There is no such thing as a boring Keith Richards interview. He tells rambling, inappropriate stories, indiscriminately insults other famous people (often including Mick Jagger), and just generally impresses all of us by the sheer feat of having remained alive all these years, after all those drugs. And while he often seems to terrify his interviewer, Richards met his match in 1993 when — after what appear to have been numerous, drawn-out, and hilarious negotiations — he sat down with Hunter S. Thompson.
The conversation is just as incomprehensible and free-associative as you might imagine. In his preface, Thompson exhorts us that he and Keef have a sense of history and we, the viewers, do not. The pair discuss the afterlife and reincarnation; Thompson asks what J. Edgar Hoover might be reborn as, and Richards suggests “a fart.” About The Rolling Stones’ origins, Richards admits, “There would have been no Stones without The Beatles,” explaining that “they already looked bizarre.” Watch the entire interview, which also includes Richards’ recollections of the Stones’ tragic 1969 Altamont performance, after the jump.
Our friends at Gothamist report that Theodora Richards — Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards’ 25-year-old daughter, and a successful model who has appeared in the pages of Vogue, Glamour, and Rolling Stone — was arrested last night after cops caught her tagging “TNA” on the side of a convent in SoHo with a paint marker. (Any guesses as to what that means? Perhaps she’s anti-nun?!) She was also found to be carrying around both marijuana and Xanax. Theordora is currently being held in the custody of the NYPD awaiting arraignment, which most likely will happen later today. We can’t help but wonder: When someone who is as wild as Keith Richards is your dad, should you get in trouble for this kind of (admittedly relatively tame) bad behavior, or is it simply part of your genetic code?
Well, here’s one way to try and save print media: Rolling Stone is opening it very own eatery. Rolling Stone Los Angeles will be “the first Rolling Stone Restaurant & Lounge” — which we assume means that if it’s successful, we should expect more to pop up. Should the Hard Rock Café be shaking in its studded boots?
Honestly, we’re not sure the world needs a music magazine-themed dining experience. But since it’s happening whether we like it or not, we thought we’d provide the new executive chef with ideas for some dishes inspired by some of Rolling Stone‘s recent covers.
Earlier this week we read a fascinating account of the auctioning off of Edward Gorey’s fur collection over on the Paris Review. It seems that the author — who over the years acquired a whopping 21 fur coats — had a change of heart in the ’80s, and decided to lock them all up in a storage facility. When he died in 2000, he left his entire estate to the care and welfare of animals, which in turn, led to the aforementioned sale. The story got us thinking about other famous men who’ve incorporated fur into their wardrobes. After doing a little digging, we were surprised to find that the majority of celebrities who we came up with were either old school rock stars or modern-day rappers — and Justin Bieber. Click through to check out the photos, and be sure to let us know in the comments: Do you think it’s ever OK to wear real fur?
Lately, Keith Richards has been getting a lot of attention as a writer: his new memoir, Life, even made notoriously tough New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani’s list of the year’s ten best books. But today, we’d like to recognize Keef for one of his earlier works. Richards kindly dashed off this note, back in 1964, in response to a lengthy missive from a young fan who enjoyed seeing the Rolling Stones at a Carnegie Hall concert. “One of my favorite hobbies,” he writes, “is sleeping as I don’t get much time for it these days.” We can totally relate. See the handwritten letter after the jump.
Rolling Stone Keith Richards has been called “the world’s most elegantly wasted human being.” While this certainly makes him a more colorful central figure for Johnny Depp’s upcoming documentary, it also means that there are large chunks of his personal history that Richards might be hazy on at this point. After the jump, we’ve rounded up some essential sex, drug, and gun-filled moments that we feel beg inclusion in the rock doc; feel free to add anything we skipped in the comments.
Mick Jagger snorting coke amidst nude roadies and Keith Richards pre-Pirates of the Caribbean III?? That’s not hedonism, no, that’s the Cocksucker Blues. For Rolling Stones fans and those curious what rock stars were once like, the band’s banned 1972 documentary, Cocksucker Blues, has made its way on to the internet. Commissioned by the band to cover their 1972 North American tour, noted photographer Robert Frank directed this piece of cinema verite, which was eventually banned from an official release. Due to the aforementioned rock star antics, the Stones fought to prevent the film from reaching the television/silver screen. As Richards once famously explained, “if anyone in America saw it, we’d never be let in the country again.” Read More »
