Friday, April 18, 2003
good luck and good night.
And now, for the lurid aspects of real human memory ...
The good parts are memories of Leopold's. Leopold's was one of the more interesting experiments I have ever even tangentially participated in. You know that business of the bootleg Stones record. Back when that item was first offered to the record collective, there had to be a meeting. As this was the first time a bootleg was presented to the store, this was the first time the people working there had to consider such issues. This item seemed to go against the grain of the spirit in which the record co-op (a worker's collective as well) was founded. As workers, they didn't want to be exploited for profit. They were working for the same for all workers.
I have to keep reminding you because this is probably like a foreign language now that the record collective after all was a creation of the times. The collective decision was to work for certain wages to allow profits (excess moneys) to accrue to be eventually delivered into the community for social works. The one thing that everyone at that time had in common was the belief in community, and feeling the necessity to support areas of the community with the record store profits.
In expanding economic theory in dealing with merchandise, they recognized they had no control over money once it left their hands and was given to the record companies. They had to trust the money that went to the record companies might end up in the proper hands. As this was a bootleg, "the work" of the artists would profit only the guy clever enough to make the tape and press the records. There was an issue about royalty payments to the people who had not only performed the material but had written the material. Lots of issues were discussed. It was recognized that the Stones probably had more money than they knew what to do with, but there was a collective belief it was up to the Stones to decide if they wanted a share of their rightful profits forwarded to them from the sale of this record.
To show that Leopold's tried to operate fairly: If the Stones opted to forego profits on this venture, they would have a vote at the time when the collective met to decide to disburse the funds. In other words, the Stones could have 1 vote for a community group they'd want to fund with this distribution, I think that's how that weird, stuggling proposal ended up.
The collective developed a statement of objectives and delivered it via courier to the Hotel Claremont where the Stones were staying. This was an exclusive hotel nestled in the clouds high in the Oakland Hills. Not surprisingly, the collective member was treated like cheap shit by the hotel and by the Stones representative he'd called on the desk phone, so he just left the statement with the desk clerk to pop into the appropriate message box. Never hearing back from any of them (why would they bother, after all), the collective met and decided to purchase and sell the bootleg. Without input from the artists in question, they were forced to treat this as any other record, and "trust the money goes into the right hands."
Shortly later, the tour manager of the Stones, at that time Peter Rutledge (probably soon to be Sir Peter Rutledge), doubleparked on the street, ran up the stairs, came into Leopold's and bought five copies of the record. Jason was pleased, he thought the Stones would be pissed. There was a hundred dollar bill on the counter for payment and Rutledge ran out with the records, but Suzanne in her usual ensemble of bibbed overhauls and bare feet ran down stairs after him to try to give him his change.
The bootleg was but one of the records that helped keep Leopold's going, but given the publicity surrounding the Stones having hung out in the Bay Area, Altamont, and the continuing publicity attendent to not only that event, but the upcoming film about Altamont (all within the short span of a year and a half or two years), the record sold steadily until such time the order clerk one day had enough and just refused to restock the order. I don't know how many copies were sold, but I'll say by steadily I mean I'm guessing 2 or 3 or so copies per week. With a bit of discussion, it turned out the order clerk had strong feelings about "the social irresponsibility" of the Stones and this was brought forward in a store management meeting, wherein it was collectively agreed to withdraw the record. As the Stones by all published accounts appeared to be transforming into "the enemy" and the record collective could not in good conscience continue profiteering from this venture.
(Background)
As I mentioned, that English music group were hanging about the area waiting to find a location for their free concert in 1969, and several representatives of their entourage invaded the club I was working in. One of whom not only insisted on better seating towards the front, but had a couple of lesser creature roadie-types order the people away from the table. That creature who insisted on preferred, ringside seating was always waving hundred dollar bills about. Another of their entourage was equally boorish; took one sip of the cheap wine he'd ordered and poured the remainder on the floor.
