Episode 1077 - Ethan Russell

Episode 1077 • Released December 5, 2019 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:09Marc:All right, let's do this.

00:00:10Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:12Marc:What the fuck, Knicks?

00:00:13Marc:What's happening?

00:00:14Marc:I'm Mark Maron.

00:00:14Marc:This is my podcast, WTF.

00:00:18Marc:How's it going?

00:00:19Marc:Today on the show, I talked to Ethan Russell.

00:00:22Marc:He's a photographer.

00:00:23Marc:Now, look, you know, I get stuff in the mail all the time, man.

00:00:26Marc:I get pictures.

00:00:27Marc:I get books of pictures.

00:00:29Marc:But this one...

00:00:30Marc:You know, the cover of it is Keith Richards walking off the Rolling Stones chartered plane in 1972.

00:00:37Marc:And I'm like, what is this?

00:00:39Marc:And in it, there's just these amazing pictures of, you know, John Lennon and Yoko and the Stones and the Who and the Eagles are in there.

00:00:49Marc:Linda Ronsat, Jonathan Joplin, Jim Morrison, Taj Mahal.

00:00:52Marc:Benny Goodman.

00:00:54Marc:Some of the last pictures of Brian Jones before he died.

00:00:59Marc:And more importantly, not even more importantly, but there were pictures from Altamont.

00:01:04Marc:He was on stage at Altamont.

00:01:06Marc:And I'm a little obsessed with Altamont.

00:01:07Marc:And tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of Altamont.

00:01:12Marc:There's a lot of different schools of documentation of the Altamont situation.

00:01:18Marc:But by all indications, by all

00:01:21Marc:Sort of recollections and pieces on it.

00:01:24Marc:It was a clusterfuck of a very high magnitude in a very dark fucking horrendous day.

00:01:32Marc:And Ethan Russell was there and he took pictures.

00:01:35Marc:And if you get the book, you'll recognize a lot of the pictures.

00:01:37Marc:And like I told you, I get a lot of these books and I like them.

00:01:41Marc:But for some reason, maybe it's this moment in my life.

00:01:44Marc:I'm really at the tail end of the boomer thing.

00:01:48Marc:This was not my life.

00:01:51Marc:I did not live through it, but I came to it later.

00:01:54Marc:The Stones, the Beatles, they were already well on their way.

00:01:58Marc:But there was something about these pictures that really...

00:02:01Marc:Kind of nail something.

00:02:02Marc:I mean, he's just got a great eye and he's got a great way of framing.

00:02:05Marc:And some of them, I, you know, you just remember from your life from seeing them.

00:02:10Marc:He did that classic, you know, picture of Keith in front of the sign.

00:02:14Marc:Be patient to drug free.

00:02:15Marc:America is a better America, whatever it is.

00:02:18Marc:But it's like seminal.

00:02:19Marc:I mean, you know that picture.

00:02:22Marc:And he sent it to me, self publishes this book.

00:02:24Marc:It's called the best seat in the house.

00:02:27Marc:And, uh, you can get it as a book also as an interactive digital version at Ethan Russell.com.

00:02:36Marc:And, you know,

00:02:38Marc:He self-published this thing and he just sent it to me.

00:02:40Marc:I love it.

00:02:41Marc:So he came down and he comes from, he's living up in the Bay Area.

00:02:44Marc:He came down and we talked about it, but I just found it very humanizing and very great.

00:02:50Marc:And we had a great conversation.

00:02:51Marc:So I'm going to talk to him in a minute.

00:02:54Marc:And as I said, 50 years ago, Altamont.

00:02:57Marc:And this also got me sort of reflecting about things and trying to realize what, you know, what was my life versus what was the life that I revered from a different time, you know?

00:03:07Marc:I'm a little delirious.

00:03:09Marc:I'm a little bit in denial.

00:03:11Marc:LaFonda, my cat, is... Yet, is it digressing?

00:03:17Marc:It's just... I don't know.

00:03:19Marc:It's happening kind of quickly.

00:03:21Marc:I thought it was... You know, you hang on to hope.

00:03:26Marc:I did not have hope...

00:03:28Marc:That she would last another year.

00:03:29Marc:I thought it would be nice, but she's just so weak.

00:03:34Marc:When I give her subcutaneous fluids, it's really kind of stressful.

00:03:41Marc:I'm just really getting acclimated to the idea that I got to do this soon.

00:03:46Marc:She's not in pain, but she's not having any fun either.

00:03:50Marc:Maybe I'm projecting that, but it's just... She's just not going to put on any weight.

00:03:56Marc:And I don't know, you guys.

00:03:58Marc:I'm trying to deal.

00:04:01Marc:People have been very supportive.

00:04:02Marc:I'm getting a lot of good emails.

00:04:04Marc:I think when I do make the decision to do it, I'm going to have Yvette come here and we'll do it.

00:04:09Marc:We'll sit there and do it if I can hold her and get through it.

00:04:13Marc:It's very sad and bizarre to me that...

00:04:19Marc:You know, I actually have a kind of I have 15 years of memories with this cat at different points.

00:04:28Marc:You know, these are the cats I found living out in back of my apartment in Astoria, Queens, feral kittens, truly feral.

00:04:37Marc:They were too old to be domesticated, really.

00:04:42Marc:They were quite wild for years.

00:04:45Marc:But I just have all these insane memories.

00:04:47Marc:And I guess not unlike humans when they get sick.

00:04:52Marc:She's just not herself.

00:04:53Marc:She's never going to be herself again.

00:04:54Marc:Her will is very diminished almost completely.

00:04:58Marc:Yeah.

00:04:59Marc:And it's sad.

00:05:01Marc:And, you know, you just got to wonder when when it just feels like it's time.

00:05:05Marc:I was laying on the floor.

00:05:07Marc:I'm feeding her with my hands, my fingers.

00:05:09Marc:And now today, for some reason, she just started to hide more.

00:05:14Marc:And, you know, she was trying to put up a good appearances for a while and showing up on the couch downstairs and hanging out, sleeping with me.

00:05:22Marc:But today it just seems worse.

00:05:24Marc:And I gave her the fluids, but I don't know to what end.

00:05:28Marc:And like I always say, you know, there's always cats available.

00:05:32Marc:There's always cats around, but you get so attached to these things.

00:05:35Marc:And I'm not sad that a couple of my longest relationships in terms of live-in relationships with these cats, Monkey's doing okay.

00:05:45Marc:But Fonda, I'm not going to do a goddamn in-memoriam today.

00:05:51Marc:But I think it's going to happen soon.

00:05:54Marc:I, you know, I know it's going to happen soon.

00:05:55Marc:I know I got to do it and I'll make the call.

00:05:57Marc:I'll do it.

00:05:58Marc:I'm not going to wait too long.

00:05:59Marc:It's just, it's not even that.

00:06:01Marc:So it, of course it's sad, but it's the right thing to do.

00:06:05Marc:And yeah,

00:06:07Marc:And there's a way to do it.

00:06:08Marc:So, you know, they don't know.

00:06:10Marc:I'll know.

00:06:11Marc:I got a weird email from a guy that says he he had the vet come over and do it at the house.

00:06:18Marc:But then they took the cat's body away and he felt bad that he didn't give his other pets time with the dead cat.

00:06:25Marc:Or dog.

00:06:26Marc:I remember what it was.

00:06:27Marc:Do I need to do that?

00:06:28Marc:I mean, are they going to be grieving or just are they going to just be like, well, that's that.

00:06:33Marc:I guess they're not here anymore.

00:06:34Marc:Do I have to hang out and leave leave the body around?

00:06:38Marc:I don't think so.

00:06:38Marc:Right.

00:06:39Marc:I mean, it just seemed to it seemed like something, you know, he regrets.

00:06:42Marc:But I don't know if it's a reasonable thing.

00:06:44Marc:I don't know.

00:06:44Marc:My cats have adjusted to them disappearing before.

00:06:47Marc:I just I don't think I can quite handle that.

00:06:50Marc:And I'm also trying to decide whether do I get her cremated and keep the thing in a thing, keep the stuff in a thing.

00:06:56Marc:You know, these are just avoiding the truth, which is that, you know, I'm going to have to let her go.

00:07:05Marc:And that's that, you know, ashes, no ashes.

00:07:08Marc:I'm just going to have to do this and it's going to be sad.

00:07:11Marc:And I feel like I've been preparing myself for the last couple of weeks and it's,

00:07:16Marc:It's coming down to the wire, people.

00:07:18Marc:And I don't want to bum you out.

00:07:19Marc:It just, it is what it is.

00:07:21Marc:And I would like to mention that Christmas is coming and there's new WTF merch for the holidays at podswag.com slash WTF.

00:07:32Marc:We got baseball hats, winter beanies.

00:07:35Marc:We got new shirts, new mugs, new travel cups.

00:07:37Marc:There's a lot of new stuff.

00:07:39Marc:You know, a lot of it has the Draplin, the new Draplin logo on there.

00:07:43Marc:It's all at podswag.com slash WTF, or you can go to WTFpod.com and click on the Merch button.

00:07:51Marc:So it's a little heavy over here.

00:07:53Marc:As I said, it's heavy.

00:07:54Marc:It's heavy.

00:07:56Marc:But I'm blessed.

00:07:58Marc:Can I say that?

00:07:58Marc:I'm blessed or I'm fortunate.

00:08:00Marc:Perhaps not blessed.

00:08:03Marc:You know, I'm just I'm fortunate.

00:08:06Marc:My parents are still alive.

00:08:07Marc:I have not had any, you know, people in my immediate family fall ill.

00:08:13Marc:I have not fallen ill.

00:08:15Marc:My cat is 15 years old and I guess that's in her 70s in human years and she's old and fragile and she's dying.

00:08:22Marc:But this is how I'm experiencing that.

00:08:25Marc:Somehow or another, I wasn't around for the deaths of my other pets.

00:08:30Marc:And, you know, I'm around for this.

00:08:32Marc:I'm here for this.

00:08:34Marc:And it's just, you know, it's not a wake up call, but it just I'm 56, man.

00:08:40Marc:It's just sort of the years are creeping up, man.

00:08:44Marc:So what else is happening?

00:08:45Marc:I did a big fitting for my role in the upcoming Aretha Franklin biopic called Respect.

00:08:54Marc:It's always fun to kind of do a real fitting.

00:08:55Marc:I went over to a wardrobe house with some wardrobe folks from the movie and got to try on all these things.

00:09:01Marc:Different outfits from the late 60s and early 70s.

00:09:05Marc:And it was kind of exciting.

00:09:06Marc:It really kind of starts to wrap you in the character.

00:09:09Marc:And then I went and got fitted for some glasses of the period and kind of wraps you in the character a little more.

00:09:15Marc:And, you know, then I start to talk a little bit like this.

00:09:17Marc:And I start to feel like the guy a little bit.

00:09:20Marc:And, you know, things are starting to come together for me.

00:09:23Marc:There's an intensity to them.

00:09:24Marc:And I think that...

00:09:26Marc:It's starting to come together.

00:09:27Marc:I think the facial hair is going to look right.

00:09:29Marc:And I think that there's a way I can approach it.

00:09:34Marc:He was a bit of a rager, which is good for me.

00:09:36Marc:And sure, that's where I'm at with it.

00:09:40Marc:But look, I'm excited about that.

00:09:44Marc:I did some ADR, some voiceover work on the David Bowie film that I did, which looks a lot better than I anticipated.

00:09:51Marc:And so that's kind of exciting.

00:09:53Marc:It looks like that might get at the very least become a finished movie.

00:09:59Marc:And that's that.

00:10:00Marc:You know, I'm going to do a little stand up.

00:10:01Marc:I'm going to I'm going to add some more tour dates so I can get out to a few places.

00:10:07Marc:I'm going to hit the eastern seaboard a little bit in the middle of winter because that's a smart idea.

00:10:11Marc:I think I scheduled some dates in in Maine and New Hampshire and Long Island and.

00:10:21Marc:am i going to maybe connecticut i'm not i'll let you know i'm gonna do a couple of florida dates in february all right i'll let you know what's up tampa orlando yeah i'm gonna do a couple florida dates and i stay away from that and i'm gonna do a cleveland date and i believe a michigan date is that right

00:10:42Marc:I think it is right.

00:10:44Marc:I'll let you know.

00:10:45Marc:But I'm going to do about seven dates before the special drops with the material that I've been doing because I can.

00:10:51Marc:And there's some places that I haven't been back to in a while.

00:10:54Marc:So that's going to happen.

00:10:55Marc:And we're going to start shooting the fourth and final season of Glow in March.

00:11:02Marc:And that's that.

00:11:03Marc:And, you know.

00:11:06Marc:It's kind of that time of year where things slow down a bit here between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

00:11:12Marc:It's just this holiday chunk.

00:11:14Marc:It's been nice and rainy here in L.A., which means no fires.

00:11:18Marc:And I'm just trying to, you know, I'm trying to stay okay with what I got to do.

00:11:26Marc:I hope you guys are well.

00:11:28Marc:And now I want to...

00:11:30Marc:Introduce my guest, if I could.

00:11:33Marc:Would that be okay?

00:11:34Marc:Ethan Russell is a photographer, as I said earlier.

00:11:37Marc:The Best Seat in the House is a book available as a book and also an interactive digital version at ethanrussell.com.

00:11:44Marc:It's a great photographer.

00:11:45Marc:Bunch of photographs.

00:11:47Marc:And we talk about Altamont because tomorrow, December 6th, is the 50th anniversary of that fucking nightmare.

00:11:53Marc:And Ethan photographed it.

00:11:54Marc:And this is me talking to Ethan Russell.

00:12:04Marc:Where do you live?

00:12:05Marc:North of San Francisco now.

00:12:07Marc:Now, I see.

00:12:07Marc:So you're not.

00:12:08Marc:I didn't know really what your background was.

00:12:10Marc:You're you're you're not British.

00:12:12Yeah.

00:12:12Marc:Not Brits.

00:12:14Marc:But you spent a lot of time there.

00:12:15Guest:I did.

00:12:16Guest:And I fooled a lot of Americans because I came back and they thought I was British.

00:12:20Marc:Really?

00:12:21Marc:Did you speak with a British accent on purpose?

00:12:23Marc:No, no, no, no, no.

00:12:24Marc:Sort of never did that.

00:12:25Marc:Well, I mean, thanks for sending the book.

00:12:27Marc:I don't know why you sent it.

00:12:29Marc:But I was very excited about it.

00:12:32Marc:I had no idea who you were.

00:12:33Marc:And I get this amazing book in the mail.

00:12:36Marc:And I looked through it.

00:12:37Marc:And I've gotten a lot of these kind of books before the photographs, you know.

00:12:41Marc:I mean, I talked to Neil Preston.

00:12:43Marc:Okay, there you go.

00:12:43Marc:You know, Neil?

00:12:44Marc:Yeah.

00:12:45Yeah.

00:12:45Marc:You guys, there's a few shots that just sort of transcend time, and they are there forever.

00:12:52Marc:And he got the one with Robert Plant in The Bird, right?

00:12:55Marc:That was his big... That was the moment, man.

00:12:59Marc:And you got like... There's so many in here that I've known all my life, like of Jagger, of Richards, of The Who, the Beatles, even later on in the book, Ronstadt and the Altamont pictures, the Rock and Roll Circus pictures, but so many of them...

00:13:15Marc:were were pictures from my childhood ones i've always known right and uh and to get the book i was like wow and i've i've looked at it like three or four times and i'm like still excited about it so that's that's fun and just even the cover shot what's that 72 the the the plane the stone's plane that's what it is 72 getting off the plane they that's when they got the logo and and the weird thing is like now tomorrow

00:13:38Marc:Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of Altamont.

00:13:40Marc:And I just had a discussion with someone the other day.

00:13:42Marc:There's going to be a time where all of these guys are going to go.

00:13:46Marc:They're going to be gone.

