Marianne Faithfull and David Bowie performing “I Got You Babe” on the Midnight Special TV show at the Marquee Club in London, October 1973, by Jack Kay. Out of irony and bloody-mindedness, Marianne had donned a nun’s habit, the back of which had an open panel that exposed her bum. David came as himself.

Marianne Faithful is everything I wish I could be…

photos from We Heart It and Some Required

I wish my eye-makeup would look like that. And I wish I had her clothes, and her ex-boyfriend. I also wish I could wear bangs.

For years my inspiration was Anita Pallenberg, Keith Richards love for many years, until I really took notice of Marianne Faithfull. She is just so beautiful. I always wish I was around during the 1960’s so I could have experienced the Rolling Stones when they were young.

(Diet) Coke and Sympathy is a great blog that helps me get through my days of longing to be the muse of one of the Stones. There one can find photos and articles about the two lovely ladies, as well as Mick and Keith. It is a brilliantly comprehensive site.

P.S. The new book Let It Bleed: The Rolling Stones, Altamont, and the End of the Sixties came out earlier this month. I flipped through it at a Barnes & Noble last weekend and definitely think it is a necessity. I have already seen many of the photos of the band, which was a bit of a bummer, but the text was rich. The book seems to tie the history and culture of 1969 together with the Rolling Stones, ending at the Altamont free concert, with that little mishap with the Hell’s Angels.

sugerencia musical de PP

Last night’s American Music Awards was such a train wreck of unfulfilled expectations that you could hardly blame one for thinking that the Obama administration, not Dick Clark Productions, must have been responsible for it.

I say that (only partly) because I’m not exactly sure that Dick Clark is even still alive. But when dead people who released no music this year win 5 awards (Michael Jackson), being alive was kinda beside the point at this spectacle.

So, for the most part, was singing live.

Things got off to an ominous start when Paula Abdul welcomed the audience into a dead microphone.

Then out came Janet Jackson who is apparently so grief stricken over Michael’s  death that she was inspired/used it as an opportunity to revive her decade long moribund career by dropping 20 pounds and a new greatest hits CD so she could lip synch and show off dance moves so dated that they’re in clear danger of being eligible for a revival.

Later in the show Jeniffer Lopez took pretty much the same route considering her career has been on life support  since “Waiting for Tonight,” which in 1999 turned out to be the anthem for ushering in the new Millennium. Last night she sang about leaving an uncooperative lover as she puts on impossibly expensive and vertiginous red soled  killer heels (Louboutins). Only  problem: she fell flat on her fabled asset while attempting her Katie Holmes-like dance moves and this morning she’s suffering  from a bruised ego (if not also a hip).

The highly cloying Taylor Swift who won 4 awards last night was on hand only via satelite from London where she was rehearsing for a concert at Wembley Arena. Keeping her off stage was perhaps the smartest move the producers could have made, considering she undeservedly (again) won the evening’s biggest award. Now the smartest thing she should do is call Debbie Gibson for career advice. And swiftly, as she’s at about minute 13 on her fame trajectory.

In the battle of the country divas, Keith Urban won handily over Carrie Underwood because he’s prettier and he showed more cleavage.  But he also fared better because he  didn’t scream his trite lyrics  and his performance didn’t look as if someone had shaken a  snow globe so that the awkward  moving Ms Underwood could appear as if she was engaging/engaged in some sort of dance number.

And herein lies the problem with much of last night’s telecast.  Most of the performers were overreaching for visual images instead of connecting to an audience– as if the overwrought visuals could possibly make up for  poorly written songs, the inability to carry a tune or just sheer lack of stage presence.

That’s what music videos are for.

The  performers who acquitted themselves with any dignity were the ones who actually sang.  By that I mean live and into their working microphones, most notably  Kelly Clarkson, Jay Z with Alicia Keys and Whitney Houston.

Coincidentally these were the 3 performances which brought down the house before the kitchy  and already overexposed Adam Lambert failed and, let’s be very clear, failed miserably to blow the roof off the place, as had been hyped.

Ms Clarkson got a much deserved standing ovation for her performance of “Already Gone,” a song essentially about knowing when to cut your losses. And boy does she.  She came, she sang, she conquered. How a singer this good and this smart wasn’t the big winner last night is beyond me.  Although she didn’t sound as perfectly heartbreaking as she did on VH1 Divas 2009 , she performed early enough in the show that by the time Jay Z came on to imperially command the room with “Empire State of Mind,” an ode to New York City as much as to his own undeniable artistic empire, she had already set the standard for the evening.