The hundred dollar bill guy held up a big bill for me to take (he could not bother to turn his head, or hand it to me, he held it in the air like a small flag) for the $1 beer he ordered. I had to go across the street to the jazz club for change. Soon, he did it again, even though he had smaller amounts to pay for his beer. I think he was trying to give me a $99 tip. There was something about his attitude that grated on me, so I asked him to make his future orders at the bar. I was busy but came across the bartender smiling and stuffing a hundred dollar bill in his jeanspocket. I scolded him and told him he was just a conduit and should give back the change or just put the money in the club's till, and we could meet with the owners and decide what to do with the excess. He thought I was nuts, and looked on this as his personal good luck. He was impulsive and opportunistic in the way that spoiled children or little criminals are, and it was clear he could be bought. It was unfortunate he had ended up with that money, and to make matters worse his brother the doorman got a hundred dollar bill, too. They were undeserving of good fortune sorts -- bourgeois boys raised in the Berkeley hills who having failed at an Eastern school were drifting into bad things (every bit as bad as the lousy music they played as a duo on their Gretsch guitar and champagne sparklers drum kit), and I had some idea of what they'd be doing with the Stones' fans' hard-earned money that had been passed along to them as a tip.
The Stones rented the club for a rehearsal, kind of a party for friends, and I happened to be there when a few of them performed a few songs as a lark wearing different parts of the costumes they'd found upstairs in the "sound room" (a folding table with a mixing board and a small box with switches for the stage lights). That was a nicer gathering in so far as the performance was fun to watch, but the people who travelled in their entourage weren't people I felt comfortable talking to much less being around. They were still in the area weeks later and I heard they brought Chuck Berry or somebody such like in for a private performance with some of the local musicians scraped up to serve as his backup band, but I didn't see that show.
Believe it or not, some of the Stones entourage showed up at the estate where I was living, and I found them sitting in the geneticist's kitchen.
Sandy-haired and mustachioed Peter Rutledge the obnoxious tour manager was wearing a wine colored shirt, black trousers, some stylized version of black cowboy boots you could only get in a New York boutique, and a rather high ticket buckskin colored jacket. He had a small tan briefcase that was a fancy imitation of the satchel a doctor used on housecalls (back when doctors gave housecalls), that item reeked of Vuichon carriage house leathergoods, and the way he kept it clutched on his lap, I assumed it was filled with money and drugs. He was said to perform a parlor trick to amuse his insider friends who knew the satchel was full of money, wads of cash, and more money. Once in awhile, he'd open the case in a hotel room and dramatically turn it upside down to have a single five dollar bill flutter to the floor. Then he'd make his dramatic and humorous exit.
This guy, who I recognized as the hundred dollar bill blowing it everywhere person who I finally refused to wait on, was chatting with his pals when I came in. He had taken over sitting in a wheelchair that a friend of mine was storing at the house, and he was playing and careening about. A woman was blithering to another about a shrimp-throwing game on Bill Graham's lawn and how Bill had given everyone a bota bag as a party favor. This Rutledge character was in the wheelchair lurching about like a genuine spas, rolling wildly into a houseplant, knocked it over, caught it and shoved it partly back into place at a tilt. I asked him to knock it off, and just told him he should try to be more respectful. That also, I reminded him, was a very expensive chair. Then he just got up and picked up the telephone to use as if he were in his own hotel room, like "Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot to make this critical call." Then he slammed down the receiver, the cord having become tangled under the telephone in his quick use, and the receiver wasn't even sitting on the phone correctly. He didn't give a crap even if he noticed.
