‘Am I vain? Of course I am. I always have been, haven’t I?’: Mick Jagger on The Rolling Stones as you've never seen them before
By LOUISE GANNON FOR EVENT MAGAZINE

PUBLISHED: 22:01, 5 December 2015 | UPDATED: 16:07, 6 December 2015

    



'This for me hasn’t been a personal indulgence, it’s about trying to work out something that would be an incredible experience,' said Mick Jagger of Exhibitionism to be held in London next year (Apr-Sept)



In the cool, pale-grey surroundings of his quietly rock ’n’ roll London office, Mick Jagger is doing something he usually avoids at all costs.

The Rolling Stone, whose motto is ‘Don’t look back’, is sifting through the decades, dredging through memories of the world’s most infamous band.

And that means talking about curry – and more specifically, how he’s going to recreate the unique aroma of his favourite takeaway dish for a ground-breaking new interactive Rolling Stones exhibition.

‘There was a great tandoori chicken place on the corner by Olympic Studios’, he says, casting his mind back to the room in south-west London where the Stones recorded the albums that changed the face of rock music for ever, ‘and I’d smell the whole place out with my plates of chicken tandoori, which was sort of mixed with the fish and chips the other guys ordered. That, to us, is the smell of those recordings.’

A brief pause, followed by another pungent blast of odour d’Stones.



Jagger onstage in 1973, wearing one of his trademark Ossie Clark jumpsuits. 'Some of them are beautiful and some are more hilarious than beautiful, but I loved them all,' he said

‘Keith’s old socks and alcohol,’ he yelps, recalling the bedsit he shared with the guitar player in Edith Grove, Chelsea, in the early Sixties.

‘It’s [the exhibition] got to have that smell it had. When you get to it, a lot of your memories are those. It’s not limos and Lear Jets. It’s shillings in a meter.’

The reason for the Stones’ singer rolling back the years is Exhibitionism, a £4 million mega-show that will be held at London’s Saatchi Gallery next year (Apr-Sept).

It is the first retrospective of the band once so terrifyingly drenched in drugs, danger and debauchery that parents were warned to ‘lock up your daughters’ when they rolled into town.

Talking for the first time about Exhibitionism, Jagger reveals that it will feature a series of interlinked ‘immersive’ rooms in the life of the Stones, from that grotty flat to the sights, sounds and smells of the recording studio in Barnes where the band recorded six albums, including Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Beggars Banquet.

There will be a guitar room and a spine-tingling recreation of an ‘about to go on stage’ experience.

Books, photos, records, instruments, clothes, guitars, artefacts, stage props, artwork, film and a cornucopia of exotically random band ‘stuff’ have been gleaned from collections around the world.



'They (Ossie Clark jumpsuits) are so bloody comfortable. Bianca (his first wife) and I would even wear them offstage – we had them in every colour,' he said


All of it, for now, is currently tucked away – for security purposes – in a vast hangar somewhere way off the grid.

Right now, his Satanic Majesty and I are sitting side by side, flicking through just a few images of 50 years’ worth of stage clothes and watched from the walls by mounted bronze silhouettes of Charlie Watts, Ronnie Wood, Keith Richards and previous member Bill Wyman, along with an Andy Warhol lithograph of Elvis Presley.

It’s not often you get to sit so close to someone so famous, whose music is part of our collective sonic consciousness, whose sexual prowess is the stuff of tabloid legend and whose stadium-sized presence can take your breath away.

His face, close up, is more Lucian Freud than rock Lucifer and even at 72, his skinny frame permanently seems to crackle with energy.

Initially, Jagger is in edgy headmaster mode, borrowing my pen to make notes as we study the flamboyant fruits of his closets, furrowing his brow to give time, place and dates he wore a checked suit, and an Allsopp Brindle & Boyle purple velvet number with fancy gold brocade.