And by the time Whitney Houston came out in a glorious Kaufman Franco white gown, with beatific white stage lighting and a bad wig, it was a good thing Ms Clarkson was already gone. There’s just no denying that Ms Houston has irreparably damaged her voice with years and years of drug abuse but last night  in a gut wrenching confessional that lasted  a few fleeting minutes she managed to  use the detritus to her advantage in “I Didn’t Know My Own Strength,” a song  about hard won lessons from your own resurrection.

That performance, at once delusional and pathetic but emotionally raw and brutally honest, brought to mind both Billie Holiday and Marianne Faithfull, women with drug ravaged voices which remain powerfully alive because they wear their heart on their sleeve and not because they wear us down with visual pyrotechnics.

TheBestDressedList.com

TomKolovos.com

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, about to depart for court, 1967

On 12 February 1967, Keith Richards was hosting a handful of guests, including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Robert Fraser, George Harrison and Pattie Boyd, in a weekend party at his Sussex country seat Redlands. It had been a day of some chemical intoxication; and as soon as night fell (and George Harrison had left), the Stones party was prompted busted by a 20-strong police force. The bust followed a tip-off from a tabloid newspaper, which was conveniently being threatened with legal action from Mick.

Mick, Keith and Robert Fraser were arrested and charged: Mick was charged with possession of a couple of amphetamines (which he legally bought in Italy), Keith was charged for allowing drugs to be consumed on his property, while Robert was charged with heroin possession. On top of all that, the police were also keen on adding their own sordid details to the bust, including that of a certain Miss X (Marianne Faithfull actually), who – they highlighted – was dressed in nothing but a fur rug which she deliberately “let slip”.

The trial that followed in Chichester was a complete media circus, dogged by reporters as much as upset and irate fans (candlelight vigils were aplenty). On 29 June 1967, the third day of the trial, Keith Richards took to the stand as the day’s sole witness, and when questioned about the drugs and semi-nude woman on his property, retorted: “We are not old men. We are not worried about petty morals.” A rebel with a cause, yes, though the jury were not impressed. By the end of the Redlands trial, all were found guilty: Mick received a three-month prison sentence, Keith got 12 months and Robert got six months of hard labour.

Keith: “I know at times there are things that need to be said, it doesn’t matter where it is and who it’s said to. Sometimes I can hear myself talking and saying, ‘You should keep your mouth shut, boy, and just get an easy ride here,’ but meanwhile I can hear my voice booming around the room saying, ‘No way!’ Half of me is fighting this thing, but it just comes out, you know, this has to be said, and that’s all there is to it. Then I’m a victim of whatever it is I’ve said.”

Outrage followed the Stones’ sentences, with The Times famously showing its support with the editorial Who Breaks A Butterfly On A Wheel?, penned by their Conservative editor William Rees-Mogg. In it, he decried the harsh sentences: “If we are going to make any case a symbol of the conflict between the sound traditional values of Britain and the new hedonism, then we must be sure that the sound traditional values include those of tolerance and equity.” Amidst this furor, Mick and Keith’s appeals were brought forward and their sentences quashed. Robert Fraser was left to sit out his prison term, since no one wrote an article about him.

By the end of July 1967, Mick, fresh out of prison, was sat with four figures of the establishment discussing his views on society, on the TV programme World In Action. Keith went on to live out the rest of his life as he lived those few minutes on the witness stand, ie. as a total outlaw.

Mick and Keith, out on bail, July 1967

Keith: “There was a realisation that the powers that be actually looked upon us as important enough to make a big statement and to wield the hammer. But they’d also made us more important than we ever bloody well were in the first place.”

La verdad es que tengo varios posts pendientes y podría escribir de mil cosas, como por ejemplo la boutade del Rockdelux eligiendo Viva la Vida de Coldplay como una de las canciones de la década (sí, ya sé que la cosa está mal, pero ¿Coldplay? Si nos descuidamos nos meten a Vetusta Morla).

Pero he decidido dedicar mi post de hoy a Dada2000, mitómano incorregible (como yo). Así que hoy voy a escribir de Marianne Faithfull. Mejor dicho: de la rueda de prensa que dio hace dos años en Madrid con motivo de un concierto.