00:13:47Marc:And it's not far away.

00:13:49Marc:And it's sort of heartbreaking.

00:13:52Marc:But this book is sort of a testament to, hopefully, I don't know how the next generation will process all this stuff.

00:13:59Marc:But it's certainly, for me, and I'm a little younger on the boomer spectrum, a very nostalgic and beautiful archive of stuff.

00:14:08Guest:Well, thank you.

00:14:08Guest:I think it's true.

00:14:09Marc:I mean, the world changes, so you don't know, right?

00:14:11Marc:Well, it just gets plowed under.

00:14:13Marc:You know what I mean?

00:14:13Marc:I mean, some songs will persist, but so how does it start for you?

00:14:16Marc:You grew up in the Bay Area?

00:14:18Guest:Well, born in New York, came across the country, right?

00:14:21Guest:When I was eight.

00:14:22Marc:Oh, eight.

00:14:23Guest:Yeah.

00:14:23Guest:And then grew up in San Francisco, basically, Northern California.

00:14:26Guest:So your folks made the move?

00:14:28Guest:My father made the move back, actually.

00:14:30Guest:He was from a divorced family, so I'm thinking 31, 32 in that era.

00:14:34Guest:And so he worked for BBD&O, and he was the original producer on the hit parade.

00:14:42Guest:Really?

00:14:43Guest:Your father was?

00:14:43Guest:My father was.

00:14:44Guest:So you grew up in that?

00:14:45Guest:I grew up in that a little bit.

00:14:47Guest:I was so little, but I remember seeing Dorothy, whoever it was, one of them, you know, and being like six and a half feet tall.

00:14:52Marc:Right.

00:14:52Marc:Now, what exactly was the hip parade?

00:14:54Guest:It was a TV show?

00:14:55Guest:Yeah, it was.

00:14:55Guest:Right.

00:14:56Guest:So, the gag was my first words were L-S-M-F-T.

00:15:00Guest:Do you remember what that was?

00:15:01Marc:No, no.

00:15:01Guest:Lucky strike means fine tobacco.

00:15:03Guest:Oh, right.

00:15:03Guest:It's a little before me.

00:15:04Marc:It's a little before me.

00:15:05Marc:There you go.

00:15:06Marc:I'm 56.

00:15:06Marc:There you go.

00:15:07Marc:Yeah.

00:15:07Marc:Yeah, right.

00:15:08Marc:I know that's on the Lucky package.

00:15:10Guest:That's what it is.

00:15:11Guest:And so Lucky was the sponsor, right?

00:15:14Guest:And then they sponsored the show, at least one of the shows.

00:15:18Guest:And they sort of took him.

00:15:19Guest:But he was 25 and had four kids already, Second World War.

00:15:23Guest:Oh, my God.

00:15:24Guest:Right?

00:15:24Guest:And the story is he went in to get a raise and they said, well, you're not worth a raise.

00:15:30Guest:But you can go to San Francisco.

00:15:32Marc:Oh, so he left.

00:15:33Guest:And he had four kids, so he left.

00:15:35Marc:And with no plan, just four kids?

00:15:37Guest:No, he had his step-grandmother, or his step-mother, my step-grandmother was in San Francisco.

00:15:43Marc:Okay, all right.

00:15:43Marc:So what was the plan in San Francisco for the old man?

00:15:46Marc:What did he do?

00:15:46Guest:He went back to BBD and oh, he still did it.

00:15:48Guest:Which is?

00:15:49Guest:Batten, Barton, Durstein, and Osborne.

00:15:51Marc:Yeah.

00:15:51Guest:It's Mad Men.

00:15:52Marc:Okay.

00:15:53Marc:It's totally Mad Men.

00:15:54Marc:So it's an ad agency.

00:15:55Marc:It's an ad agency, yeah.

00:15:56Marc:And so your dad was an ad man?

00:15:58Marc:He was.

00:15:59Marc:And what was your mom?

00:16:01Marc:A married woman.

00:16:02Marc:Ah, yes.

00:16:03Marc:The old days.

00:16:04Guest:The old days.

00:16:04Guest:Exactly right.

00:16:05Marc:So you're growing up in the Bay Area, but how old are you now?

00:16:08Guest:I'm 73, 74.

00:16:10Guest:What am I?

00:16:10Guest:73 or 74.

00:16:12Marc:So you were really the age where everything that was happening around youth culture post the 50s was relevant to you.

00:16:18Marc:I mean, you were part of it.

00:16:20Guest:Well, yeah.

00:16:20Guest:I mean, a big part of my learning experience being involved with all these people was Elvis was everything to everybody.

00:16:25Marc:Yeah.

00:16:25Marc:Oh, really?

00:16:26Marc:But you never shot him.

00:16:27Guest:I never shot him.

00:16:28Marc:No.

00:16:29Guest:I mean, he was, by the time I was shooting, he was fat Elvis, right?

00:16:33Guest:And it was- Fat, sad Elvis.

00:16:35Guest:Fat, sad Elvis.

00:16:36Guest:Fat, sad, sweaty Elvis.

00:16:37Guest:And it came as a shock to me.

00:16:39Guest:It all came as a shock to me, but it's really true to understand any of this stuff is how much American rock and roll meant to them.

00:16:44Marc:To who?

00:16:45Guest:The Beatles, the Stones, all of them.

00:16:47Marc:Oh, for sure.

00:16:48Marc:Right, yeah.

00:16:48Marc:I mean, yeah.

00:16:49Marc:And the blues, too, for the Stones.

00:16:51Marc:Right.

00:16:51Marc:Right?

00:16:52Marc:Right.

00:16:52Marc:I mean, because it seems to me like after talking to, I talked to Buddy Guy, a few guys here, a few weird record collectors and the Brits who learned how to play the blues really salvaged the entire musical form in the late 60s.

00:17:08Marc:Yeah, yeah, true.

00:17:09Marc:You know, they reintroduced it to people in a different way and it brought people around.

00:17:14Marc:Like if it weren't for the Stones and, you know, Cream and Clapton and Fleetwood Mac and stuff, you know, there's a good chance that the blues, the modern blues would just have been derailed.

00:17:25Marc:Right.

00:17:25Guest:Or left where it was, which was not in front of white people.

00:17:28Marc:Right, esoteric and kind of fading away once R&B came in.

00:17:33Marc:All right, so what's going on in the Bay Area?

00:17:36Marc:When do you hit a certain age where you're like, I got to get involved with this shit?

00:17:40Guest:Well, I'm like every kid on the planet.

00:17:42Guest:I mean, that's why the story's kind of interesting, which is that I loved early American rock and roll.

00:17:47Guest:Elvis was everything.

00:17:48Marc:I was in boarding school when Elvis went into the- How old were you when he popped on the Elvis, on the Ed Selman show?

00:17:55Marc:Is that what you're talking about?

00:17:56Guest:No, no, no.

00:17:56Guest:He went into, no, no.

00:17:57Guest:When I first saw him was that.

00:17:59Guest:But I think what I remember is the 45 RPM records.

00:18:02Marc:Of like Hound Dog?

00:18:03Guest:Yeah, Hound Dog and Don't Be Cruel and all of that stuff.

00:18:06Guest:And just loving it and playing it over and over again.

00:18:08Guest:And my father yelling at me and all that stuff.

00:18:09Guest:Really?

00:18:10Guest:But really standing upstairs and trying to do my hip shake.

00:18:13Marc:Sure, yeah, yeah.

00:18:14Guest:And I got a picture of myself with a crew cut because I had the slick hair and my dad cut it all off.

00:18:19Guest:Oh, really?

00:18:19Guest:And I was like, you know what?

00:18:20Guest:And I'm still not real happy about that.

00:18:22Guest:Yeah.

00:18:22Guest:You had it greased up, all good?

00:18:24Guest:You know, it was what I wanted.

00:18:26Marc:In the pompadour?

00:18:27Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:18:28Guest:And he just went south one day and had everybody get haircuts.

00:18:31Guest:Conservative guy?

00:18:33Guest:Well, yeah.

00:18:33Guest:I mean, the image is my parents were bogey and bacal.

00:18:38Guest:They absolutely were when they were little at the 21 Club in New York.

00:18:41Guest:And then when they were older, my father died young, 60.

00:18:44Guest:Oh, really?

00:18:45Guest:Cigarettes?

00:18:46Guest:George, yes, cigarettes killed everybody.

00:18:49Guest:Anybody didn't stop, pretty much gone.

00:18:50Guest:Right, yeah.

00:18:52Guest:And they became George and Barbara Bush.

00:18:54Guest:Oh, they did.

00:18:55Marc:They looked just like them.

00:18:56Marc:That's the trajectory?

00:18:57Marc:That's the trajectory.

00:18:58Marc:All right, so you're listening to Elvis and it blows your mind.

00:19:01Marc:Now, wait, you got three siblings?

00:19:04Marc:Yeah, two gone, one stole.

00:19:08Marc:And are you the oldest or the youngest?

00:19:10Marc:Okay.

00:19:11Marc:So you're off at boarding school, you're listening to Elvis.

00:19:14Marc:See, I can't even imagine... I'm trying to think if there's any analogy to my generation.

00:19:21Marc:There was no big...

00:19:24Guest:shift no big paradigm shift in music that like woke everybody up i mean maybe nirvana but i was already in my 30s so so i don't even know what that must have felt well when i was born you know i i called the beginning of rock and roll the and i can't remember the singer uh good rockin tonight yeah right elvis covered it yeah right right it was a black guy that first sang it was 47 yeah yeah you know nonsense to rock around the clock for me

00:19:49Marc:No, that's right.

00:19:50Marc:Yeah.

00:19:51Marc:Yeah.

00:19:51Marc:They're in Bill Haley copped it.

00:19:53Marc:There's a bunch of them.

00:19:54Marc:I just read a biography of Jerry Wexler and it was all black music.

00:19:58Marc:Yeah.

00:19:59Guest:And so that's what I mean.

00:20:01Guest:So rock and roll was two years old when I was born.

00:20:03Guest:Right.

00:20:03Guest:So I think the important part to know is there's no rock and roll.

00:20:06Guest:There's nothing to sort of say, how's this going to happen again?

00:20:09Guest:Because it was happening for the first time.

00:20:11Guest:Right.

00:20:11Marc:Yeah, that's true.

00:20:12Marc:And the evolution made sense.

00:20:14Marc:The swing to the bebop, to the acapella groups, and then onward into the white interpretation of that stuff.

00:20:23Marc:And the country stuff, too.

00:20:24Guest:But it goes away.

00:20:26Guest:It really does go away when Elvis goes.

00:20:27Guest:And then what happens, and this becomes international, is record companies, which had so little to do with it in the beginning.

00:20:33Guest:Right.

00:20:33Guest:Try to reinvent it.

00:20:34Guest:They're constantly looking for the next Elvis.

00:20:37Guest:Oh, is that the deal?

00:20:38Guest:That's what's going on in England, Cliff Richards.

00:20:41Guest:When I get to England, coming out of Haight-Ashbury to do a jump, I'm expecting that I'm going to get into something that's bigger and more involved than Haight-Ashbury sort of as a lifestyle, which was what was really taking over.

00:20:55Marc:Was that already happening?

00:20:55Marc:What year are we talking?

00:20:56Marc:I was 68 when I got to England.

00:20:58Guest:So yeah, all you need is love is 67.

00:21:01Guest:I'm driving down the Panhandle in Golden Gate Park.

00:21:04Marc:Yeah, I used to live on the Panhandle.

00:21:07Marc:But while you're in San Francisco, how old are you?

00:21:12Marc:What, 18, 19, 67, 68?

00:21:14Guest:No, no, older.

00:21:16Guest:So that would be, so, no, you're right, 1819, born 45.

00:21:19Marc:Right.

00:21:20Marc:So what's happening, you feel that, like, whatever Elvis was or whatever he represented was already fading fast in light of the acid and the hippies and everything that was starting.

00:21:31Guest:Well, yeah, I mean, Elvis and the Colonel became, you know, B-movie stars.

00:21:36Guest:I mean, he just took the Colonel's advice and disappeared.

00:21:39Guest:I mean, Elvis was bigger than that.

00:21:41Guest:It was like a weird thing when I was a kid and I went to go see Love Me Tender as an Elvis fan.

00:21:46Guest:Right.

00:21:48Guest:I didn't understand, who is this?

00:21:50Guest:Why is he doing this?

00:21:52Guest:Why is he doing it?

00:21:53Guest:Because I knew he was bigger than this movie, and I was 13, you know?

00:21:58Guest:So it was weird, but that's what he did.

00:22:00Guest:Oh, so it sort of neutered him.

00:22:02Guest:Yeah, he became irrelevant, right?

00:22:04Marc:Interesting.

00:22:05Guest:What happens for Americans, and it's not true that it happens for everybody, what happens for Americans is folk comes in, so Baez is the first person that starts to talk to me that's music at all, right?

00:22:15Guest:Right.

00:22:15Guest:And then Dylan comes in, and then Dylan goes electric, and all those things happen, but they're all major.

00:22:21Guest:And what really happens, I think, is you find that the singer-songwriter, which is blues, and to a certain extent it's rock, but it's blues and country.

00:22:30Guest:Exactly right.

00:22:31Guest:And that's not really in popular music.

00:22:34Guest:And it comes into popular music through Dylan in large measure, if you're an American, and then the Beatles are writing their own stuff, and the Stones are writing their own stuff.

00:22:42Guest:And, you know, then the whole trajectory is you've got to get to groups.

00:22:45Marc:Yeah, but then in The Hate, you had like, you know, Moby Gray, Blue Cheer, The Dead, right?

00:22:49Guest:Blue Cheer, my brother managed Blue Cheer.

00:22:51Marc:I know, you got some, out of nowhere, there are pictures of Blue Cheer in there.

00:22:54Marc:There you go, yeah.

00:22:55Marc:Because they've had sort of a resurgence.

00:22:56Marc:There's a whole new vinyl kind of...

00:23:00Marc:epidemic going on and blue cheer is very much revered for their kind of like raw rock sensibility god bless them you know they were really there first and they didn't get credit for nothing right back then right yeah but so you were there in the hate with your was it your older brother

00:23:17Guest:Yeah, my older brother was the quote manager.

00:23:19Marc:So you were kind of like running around the hate when you were a teenager?

00:23:23Guest:No, I was still in college.

00:23:25Guest:So the hate was going on and I was in college and the music was coming out into college.

00:23:29Marc:Where were you in college?

00:23:30Marc:University of California, Davis.

00:23:31Marc:Oh, in Davis.

00:23:32Marc:So you're kind of stranded out there in farm country.

00:23:34Guest:Yeah, a little bit, but it turns out it has a great art department.

00:23:37Marc:Yeah, they do, and they have a good... My buddy of mine teaches.

00:23:41Marc:He's, I guess, a cultural critic and poet over there now.

00:23:44Marc:Right, okay.

00:23:45Marc:Josh Clover.

00:23:45Marc:It's huge now.

00:23:47Marc:Yeah, it's a big place, yeah.

00:23:50Marc:But you're tied into the hate.

00:23:51Marc:Do you go see shows when you go home for summer?

00:23:54Guest:Yeah, a couple times.

00:23:54Guest:I was on a plane to England faster than you would have thought.

00:23:58Guest:Right after college.

00:24:00Guest:No, I didn't graduate.

00:24:02Guest:So there isn't really an after college.

00:24:04Guest:I made it to the end of my junior year.

00:24:06Marc:And are you shooting in college?

00:24:08Marc:When do you get your first camera?

00:24:09Guest:No, no.

00:24:10Guest:Cameras are very late in life, right?

00:24:11Guest:I'm an English major.

00:24:12Guest:I never took a photography course.

00:24:14Guest:Didn't want to be a photographer.

00:24:15Guest:That wasn't on my radar.

00:24:17Guest:Yeah.