They were soon leaving this place, he'd picked his satchel up and started taking long-legged strides moving towards the door, two girls swept into his wake trying to keep up with him. I wasn't about to go anywhere with them like they'd even asked. They were on their way out of the building. I arose in time to act the thoughtful hostess, like saying, "Please, allow me to show you to the door" and then escorted them to the outside where I regaled them with the botanical mysteries of the agave plant, which had just bloomed. The so-called century plant blooms but once in its long lifetime, not a century really, actually it's more like 20 or 30 years depending on the water supply, but I guess that can seem more than a century given some circumstances. That manager guy in brushing up on his typically English whatever you would care to call it (I think it's the English trendy tendency to quip about anything, as long as it somehow is direspectful or cheapens the other person's views or observations) dismissed their departure by making a joke, "Seems fitting in that I've noticed the ones who succeed in the world seem to be moving steadily faster."
Twitter twitter. That was a cute joke, but not as funny as the woman hanging by him tittering overlong in appreciation. They couldn't get out of there fast enough to suit me. Thereafter, when people I didn't know appeared at the door, I'd peer out from behind the red and white tablecloth that was an impromptu curtain for the French style door, and say, "Nobody's home."
The Stones gave their free concert, too, but I didn't go near it, I was scheduled to work that evening and the "vibes" were weird around town all throughout the day.
Later, several people asked me to attend the Stones' big Bill Graham production concert in Oakland. Tickets were $5 (which happened to be the same cost of tickets the only other time I saw the Stones in concert, back in 1964 on their initial tour of the U.S. and they ended up at the unlikeliest spot, the Orange Fair in San Berdoo. Anyway, for this later Oakland concert staged at a huge concrete coliseum there were lots of free tickets floating around. "Deacon" of Deacon and the Suprelles got one or two, Leopold's got offered some, and so on. Terry Reid opened the show and impressed the crowd that was there only to see the Stones. He performed a number a person I'd known in high school had written. (It's a very small world I lived in.)
Ike and Tina Turner were on the bill and she succeeded in bringing down the house. The Stones were forced to wait a long while before coming on. The curtain rose to screams and whistles, the Stones onstage postured for their music assault. Keith began trying the lead-in for the opening number, to discover the guitar wasn't amplified as should be when he played, the sound cut in and out, then nothing and he was strumming making no noise like he was playing acoustic in an overamped band, then he fiddled with the dials on front, a few electric squeals of feedback as the rest of them played on, and he tore off the guitar and threw it towards a speaker, and stalked off stage. That is to say, he exited stage right. Poor impulse control, I thought. A roadie was onstage stopping the guitar in its skid towards the speaker, poised and ready to react just that fast, as if he were well rehearsed, and he held the guitar by the neck and moved stage right.
A lot of other really egregious things occured connected with that concert, including a concert photographer who was pushing and shoving people roughly out of the way to snap his photos of the band. While I felt like strangling him to death with his own camera strap, I'd moved down to the floor close to the stage dancing, as Mick was going to jump off stage and dance with the audience. Dangerous, but I guess he felt it important to do after Altamont. He did, too, head into the crowd. Yes, this move was pre-planned spontaneity. It was a heap of humanity swirling there, but the roadies on stage had cleared a small path for him to make his leap from the stage. He was singing almost directly in my ear, and then moved away to hop and bop, and I'll be damned if that idiot photographer didn't grab at me and start pushing me roughly out of the way of his camera lens. Then Mick soon made his way back up on to the stage, about halfway through the song. The concert went on, but I was steamed at the photographer, and found him later standing by a wall talking to a security guard and so had a few words with him. Then I went back up to my seat in the nosebleed section. The concert went on to conclusion, and the exits from the arena were packed and stalled for what seemed an eternity with shoulder-to-shoulder people. Everybody was still in a lather after the show, and this had all the charm of a being in a cattle-car unloading down a narrow chute. I looked at my escort, and he was laughing, and suddenly he started lowing like a cow. I thought that was funny, so I began moo-ing in response, and he eventually brought the sound into "Moo-oo-oove!"
The evening didn't end there, we made our way out into the night air past several women sprawled on the stairs overcome by the heat and crowding, another was sobbing uncontrollably, another in a swoon being half-dragged and half carried by a security guard down the hall (it was looking more and more like a mausoleum not a coliseum). It ended up that the tires on my escort's truck were slashed, but I just figure that's the kind of vile energy that was attracted to the Stones.