Empecemos por el principio. Para quien nunca haya ido a una rueda de prensa, la cosa es como sigue: el número de periodistas que acude es proporcional al interés que suscita quien la da. En la rueda de prensa de R.E.M., por ejemplo, había hostias para entrar, y en otras, el personaje apenas tiene a cuatro plumillas alrededor (fue lamentable ver cómo Jarvis Cocker apenas fue atendido por una decena de periodistas en el Summercase porque a saber qué grupo tonto tocaba en ese momento). Luego están las ruedas de prensa más… ¿cómo explicarlo? ¿Exclusivas? Sí, supongo que se las podría llamar así. Son ruedas de prensa a las que pocos medios tienen acceso porque el personaje de turno ya es tan mito que ni necesita darlas. Así que suelen ser cortas, bajo estricta vigilancia y con traductor (lamentable, por cierto, que a veces haya traductores que ante la imposibilidad de entender todo lo que dice el personaje opte por comerse la mitad de la respuesta). Lo que suele pasar es que tras la vergüenza inicial (a ver quién es el primero que abre la boquita), los periodistas nos lancemos cual aves  rapiñas para captar la atención del interlocutor y sacarle la información que nos interesa (y cuanta más mejor, por supuesto). Así que más vale que te lleves un par de preguntas buenas preparadas de casa o los demás periodistas te comen con patatas.

La rueda de prensa de Marianne Faithfull entra dentro de esta última categoría: apenas una decena de periodistas, una DIVA y servidora nerviosísima, que por algo es fan fatal.

Bueno, para quien no sepa quién es la Faithfull (¿hay alguien que no lo sepa?) resumiremos: no, no es la ex de Mick Jagger (en todo caso, Mick Jagger es el ex de Marianne y un patán por dejar escapar a una mujer como ella). Marianne es un pedazo cantante como la copa de un pino. Su mejor disco: Broken English. Los más grandes (Nick Cave, Jarvis Cocker, PJ Harvey, Cat Power…) le rinden culto y pleitesía y no dudan en colaborar con ella o, directamente, componerle canciones (vamos, que Marianne hace “chas” y aparecen todos a su lado). En sus ratos libres, incluso actúa (se la vio haciendo de madre de Maria Antonieta en la película de la Coppola).

Ha sido yonki, ha vivido en la calle, ha superado un cáncer de mama y ha sobrevivido a todo tipo de rumores absurdos, como que la encontraron en la casa de los Stones desnuda y con una barra de chocolate en la vagina (desnuda estaba sí, pero duchándose). Vamos, una superviviente nata. Quien quiera saber más, que se lea su autobiografía, que no tiene desperdicio.

Bueno, pues el caso es que entra la DIVA, acatarrada, maquillándose, y pide a los foteros que por favor, no hagan fotos hasta que no se haya “compuesto”. Los foteros pasan de su petición. Así que ella da cuatro taconazos en el suelo (no hizo más) y los foteros huyen despavoridos. Se sienta, dice que ya le pueden hacer fotos y que adelante con las preguntas. ¿Qué hace un periodista avispado? ¡SÍ, PREMIO! ¡Le pregunta por Mick Jagger! Ella no da crédito, pone los ojos en blanco y le contesta sarcásticamente, “¿acaso a Mick Jagger le preguntan todo el tiempo por mi?”

Sigue la rueda de prensa y llega EL COLOFÓN: una chica le pregunta si haría paracaidismo. No flipo sólo yo, claro. Es que a Marianne casi se le salen los ojos de las órbitas y contesta con un seco “no honey, no parachuting, please“. ¡Pues claro que no, honey! ¡Si esta mujer ha sobrevivido a todo lo imaginable! ¿Qué clase de pregunta es ésa? ¿Te crees que estás entrevistando a un participante de La isla de los famosos?

Moraleja: sabemos que en las ruedas de prensa es fácil quedarse sin turno, pero más vale callar a hacer el ridículo. Meter el nombre de una “celebrity” en Google apenas lleva tiempo y nos puede dar mucha información (que por supuesto conviene contrastar).

Puede que algún día dedique a Dada2000 una entrada sobre cómo fue la rueda de prensa de Björk, que nos recibió descalza y comiendo sandía mientras bailoteaba por la sala.