00:24:17Guest:Look, there's a really famous book called Family of Man.

00:24:21Guest:You may know it.

00:24:22Guest:But it's an Edward Steichen huge anniversary book.

00:24:25Guest:And that's the first book that really reached to me because it was about what it says is about family of man.

00:24:32Guest:So it was that thing about it was humanism, which is a large part, I think, of what happens in the sort of Beatles, Stones, early stuff in the writing.

00:24:42Marc:I don't know those photographs.

00:24:43Marc:I wish I did because I know the Ansel Adams stuff was mostly naturalism.

00:24:46Marc:That's correct.

00:24:47Marc:And so Steichen was the humanism.

00:24:50Marc:I'm sure I know some of the photographs.

00:24:52Marc:He edited it.

00:24:53Guest:It was a 50th anniversary.

00:24:54Guest:It was a huge Museum of Modern Art exhibit with all the major photographers.

00:24:59Marc:Oh, I see.

00:25:00Marc:It's curated.

00:25:01Marc:It wasn't just him.

00:25:01Marc:It's curated.

00:25:02Marc:Oh, okay, great.

00:25:03Marc:But it was fabulous.

00:25:04Marc:So that was the thing that did it, huh?

00:25:05Guest:Well, kind of, and then the movie Blow Up.

00:25:08Guest:All right, Antonioni, right?

00:25:09Guest:Antonioni, that's correct.

00:25:11Guest:And set in London.

00:25:12Guest:Yeah.

00:25:13Guest:And very stylish, and that looks great.

00:25:15Guest:Yeah.

00:25:15Guest:And, you know, if I could have played guitar, I would have been playing guitar.

00:25:18Guest:But you didn't.

00:25:19Guest:But I didn't.

00:25:20Guest:Yeah.

00:25:20Guest:And it's nowhere near my skill.

00:25:22Guest:I can't do it.

00:25:22Guest:I can't, you know, I can't tune a guitar.

00:25:24Guest:It took me the longest time to figure that out.

00:25:26Guest:So it just wasn't me.

00:25:27Guest:Yeah.

00:25:28Guest:And that option that sort of that photography could be related to the music in a way...

00:25:35Guest:came out of both what was happening a little bit on album covers, because that was starting to be a thing, right?

00:25:41Guest:And then that movie.

00:25:43Guest:Those two things sort of made me go, oh, that's cool.

00:25:45Guest:Maybe I should try and do that, right?

00:25:47Marc:Yeah, and so you bought a camera?

00:25:49Guest:I bought a camera, a Nikon, a couple lenses, right?

00:25:54Guest:Yeah.

00:25:55Guest:And started to take pictures.

00:25:56Guest:But it was all part of being this sort of this explosive time, which it truly was.

00:26:02Guest:And then so is being an art major and English major and just doing a bunch of stuff.

00:26:05Marc:But you were tapped in.

00:26:06Marc:You realized the culture was changing.

00:26:08Marc:There was like, you know, chaos in the streets.

00:26:10Marc:Vietnam was starting.

00:26:11Marc:The music was shifting.

00:26:13Marc:Like it was really a cauldron of chaos and excitement and creativity.

00:26:17Marc:Right.

00:26:17Guest:Well, it totally was, and that's what the period was.

00:26:21Guest:In England, you go to England and they don't have any war.

00:26:23Marc:They don't have any war, and apparently they didn't have great acid either.

00:26:26Marc:Where did I read that?

00:26:28Marc:There was the scene in England in the late 60s, based on what was going on in L.A., that they would sort of mimic it,

00:26:37Marc:Like, you know, they dress the part of the biker, but they didn't have an indigenous biker issue in England.

00:26:43Marc:So a lot of the Americanized sort of archetypes and tropes of the time were basically costumes to the British.

00:26:51Marc:Is it true?

00:26:51Guest:Spot on.

00:26:52Guest:Anything about England in order to understand where they're coming from is sort of this, the great George Harrison quote, which is when he was asked if he had a phonograph, he said, we didn't have sugar.

00:27:03Guest:Right.

00:27:03Yeah.

00:27:03Guest:And they're all like coming out of a bombed out war that basically sunk the empire.

00:27:09Guest:They're broke.

00:27:10Guest:They don't have any money.

00:27:10Guest:There's nothing going on.

00:27:11Guest:Right.

00:27:12Guest:And everything that's going on is coming out of America.

00:27:15Guest:Right.

00:27:15Guest:And for these guys, it's all American rock and roll.

00:27:18Guest:Right.

00:27:18Guest:Yeah.

00:27:18Guest:So, but the BBC hasn't changed because of that because it's a big government bureaucracy.

00:27:25Guest:So, there was like one DJ, a guy called John Peel, who would play a little bit.

00:27:29Guest:Oh, yeah, the Peel Sessions.

00:27:30Guest:Yeah, you didn't hear nothing that's rock and roll.

00:27:34Guest:Really didn't.

00:27:34Guest:You know, you might get a little sort of three-minute promo that gets played on that.

00:27:38Guest:There was the...

00:27:39Marc:I never put that into perspective, because when you get these BBC recordings of Bowie and stuff, these box sets that are coming out now, which are spectacular, it's all that Guy Peele, I guess.

00:27:50Marc:They didn't have much outlet.

00:27:55Guest:Well, Bowie's later, Ready, Steady, Go is sort of, you know, Michael Lindsay Hogg, who's a very interesting man and has a book called, what is it?

00:28:03Guest:Anyway, his father's Orson Welles.

00:28:05Guest:I mean, it's just an interesting, real American story.

00:28:08Guest:Who is he?

00:28:08Guest:He's a director.

00:28:09Guest:He directed Let It Be, right?

00:28:11Guest:He directed The Rock and Roll Circus.

00:28:12Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:28:13Guest:Okay.

00:28:13Guest:That's how I know him.

00:28:14Guest:Yeah.

00:28:14Guest:But he's got this kind of crazy and interesting past.

00:28:17Guest:He was directing Ready, Steady, Go, and Ready, Steady, Go was a live television program.

00:28:22Guest:The Stones would appear on it.

00:28:23Marc:Right.

00:28:23Guest:It was gone by the time I got there.

00:28:25Marc:Late 60s, mid 60s.

00:28:27Guest:Yeah, so a lot of what influenced the Brits to get involved with their own groups was sort of gone by the time I got there, which is interesting.

00:28:35Marc:So who was around?

00:28:36Marc:What was going on when you got there?

00:28:37Marc:I'm telling you, Cliff Richards.

00:28:39Marc:Oh my God.

00:28:39Guest:It's so hard to imagine, but the truth of it was- And that's 68?

00:28:43Guest:Yeah, it felt like 10 years ago.

00:28:45Guest:Huh.

00:28:45Guest:It really did.

00:28:46Guest:It really felt like they were still trying to sign Elvis.

00:28:49Right.

00:28:49Marc:So were the other bands, were the Stones out on tour?

00:28:53Marc:What were they doing?

00:28:55Marc:Where were they?

00:28:55Marc:Were they in hiding?

00:28:56Guest:The Beatles were, of course, only about recording.

00:29:00Guest:That was all what that was.

00:29:02Guest:The Stones really weren't performing because of the problems with Brian Jones and Drug Bus and all the rest of that.

00:29:07Guest:Right, and taxes.

00:29:08Guest:All of that was really shutting people down.

00:29:10Guest:All right.

00:29:11Marc:So you show up with your camera.

00:29:12Marc:Now, did you learn how to process and print and everything?

00:29:15Marc:Let me see about that.

00:29:16Guest:Process, yes.

00:29:17Guest:Print, kind of.

00:29:20Guest:And then when I got there, what I found in the great tradition of Britain was that there are people that really know how to do that.

00:29:25Guest:To print.

00:29:26Guest:And process.

00:29:27Guest:And process, yeah.

00:29:28Guest:So I was like, you guys take this.

00:29:29Guest:You're much better than I am.

00:29:31Guest:So I knew that.

00:29:32Guest:That was about it.

00:29:33Marc:You're dropping the film off.

00:29:34Guest:I'm dropping the film off and coming back and it looks good.

00:29:36Marc:Yeah, hey, this is great.

00:29:38Marc:Look at a few of these.

00:29:39Guest:Right, yeah, exactly right.

00:29:41Marc:Okay, so that makes it easier, doesn't it?

00:29:44Guest:Yeah, it really does.

00:29:44Marc:Yeah, you're inhaling chemicals or spending half your life in the darkroom.

00:29:48Marc:Exactly right.

00:29:49Marc:All right, so how do you break into shooting these guys?

00:29:52Guest:Total.

00:29:52Guest:So the stories, you know, so I want to be a writer.

00:29:56Guest:So if you back this up just a tiny bit, I wanted to be a writer and then in college couldn't deal with it.

00:30:01Marc:Like what?

00:30:02Marc:Poetry?

00:30:03Marc:Short stories?

00:30:03Marc:But I didn't know nothing.

00:30:04Marc:Yeah, I get it.

00:30:06Marc:That's an English major.

00:30:07Marc:We don't know anything.

00:30:08Marc:That's exactly right.

00:30:08Marc:We know a little bit about a lot of things.

00:30:10Marc:Nothing.

00:30:10Guest:Nothing.

00:30:11Guest:Can barely read.

00:30:13Guest:But I don't know why I think I'm going to be able to write.

00:30:14Guest:But that's the best I can do because something's got to come out of your mouth when it says, what do you want to be?

00:30:18Guest:Sure.

00:30:19Marc:A writer.

00:30:19Marc:So you show up with your notebook and your camera.

00:30:22Guest:Yeah.

00:30:22Guest:But I really can't tell you how little I know.

00:30:24Guest:Nothing.

00:30:25Guest:But that's kind of what I'm thinking of doing.

00:30:27Guest:When I get to England, what happens is it feels good.

00:30:31Guest:Feels like I've been there.

00:30:32Guest:Still feels that way.

00:30:33Guest:London in particular.

00:30:34Marc:Yeah, really?

00:30:35Marc:Do you have a genetic connection to it?

00:30:37Guest:Don't know what it was.

00:30:38Guest:I had an English nanny.

00:30:39Guest:That was part of my past.

00:30:40Marc:Yeah, because I feel that about Ireland, but I have no connection genetically to Ireland.

00:30:43Marc:I know.

00:30:43Guest:I've been reading about that.

00:30:44Guest:Ireland's fabulous.

00:30:45Guest:It's so fucking beautiful.

00:30:47Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:30:47Marc:It's heavy-hearted and gorgeous.

00:30:49Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:30:50Marc:Yeah, so you feel that in England.

00:30:52Guest:I felt that right away.

00:30:53Guest:Now, really, the parks.

00:30:54Guest:So the parks had a kind of blow-up connection because that's so much a blow-up, right?

00:30:58Marc:Right.

00:30:59Marc:That's where the murder was, right?

00:31:00Guest:Yeah, I never found that park.

00:31:02Guest:I walked all over England looking for that park.

00:31:04Guest:It's pre-Google.

00:31:05Guest:Right now, you find it.

00:31:06Guest:Okay, there it is.

00:31:07Marc:Can you research it?

00:31:08Marc:Did you figure out which park it was?

00:31:09Marc:I never found out until Google.

00:31:11Marc:But now you know.

00:31:12Guest:No, but I've never been still.

00:31:13Guest:It's almost enough to go back just for that.

00:31:15Guest:You should get closure.

00:31:18Guest:Right, exactly.

00:31:20Guest:So I love that, but the music wasn't there, right?

00:31:23Guest:So the photography was kind of like, you know, I had some cameras here and sometimes I'd take a walk.

00:31:30Marc:Yeah, it seems like the early stuff is just sort of like you doing, you know, your kind of Robert Frank work.

00:31:37Marc:Yeah, well, I wish there were more.

00:31:39Marc:Or the Brisson, you know, that kind of thing.

00:31:41Guest:But I was too, well, Bresson was an influence.

00:31:43Guest:Frankly, I met Frank on the 72 tour.

00:31:46Marc:When he was shooting Cocksucker Blues?

00:31:47Marc:I didn't know he was.

00:31:48Guest:Oh, really?

00:31:49Guest:What a pathetic statement.

00:31:51Marc:Well, his was The Americans, right?

00:31:53Marc:That's right.

00:31:53Marc:It's a great, great series.

00:31:56Marc:Classic.

00:31:57Marc:Unbelievable.

00:31:57Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:31:57Marc:But Brisson, you knew.

00:31:59Marc:Brisson, yeah, Brisson was it.

00:32:00Guest:Brisson, an English photographer, kind of obscure, called Bill Brandt was an influence.

00:32:04Guest:Sure, yeah, yeah.

00:32:06Guest:And then everything black and white, everything that was England.

00:32:08Guest:It's like Taste of Honey, the movie, remember that?

00:32:10Guest:Yeah.

00:32:11Guest:And sort of the knack, not really, but kind of, and Hard Day's Night, of course.

00:32:15Guest:Yeah.

00:32:15Guest:All of that sort of gritty black and white America, which quite a few years got a lot of that in it.

00:32:19Marc:Well, you shot that, right?

00:32:20Marc:Yeah.

00:32:21Marc:Now, all those pictures from Quadrophenia, you were on set.

00:32:25Marc:You were a set photographer?

00:32:27Marc:No, no, no, no.

00:32:27Guest:No.

00:32:28Guest:No, no, no.

00:32:28Guest:All that, that whole book, we created.

00:32:30Marc:Okay.

00:32:30Guest:There was no movie.

00:32:31Marc:Oh, it wasn't a movie.

00:32:32Marc:It was ahead of the movie.

00:32:33Guest:That's right, yeah.

00:32:34Guest:So the art,

00:32:36Guest:sort of trajectory is at some point after I've been doing it for a while, now I'm Beatles, Stones and Who, and so it's kind of like, well, it can't stop now, right?

00:32:43Marc:Well, I mean, so, but how do you get there?

00:32:44Marc:Like, so you're shooting around, you're shooting, you know, women you have a crush on, you're shooting people in the street.

00:32:49Guest:Hardly, yeah, but hardly what I'm really trying to do is write, right?

00:32:52Guest:And what are you writing?

00:32:53Guest:Bad, bad, bad little short poems.

00:32:56Guest:It's horrible.

00:32:57Guest:It's horrible.

00:32:58Marc:Who are you showing those to?

00:33:00Guest:Well, this guy comes by, so this is the story.

00:33:02Guest:So a college friend comes to England.

00:33:06Guest:A lot of Americans did that, right?

00:33:09Guest:And then he says, you should meet this guy, Jonathan Cott.

00:33:11Guest:Jonathan Cott was, it turns out, to be a stringer on a magazine that was brand new called Rolling Stone, right?

00:33:17Guest:But I'm not thinking about pictures.

00:33:18Guest:I'm not thinking about any of it anymore.

00:33:20Guest:And John sees the pictures I have of Blue Cheer.

00:33:23Guest:That's the treasure.

00:33:24Marc:That you shot like hanging out with your brother?

00:33:25Guest:Yeah.

00:33:27Guest:Right.

00:33:27Guest:And when he leaves, he asked me if I want to photograph his next interview.

00:33:31Guest:And I said, sure, who?

00:33:33Guest:And he goes, Mick Jagger.

00:33:34Marc:Those are the Rolling Stones pictures, 68, in the rugby shirt?

00:33:38Guest:That's my first session.

00:33:39Guest:The rugby shirt.

00:33:40Guest:That's correct.

00:33:41Guest:I remember those pictures, yeah.

00:33:42Guest:Yeah, and it was like, and I really thought, I don't know what else to say, except you have to believe me, this was so unlikely that I never expected it to happen again.

00:33:52Marc:Right.

00:33:52Marc:So you go and you show up.

00:33:54Marc:So he's interviewing Mick.

00:33:56Marc:I guess it was at the first Rolling Stone interview.

00:33:58Marc:That's correct.