I resolved never to have anything to do with them ever again, and within a day collected what few Stones records I had and gave them to the first guy I saw on Telegraph who was trying to sell rings made out of paperclips or other items he would find on the street. I figured he could at least get a meal if he sold those. Peter Rutledge I am pleased to report I heard or read was soon fired. As for me, never again.
***************
Update 1/17/11
Good Luck and Good Night link above once led to this article in the Rolling Stone
Beatles LP Boycott: Outrageous Price
Compilation too costly for Berkeley buyers
The Beatles
"As bad as Chevrolet"?
Leopold's, a student-owned, non-profit co-op record store is refusing to sell the new Hey Jude (nee Beatles Again) album in protest against its "outrageous" $6.98 list price.
"We're trying to make it clear that the boycott is not against the Beatles themselves but against Capitol records in specific and other labels in general for their outrageous record prices," asserted store manager Jason Gervich.
According to Gervich, Abbey Road was the first rock album to ever list at $6.98, even though the British version sold at the same price as any other Beatles album. He believes that the reason for the disparity in prices rests with American business, and possibly that record companies will try to jack up prices on all their albums if there is no backlash over the expensive Beatles albums. Hence, the boycott.
"We're the only store I know of willing to boycott it, so it probably won't make much difference. It should sell well despite us, but it would be nice if it didn't. Not because of the Beatles, because they probably don't even know their albums are the highest priced rock albums ever put out. It's not a question of the Beatles charging more because they need more bread; it's a question of businessmen charging more for the Beatles because they want more bread."
Leopold's is explaining to their customers via leafletting why they are refusing to sell this album. They expect some feedback, because not being able to purchase the album at Leopold's means people in Berkeley will have to go to one of the higher-priced commercial stores to get the album -- a highly-prized collection of such old singles as "Hey Jude," "Rain," and "Ballad of John and Yoko" not available on other albums. Chances are good, though, that in the political climate of Berkeley, the store will make as many friends as it will lose by refusing to sell it.
"I don't think we'll get anything out of doing this, but we're going to do it because it's the right thing to do. This is just a greatest hits album - there's no production on it at all except to put some already-existing songs on it in a different order. It should be cheaper than most records. Abbey Road was the same; there was no packaging with it at all, yet it's super-expensive. I really hope we get the ball rolling, so sales of the album are lower. It may be the only way to keep prices from getting completely out of control," Gervich said. "This is just complete bullshit. There's no reason at all for that high-priced an album. Capitol's getting as bad as Chevrolet."
"And the quality of them records is getting worse. We ended up taking boxes of The Band album back to our distributor because they were returned to us with excessive surface noise, or because they skipped or are so thin you couldn't put two records on your record player," he added.
Leopold's is a small enough enterprise that they have little fear of the record companies trying to shut them down because of their action.
"We thought about it, but we're just not worried. They couldn't do it. They'd have to get every distributor in the Bay Area to refuse to serve us, and it would hardly be worth it to them because once they've sold their album to the distributor they've pretty much made their money. Even if they did try to close us down, we'd just get a court case going," Gervich said.
Which attitude is very much in keeping with the image of Leopold's in the Berkeley community. Since they went into business less than a year ago, they have become synonymous with student power. They sell more albums for just a slight bit more than they pay for them at the distributor, serving more as a middleman than a salesman.
Students of Berkeley (S.O.B.), the non-profit corporation which run the store, makes sure that Leopold's charge no more than is necessary to pay rent and provide salaries for the employees. The result is a crowded, funky little store over a restaurant where customers rap rock and roll with the personnel and buy their albums at regular prices cheaper than anywhere else in the Bay Area.
"Hopefully, some other record stores will follow in this us in this boycott; if not, good luck and good night," Gervich laughed.
(RS 53 - March 7, 1970) ¶ 4/18/2003 11:30:00 PM
And now, for the lurid aspects of real human memory ...