A Review

Famous Groupies Of The Sixties Series

Faithfull: An Autobiography

by

Marianne Faithfull

Marianne Faithfull

Review by R.E. Prindle

Season Of The Witch

All night, all day, Marianne

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

-Terry Gilkyson And The Easy Riders

     Technically Marianne Faithfull wasn’t a groupie.  Her early years resembled one but in her later years she was sought after as a conquest by men of the groupie mentality.  I’m sure as everyone knows Marianne Faithfull began her career as a very successful pop singer.  Produced originally by Andrew Loog Oldham she was among the first of the new breed of Rock singers, as opposed to Rock n’ Roll.  She belongs to the new rather than the old school.

     Her first song was As Tears Go By.  Single and album were very successful, more or less establishing her reputation for all time- or at least until the generation passes away.

     My first knowledge of  Marianne Faithful was when the strains of As Tears Go By wafted into my study window.  They continued to waft all day long for weeks.  The girl in the apartment next door was fixated on the song.  A little fat girl.    So after the 7000th rendition  of As Tears Go By I had my first nervous breakdown.  Marianne Faithfull was a sour taste.

Mick Jagger

 Then as far as I’m concerned she dropped out of the pop scene.

     Her auto was first published in 1994, I just read the paperback the other day so the book is probably old hat to most of you but as I didn’t find any real reviews on the internet I decided to give it a try.  I don’t see any reason to do the whole book so I’ll concentrate on the three Bob Dylan incidents, aspects of her relationship with Mick Jagger and Donald Cammell and his movie, Performance.  The book is highly readable and entertaining until after her divorce form Jagger about two thirds of the way through the book when she falls into a drug stupor.  At that point it is necessary to avoid falling into Marianne’s own depression.  Too late for her to get over it now.

     Her career began when she was selected for her looks by Andrew Loog Oldham, producer of the Stones, who saw her at a party.  Asked if she could sing she said yes.  Next, there she was behind a microphone lisping As Tears Go By.  Thus she was an established big pop singer when she first met Dylan and later came under the thumb of Mick Jagger.  She brought something to the table, she didn’t come empty handed.  She was an equal.  To be treated as an appendage enraged her probably contributing to her drug addiction

     She met Dylan during his ‘65 tour.  You can see her sitting in the corner in the movie Don’t Look Back.  She has some trenchant comments to make of the various prticipants in the Savoy Hotel debacle.  She’s very intelligent.  She was a young girl at the time, Dylan being five years older.  She was in awe of Dylan who she considered the hippest god on the planet.

     Dylan is supposed to be a master seducer.  It wasn’t that Marianne wasn’t ready and willing, she was.  In her mocking portrayal of the scene Dylan rather than complimenting her beauty and talent made an attempt to overawe she who was already overawed with his own wizardry.  In the process the seduction fell through.  Mazrianne skipped merrily away.

     Now, this is a girl who a year or two younger , while on tour with a review including Roy Orbison responded to him when he knocked on her door and said:  Hi.  I’m Roy Orbison.  I’m in room 602.  And Marianne skipped on down the hall.  How could Dylan have missed? 

     Later in the book, the year was 1979 when Dylan was going though his Jesus years, while Marianne had entered clinical depression doing heroin and sitting on her wall like Humpty-Dumpty all day, every day, Dylan arrived for another tour.   His dealer was a friend of Marianne’s and he asked if she knew where Marianne was.  Oh yes.  Demelza, the heroin dealer got Marianne to come over.  Dylan and Marianne’s second verse was worse than the first.  By this time depressed, enraged and seeking vengeance against the men in her life Marianne was far from compliant.  She had recently released Broken English, I’ve never heard the record so I can’t comment on the lyrics, so she mocked the Wise One by asking him if he understood her lyrics.  He couldn’t explain hers any better than she could his.  A little drip on the name of Bob, a little triumph for Marianne.  Dylan went away unfulfilled again.

     Oop, there is a third meeting.  Marianne now beyond depression walking down railway ties none of us will ever be able to see.   She overdosed on heroin, staggered and fell breaking her jaw.  Complications arose requiring serious surgery.  Pins were put in her jaw along with some contraption to hold the two parts together that apparently went

Keith Richards

through her cheek sticking out like a water spigot.  Had to sleep on one side.

     While Dylan was playing in Boston she presented herself backstage in this grotesque appearance.  Too weird for Dylan.  Three strikes and he was out.  Never spoke to him again, she says.  (To 1994 when the book went to press.