00:34:00Marc:And you're just a fly on the wall kind of deal.

00:34:03Marc:The guy's talking.

00:34:04Marc:This is Ethan.

00:34:06Guest:He's going to be doing the thing.

00:34:07Guest:And fly on the wall was everything that makes sense to me.

00:34:12Guest:So...

00:34:14Guest:The thing, when I had to finally think, I've got to explain how I take pictures at some point.

00:34:19Guest:Somebody's going to ask me.

00:34:20Guest:And it happened for me as a vision, which was of myself as a young guy.

00:34:28Guest:And I wish I knew if I had slicked back hair because it would be better if I did.

00:34:31Guest:And I'm hunting.

00:34:33Guest:My grandmother's got a big ranch in Carmel Valley.

00:34:35Guest:And she wants me to shoot blue jays for some obscure reason.

00:34:38Guest:And that seems fine to me.

00:34:39Guest:We had a little gun, a little tiny .22.

00:34:42Guest:Yeah.

00:34:42Guest:And so it's this part I think is easy to imagine.

00:34:45Guest:Imagine that that's what you're doing, right?

00:34:47Guest:So how can you do that?

00:34:48Guest:You gotta go to where they are.

00:34:51Guest:You gotta be real quiet, right?

00:34:54Guest:And you gotta stand really still.

00:34:57Guest:And then if they show up, you gotta do like, you got one or two seconds, and you gotta get it, and that's what you do.

00:35:03Guest:And that's how I took pictures, totally.

00:35:05Guest:That's the thing that did it, and I could frame.

00:35:06Guest:Those were the two pieces.

00:35:08Marc:Framing's an innate thing.

00:35:09Guest:Framing is a gimme like being able to tune a guitar, I swear.

00:35:13Marc:Sure.

00:35:13Guest:It's a gimme.

00:35:15Guest:But it always mattered to me.

00:35:17Guest:No, it's great.

00:35:18Guest:I was always good at it.

00:35:19Marc:But it's like, yeah, either you have it or you don't.

00:35:21Marc:That's right.

00:35:22Marc:Yeah.

00:35:23Marc:Right.

00:35:24Marc:So why'd she want the Blue Jays dead?

00:35:26Marc:I've heard that before.

00:35:26Marc:I can't remember.

00:35:27Marc:They're predatory.

00:35:28Marc:They eat something.

00:35:28Guest:Well, they're nasty.

00:35:30Marc:Don't they fuck up something?

00:35:31Guest:Well, yeah.

00:35:31Guest:She's a big horticulturist.

00:35:33Guest:That's what she cared about.

00:35:34Marc:Oh, right.

00:35:34Guest:Yeah.

00:35:34Guest:And they would drop shit on plants that she was trying to grow.

00:35:37Guest:And it seems a little extreme, frankly.

00:35:39Guest:Yeah.

00:35:39Guest:In retrospect, but at the time, I didn't even think about it.

00:35:42Marc:So, yeah, you heartless bastard.

00:35:44Guest:Yeah, there you go.

00:35:46Guest:I said it.

00:35:47Guest:It was in Toronto, and they were like, what Blue Jays, the baseball team?

00:35:51Marc:Yeah, he's out killing athletes.

00:35:52Guest:Yeah, there you go.

00:35:53Marc:So, okay, so you shoot Mick, and you thought that was a one-off?

00:35:56Marc:I totally did.

00:35:57Marc:But I thought I was cool.

00:35:58Marc:You got to understand.

00:35:59Marc:You were definitely cool.

00:36:01Marc:So you had no real interaction, but you heard everything, right?

00:36:04Marc:Did you have an interaction with me?

00:36:05Guest:No, no, no.

00:36:05Guest:Hello.

00:36:06Guest:Yeah, that's it.

00:36:07Guest:That's sort of the way I felt about it.

00:36:09Guest:It never made any sense to me why would they want an interaction with me, and where would it be my place to want an interaction with them?

00:36:15Guest:It took years.

00:36:16Marc:Yeah, I mean, I guess that's the question of the photographer.

00:36:19Marc:And also, I mean, until you're doing, I guess, actual photo shoots, which even then it's limited, but there has to be some sort of relationship between you and them or them and the camera that you're holding.

00:36:30Guest:Once the camera goes on a tripod...

00:36:32Guest:right you got to bring them to the camera uh-huh right that's the way that goes then that becomes more directorial right uh and and there are certain people really good at it i always found it incredibly sort of nervous inducing because so much pressure's on you right uh but the but the you know they're greats at it like avidon i mean they were just brilliant and they they can create that i don't know how he did but you know i you know he did some i don't know like that the like american west book you know it's unbelievable but what do you have a truck or

00:37:00Marc:something?

00:37:01Guest:Yeah, he did.

00:37:02Guest:There was one of the few books I know that's a book about the making of a photograph.

00:37:07Marc:Very few.

00:37:07Guest:And he shot that.

00:37:09Guest:It was a commission.

00:37:10Marc:American West.

00:37:11Marc:Yes.

00:37:13Guest:Dallas Museum or something like that.

00:37:15Guest:He shot 8x10, 8x10 film camera, and he did it in open shades.

00:37:19Guest:So there's pictures of him shooting.

00:37:20Marc:So the negatives are 8x10?

00:37:22Guest:He shot

00:37:23Guest:nothing but 8x10.

00:37:23Guest:That's a huge camera.

00:37:25Guest:Yeah, huge.

00:37:25Guest:Like, you know, that's a real Ansel Adams camera.

00:37:28Guest:So to use that as your tool for that kind of photography is a big deal.

00:37:35Marc:But how do you do the white background?

00:37:36Guest:Took the white background with him.

00:37:38Marc:That's crazy.

00:37:39Marc:Yeah.

00:37:39Marc:What a book that is.

00:37:40Marc:Yeah.

00:37:40Guest:It's my favorite.

00:37:41Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:37:42Marc:I mean, when you look at it, it's just like every one of the people, it's like a history of brutality and sadness and hard life.

00:37:48Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:37:49Guest:It's kind of interesting, like, Arbus-like in a funny way.

00:37:52Marc:No, it definitely is.

00:37:54Marc:There's definitely... But, you know...

00:37:57Marc:unlike arbus he he sort of lets the subject you know whatever his magic is and capturing it in in in this sort of you know sparing way that he did it's all about whatever is happening in that person whereas you know you felt that arbus was actually in the life of the person yeah i mean she had an she had an agenda yeah yeah i don't think he had an agenda so but you're doing so you do the mc jagger shoot and you're like that was amazing you get paid

00:38:27Guest:Maybe.

00:38:30Marc:But so how, and then what happens?

00:38:32Guest:And then I'm going back to my, so at that point I was working, because I was in England, I was lucky to be there, and I was working in a hospital with autistic children, which is something that mattered to me, right?

00:38:42Guest:And I felt it was great, right?

00:38:44Marc:What were you doing with them?

00:38:45Guest:I had a child that I in particular looked after.

00:38:47Guest:Oh, okay.

00:38:48Guest:So it was really like that.

00:38:50Guest:I had, first of all, read about autism in life in a magazine.

00:38:53Marc:You wanted to do something good.

00:38:54Guest:Yeah, I felt like that was appropriate.

00:38:56Guest:I was a lucky guy.

00:38:57Marc:Yeah.

00:38:57Guest:And I didn't want to sit around and not write, you know, or write badly or whatever it was.

00:39:02Marc:You want to give back a little bit.

00:39:03Guest:You know, I wanted to give it back a little bit.

00:39:05Guest:And so I was doing that when this came up, and I went back to doing that, you know.

00:39:09Guest:And like three months later, John Cott, same guy, calls me again and says, do you want to shoot my next interview?

00:39:14Guest:Yeah.

00:39:15Guest:And I said, who is it?

00:39:16Guest:And he said, John Lennon.

00:39:19Guest:Yeah.

00:39:19Guest:More luck than any human should be allowed to have.

00:39:21Guest:And those were my first two.

00:39:22Guest:And by then I'm going, well, you know.

00:39:24Guest:And I think the fact that I was an American really, really helped me, right?

00:39:30Guest:Yeah, why?

00:39:31Guest:Because they liked Americans, right?

00:39:33Guest:And also, culturally, you can't spot people that are outside of your culture as easily as you can your own, right?

00:39:40Guest:So I was A, American, B, kind of connected with Rolling Stone, C...

00:39:46Guest:And took a different kind of picture.

00:39:47Guest:Honestly, the kind of picture where you're not bothering them and you're not getting them to stand up, where you're really taking a picture of their world, right?

00:39:55Guest:And then showing it back to them.

00:39:56Guest:I think that had a huge, I know it had a lot to do with Let It Be, because that's exactly what happened.

00:40:01Guest:I had, I sort of, long story, but I had like three days at the end of the day after Neil Aspinall jerked me around.

00:40:07Guest:Neil who?

00:40:09Guest:Neil Aspinall, who's the head of Apple Records and had been with them since driving vans.

00:40:13Guest:Yeah, right.

00:40:14Guest:And after Brian Epstein died, a big part of their story, he had took that chair.

00:40:21Guest:And so I asked him, he called me.

00:40:26Guest:He called me because I had pictures of John.

00:40:28Marc:From the Rolling Stone interview?

00:40:30Guest:Exactly.

00:40:32Guest:And some, maybe just those, because I don't know if I had the Johnny Yoko stuff yet.

00:40:37Guest:And I went in to see him, and as he's looking at them, I also had the rock and roll circus pictures.

00:40:43Marc:You already shot those of Mick and Taj and Eric.

00:40:45Guest:Yeah, all that, like two weeks before.

00:40:48Marc:So the rock and roll circus on set stuff, who pulled you in for that?

00:40:53Marc:Your buddy?

00:40:54Marc:Yeah, and now I knew everybody.

00:40:57Guest:So Michael was one.

00:40:58Guest:And I also knew, I was friends with then known as Joe Bergman, who was running the Stones office.

00:41:04Guest:I became friends with the people that were around them.

00:41:06Guest:A lot of them were Americans.

00:41:07Guest:And so it was just kind of natural and easy.

00:41:11Marc:It was a very small world.

00:41:13Marc:But that rock and roll circus thing, it's really even hard to find the footage of that stuff.

00:41:17Marc:What was the idea of that show?

00:41:18Marc:I mean, how many were there?

00:41:20Guest:It wasn't a real show, it was shot for television.

00:41:24Marc:Right, that's what I mean.

00:41:25Marc:There was only a couple of them.

00:41:26Marc:Was it one episode or the Rock and Roll Circus?

00:41:29Guest:Was it a series?

00:41:30Guest:It's channeling Ed Sullivan is what it was.

00:41:33Guest:And it was because they couldn't tour.

00:41:35Guest:They couldn't go outside.

00:41:36Guest:They had to do something.

00:41:37Marc:So it was a Rolling Stones produced event?

00:41:39Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:41:40Marc:Oh, okay.

00:41:40Guest:Yeah.

00:41:41Guest:And so it was filmed, I think, just to get something out there because they couldn't tour and they couldn't do anything.

00:41:47Guest:And if you really delve into it, it's interesting because it's very much, you know, Jack is an entertainer, which you didn't necessarily know.

00:41:55Guest:Yeah.

00:41:55Guest:He was Mick Jagger.

00:41:58Guest:And he was also flirting around with Mick Jagger and the devil and all that nonsense, bad guy, all the rest of that.

00:42:03Guest:But really the core being in or at least part of it is the entertainer.

00:42:08Guest:So he knows what entertainment is.

00:42:10Guest:They had this problem.

00:42:11Guest:and they decided to do this show.

00:42:14Guest:That's what that was all about.

00:42:15Marc:Just invite people and do some, you know.

00:42:17Guest:No, and without much money, because they didn't have hardly any money, really.

00:42:22Guest:And so that's what it was.

00:42:24Guest:And there's a really interesting part about it, which I think talks a lot to something, which is that those images today look pathetic, right?

00:42:32Guest:Do they?

00:42:33Guest:Kinda.

00:42:34Guest:I guess it depends how much you love those people.

00:42:36Guest:Yeah, you love them, but the thing that's really interesting is all the music was live.

00:42:39Marc:Right.

00:42:40Marc:Well, no, but I mean, like I like I don't think they look like did you.

00:42:43Marc:Isn't there one with like Keith and an eye patch?

00:42:46Marc:I mean, I didn't I didn't I didn't mean I didn't see it in this book, but I remember seeing one.

00:42:51Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:42:52Marc:And like, you know, and there's this whole circus environment.

00:42:55Marc:But you see Eric Clapton and Taj Mahal and all these people there.

00:42:58Marc:When I look at it, I still sort of like that must have been great.

00:43:01Marc:That was great.

00:43:02Marc:That was I never think like this is ridiculous.

00:43:04Guest:No, it's more the, but as a visual person, right, and as a filmmaker, which I wasn't really yet, but you know, the expectation is it's not about that.

00:43:14Guest:That's kind of almost a throwaway.

00:43:16Guest:Right.

00:43:17Guest:Rolling Stone's Rock and Roll Circus.

00:43:18Guest:Okay, well, what do you get when you say that?

00:43:20Guest:Yeah.

00:43:21Guest:You get a clown juggler and a knife thrower.

00:43:23Guest:Right, yeah, yeah.

00:43:24Guest:And so they did all that stuff, but really it was a way to just package and showcase those people, which they did.

00:43:29Marc:Yeah.

00:43:30Marc:So, okay, so I just, I know it's a sidebar, but we're moving towards the Let It Be shoot, but like how, so you show up with this guy, the guy at Apple, and what, he gives you the runaround?

00:43:42Guest:So I sort of think, you know, I show him the, because I'm not an idiot, right?

00:43:47Guest:I think I'm going into Apple, I'll take these pictures, right?

00:43:49Marc:John, yeah.

00:43:50Guest:John and the Rock and Roll Circus, right?

00:43:53Guest:And those guys are constantly looking over the shoulder of each other.

00:43:56Guest:What are they doing?

00:43:57Guest:The Stones and the Beatles.

00:43:58Guest:Yeah, yeah.

00:43:58Guest:So, I show it.

00:44:00Guest:I don't know what's going on with it.

00:44:01Guest:And I ask him, though, because I have no business doing any of this.

00:44:03Guest:That's very clear to me, right?

00:44:05Guest:You should be writing poems.

00:44:06Guest:I should be writing poems.

00:44:08Guest:Bad poems, whatever.

00:44:09Guest:There you go.

00:44:10Guest:They were short anyway.

00:44:12Guest:I'm glad you didn't put any in the book.

00:44:15Guest:Thank God.

00:44:16Guest:If I could find anything, I'd burn them.

00:44:20Guest:So I said, I thought, I'll just ask.

00:44:23Guest:I'll just ask.

00:44:23Guest:So I said, can I go down and I want to shoot the Beatles?

00:44:26Guest:Can I do that?

00:44:27Guest:And he said, absolutely not.

00:44:30Guest:And truly, I thought that's the most sensible thing that's been said to me.

00:44:34Guest:That made sense to me.

00:44:36Guest:But I knew everybody.

00:44:38Guest:So I knew where they were.

00:44:39Guest:So I got in the car and I just drove down.

00:44:41Guest:The roof?

00:44:42Guest:Twickenham soundstage is where they started.

00:44:45Guest:So if you remember the movie at all, it's being recut by Peter Jackson.

00:44:48Guest:Do you know that?

00:44:49Marc:No, I didn't know that.

00:44:50Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:44:50Marc:I didn't see them.

00:44:51Marc:I mean, was it a full-length movie?

00:44:53Guest:Yeah, it was, but it kind of got buried.

00:44:55Guest:It was a documentary.

00:44:57Marc:Because I've seen...

00:44:57Marc:parts of it, but I don't know that I've seen the whole thing.

00:45:00Marc:Maybe when I was in high school, it was around?