The good parts are memories of Leopold's. Leopold's was one of the more interesting experiments I have ever even tangentially participated in. You know that business of the bootleg Stones record. Back when that item was first offered to the record collective, there had to be a meeting. As this was the first time a bootleg was presented to the store, this was the first time the people working there had to consider such issues. This item seemed to go against the grain of the spirit in which the record co-op (a worker's collective as well) was founded. As workers, they didn't want to be exploited for profit. They were working for the same for all workers.
I have to keep reminding you because this is probably like a foreign language now that the record collective after all was a creation of the times. The collective decision was to work for certain wages to allow profits (excess moneys) to accrue to be eventually delivered into the community for social works. The one thing that everyone at that time had in common was the belief in community, and feeling the necessity to support areas of the community with the record store profits.
In expanding economic theory in dealing with merchandise, they recognized they had no control over money once it left their hands and was given to the record companies. They had to trust the money that went to the record companies might end up in the proper hands. As this was a bootleg, "the work" of the artists would profit only the guy clever enough to make the tape and press the records. There was an issue about royalty payments to the people who had not only performed the material but had written the material. Lots of issues were discussed. It was recognized that the Stones probably had more money than they knew what to do with, but there was a collective belief it was up to the Stones to decide if they wanted a share of their rightful profits forwarded to them from the sale of this record.
To show that Leopold's tried to operate fairly: If the Stones opted to forego profits on this venture, they would have a vote at the time when the collective met to decide to disburse the funds. In other words, the Stones could have 1 vote for a community group they'd want to fund with this distribution, I think that's how that weird, stuggling proposal ended up.
The collective developed a statement of objectives and delivered it via courier to the Hotel Claremont where the Stones were staying. This was an exclusive hotel nestled in the clouds high in the Oakland Hills. Not surprisingly, the collective member was treated like cheap shit by the hotel and by the Stones representative he'd called on the desk phone, so he just left the statement with the desk clerk to pop into the appropriate message box. Never hearing back from any of them (why would they bother, after all), the collective met and decided to purchase and sell the bootleg. Without input from the artists in question, they were forced to treat this as any other record, and "trust the money goes into the right hands."
Shortly later, the tour manager of the Stones, at that time Peter Rutledge (probably soon to be Sir Peter Rutledge), doubleparked on the street, ran up the stairs, came into Leopold's and bought five copies of the record. Jason was pleased, he thought the Stones would be pissed. There was a hundred dollar bill on the counter for payment and Rutledge ran out with the records, but Suzanne in her usual ensemble of bibbed overhauls and bare feet ran down stairs after him to try to give him his change.
The bootleg was but one of the records that helped keep Leopold's going, but given the publicity surrounding the Stones having hung out in the Bay Area, Altamont, and the continuing publicity attendent to not only that event, but the upcoming film about Altamont (all within the short span of a year and a half or two years), the record sold steadily until such time the order clerk one day had enough and just refused to restock the order. I don't know how many copies were sold, but I'll say by steadily I mean I'm guessing 2 or 3 or so copies per week. With a bit of discussion, it turned out the order clerk had strong feelings about "the social irresponsibility" of the Stones and this was brought forward in a store management meeting, wherein it was collectively agreed to withdraw the record. As the Stones by all published accounts appeared to be transforming into "the enemy" and the record collective could not in good conscience continue profiteering from this venture.
(Background)
As I mentioned, that English music group were hanging about the area waiting to find a location for their free concert in 1969, and several representatives of their entourage invaded the club I was working in. One of whom not only insisted on better seating towards the front, but had a couple of lesser creature roadie-types order the people away from the table. That creature who insisted on preferred, ringside seating was always waving hundred dollar bills about. Another of their entourage was equally boorish; took one sip of the cheap wine he'd ordered and poured the remainder on the floor.