     After the first meeting Marianne hooked up with Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones for whom we have to thank for As Tears Go By.

     In late 1966 the great Donovan included a song on Sunshine Superman called Season Of The Witch.  The song epitomized the era.  At the time the song made little sense to me but in reading Faithfull it all began to fall into place.  While the sixties were terrific they were also horrific.  Today the horrific impressions dominate my mind.  All standards, all morality disintegrated before our eyes.  It was the end of the world as it dissolved into stange and perplexing LSD fantasy.  Hell, I never even took LSD and I think I know the feeling perfectly.  I’m still getting flashbacks.

     Nothing was real, it was all an illusion.  You could turn yourself inside out right before everyone’s eyes and get no reaction.  Hey, everyone was living through their own movie.  Marianne captures this feeling perfectly in 300 pages but so did Donovan in three verses:

When I look out my window

Many sights to see.

When I look in my window

So many different people to be

That it’s strange, so strange,

Must be the season of the witch,

Must be the season of the witch.

     Marianne’s succession of people to be began in childhood.  She as well as all these musicians, singers and dancers came from humble backgrounds with low expectations  but grand hopes and dreams.  Picked for the size of her bust to be a rock star, piles of money were thrown at her.  Inevitably dissociation occurred as the possiblity to be anyone appeared possible only to be held back by that humble past of low expectations.  how to behave in these new circumstances, not so easy, not so easy.

The rabbits are running in the ditch

Beatniks are out to make it rich.

Sang Donovan.  Standards and barriers were down, libertines crawled out of the woodwork nd there stood Mick and Keith, two libertine beatniks who could actually wallow in money.

     Mick took a fancy to Marianne and moved her in.  Married in heart if not in law, but she was to lose her independence.   There was Swinging London or the tail end of it and swinging is what Mick and Marianne did.  However Marianne did not come to Mick as a nameless groupie.  She was a somebody that the fans admired and wanted to get close to also.  Marianne Faithfull, all in capitals.  All that was submerged into the personality of Mick Jagger.  At first her own money was coming in allowing her independence but as her catalog grew old her money had to come from Mick.  Her lost independence  made it impossible to function as a wife and expect a joint account where she didn’t have to ask for money, it was hers by right.  A conflict and contest arose.

When I look over my shoulder

What do you think I see?

Some other cat looking over

His shoulder at me.

And he’s strange, sure he’s strange.

Oh no, must be the season of the witch.

     And the witching got serious.  All kinds of users, abusers and losers followed the libertines out of the woodwork, masters of manipulation they knew how to easily hypnotize whacked out marijuana smokers, cokeheads and general druggies to get them to do various things, sex things, criminal acts, whatever to gratify their evil schemes.  People did things they never thought they would do and fortunately some or a lot them couldn’t remember doing them.  Such a character was waiting in the ether to snare Mick and Marianne.  The movies, ah, the movies, what a way to snare unwary souls.  Everyone wants to be a movie star.

     Donald Cammell, one such, had his nose to the wind and the wind brought the sexual antics of Mick and Marianne wafting his way.  Truly, it was the season of  the witch.

     Cammell had a novie he wanted to make;  Mick and Marianne and assorted friends were just the libertines to bring Performance to life.  Oh no, oh no, must be, must be the season of the witch.

     According to Marianne, Cammell replicated the sex scene the set had had as though he had been there. Uncanny?  Maybe or maybe it was such a far out thing participants talked and word got around and Cammell’s imagination was inflamed.

     According to Marianne the filming brought disaster into  the actor’s lives.  Cammell, the manipulator escaped, of course, as his kind always does.  The pleasure was all his, you may be sure.

     The filmwas a turning point in the relationship of Marianne and Mick.  Perhaps the film stirred memories of when she had been The  Marianne Faithfull, since submergeed into Mick’s identity.  She had been unable to adjust to the new circumstances.  Pentulantly she just walked away.  Immersed in drugs the downslide slow and pleasant became precipitous until she could be found sitting on her wall of the bombed out building not rebuilt as yet.

     Could it be that the remaining wall of that Marianne Faithfull of low expectations was bombed out by the force of a success undreamt of in her pleasant teenage dreaming?  Was that the fascination that kept her glued to the wall in pleasant heroin dreams?  Would Humpty Dumpty fall into the abyss or not?

     This was now the seventies.  Hard realities existed on every side.  It was’t fun anymore either.  The actual season of the witch had passed over.  This was hell.