00:45:02Guest:I think it was kind of buried.

00:45:03Marc:Yeah.

00:45:03Guest:Because it came out, and a lot was going on when it was released, because Alan Klein had just come in, right?

00:45:10Guest:That album, which was done before Abbey Road, took forever to come around, and it was just all of that.

00:45:17Guest:And then, well, Phil Spector came in.

00:45:19Guest:And that's all on Klein.

00:45:21Guest:And, you know, whatever you feel about Paul McCartney, you got it.

00:45:24Guest:It's like, what?

00:45:25Guest:You know, you're bringing in what?

00:45:28Marc:Well, then they release.

00:45:29Marc:But, you know, it's weird.

00:45:30Marc:Even with Spectre, it's something that I'm sure this is all within the lore.

00:45:34Marc:But, you know, they certainly neutered Spectre a great deal.

00:45:37Marc:You don't listen to that record and feel you don't feel Spectre's presence, really.

00:45:41Guest:Yeah, a little bit.

00:45:42Guest:Not much.

00:45:43Guest:But it's a little bit of Starfucker, really, honestly.

00:45:45Marc:I guess so.

00:45:46Guest:Klein's bringing in the big American producer.

00:45:49Guest:But let it be, Glyn Johns was the engineer slash sort of producer in the sense that he was behind the keyboards and there was nobody else there talking about that.

00:45:59Guest:George Martin was hardly ever around.

00:46:01Guest:For that album?

00:46:01Guest:Yeah, never saw him.

00:46:02Guest:And so it was a real aberration start to finish.

00:46:06Marc:It sounds different.

00:46:08Guest:Everything about it's different.

00:46:09Guest:So put your brain around the fact that this is the biggest act in the world.

00:46:12Guest:I don't know who's that big today.

00:46:14Guest:And somebody comes up with an idea that they'll show up on a soundstage in January and make a record.

00:46:21Marc:So you go down there.

00:46:23Guest:I go down there, and I'm sort of sitting in a corner, and it's also seeing this.

00:46:27Marc:And you get in because you know guys, and you shot John.

00:46:30Guest:Nobody's at the door saying you can't come in.

00:46:33Guest:It's a different time, man.

00:46:34Guest:And so I just sort of sneak in, and I'm standing in sort of the back of this big soundstage, and I'm watching them, and they're small at the end, and they look like the Beatles because there's a riser for the drums and all the rest of that.

00:46:46Guest:And then I look over, and it's Neil.

00:46:49Guest:And he's looking at me, and I think, oh, fuck.

00:46:50Guest:Yeah, busted.

00:46:52Guest:And he walks up to me and says, we've decided to let you come down.

00:46:54Guest:Well, that's good.

00:46:56Guest:That was diplomatic for him to say that.

00:46:57Marc:You're already in.

00:46:58Guest:Yeah, it's East End.

00:47:00Guest:And then he only would give me, he said, for one day.

00:47:05Guest:And I said, not for one day, three days.

00:47:08Guest:Why?

00:47:08Guest:Because I may not get anything in one day.

00:47:11Guest:And then when I took those pictures into Apple Records.

00:47:15Marc:The ones in the studio.

00:47:16Guest:The ones in the film studio.

00:47:19Guest:And they were beautiful.

00:47:20Guest:Tony Richmond, who was the lighting cameraman, had these big pools of lighting.

00:47:23Guest:They were pretty.

00:47:25Guest:And I went up in the rafters, and I did all this, and I was showing them, and it was only supposed to be Derek Taylor, who was the press officer, and then everybody showed up.

00:47:34Guest:Paul was there, Linda was there, John was there, Yoko was there, Billy Preston was there, everybody was there.

00:47:39Marc:Was this before Linda was shooting?

00:47:41Guest:Yeah, Linda sort of, we were going to, there was a thing called the Get Back book, which is 140 pages, came out with the album on every country except America, right?

00:47:51Guest:And they were all my pictures.

00:47:52Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:47:53Guest:And Linda was supposed to be part of it and then dropped out.

00:47:56Marc:Oh, because I like the pictures that you have in your book.

00:47:59Marc:And I remember looking at them obsessively.

00:48:01Marc:I mean, there are the you shot the cover of the record.

00:48:04Marc:Right.

00:48:04Marc:Yeah.

00:48:05Marc:And but I and all the rooftop shots.

00:48:08Marc:Yes.

00:48:08Marc:Right.

00:48:08Marc:But I remember seeing some of those studio pictures.

00:48:10Marc:I don't know where, but I remember looking at them intensely.

00:48:13Marc:Did they come with the record?

00:48:14Marc:Were they inside the record?

00:48:15Guest:The record in America was a double double.

00:48:17Guest:It was a gatefold.

00:48:19Marc:Oh, they were in there.

00:48:19Guest:That American parlance, right?

00:48:21Guest:Oh, yeah, okay, okay.

00:48:22Guest:But the book, which is really pretty great.

00:48:24Guest:Get Back?

00:48:25Guest:The Get Back book, it may be called Let It Be, was 120 pages of all my pictures.

00:48:29Marc:I must have seen that, yeah.

00:48:31Marc:So now, at that point, do you start, when you're shooting for three days and you're obviously right there with them, do you start to build a relationship with the Beatles?

00:48:40Guest:No, I never would have.

00:48:42Guest:So first of all, you have to realize they're being filmed.

00:48:44Guest:They're being filmed and they're making a record.

00:48:47Guest:More to the point, though, is why would they talk to me?

00:48:52Guest:John always did.

00:48:53Guest:I was always friends with John, partly because that's how we met.

00:48:57Guest:Partly, I really believe now, because I took really good pictures of his girlfriend.

00:49:02Guest:Of Yoko?

00:49:03Guest:Yeah, of Yoko.

00:49:04Guest:I didn't know who she was, and it was early on.

00:49:06Guest:And he liked him?

00:49:07Guest:Bam, I showed up and took them out of my hands and put them on the wall.

00:49:10Guest:Like, bam.

00:49:11Guest:Yeah, here you go.

00:49:13Guest:And we got on, and we really did.

00:49:15Guest:Nice guy.

00:49:17Guest:Yeah, I thought he was fabulous.

00:49:18Marc:All right, so now, was it a heavy day shooting The Beatles last session?

00:49:22Marc:They knew they were done.

00:49:23Guest:Well, how entirely did they know that they were done?

00:49:28Guest:You know, they were done.

00:49:29Guest:They were done.

00:49:30Guest:Right, but I don't think anybody was quite saying it yet.

00:49:33Guest:So it hadn't been announced yet.

00:49:35Guest:But did you feel a vibe?

00:49:36Guest:No, it was terrible.

00:49:37Guest:It was?

00:49:38Guest:Well, it was also, it was supposed to be, initially it was going to be a session in a photo studio, so I had spent the week before thinking about that, and then the night before I got, don't do that, come to John's.

00:49:48Guest:So I got no ideas, right?

00:49:50Guest:And I didn't really do photo sessions.

00:49:52Guest:Right.

00:49:53Guest:You know,

00:49:53Guest:You know, you put your finger right on it.

00:49:54Guest:That's a really, I think it's really abstract.

00:49:57Guest:What's a photo session?

00:49:58Guest:Right.

00:49:58Guest:You know, and that's what people still do.

00:49:59Marc:Yeah, sure.

00:50:00Guest:They do them now, yeah.

00:50:01Guest:Somebody, what is it to have your picture?

00:50:03Marc:They usually take you into an environment that you're not comfortable with.

00:50:06Marc:Sometimes there's clothes involved.

00:50:07Marc:Yeah.

00:50:08Marc:And the photographer's doing everything to get you to kind of have a dynamic with him and the camera if he's not feeling it.

00:50:15Marc:They'll put music on.

00:50:16Marc:It's crazy.

00:50:16Guest:Yeah, no, it's very, very false.

00:50:19Guest:Yeah, right.

00:50:20Guest:And so therefore, it's not my cup of meat.

00:50:23Guest:And also now they had a second photographer from the Daily Mail come.

00:50:28Guest:That was Neil's idea, which was fine with me.

00:50:31Guest:But now I'm supposed to be telling them what to do.

00:50:33Guest:I don't.

00:50:34Guest:tell people what to do yeah right i mean townsend used to rip me a new one all over the place tell us what to do tell us what to do right it really made him angry and it's interesting that sometimes when you don't tell people what to do you get in you get something that that they bring to the table because they're frustrated out of frustration so you get stuff you wouldn't otherwise get you know but the vibe on on that day it was horrible what like in what way well

00:51:00Guest:I think that if you took, I don't know what number.

00:51:03Marc:Because I love that picture.

00:51:04Marc:I love that record.

00:51:05Marc:I know it's bits and pieces of a lot of different things, the Hey Jude record, but it was one of the first Beatles records.

00:51:11Marc:That one, Let It Be, and the second album, for some reason, the ones I had when I was a kid.

00:51:15Marc:And I love Let It Be.

00:51:15Marc:I love Hey Jude.

00:51:16Marc:I love that record.

00:51:17Guest:Right.

00:51:18Guest:I don't think of that.

00:51:18Guest:When I think of that session, I don't think of that picture.

00:51:21Marc:Right.

00:51:21Guest:Right.

00:51:21Guest:I think of the black and white pictures that are in the book.

00:51:23Guest:Uh-huh.

00:51:24Guest:Right.

00:51:24Guest:Yeah.

00:51:25Guest:Because that's what they were doing.

00:51:26Guest:I mean, I shot very little color.

00:51:27Guest:Right.

00:51:28Guest:Right.

00:51:28Guest:And they didn't have anything else, so that's what they used.

00:51:30Guest:Yeah.

00:51:30Guest:Right.

00:51:32Guest:But of the black and white, which is, let's say I shot eight rolls.

00:51:36Guest:Yeah.

00:51:37Guest:Or 10 rolls, something like that.

00:51:38Guest:I don't think George changed his expression the whole day.

00:51:41Guest:Sad.

00:51:41Guest:He just pissed off.

00:51:42Guest:Yeah.

00:51:43Guest:Right.

00:51:43Guest:Over.

00:51:44Guest:Everything about him says over.

00:51:45Marc:Right.

00:51:46Guest:Just everything.

00:51:47Guest:Right.

00:51:47Marc:Do you know why?

00:51:50Guest:I think it was over.

00:51:51Marc:They were just going different directions.

00:51:53Guest:Yeah, I just think that there wasn't anything there anymore.

00:51:56Guest:I'm speculating, but I think the big deal was that Brian Epstein was gone.

00:52:01Guest:And, you know, Brian was the one that said, you get up and you go here and do what you're supposed to do and then we'll tell you where to go next.

00:52:07Guest:And while that was shifting, obviously, it was still, I think, fundamentally the case.

00:52:11Guest:And when he's gone, nobody can do that.

00:52:13Guest:That brain tumor?

00:52:14Guest:I don't know.

00:52:14Guest:I think, I don't know why.

00:52:16Guest:I don't know the exact answer.

00:52:17Guest:I think it was sort of, you know, what's the fancy word for downer?

00:52:22Guest:You know, I think it was a downer and alcohol is what I think, right?

00:52:27Guest:And then so Paul kind of, it's his nature.

00:52:29Guest:Paul kind of leapt into that.

00:52:30Guest:And I, you have siblings?

00:52:34Guest:Yeah.

00:52:35Guest:So, you know, your siblings got a great idea for you.

00:52:37Marc:Right, right.

00:52:38Marc:And he really means it.

00:52:39Marc:Yeah.

00:52:40Marc:Right.

00:52:40Guest:And it's like, I don't care what you have for me.

00:52:43Guest:Yeah.

00:52:43Marc:Yeah, and it just seemed like there was something kind of ripping at, you know, outside of Ringo that, you know, the sort of creative ambitions of each of them was very different.

00:52:55Marc:And I guess what was holding them together was breaking.

00:52:59Guest:I think they were done.

00:53:01Guest:I think Yoko certainly didn't break them up.

00:53:04Marc:No, no, no.

00:53:05Marc:That's very clear about that.

00:53:06Marc:You kind of feel that in the documentary.

00:53:08Guest:I think I did a thing.

00:53:11Guest:So I have the pictures in the book of John and Yoko falling in love, and they're some of my favorite pictures.

00:53:16Guest:They're just so intimate and lovely, and you really feel it.

00:53:20Guest:You feel his love for her, and you can really see it, and you can see a real tenderness coming from her.

00:53:25Guest:It's sweet.

00:53:26Marc:It seemed like she really opened him up.

00:53:27Guest:Yeah, it was different.

00:53:29Guest:So a couple years ago, I did a Valentine's Day show where those pictures were the core of it.

00:53:37Guest:In order to try and make something of an evening about it, I did a little research, right?

00:53:42Guest:And what you realize is that both of them are war babies, her even more than him.

00:53:46Marc:Yeah, big time.

00:53:48Marc:Her family was a wealthy family in Japan that had kind of lost everything.

00:53:53Guest:Lost everything, had to take the suitcase and walk out of town.

00:53:55Guest:And so they shared that.

00:53:58Guest:And she, I think, had it as a motivator more than him because I think it was bigger for her and she was older when it happened.

00:54:05Guest:And so she was always sort of, that was present for her and she, I think, imagined doesn't happen if he doesn't marry Yoko.

00:54:13Marc:Oh, no, definitely not.

00:54:14Marc:It seems like a lot of her sort of creative sensibility, the simplicity of it and the poetry of it and the weird kind of artistic courage of it really had an impact on him.

00:54:25Marc:Totally.

00:54:25Marc:Like the language of the songs, I think, is Yoko.

00:54:29Guest:That's right.

00:54:30Marc:Okay, so once you do that cover, like, you know, now you're a guy that does sessions.

00:54:35Marc:So how does, like, you know, how to...

00:54:38Marc:The Who's Next cover, I want to talk about the Who's Next cover.

00:54:42Marc:So like, whose idea was that?

00:54:45Marc:You can't have that idea.

00:54:47Guest:It wasn't an idea.

00:54:47Guest:No, of course not.

00:54:49Marc:How did you get out to that place?

00:54:51Guest:Where the fuck was that shot?

00:54:52Guest:That was shot Eastlington College.

00:54:54Guest:I have no idea.

00:54:55Guest:And you got hired to do that.

00:54:56Guest:Yeah, I was hired because by that point, so right after, just quickly, right after Let It Be becomes the Rolling Stones 69 tour.

00:55:04Guest:That's really what happens next.

00:55:05Guest:And then who's next is like 71.

00:55:09Marc:So the 69 tour, okay, is that where you shot, when did you shoot Brian?

00:55:13Marc:Right before that?

00:55:14Guest:Right before, Brian died in the summer of 69.

00:55:17Marc:69?

00:55:18Guest:Right three days before, I mean like July 1st or something, three days before the concert in the park.

00:55:23Marc:Oh, right, because they have to eulogize him, and it's like he's still fucking warm almost.

00:55:28Marc:And Mick's wearing that weird dress shirt.

00:55:31Guest:That, to me, that tells you so much if you're in your English hoop putting on costume stuff.

00:55:36Guest:They got the Hells Angels, the fake Hells Angels down below.

00:55:39Guest:They got Jagger wearing an Edwardian smock.

00:55:42Guest:They've got these moths that they're pretending are butterflies.

00:55:46Guest:They got a black man with makeup on him wearing it like reeds that's carrying a spear that's running across.

00:55:51Guest:It's culturally psychotic.

00:55:54Guest:And you shot all that.

00:55:56Guest:I shot some of it.

00:55:57Guest:Somebody tried to spike Jagger for that concert.

00:56:01Guest:Yeah.

00:56:02Guest:What do you mean spike them?

00:56:03Guest:Give them a load of brownies.

00:56:05Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.

00:56:06Guest:And it never even occurred to me that they'd be spiked.

00:56:09Guest:So I said, sure.

00:56:12Marc:So you were out of commission?