The hundred dollar bill guy held up a big bill for me to take (he could not bother to turn his head, or hand it to me, he held it in the air like a small flag) for the $1 beer he ordered. I had to go across the street to the jazz club for change. Soon, he did it again, even though he had smaller amounts to pay for his beer. I think he was trying to give me a $99 tip. There was something about his attitude that grated on me, so I asked him to make his future orders at the bar. I was busy but came across the bartender smiling and stuffing a hundred dollar bill in his jeanspocket. I scolded him and told him he was just a conduit and should give back the change or just put the money in the club's till, and we could meet with the owners and decide what to do with the excess. He thought I was nuts, and looked on this as his personal good luck. He was impulsive and opportunistic in the way that spoiled children or little criminals are, and it was clear he could be bought. It was unfortunate he had ended up with that money, and to make matters worse his brother the doorman got a hundred dollar bill, too. They were undeserving of good fortune sorts -- bourgeois boys raised in the Berkeley hills who having failed at an Eastern school were drifting into bad things (every bit as bad as the lousy music they played as a duo on their Gretsch guitar and champagne sparklers drum kit), and I had some idea of what they'd be doing with the Stones' fans' hard-earned money that had been passed along to them as a tip.
The Stones rented the club for a rehearsal, kind of a party for friends, and I happened to be there when a few of them performed a few songs as a lark wearing different parts of the costumes they'd found upstairs in the "sound room" (a folding table with a mixing board and a small box with switches for the stage lights). That was a nicer gathering in so far as the performance was fun to watch, but the people who travelled in their entourage weren't people I felt comfortable talking to much less being around. They were still in the area weeks later and I heard they brought Chuck Berry or somebody such like in for a private performance with some of the local musicians scraped up to serve as his backup band, but I didn't see that show.
Believe it or not, some of the Stones entourage showed up at the estate where I was living, and I found them sitting in the geneticist's kitchen.
Sandy-haired and mustachioed Peter Rutledge the obnoxious tour manager was wearing a wine colored shirt, black trousers, some stylized version of black cowboy boots you could only get in a New York boutique, and a rather high ticket buckskin colored jacket. He had a small tan briefcase that was a fancy imitation of the satchel a doctor used on housecalls (back when doctors gave housecalls), that item reeked of Vuichon carriage house leathergoods, and the way he kept it clutched on his lap, I assumed it was filled with money and drugs. He was said to perform a parlor trick to amuse his insider friends who knew the satchel was full of money, wads of cash, and more money. Once in awhile, he'd open the case in a hotel room and dramatically turn it upside down to have a single five dollar bill flutter to the floor. Then he'd make his dramatic and humorous exit.
This guy, who I recognized as the hundred dollar bill blowing it everywhere person who I finally refused to wait on, was chatting with his pals when I came in. He had taken over sitting in a wheelchair that a friend of mine was storing at the house, and he was playing and careening about. A woman was blithering to another about a shrimp-throwing game on Bill Graham's lawn and how Bill had given everyone a bota bag as a party favor. This Rutledge character was in the wheelchair lurching about like a genuine spas, rolling wildly into a houseplant, knocked it over, caught it and shoved it partly back into place at a tilt. I asked him to knock it off, and just told him he should try to be more respectful. That also, I reminded him, was a very expensive chair. Then he just got up and picked up the telephone to use as if he were in his own hotel room, like "Oh, yeah, I nearly forgot to make this critical call." Then he slammed down the receiver, the cord having become tangled under the telephone in his quick use, and the receiver wasn't even sitting on the phone correctly. He didn't give a crap even if he noticed.