And then we alight on photos of three Ossie Clark jumpsuits, a peculiar rock fetish first started – so he says – by Jagger himself and later worn by everyone from Michael Jackson to Lady Gaga. Back then it was Jagger, Elvis, Bowie and Freddie Mercury.



Jagger with the late L’Wren Scott, his ex-lover. ‘L’Wren still has a huge influence on my style, on me. Her clothes are very emotional for me. There is a big emotional pull. That’s important to say,' he said


So, who wore them best? Jagger laughs.

‘Obviously me! Elvis was too big, David was too thin and Freddie was too late on the bandwagon.

'Some of them are beautiful and some are more hilarious than beautiful, but I loved them all.

'They are so bloody comfortable. Bianca [his first wife] and I would even wear them offstage – we had them in every colour.’

He leans back in his chair. He can still, he says, get into every item of clothing he has ever worn. The snake hips remain permanently honed at 28 inches.

‘Not that I go home and put everything on again, like something out of Sunset Boulevard,’ he says with that louche London drawl.

‘In fact a lot of my clothes got taken by my kids. Lizzie was the worst, the most blatant; she’d go out wearing a pair of velvet trousers I’d worn at the Roundhouse in 1969.

'Then she gave me a pair back for my birthday. I love getting my own things back for my birthday.’



Jagger and Keith Richards onstage at Glastonbury, 2013

At 72, is he still vain? He laughs and pulls a face.

‘Am I vain? Of course I am. I always have been, haven’t I?’

Jagger is amused by his own controversies. The iconic Michael Fish white dress he wore at the 1969 Hyde Park free concert has floated off into the ether like all those butterflies he let loose from the stage, but ‘there is another one. I bought the same one in orange.

'People made a huge fuss at the time because they thought it was a woman’s dress. I bought it in Mayfair, I thought it was a shirt waister, then there was this big thing about me wearing a dress. It hadn’t been in my head at all – I was very innocent about that.’

Innocent is not a word often associated with Jagger.

The same could be said about the word emotion. Jagger is a genius at talking about himself without revealing his feelings. I ask him if this trawl through the band’s past has made him feel an emotional pull to any part of his past.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m not like that and this for me hasn’t been a personal indulgence, it’s about trying to work out something that would be an incredible experience.

'I’m thinking about it in a different way. When it finally gets to it and it’s happening I might feel emotional then... I don’t know. I’ve always been “what now, what next” – that’s what keeps you moving.’



‘Yes, it’s (Exhibitionism) about the past but it’s about the present and it’s about what we’re going to be doing next – we’re not stopping, ' said Jagger (pictured in a Grenadier Guards jacket in 1967)


Jagger pulls out pictures of two jackets worn during the Stones’ 50th anniversary tour, a stunning butterfly print worn at Hyde Park and an oakleaf design worn at Glastonbury.

Both were designed by his ex-lover of 13 years, L’Wren Scott, whose suicide in March 2014 was a devastating blow to Jagger.

It is something he has never spoken about.

‘I’m still wearing L’Wren’s ones,’ he says evenly. ‘L’Wren still has a huge influence on my style, on me. Her clothes are very emotional for me. There is a big emotional pull. That’s important to say.’

It is all he will say. Jagger does not do – has never done – emotional outpourings.

We return to the subject at hand – his clothes. Who is the most stylish member of the band?

‘Apart from me,’ he says grinning. ‘Well it’s got to be Charlie. It’s always been Charlie. He’s got the opposite style to me but he is incredibly stylish.’

As a band, the Stones have few contemporary rivals. As an iconic pop star, who does Jagger believe matches up to his swagger?

‘I’d say Harry Styles,’ he says. ‘He’s got it going on.’

It’s obvious Styles has modelled himself on a young Jagger with his long hair, velvet jackets and Jagger-esque flamboyant twists.

He grins. ‘I know him, he comes to see me in lots of shows. And yeah, I can see the influence. But I don’t say anything to him, I just tell him he looks nice. I like him. He’s very decent.’



