogs that I walked in the morning to afford me exercise with an attitude (the dogs had the attitude).  When I walked in the door after our walk, my wife greeted me with – “Bill Graham is in your office and is pissed that you are walking the dogs and not there for him “, of course I needn’t discuss the fact that my wife (ex-wife) told him I was walking the dogs.

Let’s go back a few weeks:  A large package arrived at my desk at ABKCO Industries where I was continuing the illusion that the tour was being done by ABKCO so that it would not be known that I had quit and was doing the tour on behalf of myself and the Rolling Stones.  This package was a press kit bestowing the life, times and experience of Bill Graham.  He wanted to promote the entire tour and was preparing me for his pitch with his four inch deep press kit.

I informed Mick of Bill’s intentions and asked what they would like to do.  Mick immediately answered that on no uncertain terms did he or the Stones want the ego of Bill Graham involved with the Rolling Stones.  They didn’t want me to tell him no.  They wanted it presented in such a way that Bill would refuse and the Stones would not be subject to his trying to convince them that he was the man for the job.

* * *

A lot of the things written about these times by various authors were without the benefit of knowing all sides to the story…..Bill Graham never knew the details behind what happened over the course of this year and why certain events occurred as they did.

* * *

Bill was at my office due to an early arrival of his flight.  To know Bill you would realize that when my wife told him that I was walking my dogs instead of being there ahead of his arrival – I had disrespected him.

How to not tell Bill no and yet have him pass—-First I began by asking if he had done anything “big”.  At the time the upcoming tour would be largest of its kind and most unusual as it would be an entire package conceived by the Stones.  Prior to the 1969 tour, rock and rollers played dates usually filled with the local promoters groups that he managed.  The only lighting was usually a follow spot that, if you were lucky, you could contact the handler to describe lighting.  A pink spotlight during certain songs.  To say that Bill blew up at the mention that he had never done anything “big”, would be an understatement.  Now, off to this wonderful start, we talked further – I told Bill that he could do the tour…he would receive 10% of the gross proceeds….but…he could not put his name on the tour or be associated with the tour…he would be like an agent booking the dates from behind the scenes….He said, “Definitely not, I will not do the tour under these conditions.”

The next day in the New York newspapers, I read how rudely and horribly I had treated Bill Graham. Mick was right about his ego.

Here’s his book excerpt:  (told you so)

http://books.google.com/books?id=ntTYWi-hHo4C&pg=RA1-PA291&dq=ronnie+schneider#v=onepage&q=ronnie%20schneider&f=false

Enough about sex, drugs and rock and roll and now about love.  On the earlier tours,  ‘65 and ‘66, the costs offset any profit.  In some cases the costs were more than the profit… The most expensive cost was Charlie Watts’ phone bill.  While Mick, Keith, Brian and Bill were out doing ‘things’ during the tour, Charlie would be in his room on the phone with his wife, Shirley.  His phone bill exceeded his share of the income.  I would tease Charlie but always envied his devotion.  Charlie and Shirley are an example of true love,  still together after everything.  That’s a rock and roll challenge and an example for more to see.

Fan club story….We were in a top hotel in Dallas, Texas (the details evade me) and they were renowned for their chef.. The Stones had a large suite and we gathered there for lunch after an exhausting day.  We had ordered almost everything and were finishing our food and had gotten giggly.  This meant that we had started putting all the food together in a mound of food fight humor.
Brian liked a sunny side up egg on his hamburger and this led to a variation on this theme.   Everything that was on the table became part of this monstrosity.  The result of this was a giant hamburger with everything on it including prunes that were in some compote and all the other leftovers that were there.  Remember we were tired and just being silly.

Somehow the local promoter had arranged for the local fan club to have a visit while we were eating.   The fan club was headed up by someone’s mother and she walked around us at the table like we were animals on display all the while talking to the fan club members as if we weren’t there.  The mother asked if there was something special that the Stones ate and we remarked that they loved the centerpiece food on the table…the regaled Prune Burger.  Without a pause the woman picked up the food mess that was created and took a big bite to show her troop that she was eating what the Stones ate…of course we convulsed and had to make excuses as to why we were laughing.

I know this isn’t a sweet fan club story but it stood out from the many typical fan club stories where the fans came and got autographs and gave all types of gifts that they had made some incredible paintings, food (which we couldn’t eat just in case it was dosed or tainted) and heartfelt writings.  For as long as I can remember the main fan club was run from their office in the UK and the people there were terrific,  sorry that I can’t remember their names -I’m sure they would be pissed.