You Can Be My Partner In Crime

Okay. I get it. I talk about how much I love Ratatouille for months, but Stacey doesn't believe me. But then, Keith makes one post about how perfect Pixar is as a studio, and then she listens. I see how it is.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.

The Rolling Stones are probably my favorite band that I don't like all that much. No, I don't know exactly what that means either. But most of my favorite bands I feel some connection to- The Beatles, The Who, The Replacements, The Band, Radiohead, Pearl Jam- all of them I feel a (probably misplaced) connection with. But not the Stones. I don't know if it is because I don't give a damn about any of the music they've put out in my lifetime, or if it's because I've always found Mick Jagger to be more annoying than anything else. But while the Stones put out two of my absolute favorite rock albums (Let It Bleed and Exile on Main Street), I've never really considered myself a Rolling Stones fan in the same way that I consider myself a fan of, say, Bob Dylan or Buck 65 or Bruce Springsteen. (Two other bands who've put out music I really like but never felt a connection to are The Clash and U2. Especially U2. I can't quite explain why I own as many U2 albums as I do. I have a theory that if you leave a copy of Achtung Baby lying around long enough, copies of The Unforgettable Fire and War just sort of spontaneously generate in your music collection. I can't prove it yet, but it seems the most obvious explanation.)

I've been thinking about the Stones lately because of the new Scorsese concert film about the band, Shine A Light (named for a song on Exile on Main Street). I haven't seen the movie yet, but I do plan on seeing it, hopefully in the theater. I don't imagine I can talk any of my friends into going to see a bunch of guys in their sixties playing rock music, but I'm willing to go this one alone. I want to see the movie in part because I adore Scorsese, and in part to see if the band can still bring it, despite the fact that it's been about twenty-five years since their last decent album (Some Girls) and even longer since their last real masterpiece (Exile, the end of a streak of albums as good as anyone else's streak of great albums).

On Friday, I got an email from eMusic about the Stones. The music store, which mostly consists of indy stuff (Epitaph wound up pulling their catalog from the site over a conflict about money, which should give you some idea about how indy the stuff on the site really is. Def Jux and Matador are among the most prominent labels carried by eMusic) acquired the rights to the Stones' music from 1964-1970, which means that most of the important stuff the band did is now for sale cheap, and that I know what I'm using my downloads for over the next few months. I might not like the guys, but the obsessive-compulsive in me can't turn down this deal to complete my collection of the important Stones stuff.

(As I'm writing this, I have the UNC/Kansas game on in the background. Right now the score is 40-12, Jayhawks. I really don't want to jinx this, but HOLY SHIT! If Kansas can beat UNC and a John Calipari led Memphis team in back-to-back games, I take back every snarky thing I might have said about the Jayhawks over the years.)

I guess my point is that if you were on the fence about eMusic, and care about rock music, then your choice might just have been made for you.

Also, this is what Keith Richards said about French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in the new Entertainment Weekly:

"Godard...I really liked his dark, French-gangster movies. I think the guy went mad. He's a Frenchman. We can't help them."

Oh, and I tried the Trader Joe's cheap, plain label beer. It turns out that it's just a mediocre lager. Better than Budweiser, but not by much. So don't bother with it.