The Rolling Stones pictured outside the Edith Grove flat shared by Jagger, Richards and Brian Jones, which is recreated in Exhibitionism

He is now, of course, Sir Mick, a multi-millionaire performer worth more than £300 million, film producer, father of seven, grandfather, great-grandfather and friend of artists, intellectuals and aristocrats.

In his private life and other work, he is less of a showman, and after starring in the cult movies Performance in 1968 and Ned Kelly in 1970, he has not appeared in an acting role since Freejack in 1992.

Currently co-producing the HBO series Vinyl with his old mate Martin Scorsese (starring his 30-year-old son, James, as a punk singer), Jagger turned down the chance to appear.

‘I said no,’ says Jagger with finality. You wouldn’t want to argue with him. The combative edge of the teenage rock rebel remains in place.

Jagger is not happy with the word ‘retrospective’ when talking about Exhibitionism.

‘It’s not going to be like walking into a museum,’ he says.

‘It’s going to be an event, an experience... immersive. Yes, it’s about the past but it’s about the present and it’s about what we’re going to be doing next – we’re not stopping, we’re booking studio time for new recording this month, we’re still on the road.

'It’s about a sense of the Rolling Stones. It’s something we want people to go away talking about.’



Jagger and Richards in Olympic Studios in 1968, recording Sympathy For The Devil. ‘There was a great tandoori chicken place on the corner... I’d smell the whole place out with my plates of chicken tandoori,' he said


Jagger has spent a lifetime being talked about. He’s been jailed, honoured, pilloried as a long-haired, drug-crazed demon, deified by fans, lauded by critics, lusted over by women and analysed by university students of both music and literature.

‘What I like about Mick’, his friend and musical collaborator Joss Stone told me, ‘is that he’s never let anything get to him. If you think about everything he’s been through in his life, he could be very, very weird and remote.

'You can’t exactly call him normal because he’s Mick Jagger, but he’s a lot more normal than most people in this industry.

'You can have a conversation about anything, he’s really switched on. And he can be very funny.’

Stone’s observation turns out to be accurate. Remarkably he tells me that he still occasionally uses ‘normal’ public transport (of sorts).

‘Eurostar,’ he says. ‘I often travel on Eurostar.’

He is forensic in his vision of Exhibitionism, and gets animated when describing a room of ‘curiosities’: priceless trinkets picked up along 50-odd years travelling the rock highway.

‘In the 18th century men would collect things, from shrunken heads to axes, like a precursor of a personal museum. It’s that sort of idea,’ he says.



Jagger and Bianca in 1971 (pictured left); and the suit he wore (pictured right)

He and Watts have spent several weekends visiting the Saatchi Gallery ‘just, you know, to have a sense of how it will be’.

The point of Exhibitionism, Jagger says, is for the viewers to feel ‘as if every room they walk into, it’s one we’ve just that second left or maybe that we’re still there’.

He pauses and laughs: ‘I told Charlie the other day I was going to put him in the recording studio bit every week, like guest Mondays, playing the drums, put him in a museum. We’d all have to, you know, take a turn.’

He is, of course, joking. While Exhibitionism will attract many of those fans who venerate the Stones, Jagger refuses to partake in any form of po-faced homage.

‘It’s the right time,’ says Jagger. ‘People are doing these things, great events whether it’s Björk or that incredible Human Body exhibition.

‘This is not about veneration. That’s never what the Stones have been about,’ he says. ‘We’re not gods – some of this is about taking the p*** out of ourselves.’

Jagger has no problem admitting he often has to ask which songs were on which Stones albums.

And as for the guitars that have plucked and strummed their way through the anthems of generations, Jagger drops a bombshell. ‘I didn’t keep any myself. I mean, other people kept ’em but I didn’t.