     After Marianne left Mick drugs are the topic of her converstation.  What is more boring than a junkie talking drugs.  Shoot up and shut up.  Who wants to hear?

     But she did regain her identity,  she had shed Marianne of the little m and was Marianne Faithfull again.  Men sought her out.  Producers came around again, there was still money in that drug wracked carcassof Marianne.

When she walks along the shore,

People pause to greet,

While little birds fly round her,

Little fish come to her feet…Marianne.

     Somehow from that drug drenched state Marianne was able to cobble together enough strength and concentration to begin doing a Mick and Keith.  Maybe her time had not been wasted by the proximity to Mick and Keith.  While still with Mick she had written Siser Morphine, later recorded by the Stones.  She got no writing credit because of old contractual problems with discarded agents but she did receive a third of the royalities which were considerable. 

     And now she began to string words together to make songs.  The stuff was nothing I would ever listen to.  I mean, choice lyrics like ‘Every time I see your dick I imagine her cunt in my bed.’  Maybe that’s  why Dylan couldn’t understand the lyics.  I’m not going to try.  It worked for Marianne though.  Today she’s proudly known as the Edith Piaf of her generation.  I’m happy for her that things worked out for her after a fashion.  Her smile still photographs well but I’m not going to buy her records, CDs, whatever they’re called nowadays.  Time has gone by and I can’t get As Tears Go By out of my head. I’ll carry that tune to my grave.

All night, all day, Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Even little children love Marianne,

Down by the seaside sifting sand.

Bob Dylan

By Ian Dickson

Marianne Faithfull: “I felt it was quite a legitimate thing to do, considering my circumstances. It was total anonymity, something I hadn’t known since I was seventeen. And as a street addict in London I finally got it. The street was where I chose to live and it was one of the best times of my life because I had no telephone and no address. I had nothing, and even though nobody knew who I was they still treated me like a human being, and for that I was eternally grateful. From the outside, my time on the street may seem like a fall from grace, but for myself I knew I was on my path.”

Today is a big day. It’s my one-year anniversary here in the blogoshpere. I’ve almost made it to 50,000 hits – and I know they can’t all be members of my family. I was hoping to hit the big five-oh-oh-oh-oh by the end of the day, but it’s ok. I think 50,000 is a goodly number for a blog in its infancy, especially a willfully obscure one such as this. So, a proud moment. Let’s drink to many happy returns. Since this is a moment for celebrating, we need some very festive music. Unfortunateley, this isn’t really the place to find festive music. Therefore, we’ll go with the opposite of festive. Marianne Faithfull, our official go-to lady of gloom, with a lovely and enchanting paean to bad men, bad drugs and, um, bloodstains.

Demons of the Mind is a 1972 British period horror film, produced by the Hammer studio. It was directed by Peter Sykes and its cinematographer was Arthur Grant. The cast includes Gillian Hills, Robert Hardy, Patrick Magee, Michael Hordern and Shane Briant.

Trivia:

• Robert Hardy replaced Eric Porter who withdrew from the movie to
  

  Gillian Hills

  film Hands of the Ripper (1971) which was made simultaneously.

• Gillian Hills was a last-minute replacement for Marianne Faithfull who was recast due to insurance reasons.
• The role of Elisabeth was originally intended for famous pop icon Marianne Faithfull.
• Although the movie was completed in 1971, it sat on a shelf for over a year and was finally released on a double bill with the trashy psycho feature Tower of Evil (1972).
• The role of Baron Zorn was originally offered to Paul Scofield and James Mason, both of whom turned it down.
• Shane Briant made his film debut as the tormented Emil.
• John Atkinson is dubbed.
• Paul Jones was suggested by the director.

Amazon Specials!

The year is 1965 and this is before her drug addiction kicked in. She look so young and pretty. Stunning!

More Information on Marianne Faithfull or Official Web Site

Thelma and Louise…Classic!

The Film Version

Marianne Faithfull Video

More Information on Marianne Faithfull or Official Web Site

Marianne Faithfull with little Nicholas watching the Stones play Hyde Park, 1969

Last year when I did a comprehensive post on Kurt Weill’s super classic Alabama Song I couldn’t find any footage of Marianne Faithfull singing it live. So now there is, and I just had to post this great performance. Besides, can I resist an excuse to post another sexy Marianne picture? No, I can not.

