What Ever Happened to Leon Trotsky

The Stranglers : No More Heroes

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On September 23, 1977 The Stranglers released No More Heroes, the band's second and nastiest album. To help promote the record, The Stranglers appeared on Top Pops in Amsterdam to mime the title track.  After a couple of bad takes, the band switched instruments. Drummer Jet Black playing guitar. J J Burnell attacking the drums. Hugh Cornwell doing a wretched job on keyboards and Dave Greenfield pretending to sing. One of 1977's punkiest moments and absolutely entertaining.

Clearly The Stranglers were out to offend again, with songs like "I Feel Like a Wog" and "Bring on the Nubiles" (Lemme lemme fuck ya fuck ya /Lemme lemme fuck ya fuck ya /Lemme lemme lick your lucky smiles).

Jon Savage savaged the album, writing "The Stranglers offer nothing positive...no life force, nothing vital. Not so it's frightening, just dull and irritating". 

NME's Tony Parsons adds "Just like gonorrhea, The Stranglers' music is way to catchy for anyone to be certain they will not fall under its lethal spell."

But it was Mick Jagger who had the most read review:

"Don't you think The Stranglers are the worst thing you've ever fuckin' heard?  I do . They're hideous, rubbishy. ..so bloody stupid. Fuckin' nauseatin' they are!"

40 Year Itch: Jagger from a Flat Bed Truck

On May 1, 1975 The Rolling Stones announced their 1975 'Tour of the Americas" by pulling up outside a 5th Avenue hotel on a flatbed truck and performing an extended version of "Brown Sugar". 

By now, the Stones had selected Mick Taylor's replacement: Ronnie Wood of the Faces (though he wouldn't be made an official Stone until December).

   “Sometimes I feel that my whole career with The Birds, Jeff Beck and The Faces was one long audition to join The Rolling Stones," Wood tells Uncut Magazine.

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Also on this date John Cale and his band, featuring Chris Spedding, performed a four song set on John Peel's radio show.

40 Year Itch : Mick Taylor Leaves The Stones

Mick Jagger promised him a credit on "Moonlight Mile" and a couple of other things but never have it to him. He saw Keith a couple of years ago and Keith was crying and saying "Oh, we really owe you, man. We really owe you". But nothing came of it. I think Ronnie Wood said, "Well, Mick Taylor neurally really was a Rolling Stone." And he was right.  He wasn't. I think Mick always felt he had sold his soul for rock'n'roll. And didn't get paid nearly enough in exchange. But then you never do, do you?"

-A "Stones Insider" quoted in Exile On Main Street: A Season in Hell with the Rolling Stones by Robert Greenfield.

Between 1969 and 1974 The Rolling Stones made and released Let It Bleed, Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out, Sticky Fingers, Exile On Main St. and Goats Head Soup, and Mick Taylor played on all of them. He got one writing credit, for "Ventilator Blues" on Exile which he shared with Jagger. On December 12, 1974, at a party in London, Taylor told Jagger he was leaving the Stones. “To ask if I regret leaving The Rolling Stones is to ask the wrong question”,  Taylor has said. “The hard one to answer is, do I regret joining them?”

Mick Taylor's 6 Best Moments on Rolling Stones records:

1. "Can't You Hear Me Knocking", Sticky Fingers.



 Sure, the song stars with a classic open chord riff from Richards but at about 4:40 in, Taylor takes the song --and his Gibson ES-345 --in a smooth direction reminiscent of Carlos Santana.

2. "All Down the Line" on Exile on Main St.



Mick Taylor on slide guitar, played with a  bottle on his finger, punctuates every Jagger line and takes a mind blowing single at the 2:10 mark.

3."Winter" on Goats Head Soup and 4."Moonlight Mile" on Sticky Fingers



Taylor should probably have received a co-writing credit for both tunes with Jagger. Richards wasn't even at the studio the day they knocked out "Winter". Taylor can be heard on slide guitar and then with a piercing lead on "Winter". It was Taylor's idea to add the string section on "Moonlight Mile".

4. "Stop Breakin' Down" on Exile on Main St.



Producer Andy Johns says this is his favorite song on the legendary double album. Jagger was playing rhythm guitar and Taylor those bluesy solos.

6. "Sway", Sticky Fingers



  Taylor plays the bottle neck guitar on this song which he always claimed to have written with Jagger. The last minute is all Taylor too.

40 Year Itch: The Brothers

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In late September of 1974, Paul McCartney's young brother, Mike McGear,  released his second solo album McGear.

   It has often been thought of as the great lost Wings album because an uncredited McCartney helped his brother write most of the songs and his band plays and sings on the album.

    The Paul McCartney-penned single, "Leave It", peaked at #36 in the UK Singles chart. It's a power pop classic. There were two other singles, "Dance the Do" and the Roxy Music cover "Sea Breezes".

McGear had changed his name a decade earlier so he wouldn't appear to be riding his famous brother's coattails. As a member of the English comedy/musical group The Scaffold, he hit #1 in 1968 with  "Lily the Pink". One listen will explain why the band never had a hit in the US. 

  On McGear, the McCartneys limit the silly punning to a few tracks ( "What Do We Really Know, "Norton") and settle in for a ride that will remind listeners of Ram-era rock and roll. Wings stretches some of the tunes beyond the 5-minute mark giving Jimmy McCullough room to show his stuff, especially on "Giving Grease a Ride".

  Full of odd moments, ( "The Man Who Found God on the Moon" could have been taken the wrong way by George Harrison), McGear is too good to be a curiosity. Billboard Magazine's critic even went so far as to tell record store owners "Play this one in the stores and it will sell itself."

   Warner Brothers released the album shortly after signing Badfinger. The talk at the time was McCartney's contract with Apple would soon be up and the label hoped to gain Paul's favor so he'd sign with Warner Brothers next.

BONUS

Chris Jagger also released his second solo album in 1974 with a little help from his old brother, Mick. It's called The Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist. Ten years ago, in an article for The Independent entitled "Why Can't Your Brother Support You?",  Chris dismissed it. " I made an album in the early Seventies but punk washed all that away and I fell musically between rock and roll and punk rock."

    He would wind up driving a taxi and acting a bit before returning to the stage to play swamp music in clubs.