Jagger on stage in 1972 (pictured left); and the Ossie Clark jumpsuit he wore (pictured right)

‘I don’t care about guitars at all, there’s no sentiment for me in guitars. I mean it’s all b******* – each one is the same as the next one.

'All that “you have to have this one” – it’s all c**p. I’m not an audiophile – it doesn’t make any difference what guitar you play. It’s what you play that counts.

‘I mean, we have them there and a lot of people love them. Keith loves them. But if anyone is asking, I’m being honest, guitars were never my thing.

'The thing I had an attachment to was the clothes – they were my markers, they to me were the reflection of us going through all those different times... I kept the clothes.’

He shakes his head. ‘We’ve had to spend a lot of time getting everything together from all sorts of places, all sorts of people. Now all these things have a value, but when you’re in a band, when it’s happening, it’s all ephemeral stuff, so much disappears. A lot of our old stuff we’ve actually had to buy back over the years.

‘Like notepads. All my notepads. I wish I’d kept them all but they just go – bits of paper with lyrics on, you just leave ’em lying around.

'Offices, studios, hotel rooms. I’ve never wilfully and deliberately thrown any of that stuff away but it just goes and then...’


Jagger backstage with Jerry Hall and Marie Helvin

He laughs. ‘They come up in Sotheby’s, Christie’s, stuff that’s been nicked from us. Gold records. And I always say, “Hang on a minute, how did that person have this?” and I’ll ask and sometimes there’s a fake letter saying: “Mick Jagger gave me this.”

'It’s all very dodgy. I always tell them they wouldn’t be able to do this with a Monet, they’d end up in jail, but you can just rock up with a gold disc you’ve nicked from a studio and, bang, it’s in an auction. Sometimes they get withdrawn, sometimes we buy them back.

‘It’s all very dodgy but it’s only now this stuff has started to have an inherent value [the handwritten lyrics of Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone sold for £1.3 million last year].’

He pauses. ‘But you know, so what? At least they kept stuff, looked after it and now a lot of it is being lent to us by collectors for the show.’

Oh, the irony. Jagger raises an eyebrow. On his walls there are two Andy Warhol lithographs. Warhol designed two album covers for the Stones, Sticky Fingers and Love You Live.

The Warhol estate has lent the band the original artwork.

‘We didn’t get that. It’s Andy’s work, you don’t get to keep it. It’s his creation. That’s fair enough,’ he says.

He finishes by steering things back to Exhibitionism.

‘People ask what’s it like being a Rolling Stone and this is as much of an answer as we can give... it’s everything laid bare, things we remember, different experiences of the whole ride... things you’d see and think, things you wouldn’t see and think.’

He gets up to go, we shake hands and he leaves the room, taking all that crackling energy with him. His notepad remains open on the table complete with pages of hastily scribbled notes.

I have to confess I am – for a couple of moments – almost tempted.

‘Exhibitionism’ runs at the Saatchi Gallery, London, from Apr 5–Sept 4. stonesexhibitionism.com

JUMPIN’ JACK’S CACHE!

YOUR GUIDE TO THE MOST EXPENSIVE ROCK SPECTACULAR... EVER

Exhibitionism is the biggest exhibition staged by a rock band, trumping those about David Bowie, Queen, The Jam, The Clash and Björk.
It cost £4 million to produce and took three years to plan.
A four-year world tour kicks off at London’s Saatchi Gallery in April.
It’s made up of nine galleries spread over two floors and showcases over 500 unseen artefacts from the band’s archives, from Mick Jagger’s stage clothes to Keith Richards’ 1957 Les Paul guitar.
Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey, Alexander McQueen, Ossie Clark, Tom Stoppard and Martin Scorsese are some of the collaborators whose work will be included in the event.
Look out for an interactive taste of what it’s like to be on stage with the Stones as well as recreations of the dingy bedsit Jagger and Richards shared. Also on display are personal diaries and rare audio tracks, photographs and video footage kept by members of the band.




http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-3344425/Mick-Jagger-Rolling-Stones...