00:56:14Guest:Well, first of all, they put me up on there.

00:56:15Guest:You can't move.

00:56:16Guest:I did not do a good job.

00:56:18No.

00:56:18Marc:But how did that Brian Jones shoot come about?

00:56:22Marc:Because I knew those pictures as well.

00:56:24Guest:Well, Brian was the end of a series of individuals.

00:56:28Guest:This is when I really got to know the songs a little bit because I shot them all individually for this magazine that went bust before.

00:56:33Guest:In 67?

00:56:34Guest:No, 68 or 69.

00:56:36Guest:So that's 69 with Brian.

00:56:39Guest:Yeah.

00:56:39Guest:And so I go down to his house.

00:56:42Guest:He bought A.A.

00:56:42Guest:Milne's house.

00:56:43Guest:It's so sort of sad and charming.

00:56:45Guest:The Winnie the Pooh guy?

00:56:46Guest:Yeah.

00:56:47Guest:I mean, the pictures in there, he's choking Christopher Robin, which since he looked just like Christopher Robin, right?

00:56:56Guest:So he showed up and he did all that.

00:56:58Guest:He went upstairs.

00:57:00Guest:I was just taking pictures of him.

00:57:01Guest:Was he wasted?

00:57:02Guest:Yeah.

00:57:02Guest:He was wasted, hungover wasted probably.

00:57:05Guest:There's a close-up, not in the book, of him, and he looks 46.

00:57:08Guest:I didn't see it.

00:57:09Guest:I'm thinking this is really bitching.

00:57:11Guest:Yeah, right.

00:57:13Guest:Look at this.

00:57:13Guest:Look what he's doing.

00:57:14Marc:This is so cool.

00:57:14Marc:With the flag and the gun and the shirt.

00:57:16Marc:Oh, my God.

00:57:16Guest:Rolling Stone stuff.

00:57:17Guest:I mean sort of if Honky Tonk Woman is like that, Rolling Stone's sort of one of my favorite things is the 45 cover where they're dressed up like wax and waves.

00:57:26Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:57:27Marc:I mean I love that stuff.

00:57:28Marc:You didn't shoot that though, did you?

00:57:29Marc:No, uh-uh.

00:57:29Marc:I should know, but I don't.

00:57:30Marc:The honky-tonk women, they're like, there's a sailor.

00:57:33Marc:Yeah, it's the same idea.

00:57:35Marc:But that's later, right?

00:57:36Guest:That's later, that's correct.

00:57:38Guest:But it's me trying to live up to my predecessors.

00:57:42Marc:So Brian was a nice guy?

00:57:44Guest:I found him nice, but if you spend, because, you know, much older now, I've read about some of this stuff.

00:57:50Guest:You know, he was nice to me is the way it was, but he was pretty crazed and a mess.

00:57:55Guest:The picture where he looks 46, you can tell that his liver's shot because his belly's all out.

00:57:59Guest:So, and there wasn't, nobody was, knew about that.

00:58:03Guest:Yeah.

00:58:04Guest:Right?

00:58:04Guest:It wasn't like, you know.

00:58:06Marc:How wasted he was?

00:58:07Guest:Nobody knew that he was on his way out, in my opinion.

00:58:11Guest:Because people weren't on their way out yet.

00:58:13Guest:He was the first of that crowd.

00:58:16Guest:And then all of a sudden, they're all gone.

00:58:17Guest:And all for the same reason, more or less.

00:58:22Guest:But I didn't know that.

00:58:23Guest:It didn't occur to me at all.

00:58:25Marc:And that was sort of the last pictures.

00:58:27Guest:They were the last pictures, to my knowledge, yeah.

00:58:29Marc:So then you do the 69 tour with the Stones?

00:58:31Guest:Yeah, same thing.

00:58:33Guest:So you can tell how my business plan was mapped out.

00:58:36Guest:Right.

00:58:37Guest:So I hear the Stones are in L.A., so I just drive down.

00:58:40Guest:I'm in San Francisco.

00:58:41Guest:I just get down in.

00:58:42Guest:I walk into the house.

00:58:43Guest:They've got two houses.

00:58:44Guest:It's a totally big deal of the whole thing.

00:58:47Guest:They've got to do this tour.

00:58:48Guest:They've got Mick Taylor with them, so they can tour for the first time.

00:58:52Guest:It's not successful.

00:58:53Guest:No mass rolling Stones.

00:58:55Guest:Cool.

00:58:55Marc:Well, there was a conscious effort that Mick was going to align himself with the new psychedelic generation in order to sort of get the stones up to speed culturally in America.

00:59:07Marc:So they were going to have their Woodstock and they aligned themselves with the dead and their people.

00:59:12Marc:Everything just kind of broke apart.

00:59:14Marc:There was all these weirdos traveling with the stones and they didn't even know who they were.

00:59:19Marc:I was one of them.

00:59:20Marc:But apparently there were guys on the payroll that were like, what is that guy doing?

00:59:23Marc:Who's the guy with the cars?

00:59:24Marc:Who's the guy showing up with the limos?

00:59:27Marc:Oh, well, he was something.

00:59:29Guest:So I did that whole tour with him.

00:59:30Guest:I wasn't just at Altamont.

00:59:32Guest:There were 16 people on the 69 tour.

00:59:34Marc:But was Altamont the last date?

00:59:36Marc:Last gig.

00:59:37Marc:Okay.

00:59:37Marc:Added.

00:59:39Marc:Right, but the original intention was to do a big festival type of show.

00:59:44Guest:Oh, yeah, no question about it.

00:59:45Marc:And then everything fell apart, and they found that fucking horrible speedway in the middle of nowhere, right?

00:59:51Guest:So they had- I'm telling you the story.

00:59:53Guest:I know the story well.

00:59:54Guest:I wrote a book on it.

00:59:55Guest:You did?

00:59:56Guest:Yeah.

00:59:57Guest:It's all from the inside, if you will, because I was with the Stones, right?

01:00:00Guest:Talk about writing.

01:00:02Guest:Yeah.

01:00:02Guest:I finally wrote.

01:00:03Guest:Yeah.

01:00:03Guest:Right?

01:00:04Guest:I've written four books now, I think, three books, something like that.

01:00:06Guest:And that book took six years and I had- Let it bleed, it's called?

01:00:12Marc:Yeah, I'll get it to you.

01:00:13Guest:When did you write that?

01:00:15Guest:I wrote it, I think it came out in 2005.

01:00:17Guest:Oh, yeah.

01:00:19Guest:And the tour was amazing, but you're right about this.

01:00:23Guest:From the minute Jagger got off the plane, Ben Richards, all of them,

01:00:26Guest:It was like you're going to do a free concert because Woodstock was everybody's.

01:00:30Guest:It was the template.

01:00:32Guest:Right.

01:00:32Guest:Are you guys going to do it?

01:00:33Guest:And so they didn't say they were going to do it, although they had they had the north of San Francisco, the Speedway, not Altamont, the other one.

01:00:43Guest:And they lost that at last minute.

01:00:45Guest:So that what you see in in the Maisel's movies just is three days before the

01:00:50Guest:The concert, they're announcing, the guy from Dick Carter shows up.

01:00:57Guest:I'm told later, I didn't know this because it sounded so perfect, he was taking a marketing course at Stanford.

01:01:02Guest:He was an old guy by those standards, those days.

01:01:05Guest:And some kid said, you know, the Rolling Stones were looking for a place.

01:01:07Guest:So a marketing guy, a course at Stanford, he shows up at Mel Bella's office and says, I got the place.

01:01:13Guest:Nothing was organized.

01:01:14Marc:right but I think the mindset matters and the mindset of the 60s was we're just going to do it right and it's going to be better than the last time because everything was right so they thought they'd bring it off it was horrible yeah but I mean like it just now was the 69 tour was that where you took that like the fucking the is seminal the right word the patients please a drug for your America comes first shot of Keith 72 that was 72 now you posed him for that

01:01:42Marc:I did, and I seldom post stuff.

01:01:45Guest:And I thought, but it was, there it was right in front of me.

01:01:50Marc:What could I do?

01:01:50Marc:All right, so wait, let's go back to Altamont because part of this is we're kind of putting this up the day before the 50th anniversary.

01:01:56Marc:So what I gleaned from the book

01:01:59Marc:Because you were there, right?

01:02:01Marc:You were backstage, whatever that meant.

01:02:03Guest:There was no stage to be back of.

01:02:05Marc:It was like three feet off the ground.

01:02:07Guest:Well, it was the same stage that had been the tour, the whole tour.

01:02:10Guest:That had been the height of that.

01:02:11Guest:You're getting this book for sure.

01:02:13Guest:The height of that stage was the same for the whole tour.

01:02:17Guest:You can see pictures from Oakland.

01:02:19Guest:You can see pictures all over the place.

01:02:20Guest:And people are on the stage like this.

01:02:22Marc:Just like with their elbows on the stage.

01:02:24Marc:So there's no moat.

01:02:25Guest:There's no nothing.

01:02:27Marc:And from what I understand, the angels were there just for a show and for free beer and for a party, but there was infighting with the angels to a degree because different clubs were up there and there were some younger recruits trying to make their bones.

01:02:41Guest:That's completely right.

01:02:42Guest:My main source for a lot of that is Sam Cutler, who was right there.

01:02:46Guest:I mean, Sam went to work for the dead afterwards, worked for him for quite a long time, right?

01:02:50Marc:But the dead, by the time the thing went down, they had kind of pulled away from it, right?

01:02:55Guest:Cutler's quote is the greatest act of moral cowardice.

01:02:59Marc:Was it dead?

01:03:00Guest:Yeah, they just decided they weren't.

01:03:01Guest:They heard that.

01:03:02Guest:You can see it in the movie, Maisel's movie.

01:03:06Guest:Basically, they're up on the.

01:03:09Guest:If I read it right, I think they're up where the helicopters are landing, which is a racetrack above where it was.

01:03:14Guest:And somebody said they knocked Marty Ballin out on stage.

01:03:16Guest:I mean, there's the moment.

01:03:18Guest:You know, that's where the philosopher kings, that's where all of that hierarchy, which had been established in the last five years, was just knocked on its ass.

01:03:26Guest:You know, they knocked out a singer, a songwriter.

01:03:29Guest:The angels did.

01:03:30Guest:They did on stage, right?

01:03:31Guest:Now, I got the same read you do, which is that, you know, the whole Hell's Angels in the park...

01:03:39Guest:There's lots of depth to this stuff.

01:03:41Guest:The whole Hell's Angels in the park was really coming out of Ken Kesey and out of that La Honda movement that moved into Golden Gate Park.

01:03:50Guest:It was true for the BN early on.

01:03:53Guest:It was what it was.

01:03:54Guest:And they kind of did that.

01:03:55Guest:They kind of wandered around.

01:03:56Marc:The Angels did.

01:03:57Guest:Yeah, and the thing was is that Jagger's looking from across the way.

01:04:00Marc:So they were integrated into, you know, the counterculture as sort of like, you know, a darker element, but they helped define it.

01:04:08Guest:Yeah, we're all freaks together, man.

01:04:10Marc:Right, and Hunter's book, you know, talks a lot of, I think some of that takes place up at Kesey's place.

01:04:16Guest:Yeah, that's right.

01:04:17Guest:That's just down the coast.

01:04:17Guest:I mean, you know, it's 35 miles south or something.

01:04:20Marc:Right, right, and he was sort of embracing the angels, the original crew.

01:04:23Guest:That's right.

01:04:24Guest:I mean, I think that that was part of the opening up, which happened.

01:04:27Guest:And then, you know, when you're smoking dope and you're dropping acid, you're an outlaw.

01:04:33Marc:Yeah, right.

01:04:33Guest:So everybody got to be on the outlaw side of the fence.

01:04:36Marc:Right.

01:04:36Marc:But I guess the real issue, what sort of came to a head at Altamont is that, you know, the Hells Angels were real outlaws.

01:04:45Marc:They weren't just druggies.

01:04:46Marc:They were moving shit and dropping dudes.

01:04:49Guest:Yeah, they were, and they were from all over the state.

01:04:51Guest:And you got, and I think this is, you know, there's Hells Angels and there's Mick Jagger, and they're both paying homage to the devil, but one's in show business, and he's English.

01:05:01Marc:And the other one's actually working for the devil.

01:05:03Guest:Yeah, and they're really, and I interviewed Bill Wyman from that book when I was doing it, and Bill was like, I don't know what happened.

01:05:09Guest:He says the Rolling Stones had only been scared twice, maybe.

01:05:13Marc:Well, they like from what you were there.

01:05:15Marc:So tell me, I mean, like, because even in those pictures and you can see in the movie and the thing about the movie that I didn't realize is that initially the Maisel brothers were going to create they wanted to shoot a tour in a sort of like a celebration of the Stones way.

01:05:29Marc:That the original intent was we're going to capture this great rock band doing a great tour.

01:05:33Marc:And then it became this fucking thing.

01:05:35Guest:Well, they didn't do the whole tour.

01:05:36Guest:For starters, they showed up at the end of the tour, maybe a week before the end.

01:05:39Guest:And I think the idea was at that point to get some B-roll, if you will.

01:05:44Guest:Right.

01:05:44Guest:That they were really going to shoot.

01:05:45Guest:They'd have a live concert.

01:05:46Guest:So they shot Madison Square Garden twice.

01:05:48Guest:Right.

01:05:49Guest:Right.

01:05:49Guest:And then this got added.

01:05:51Guest:So Jagger announced this on the 26th of my birthday.

01:05:53Guest:So I remember Jagger announced it on the 26th of November in Rockefeller, you know, Rainbow Room.

01:06:00Guest:And that's when it kind of the word got out.

01:06:03Marc:So when you get there, I mean, do you realize that like, hey, there's no fucking medical tent.

01:06:09Marc:There's no bathrooms.

01:06:10Guest:Well, I got there.

01:06:11Guest:So everybody, with the exception of Keith, who I think spent the night out there.

01:06:16Guest:Right.

01:06:17Guest:Everybody came in by helicopter.

01:06:18Right.

01:06:19Marc:What do you mean he spent the night out there?

01:06:20Marc:In a trailer?

01:06:21Guest:No, I think God knows.

01:06:23Guest:Everybody, Stanley Booth's book's the best book on this.

01:06:27Guest:Stanley what?

01:06:28Guest:Stanley Booth.

01:06:29Guest:Okay.

01:06:29Guest:He was on the whole tour.

01:06:30Guest:Yeah.

01:06:30Guest:Right?

01:06:31Guest:And his book is very sort of modeled on Moby Dick.

01:06:35Guest:You know, truly, it's sort of like the alternate chapters like Grapes of Wrath.

01:06:39Guest:Okay.

01:06:39Guest:Right?

01:06:40Guest:Yeah.

01:06:41Guest:Dance with the Devil.

01:06:42Guest:OK.

01:06:43Guest:It's not the Altamont story, but it's a very it's a it's a totally deep story.

01:06:48Guest:And it has a lot to do with Brian.

01:06:49Guest:Well, no.

01:06:50Guest:And Brian.

01:06:50Guest:OK.

01:06:51Guest:All right.

01:06:51Guest:He comes over to England and he's really involved with Brian.

01:06:54Guest:He's from Memphis.

01:06:55Guest:He's got a lot of chops.

01:06:56Guest:Yeah.

01:06:56Guest:So some of this I know because he was with him.

01:06:58Guest:And Jagger was with him.

01:07:00Guest:Jagger and Keith were at Altamont the night before.

01:07:03Guest:Keith decides to stay.

01:07:05Guest:Jagger says, I would stay, but I gotta sing.

01:07:09Guest:So he goes back to the hotel.

01:07:12Guest:But at that point, and everybody that you talk to will tell you that the scene was really mellow.

01:07:17Marc:Where at the beginning?

01:07:18Guest:The night before.