They were soon leaving this place, he'd picked his satchel up and started taking long-legged strides moving towards the door, two girls swept into his wake trying to keep up with him. I wasn't about to go anywhere with them like they'd even asked. They were on their way out of the building. I arose in time to act the thoughtful hostess, like saying, "Please, allow me to show you to the door" and then escorted them to the outside where I regaled them with the botanical mysteries of the agave plant, which had just bloomed. The so-called century plant blooms but once in its long lifetime, not a century really, actually it's more like 20 or 30 years depending on the water supply, but I guess that can seem more than a century given some circumstances. That manager guy in brushing up on his typically English whatever you would care to call it (I think it's the English trendy tendency to quip about anything, as long as it somehow is direspectful or cheapens the other person's views or observations) dismissed their departure by making a joke, "Seems fitting in that I've noticed the ones who succeed in the world seem to be moving steadily faster."
Twitter twitter. That was a cute joke, but not as funny as the woman hanging by him tittering overlong in appreciation. They couldn't get out of there fast enough to suit me. Thereafter, when people I didn't know appeared at the door, I'd peer out from behind the red and white tablecloth that was an impromptu curtain for the French style door, and say, "Nobody's home."
The Stones gave their free concert, too, but I didn't go near it, I was scheduled to work that evening and the "vibes" were weird around town all throughout the day.
Later, several people asked me to attend the Stones' big Bill Graham production concert in Oakland. Tickets were $5 (which happened to be the same cost of tickets the only other time I saw the Stones in concert, back in 1964 on their initial tour of the U.S. and they ended up at the unlikeliest spot, the Orange Fair in San Berdoo. Anyway, for this later Oakland concert staged at a huge concrete coliseum there were lots of free tickets floating around. "Deacon" of Deacon and the Suprelles got one or two, Leopold's got offered some, and so on. Terry Reid opened the show and impressed the crowd that was there only to see the Stones. He performed a number a person I'd known in high school had written. (It's a very small world I lived in.)
Ike and Tina Turner were on the bill and she succeeded in bringing down the house. The Stones were forced to wait a long while before coming on. The curtain rose to screams and whistles, the Stones onstage postured for their music assault. Keith began trying the lead-in for the opening number, to discover the guitar wasn't amplified as should be when he played, the sound cut in and out, then nothing and he was strumming making no noise like he was playing acoustic in an overamped band, then he fiddled with the dials on front, a few electric squeals of feedback as the rest of them played on, and he tore off the guitar and threw it towards a speaker, and stalked off stage. That is to say, he exited stage right. Poor impulse control, I thought. A roadie was onstage stopping the guitar in its skid towards the speaker, poised and ready to react just that fast, as if he were well rehearsed, and he held the guitar by the neck and moved stage right.
A lot of other really egregious things occured connected with that concert, including a concert photographer who was pushing and shoving people roughly out of the way to snap his photos of the band. While I felt like strangling him to death with his own camera strap, I'd moved down to the floor close to the stage dancing, as Mick was going to jump off stage and dance with the audience. Dangerous, but I guess he felt it important to do after Altamont. He did, too, head into the crowd. Yes, this move was pre-planned spontaneity. It was a heap of humanity swirling there, but the roadies on stage had cleared a small path for him to make his leap from the stage. He was singing almost directly in my ear, and then moved away to hop and bop, and I'll be damned if that idiot photographer didn't grab at me and start pushing me roughly out of the way of his camera lens. Then Mick soon made his way back up on to the stage, about halfway through the song. The concert went on, but I was steamed at the photographer, and found him later standing by a wall talking to a security guard and so had a few words with him. Then I went back up to my seat in the nosebleed section. The concert went on to conclusion, and the exits from the arena were packed and stalled for what seemed an eternity with shoulder-to-shoulder people. Everybody was still in a lather after the show, and this had all the charm of a being in a cattle-car unloading down a narrow chute. I looked at my escort, and he was laughing, and suddenly he started lowing like a cow. I thought that was funny, so I began moo-ing in response, and he eventually brought the sound into "Moo-oo-oove!"
The evening didn't end there, we made our way out into the night air past several women sprawled on the stairs overcome by the heat and crowding, another was sobbing uncontrollably, another in a swoon being half-dragged and half carried by a security guard down the hall (it was looking more and more like a mausoleum not a coliseum). It ended up that the tires on my escort's truck were slashed, but I just figure that's the kind of vile energy that was attracted to the Stones.