I hope this comes to the States.

very poorly worded sentence.

The exhibit will run for four years worldwide

The Stones have never said how long their current period of touring will run for.  And as they've been doing it now for three years already  they're not 'embarking' on anything new

Gazza wrote on Dec 8^th, 2015 at 6:41pm:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city

Would it be too vulgar if Saatchi's staff handed out standard-sized Mars Bars in the gallery vestibule? Would economy-sized Party Mars be more acceptable?

A sizeable decidated room dedicated to the beats, suits and (drum) stools of Watts could be considered.





2016 With Trousers On

Interactive map of the Stones' London !!

http://www.stonesexhibitionism.com/map/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=map%20post&...

Rolling Stone's Scots founder in spotlight at last as exhibition charts life and wild times of legendary rockers

20 MAR 2016
BY HEATHER GREENAWAY



MEMORABILIA belonging to pianist Ian Stewart, known as the Sixth Stone, will be among more than 500 unseen artefacts from the band's archives going on show at London gallery.

   


Ian Stewart, at the top of the stairs, with the Rolling Stones



HE hated the spotlight and remained resolutely in the background as his band conquered the world.

His piano playing was as integral to their sound as Keith Richards’ guitar riffs but he often enjoyed a sandwich as he played in the stage’s shadows.

Ian Stewart, the Sixth Stone, may not be the best-known Rolling Stone but the musician hailed by his bandmates as the heart of the band is front and centre in a landmark exhibition charting the career of the world’s best and most enduring rockers.

Memorabilia belonging to the Scots pianist will be among more than 500 unseen artefacts from the band’s personal archives going on show at London’s Saatchi Gallery.

Exhibitionism, which opens next month, will also include a special tribute to Ian, who Richards described as “the glue that held them together”.

The interactive exhibition, spread over nine galleries, will take fans through the Stones ’ fascinating 50-year history – a story which Ian, known to the band as Stu, helped to write.




From left, Charlie Watts, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Ron Wood are to be the focus of a massive exhibition that will chart their 50 years in the music business



The musician, who died in 1985 aged 47, co-founded the “world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band” in 1962 but was forced to take a backseat in 1963 by their first manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, who felt his face and style didn’t fit with the group’s bad-boy image.

Ian, who was born in Pittenweem, Fife, stayed on as the group’s level-headed pianist and tour manager for the next 20 years, playing keyboard on their albums.

He never became as famous as the rest but many, including the other band members, credit Ian with being vital to their formation and enduring success.

His fans are delighted he is being celebrated in the exhibition, which starts at the prestigious gallery on April 6 and runs until September before going on a four-year world tour.

Award-winning crime writer Ian Rankin admits the straight-talking bluesman helped inspire his fictional detective John Rebus and believes it is only right Ian is given his place in the Stones’ history.

The author, who wrote the lyrics to Aidan Moffat & the Best-Of’s song about Ian called The Sixth Stone, said: “ Mick Jagger once said that Ian Stewart was the one person the band tried to please.

“He was a founder member of the Stones – pre-dating both Jagger and Richards – and after his death they insisted his name be added when they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“That’s a sign of how important Stu was to the band. He also played with Led Zeppelin – their song Boogie With Stu is named after him – Howlin’ Wolf and others.

“He made it from Pittenweem to the rock ‘n’ roll dream – and survived with grace through the Stones’ most tempestuous years. What a life. What a man.”




A Les Paul custom guitar bought by Keith Richards in 1966 is among the exhibits



Ian started playing the piano aged six. His natural talent and determination to master his instrument meant by the time he was a teenager he was already an accomplished musician with a dry wit and a fierce passion for blues, jazz and boogie-woogie.

He was the first to respond to Brian Jones’ 1962 advert in Jazz News seeking musicians to form a rhythm & blues group.