01:07:21Marc:When they were building the stage and shit?

01:07:23Guest:People were already showing up.

01:07:25Marc:Oh.

01:07:25Marc:Oh, really?

01:07:26Marc:Oh, sure.

01:07:26Guest:Yeah.

01:07:28Guest:Camping out.

01:07:28Guest:Campfires and shit like that, you know.

01:07:32Guest:And so the expectation, which was my expectation too, my expectation was Woodstock West.

01:07:38Guest:It just was.

01:07:39Guest:Yeah, it's going to be groovy.

01:07:40Guest:It's going to be great, right?

01:07:42Guest:And I didn't really, took me a, you know,

01:07:44Guest:It's a shitty spot.

01:07:48Guest:No control.

01:07:49Guest:Pictures in the book, you'll see the helicopters landing.

01:07:53Guest:There are people walking across where the helicopters and dogs are there.

01:07:56Guest:There's nothing.

01:07:57Guest:There's nothing.

01:07:57Guest:No security.

01:07:58Guest:Right.

01:07:58Guest:Everybody was scrambling with the expectation you'd bring it off.

01:08:01Guest:Right.

01:08:02Guest:Yeah.

01:08:03Guest:And you don't give up.

01:08:04Guest:Right.

01:08:04Guest:Yeah.

01:08:05Guest:You just do it.

01:08:07Guest:But it took me a while to just – the vibe was weird.

01:08:10Guest:There wasn't a tree in sight.

01:08:12Guest:It was great.

01:08:12Guest:I grew up in San Francisco.

01:08:13Guest:I never heard of Altamont.

01:08:14Guest:Yeah.

01:08:14Marc:Yeah, it looked like a fucking nuclear wasteland.

01:08:17Guest:Yeah, totally.

01:08:18Guest:And so I go back to the tent.

01:08:21Guest:That's all there is, is this tent behind the stage.

01:08:24Guest:And, you know, there's real Hell's Angels.

01:08:27Guest:I'm a Californian.

01:08:28Guest:I know what a Hell's Angel looks like, you know.

01:08:31Guest:I mean, like I said, when Bill, I was interviewing Bill, he was like, well, I don't understand.

01:08:34Guest:They were fine in London.

01:08:36Guest:And, you know, they were 14.

01:08:38Guest:Some of them were wearing wigs.

01:08:39Guest:It was a costume party.

01:08:41Guest:It was a costume party.

01:08:41Guest:So it's that divide, which you nailed earlier, is so behind all this.

01:08:46Guest:Yeah, right.

01:08:48Guest:And so when I got there, there were real hell's angels in there.

01:08:53Guest:I took a picture.

01:08:53Guest:I had flash.

01:08:54Guest:I hardly ever used flash.

01:08:56Guest:But there was no light, right?

01:08:57Guest:And I took a flash and then three Hells Angels looked at me like that and I thought, I'm done.

01:09:03Guest:And I can really sympathize with what I think is essentially what their feeling is, which is, hey man, this is the 30th show or the 20th show and if it's not the 20th show of this tour, it's the 400th show we've done since we've been doing this.

01:09:18Guest:You know, it's a gig.

01:09:20Guest:Yeah, right.

01:09:21Guest:You know, the Washington Post just did a huge thing on Altamont, really very good.

01:09:25Guest:And they talked to everybody.

01:09:26Guest:They talked to Graham and they talked to David Crosby.

01:09:29Guest:And they really put a perspective on it that I didn't have because mine was on the inside.

01:09:33Marc:Outside of like the general lack of safety and the chaos and there's no bathroom.

01:09:38Marc:People are there all fucking day.

01:09:40Marc:Food is sparse.

01:09:41Marc:Right.

01:09:41Marc:Like, you know, it's like, you know, you're getting this feeling that people volunteered to be stranded in this clusterfuck.

01:09:48Marc:And, you know, that there was something shifted.

01:09:52Marc:The angels were getting more drunk and more fucked up.

01:09:55Marc:And the crowd was, you know, sort of there were some bad drugs going around that were being passed around in a liquid form.

01:10:02Marc:Right.

01:10:02Marc:And it was like the acid was bad.

01:10:05Marc:There was speed involved.

01:10:08Marc:And that the general vibe, once the sun went down, turned dark.

01:10:13Guest:Guess what, though?

01:10:13Guest:I just figured out was guess who was supposed to play?

01:10:17Guest:The sun's got so much heat about waiting for it to get dark.

01:10:20Guest:Yeah.

01:10:21Guest:Who was supposed to be in that spot?

01:10:22Guest:That's right.

01:10:23Marc:So you're thinking that the dead, if they just worked their fucking hippie magic, things would have been different?

01:10:27Guest:I'm not saying that, right?

01:10:29Guest:Although you never know, right?

01:10:31Guest:But you didn't have people sitting there for an hour and a half waiting for the stones to show up.

01:10:36Marc:And now I want to read more because I found it very compelling for some reason because Altamont is really seen alongside of the Manson murders as sort of the end of it.

01:10:45Marc:The end of the arc of the 60s in terms of love and peace and joy and the hippie trip.

01:10:51Marc:It's where it went bad.

01:10:52Marc:Right.

01:10:53Marc:Right.

01:10:53Marc:Metaphorically.

01:10:54Guest:Right.

01:10:54Guest:Sure.

01:10:54Guest:Fair.

01:10:55Marc:Why not?

01:10:56Marc:Right.

01:10:56Marc:You know, it seemed like the angels were involved in their own sort of like you had these younger recruits that needed to prove themselves.

01:11:03Marc:And when the shit hit the fan, it was really an angel's thing.

01:11:07Marc:Yeah, I mean the killer guy.

01:11:08Guest:Well, because ain't nobody going to fuck with my bike, man.

01:11:11Guest:That's it.

01:11:11Guest:That's what it was, you know?

01:11:14Guest:Who the fuck they think we are?

01:11:15Guest:I think these things cost nothing.

01:11:17Marc:That was the end of the 60s.

01:11:18Marc:Stay away from the bike, man.

01:11:20Guest:But listen, that was my question when I finally figured out what my book was going to be.

01:11:24Marc:What, this book or that book?

01:11:25Guest:No, not this book.

01:11:27Guest:I won't talk about this book.

01:11:28Guest:But the Let It Bleed book.

01:11:29Guest:It was, okay, I'm going to ask everybody.

01:11:31Guest:It's going to start with where they're born because that was it.

01:11:33Guest:It was like Speed.

01:11:34Guest:It was like the bus movie.

01:11:36Guest:There were 16 people.

01:11:37Guest:And so you start wherever you start.

01:11:38Guest:You start in Sweden.

01:11:39Guest:You start in England.

01:11:40Guest:You start in America.

01:11:41Guest:What's it like?

01:11:42Guest:And I didn't do it until like 30 years after.

01:11:44Guest:Did it haunt you?

01:11:47Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:11:48Marc:Because even your pictures, it's sort of like, that doesn't look safe.

01:11:51Guest:That doesn't look good.

01:11:52Guest:Oh, no, no, no.

01:11:53Guest:Totally haunted you.

01:11:54Guest:And so I asked everybody, but this is going to go right up that English.

01:11:57Guest:I asked Mick Taylor whether he thought it was the end of the 60s.

01:12:01Guest:And he said, well, it was December 1969.

01:12:04Guest:Are you friends with him?

01:12:09Marc:How's he doing?

01:12:10Yeah.

01:12:10Guest:Well, I think everybody struggled that didn't quit.

01:12:14Marc:Yeah.

01:12:14Marc:So, all right.

01:12:15Marc:So you lived through that.

01:12:17Marc:Several other people died of different reasons that day.

01:12:19Guest:Well, there was a hit and run.

01:12:21Marc:Yeah.

01:12:22Marc:And just a real car accident.

01:12:24Guest:A real car accident.

01:12:25Guest:But other people could have died.

01:12:27Guest:That's for sure.

01:12:27Guest:And the possibility that you might die was on everybody's mind.

01:12:31Guest:There was no question about it.

01:12:32Guest:The scene to remember from it is in one way was, so I wanted to get off the stage.

01:12:39Guest:So I've been on the stage every single night, right?

01:12:43Guest:And I got on that stage.

01:12:45Guest:I come onto the stage.

01:12:46Guest:The same stage I've been on every single night is like this.

01:12:50Guest:It's buckling.

01:12:50Guest:There's so many people on it.

01:12:51Marc:Because the angels are there standing in front.

01:12:53Guest:Angels and three, no, on stage.

01:12:56Guest:Yeah, that's what I mean, yeah.

01:12:57Guest:You know, and them and, you know, 40 others, right?

01:13:01Marc:Fans and shit.

01:13:02Guest:Yeah, just people.

01:13:03Guest:Yeah.

01:13:03Guest:Right?

01:13:04Guest:And I was like, I want to be here.

01:13:05Marc:They're all wasted, right?

01:13:07Guest:Like, chaotically wasted.

01:13:09Guest:Yeah, just a mess.

01:13:10Guest:And Ian Stewart, do you know who's Ian?

01:13:12Guest:Yeah, the piano player, yeah.

01:13:13Guest:Well, except,

01:13:13Guest:the founding member of the rolling stones right one of the first two yeah brian yeah and he's on stage one of the i love ian but he one of the sort of you know sterner no nonsense guys yeah right and he looks scared that was one of the triggers well i mean like once the shit goes down and they can't get off stage because they got to finish playing you know it's kind of insane totally because i do you feel that they saw what happened

01:13:37Guest:No.

01:13:38Guest:And I know.

01:13:39Guest:So I got this.

01:13:40Guest:Sam said, anybody doesn't want to be here, please get off stage.

01:13:42Guest:Don't need to be here.

01:13:43Guest:And I was like, I don't need to be here.

01:13:46Guest:I got all my pictures.

01:13:47Marc:After the guy gets stabbed?

01:13:48Guest:No, before.

01:13:48Guest:Okay.

01:13:49Guest:So I'm actually taken off the stage by Hells Angels and put up on top of the truck and I'm standing right next to the guy that gets that footage of the stabbing, right?

01:13:57Guest:You couldn't see it.

01:13:58Marc:Was it George Lucas?

01:13:58Marc:I heard he was up on a hill with that camera.

01:14:00Guest:No.

01:14:00Guest:Well, he might have been on the hill, but he wasn't on the truck behind the stairs, right?

01:14:04Guest:And a lot of rumors about that show.

01:14:07Guest:And so I want to get off.

01:14:10Guest:So I'm there for a little bit.

01:14:11Guest:I'm not wanting to shoot.

01:14:12Guest:I got some good stuff, but only because by the grace of God, right?

01:14:16Guest:And so I get off, and I want to get to the helicopter.

01:14:19Guest:There's one helicopter.

01:14:20Guest:There's no lights.

01:14:23Guest:And it's the only way these guys can get out is the one helicopter?

01:14:26Guest:The helicopter I did, that's it.

01:14:29Guest:And the helicopter's sort of rated to take like 12 people and there are like 16 people on it.

01:14:34Guest:It's so heavy that it won't take off vertically.

01:14:37Guest:It sort of takes off, goes up a foot, and then drops to the ground again.

01:14:40Guest:You know.

01:14:41Marc:You're like trying to get out of Saigon.

01:14:43Guest:It was exactly like trying to get out of Saigon.

01:14:45Guest:And it finally gets over the hill, but just barely.

01:14:50Marc:Who's on the helicopter?

01:14:51Guest:Jagger, me.

01:14:52Marc:Oh, so it's after they finish.

01:14:53Guest:It's after they finish.

01:14:54Guest:I'm there first because I'm one out of town, right?

01:14:58Marc:Because the feeling was it was going to blow.

01:15:00Guest:The feeling was you didn't know, but the feeling for me was they ain't going to wait for me.

01:15:05Marc:Sure.

01:15:05Marc:But so what happened, it's funny because for some reason Grill Marcus was there.

01:15:10Marc:Right.

01:15:10Marc:Before he was, I guess, a nascent reviewer or maybe just a kid.

01:15:15Marc:Right.

01:15:15Marc:But he actually said that after the shit went down, the Stone's fear is tangible.

01:15:21Marc:But Keith, he's tough and you believed it.

01:15:25Marc:He was sort of like, get the fuck off the stage or we're not going to play or whatever.

01:15:29Marc:But, you know, they're playing for their life, you know, those last two songs, correct?

01:15:35Guest:Well, I think Jagger really saw that he was a focus, and he was, in particular, might be the one that got targeted, right?

01:15:44Guest:And I was naive enough, and this is not another word.

01:15:46Guest:Targeted by the angels?

01:15:47Guest:By anybody.

01:15:48Marc:Oh, that he was going to get.

01:15:49Marc:Right.

01:15:49Guest:I mean, he could be targeted by a teenage girl.

01:15:51Guest:Right, sure.

01:15:52Guest:But by the angel, sure.

01:15:54Guest:And Keith is not quite the same position.

01:15:57Guest:But I kept thinking, he tried, you know, in fairness.

01:16:00Marc:Jagger tried to cool him down?

01:16:01Guest:He tried to cool him down.

01:16:02Guest:Nobody's listening to him, right?

01:16:04Guest:And I'm naive enough to think, well, he should be able to do something, right?

01:16:09Guest:That was just a statement of the way I thought, right?

01:16:12Guest:But that's nonsense, right?

01:16:15Guest:Right, yeah.

01:16:15Guest:And I kept thinking, stop it.

01:16:18Guest:Right.

01:16:19Guest:And so Keith ultimately is the one that wants to stop it.

01:16:22Guest:Right.

01:16:23Guest:And, you know, depending on who you talk to, the Washington Post big sort of effort, you know, I mean, they were with me eight hours.

01:16:31Guest:Right.

01:16:31Guest:Yeah.

01:16:31Guest:And they talked to 50 people.

01:16:33Marc:This is recently.

01:16:34Guest:Yeah.

01:16:34Guest:Like two weeks ago.

01:16:36Marc:They did it in light of the 50-year anniversary?

01:16:38Marc:Yeah, same thing.

01:16:39Guest:But I'd never been really kind of seen, you know, like a really reputable organization really pull out the stops.

01:16:46Guest:I really did, right?

01:16:48Guest:And it's very interesting in a lot of different ways.

01:16:49Guest:Gave me a perspective I didn't have.

01:16:51Guest:Gave me some information I didn't have.

01:16:52Marc:Like what did Crosby say that changed your mind?

01:16:54Guest:Oh, Cosby was sort of, you know, if you don't want your lunch, don't invite a tiger to lunch.

01:17:00Guest:But, you know, for me, so much on the inside, seeing it seen from the outside and with professionals asking the questions and with some distance was pretty interesting.

01:17:10Guest:And you saw the last picture they chose in one of the things that they did is this single individual sitting in this wasteland with just the skeleton of the stage.

01:17:19Guest:Yeah.

01:17:19Guest:Behind them.

01:17:21Guest:And whether it was intentionally done to contrast with the sort of 400,000 at Woodstock or not, it tells that story as a bookend, right?

01:17:29Marc:Yeah.

01:17:30Marc:So what was the vibe on the fucking helicopter?

01:17:32Guest:Oh, just everybody's quiet.

01:17:33Guest:Completely quiet.

01:17:34Marc:Really?

01:17:34Guest:Completely quiet.

01:17:35Marc:Like, just sort of like, let's go.

01:17:37Guest:Nothing.

01:17:38Guest:Just get out of here, out of here, out of here.

01:17:39Guest:And then they can't get out of there.

01:17:41Guest:And Ronnie Schneider said he pulled a gun on the helicopter guy to make him stay.

01:17:45Marc:Oh, to pick everybody up.

01:17:47Guest:I'm gone.

01:17:49Marc:So that's some Vietnam shit.

01:17:51Guest:No, it was.

01:17:51Guest:I mean, the parallel to Vietnam, not to mention the parallel for me of blow up because the picture of the guy with the gun is I had to blow up just like blow up in order to really bring him to front and center.