Marianne Faithfull singing one of the all time great torch songs (which is not to be confused with the Green Day song of the same name). She is certainly the perfect embodyment of the world-weary gigolette she sings about. She very deliberately created this broken down persona, and it seems she enjoys it very much. In her youth she purposefully abused her body with drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, the plan being to demolish the image of girlish innocence that was projected upon her for her beauty. Many, many people have taken the same journey to hell and back, but most of them either self-hating, suicidal or just dumb. For Faithfull it was always a creative journey. Inspired in part by William Burroughs, she chose her path, not in ignorance, but with a plan to become richer with experience, or die trying if necessary. To see her now, she luxuriates in her own ruined looks and cracked voice. She is a self made legend.

Bored By Dreams, Marianne Faithfull, A Secret Life, 1995

If I had to sum up Secret Life, I would call it very elegant. I would say that about MF herself. Elegant and melancholoy. She’s made melancholy music since she was seventeen years old, but now it suits her better. This is not one of her angry albums. She doesn’t sound tired or bitter. But stately as always. I think she’s always had an immense sense of dignity. She was dignified as Swinging London’s “angel with big tits”, she was as dignified as a depraved junkie could be, and today she’s like a queen.

With pivotal bohemian cultural figures like Augustus John in her family, Talitha was set on a path of hedonism.

Her beauty caught the attention of many including Dancer Rudolf Nureyev. At a dinner party, he and Talitha were supposed to sit next to each other. When Nureyev couldn’t attend, John Paul Getty, heir to the Getty oil fortune, took the seat and started a relationship with Talitha that eventually led to their marriage. The couple became part of the Swinging scene in London, making friends with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull. They moved to Marrakesh, Morocco where Talitha became muse to YSL and queen of the Marrakesh hippie scene. Most have seen the iconic Patrick Lichfield photo taken on a rooftop in Marrakesh, Morocco in ‘69.  It’s the era and the picture that inspired a thousand fashion collections.

But wealth and luxury weren’t enough for Talitha. She had a long affair with Count Jean de Breteuil, known dealer to glamorous people like Keith Richard and Faithfull. She died of a heroin overdose in 1971–eerily the same year as Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Edie Sedgwick. So like so many other sixties icons, she never lived long enough for her beauty to be dimmed.

Talitha Getty in her Morroccan fashion

Her look typified the hippie style of the time and became a model over the years for what is now called hippe or boho chic. She wore long kaftans, and tons of colorful prints and embroidery.

Talitha and John Paul Getty at the Morocco Pleasure Palace

Peace,

*Title from “The Marrakesh Express” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

]]> http://carlosdynamo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/girl-on-a-motorcycle/ Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:09:00 +0000 carlosdynamo http://carlosdynamo.wordpress.com/2009/10/06/girl-on-a-motorcycle/

In The Girl On A Motorcycle, Marianne Faithfull is the flighty Girl who leaves her husband and rides her Motorcycle into Heidelberg to visit her lover (played by Alain Delon). Her journey is illustrated with flashbacks, daydreams and other psychedelic statements on freedom/escape. Groovy! Oh, and Marianne rocks a full leather body suit throughout, the intimation being she’s naked under it.

Mick and Marianne at London Airport by William Lovelace

Mick and Marianne, more waiting around the airport

Marianne Faithfull Golden Gate Park 09

Barely out of the house on en route to the last day of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass (aka Warrenstock) I ran into marathoner/author Bob  Cooper finishing his Sunday ride.

Damn, if he didn’t do a U-ey and ride along for a spell .
People who will do a U-ey for you are in a special category. When was the last time you did an about-face to ride with someone?

He told me about his recent three week Euro-travel writing assignment.

I tried to rob him of an iota of his work, sorry, his diligence ethic with an innocuous knuckle-bump. Bob cranks out award winning articles by the boatload…and I just….watch ‘em sail by.  Sure wish I launched a few.

He insists he likes it.

Then, as I climbed Camino Alto’s curvy turns I could hear conversation.  I pushed a bit harder on the pedals.

Bogged down with tea in the thermos, cookies, spring rolls, salad, and other fortifications, not to mention a ski-jumpsuit in case the fog rolled in. Oh, what else? Lock,  and a brand new Cat–Eye lighting system, top of the line “Li-ion” lithium set up, and battery-operated tail light. And WOMBATS vest for easy identification in a crowd of roughly a million.  The bike swayed imperfectly with its single overloaded pannier.