Jagger and Richards joined in June and the group, with Dick Taylor on bass and Mick Avory on drums, played their first gig under the name The Rollin’ Stones at the Marquee Club in July 1962.

By January 1963, Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts had joined, replacing a series of bassists and drummers.

When Oldham decided Ian was one too many on stage, the former Pittenweem Primary School pupil accepted the demotion, acting as their roadie and driving them all over the country.

Richards said: “Stu might have realised that in the way it was going to have to be marketed, he would
be out of sync but he could still be a vital part. I’d probably have said, ‘Well, f*** you,’ but he said, ‘Okay, I’ll just drive you around.’ That takes a big heart but Stu had one of the largest hearts around.”

Ian, who had one son, Giles, 45, played piano, keyboard or percussion on Stones albums right up until he died of a heart attack in December 1985. His death was mourned by the whole music community.

The details of how Ian features in the exhibition are being kept a closely guarded secret but a spokesman for Exhibitionism, which is the first of its kind in the world, said: “There is a very nice tribute to Ian as he was an integral part of the Rolling Stones in their formative years.”

The innovative display, which takes up two floors of the prestigious gallery, includes original stage designs, dressing room and backstage paraphernalia, rare guitars and instruments, iconic costumes, audio tracks and unseen video clips, personal diaries and original poster and album cover artwork.

Collaborations and work by an array of artists, designers, musicians and writers will also be on show – from Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey, Alexander McQueen and Ossie Clark to Tom Stoppard and Martin Scorsese.




Rolling Stones tour poster from 1978 will also be on display at the London exhibition
Stones Archive/Getty Images



Jagger said: “We’ve been thinking about this for a long time but we wanted it to be just right and on a large scale. The process has been like planning our touring concert productions and I think that right now it’s an interesting time to do it.”

Richards said: “While this is about The Rolling Stones, it’s not necessarily only just about the members of the band. It’s also about the paraphernalia and technology associated with a group like us, as well as instruments passed through our hands over the years. That should make the exhibition really interesting.”

Watts added: “It’s hard to believe that it’s more than 50 years since we began and it is wonderful to look back to the start of our careers and bring everything up to date at this exhibition.’’

See www.stonesexhibitionism.com for more details.



Read more at http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/music/music-news/rolling-stones-scots...

Never knew that military jacket had all them fleur-de-lis on it.

Just shows that Jagger has exceptional taste.

 

Stones Banned...AGAIN!!

http://www.music-news.com/news/UK/96540/The-Rolling-Stones-banned-from-playing-o...

The Rolling Stones were banned from performing outside a London gallery to celebrate the opening of their exhibition.

The Satisfaction rockers helped create Exhibitionism, a collection of rare and unseen memorabilia spanning their 50-year career, and the displays of instruments, letters, posters and costumes opens on 5 April (16) at London's Saatchi Gallery.

The band had hoped to perform a few tracks on the lawn outside the gallery, but residents of the upmarket Chelsea neighbourhood vetoed their proposal, according to Keith Richards.

"There was a plan to do four or five numbers on the lawn but the Chelsea Residents’ Association poo-pooed (disputed) that," he tells Britain's The Sun newspaper. "How generous of them. It would have only been four or five songs.”

Keith is most looking forward to checking out a recreation of a Chelsea apartment where he lived with original bandmates Mick Jagger, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman and the late Brian Jones.

He adds, “I’m dying to see the reproduction of our first flat together in Edith Grove because the only thing that gave it character was the pong (smell)... I mean that's where we sat around and basically concentrated every night on how to play together. We were endlessly listening to records and occasionally we went out and did a gig.... wow, yeah, it is a long time since Edith Grove."

The exhibition runs in London until September (16) before going on a world tour. Keith admits the prospect of being without some of his possessions for the next four years makes him sad.

"(It) pains me a little because there are a couple of jackets I let in there that I ain't going to see for a long while," he says.

The glorious graveolence of Edith Grove

Riffs From Niffs