01:18:04Marc:That was your picture?

01:18:06Marc:Which one now?

01:18:07Marc:Of the guy with the gun?

01:18:09Guest:Oh, no, no.

01:18:10Guest:Well, the guy with the gun that you see is not a picture.

01:18:13Guest:It's the film.

01:18:13Marc:Right, that's right.

01:18:14Marc:The film, right.

01:18:15Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:18:15Guest:But I had to find him.

01:18:16Guest:I couldn't find him for years until I did that book.

01:18:18Guest:I finally found him, and he's small.

01:18:20Guest:You can see him with a green suit.

01:18:22Marc:Yeah.

01:18:22Guest:But I don't see the stabbing, but I see what – I went and talked to the cop.

01:18:27Marc:From your picture.

01:18:28Marc:Yeah.

01:18:29Guest:You had him one of yours, right.

01:18:30Guest:Right, right.

01:18:31Guest:To the cop that opened the cold case, right?

01:18:33Guest:Yeah, right.

01:18:33Guest:And we're talking.

01:18:34Guest:And the picture I have shows him talking to a guy that's sitting –

01:18:38Guest:on a speaker right in between him and the stage.

01:18:40Guest:Yeah.

01:18:41Guest:Right.

01:18:41Guest:Yeah.

01:18:42Guest:And he's clearly telling him, you're right.

01:18:44Guest:You're in my way.

01:18:44Guest:Right.

01:18:45Guest:Right.

01:18:45Guest:So the, the whole sort of, you know, it was innocence.

01:18:47Guest:It was, it was God knows what it was.

01:18:50Marc:Did they ever hang it on a guy?

01:18:52Marc:Did, I mean, did the guy who,

01:18:53Guest:killed him the angel that did it I mean Pissarro yeah well he got tangled up right with a self defense trip or what well yeah I think you know I heard that it was if you have a gun and you have a knife then the guy with the knife gets self defense yeah right yeah I think that's real too I think if you hadn't spent the entire afternoon sort of listening to people scream and having to deal with that chaos he might have been a hero right right yeah interesting yeah you know

01:19:22Marc:So you have closure around this shit now?

01:19:25Guest:Yeah, I have.

01:19:26Guest:Closure might not be the right word.

01:19:27Guest:I have a sense of really having devoted a real amount of time and work to getting something that looked like the real story.

01:19:36Guest:For yourself.

01:19:37Guest:For myself and because the tour, which is again, if you take it from a perspective, I had 18 gigs and they were all spectacular except for that one.

01:19:49Marc:And what was the, when you regrouped with the Stones in 72, which was a monumental tour, was it talked about?

01:19:58Guest:Oh, the amount of security that was in, you know, people making sure you couldn't get an event.

01:20:04Guest:Everybody had security.

01:20:06Guest:I mean, it was so different.

01:20:07Marc:In 1969.

01:20:08Marc:So the reaction to it was, yeah, never again.

01:20:12Guest:Well, you know, I don't know if it's true or hearsay, but the Hells Angels that got swept off the boat trying to attack Jagger in Long Island.

01:20:21Guest:They got in a boat and were going to come in.

01:20:23Guest:Oh, they had a vendetta.

01:20:24Guest:Sonny Barger had a vendetta.

01:20:26Guest:Yeah, because.

01:20:26Guest:He bad-mouthed them.

01:20:27Guest:They bat them out of them a lot.

01:20:28Guest:So it's not that simple.

01:20:30Guest:Right, right.

01:20:32Guest:But they definitely had it.

01:20:33Guest:And so the start of the 72 tour, everybody had a gun.

01:20:36Guest:Everybody had, I don't know, everybody had a bodyguard.

01:20:39Guest:Yeah, yeah.

01:20:41Guest:And Astrid, who's Bill Wyman's significant other, had their seven-year-old in, and the guy's in there, and she offers us some tea, and she goes to make the tea, and then when she comes out, the guy's showing her 10-year-old kid his silencer.

01:20:56Guest:Right.

01:20:56Marc:Oh, great.

01:20:57Marc:So you're on the plane for that whole thing?

01:20:59Guest:Yeah, well, for two-thirds of that tour.

01:21:01Marc:Love that picture of Terry Southern and Keith.

01:21:03Guest:Yeah, well, thanks.

01:21:04Guest:Terry was not well.

01:21:06Marc:No, I know.

01:21:07Marc:Yeah, it's too bad.

01:21:08Marc:Right.

01:21:09Marc:Because, like, he was sort of an amazing talent that just got fucking destroyed himself.

01:21:14Guest:That's right, totally.

01:21:15Guest:And wasn't pleasant when I met him.

01:21:17Guest:I mean, you know, I know, you know.

01:21:20Marc:He wasn't well with the compulsion.

01:21:23Guest:He was in that kind of inflated egomaniac, alcoholic, drug addict nonsense.

01:21:32Guest:That's kind of what it was.

01:21:33Marc:And yeah, it's so funny that Keith just sort of survived them all.

01:21:37Marc:Yes.

01:21:38Marc:Because he was always oddly careful in a way, in terms of what he was putting into his body.

01:21:45Marc:He got the best shit.

01:21:46Guest:I think there's something in that.

01:21:48Guest:You know, I don't know.

01:21:49Guest:I didn't do that stuff.

01:21:50Guest:That wasn't my particular thing.

01:21:52Guest:But and because I look dangerous to me, you know, you know, and so and also Keith has been magnificent in more recent years in terms of how generous he's been.

01:22:05Guest:He's been very generous with a lot of people and both in terms of how he thought.

01:22:08Marc:He's a very bright guy.

01:22:10Marc:When I read the book, I'm like, this guy's not just some dumb junkie.

01:22:14Guest:It's a fucking deep dude.

01:22:16Guest:Yeah, deep is a good word.

01:22:18Guest:And it's just like, I'm going to take a step three feet to the side and just look what it looks like from here, you know, kind of thing.

01:22:25Guest:And generous with that.

01:22:26Guest:And so the survival part of it, clearly he gets that he got lucky.

01:22:31Guest:Yeah.

01:22:32Marc:Genetics, man.

01:22:34Marc:And luck.

01:22:34Marc:And luck, right, yeah.

01:22:35Marc:I met him.

01:22:36Marc:I interviewed him, and I was a little beside myself, but it was pretty great.

01:22:39Guest:Well, I didn't say five words to him in the whole 69 tour, and there were only 16 of us.

01:22:44Guest:There was just no reason, you know?

01:22:46Marc:Was he a big talker?

01:22:48Guest:I think if he talked about things he cared about.

01:22:52Guest:So Stanley Booth, again, since they could talk Memphis in music and stuff, they talked, but I couldn't talk that.

01:22:58Marc:So now let's talk about, there's so many great things, obviously I'm not getting into in the book.

01:23:05Marc:You know, like we're talking about the Stones.

01:23:06Marc:We're talking about Lennon.

01:23:08Marc:We're talking about you got you got Zappa in there.

01:23:11Marc:You got Ron said in there.

01:23:12Marc:You got the Eagles in there.

01:23:13Marc:You've got I think there's a John Hyatt series, you know, but but these are are seminal shots that a lot of people be familiar with.

01:23:20Marc:But to see them all together, it's really like it's.

01:23:26Marc:Because I like coffee table books and I like art books and I like photo books.

01:23:30Marc:But a lot of times when you're looking at celebrity photos, especially ones you're familiar with, you're like, do I need that?

01:23:35Marc:But this book I've gone back to over and over again because these are just singular pictures of these people.

01:23:42Guest:Well, and I did it for my son.

01:23:45Guest:That's why I did it.

01:23:47Guest:I'm 70, whatever I am, four, and my son's 16.

01:23:51Guest:So I got a really young son.

01:23:52Guest:And I thought, whenever I shuffle off, because, you know, could be.

01:23:56Guest:I wanted something for him.

01:24:00Guest:And so the whole thing is that I kick-started it.

01:24:04Guest:I controlled it completely.

01:24:05Guest:I spent exactly as much money as it needed to be to be as good as it could be.

01:24:09Guest:and it's for him, and that's the legacy of it.

01:24:12Guest:And it wasn't, it was like, it's done.

01:24:16Guest:Do you know what I mean?

01:24:17Guest:I did it, he's got it, it's real.

01:24:19Guest:The purity of this is really interesting, and it's because of all, you can only get it from my website.

01:24:24Guest:I'm not giving it to Jeff Bezos.

01:24:27Guest:I'm just not.

01:24:29Guest:Right now, it's for it to be pure, and I think the purity of it is a little bit of what you respond to.

01:24:35Guest:It's really beautiful, it couldn't be better printed,

01:24:38Guest:What's the website?

01:24:40Guest:EthanRussell.com.

01:24:41Guest:It's a great gift for your dad.

01:24:44Guest:Right.

01:24:46Guest:Come on, kids.

01:24:47Guest:I took my son when he was like nine to the Stones in Oakland and fell asleep.

01:24:53Guest:God bless him.

01:24:55Guest:But the previous time that I'd been in Oakland with the Rolling Stones, my dad had been in the audience.

01:25:00Guest:Oh, yeah?

01:25:00Guest:Yeah.

01:25:01Guest:So it was like that thing.

01:25:02Guest:Did he like it?

01:25:03Guest:My dad, his response was that Benny Goodman's a real, not Benny Goodman, that B.B.

01:25:07Guest:King's a real showman.

01:25:09Marc:Oh, he opened for him?

01:25:10Marc:Yeah.

01:25:10Marc:Now there's pictures of B.B.

01:25:11Marc:in there too and Benny Goodman in the book.

01:25:13Guest:Yeah, right.

01:25:13Marc:I like the little, the thing you said about Benny Goodman is that you didn't feel like experienced enough so you're shooting him like a rock guy.

01:25:18Marc:Yeah.

01:25:18Marc:Because you got that upshot.

01:25:21Marc:I spent my life thinking Robert Plant was nine feet tall.

01:25:24Marc:They're all dwarves.

01:25:26Guest:Right, right, right.

01:25:27Guest:It's that angle, man.

01:25:28Guest:It is a hero angle.

01:25:30Marc:It sure is.

01:25:31Marc:So in closing, how'd the pee on the wall happen?

01:25:35Guest:Oh, so that point, I got hired to talk to Pete to do a cover.

01:25:42Guest:They needed a cover.

01:25:42Guest:They'd had three, didn't like them, right?

01:25:44Guest:And I was at that point very much like singer-songwriter, singer-songwriter, I want to do something.

01:25:49Guest:So I spent all this time talking to Pete about Lifehouse and everything.

01:25:51Guest:Nothing happened.

01:25:52Guest:They said, we need a cover.

01:25:53Guest:Come to the Midlands, right?

01:25:55Guest:They were playing some live gigs, so we did.

01:25:57Guest:The back cover was shot then.

01:25:59Guest:It's really terrible.

01:26:00Guest:The back cover is instantly forgettable, hence.

01:26:02Guest:You're trying to remember.

01:26:02Guest:Yeah, that's right.

01:26:03Guest:Forgettable.

01:26:04Guest:Yeah.

01:26:04Guest:And so we're driving back.

01:26:05Guest:It's in the rain.

01:26:06Guest:Pete drives like 100 miles an hour crazy in the rain.

01:26:09Guest:Yeah.

01:26:10Guest:On the way up.

01:26:11Guest:On those roads.

01:26:12Marc:On those roads.

01:26:12Guest:I scared the shit out of you.

01:26:13Guest:But anyway, so we're now a little caravan.

01:26:15Guest:Not many.

01:26:16Guest:There's three cars, I think.

01:26:17Guest:There's no, you know, there's none of the nonsense you have today.

01:26:20Guest:Yeah.

01:26:20Guest:It's just not there.

01:26:21Guest:Yeah.

01:26:21Guest:And so Pete's going.

01:26:23Guest:And it's a good shot.

01:26:24Guest:You don't need the nonsense.

01:26:26Guest:That's what you prove.

01:26:28Guest:No, that's right.

01:26:28Guest:And we drive in by, and I see these shapes, and we go up there, and we do the, you can see it in here.

01:26:34Guest:They've never been published.

01:26:35Marc:The shapes, were they just these monoliths, these concrete?

01:26:38Guest:Well, today, if you go to where that is, you see this much monolith, and it's all grass.

01:26:44Guest:And it was a tip, as the Brits call it, right?

01:26:47Guest:They put garbage in it, they fill it up.

01:26:49Guest:That's what all those were.

01:26:50Guest:There were a couple others off camera, right?

01:26:52Marc:It's a dump.

01:26:53Guest:It's a dump.

01:26:54Guest:It's basically a dump.

01:26:56Guest:And so they're doing the apes, and I'm thinking the apes are cool, but I don't know.

01:27:02Marc:Like 2001?

01:27:02Marc:Yeah.

01:27:02Marc:Okay.

01:27:03Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:27:04Guest:Because that's what it is, right?

01:27:05Marc:It looks like the monolith.

01:27:06Guest:It looks like the monolith.

01:27:07Guest:And then I'm thinking that's kind of cool, but don't really know what to do with it.

01:27:10Guest:And I'm not a guy that sits there going, I got this idea.

01:27:13Marc:But that'd be a joke cover.

01:27:15Marc:That's right.

01:27:16Guest:So I didn't think that was it.

01:27:17Guest:And then while I'm wondering what the fuck it is,

01:27:20Guest:I look up, and Townsend's peed on it.

01:27:22Guest:So Townsend's real pee.

01:27:24Guest:The others are all film cans of water.

01:27:26Guest:I went, oh, okay, got that.

01:27:28Guest:And then we did the other one.

01:27:29Guest:I didn't do much.

01:27:30Guest:It's a Hasselblad with a Polaroid back.

01:27:33Guest:And I don't know if I took 14 shots.

01:27:37Guest:Do you know?

01:27:38Guest:I said, okay, guys, let's go.

01:27:40Guest:And then we're driving down the motorway, and I'm thinking, oh, geez, I hope I got that.

01:27:44Marc:Because that was pretty good.

01:27:46Marc:It was great.

01:27:48Marc:It was a monumental cover on a monumental record.

01:27:51Marc:We did a few of them.

01:27:52Marc:But I honestly, we never met and I don't know why, I'm so happy you sent it to me because I opened it and I'm like, what is this?

01:28:00Marc:And you got Keith on the cover so right away I'm like, I'm in.

01:28:03Marc:And I just love it, man.

01:28:06Marc:And it was like, again, I'm at the far end of the boomer thing.

01:28:10Marc:So I really missed most of this.

01:28:11Marc:But when I was a kid growing up, I mean, it was what I worshipped.

01:28:15Marc:So it was like, oh, it's great.

01:28:17Marc:And great job.

01:28:18Marc:And it was great talking to you.

01:28:19Guest:Yeah, you too.

01:28:20Guest:Thank you.

01:28:21Marc:Yeah, man.

01:28:21Marc:All right.

01:28:27Marc:There you go.

01:28:28Marc:Good talk.

01:28:30Marc:Great talk.

01:28:31Marc:The book is The Best Seat in the House, and it's available as a book and as an interactive digital version at ethanrussell.com.

01:28:38Marc:And tomorrow, meditate a little on the fact that December 6th, tomorrow, is the 50th anniversary of Altamont, the free concert where a man was killed in the Rolling Stones.

01:28:51Marc:Just chaos.

01:28:52Marc:Barely made it out.

01:28:53Marc:I don't know what would have happened.

01:28:54Marc:None of us do.

01:28:55Marc:And now I will play some sad music with my thumb and my other finger.

01:29:02Marc:That's the direction I'm going.

01:29:03Marc:Two fingers.

01:29:04Marc:All right?

01:29:05Marc:Yep.

01:29:06Marc:Don't make it dirty.

01:30:03Bye.

01:30:33Marc:Boomer lives.