Finally the conversationalists  passed me and one asked if I was still in touch with Eliza W. (a long-ago wombat)… How did he know–Oh, right the wombat vest!  His name was Carl  and he’d dated the wombat’s daughter. His companion, Mark, greeted me and shared a bit about how his wife was getting a bit nervous about dirt riding. “And everyone knows a husband is the wrong person to do the critique” he told me ruefully.

How well I know.
I told him I’m working on the solution to this ‘problem’.

Having perfected the Boast-card grope, I  handed him my card.
“I take it you’re not doing the Chris Carmichael style of coaching” Mark chided. “With the wattage an’ stuff…”
I told him I barely even thought about the technicalities of cycling…gears, nutrition, training… quite uninterested in all those numbers, and schedules.

“US, we’re a couple of rolling lab rats” one of them shot back, pulling away toward the bridge beyond  Sausalito.

Again the world felt puny. The bike world,  that is.

Though a million people were streaming  into the park in S.F., at least three hundred riders  were coming the opposite direction.
Marin feels very mecca-like.
I felt sorry they were pedaling away from where the action was.

I didn’t find Ramona Wheelright, but left her a note at the agreed-upon spot, in case she found it.
Had the strange experience of solitude in the throng. Naturally it was mitigated when I shared my Zeiss monocular….better than a spliff. See Earl Scruggs, Doc Watson up close (and I was seated only fifty feet from the stage).

To move between the six stages is an ordeal, and I am happy my bladder’s cast iron, cuz having to pee would just ruin  half the set…mental  note to pack a ‘Depends’ next year, my 55th. Just in case….
Trekked a quarter mile toward the “Towers of Gold” stage, and immediately encountered Mary, Gary Fisher’s  girlfriend in 2008. We caught up on a year’s news, and I left her to navigate the throng–I saw a lot of free space down in the lumpy meadow where Marianne F. was to perform.

My favorite act was British rocker Marianne Faithfull–I guessed correctly that the area would be sparsely filled.  Bluegrass listeners are  clueless that rock n roll royalty was mere inches away (we HAVE been treated to Elvis Costello, Boz Scaggs, an’ that guy in Led Zeppelin, what’s his name? Robert Plant, right).

Faithfull did begin as a folk singer–perhaps being put forth as the Brit’s answer to Joan Baez. Within months she was lured away from a tame “As Tears Go By” by the fast lane in mid-sixties London. And what a ride she had.

Her songs were original (though she told the crowd that Down from Dover was a Dolly Parton song) and harrowing: deep, painful and of course beautiful. Oh and then there was an angry one (“Why’d ya do it?”). But I liked the Dover one, and loved  the Ballad of Lucy Jordan.

I left full of respect for this poet/singer with her  beaming grin. I learned she doesn’t drive a car or motorbike. Wonder if she rides a push-bike? Of course. Every self-respecting post-war London kid rode. 

What I would have done to get to go to HER after-party!

Hopped on my trusty Breezer bike and rode the last hour of daylight into Sausalito where a friendly voice hailed ‘Miz Wombat!’

It was Allen Biggs, a percussionist riding home from his gig in the city playing in the orchestra for Wicked.I didn’t know him but soon would.

“You must be the only guy in the whole production riding a bike to work… what, fifty miles?!“

“Yeah, they think I’m nuts…”

We blabbed the whole way into Ross Valley, with me schooling him about dumpsters, cross-country rides. As a huge moon appeared over the eastern horizon he told me there was a gathering of drummers on Angel Island right now.
Everywhere in the Bay Area, it’s the October magic. Tourists take note: you want to be here now, not in summer.

By San Anselmo, I’m starved. It’s eight-thirty at night, the sidewalks are all rolled up and no one on the street. Taco Jane’s  is still lit up, just finishing another day.

Got to share a bit about the 42 ride with Matteo the owner, over a couple of margaritas.  He fingered my green Patagonia capilene tee-shirt.
“Wasn’t this mine?” he asked.
Yes. He had given it to his brother who lives upstairs.

“Dude, Ben  donated it to Goodwill”

I intercepted the bag and made off with the One Good Item. Or…had I (ulp) swiped it as it went TO Ben?  Argh…

Some small world.

Maybe the most that you can expect from a relationship that goes bad is to come out of it with a few good songs.

–Marianne Faithfull