I resolved never to have anything to do with them ever again, and within a day collected what few Stones records I had and gave them to the first guy I saw on Telegraph who was trying to sell rings made out of paperclips or other items he would find on the street. I figured he could at least get a meal if he sold those. Peter Rutledge I am pleased to report I heard or read was soon fired. As for me, never again.
***************
Update 1/17/11
Good Luck and Good Night link above once led to this article in the Rolling Stone
Beatles LP Boycott: Outrageous Price
Compilation too costly for Berkeley buyers
The Beatles
"As bad as Chevrolet"?
Leopold's, a student-owned, non-profit co-op record store is refusing to sell the new Hey Jude (nee Beatles Again) album in protest against its "outrageous" $6.98 list price.
"We're trying to make it clear that the boycott is not against the Beatles themselves but against Capitol records in specific and other labels in general for their outrageous record prices," asserted store manager Jason Gervich.
According to Gervich, Abbey Road was the first rock album to ever list at $6.98, even though the British version sold at the same price as any other Beatles album. He believes that the reason for the disparity in prices rests with American business, and possibly that record companies will try to jack up prices on all their albums if there is no backlash over the expensive Beatles albums. Hence, the boycott.
"We're the only store I know of willing to boycott it, so it probably won't make much difference. It should sell well despite us, but it would be nice if it didn't. Not because of the Beatles, because they probably don't even know their albums are the highest priced rock albums ever put out. It's not a question of the Beatles charging more because they need more bread; it's a question of businessmen charging more for the Beatles because they want more bread."
Leopold's is explaining to their customers via leafletting why they are refusing to sell this album. They expect some feedback, because not being able to purchase the album at Leopold's means people in Berkeley will have to go to one of the higher-priced commercial stores to get the album -- a highly-prized collection of such old singles as "Hey Jude," "Rain," and "Ballad of John and Yoko" not available on other albums. Chances are good, though, that in the political climate of Berkeley, the store will make as many friends as it will lose by refusing to sell it.
"I don't think we'll get anything out of doing this, but we're going to do it because it's the right thing to do. This is just a greatest hits album - there's no production on it at all except to put some already-existing songs on it in a different order. It should be cheaper than most records. Abbey Road was the same; there was no packaging with it at all, yet it's super-expensive. I really hope we get the ball rolling, so sales of the album are lower. It may be the only way to keep prices from getting completely out of control," Gervich said. "This is just complete bullshit. There's no reason at all for that high-priced an album. Capitol's getting as bad as Chevrolet."
"And the quality of them records is getting worse. We ended up taking boxes of The Band album back to our distributor because they were returned to us with excessive surface noise, or because they skipped or are so thin you couldn't put two records on your record player," he added.
Leopold's is a small enough enterprise that they have little fear of the record companies trying to shut them down because of their action.
"We thought about it, but we're just not worried. They couldn't do it. They'd have to get every distributor in the Bay Area to refuse to serve us, and it would hardly be worth it to them because once they've sold their album to the distributor they've pretty much made their money. Even if they did try to close us down, we'd just get a court case going," Gervich said.
Which attitude is very much in keeping with the image of Leopold's in the Berkeley community. Since they went into business less than a year ago, they have become synonymous with student power. They sell more albums for just a slight bit more than they pay for them at the distributor, serving more as a middleman than a salesman.
Students of Berkeley (S.O.B.), the non-profit corporation which run the store, makes sure that Leopold's charge no more than is necessary to pay rent and provide salaries for the employees. The result is a crowded, funky little store over a restaurant where customers rap rock and roll with the personnel and buy their albums at regular prices cheaper than anywhere else in the Bay Area.
"Hopefully, some other record stores will follow in this us in this boycott; if not, good luck and good night," Gervich laughed.
(RS 53 - March 7, 1970) ¶ 4/18/2003 11:30:00 PM
