MATT WALKER

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Matt is saved by a honky tonk woman?!

Yes read on for an insight into Matt's rambling thoughts on the fabulous Rolling Stones...

One day when making one of my compilation tapes from the radio I hit record when I heard this amazing song. It was the Rolling Stones playing Honky Tonk Woman…

I was aged about 11 and in the final years of primary school. It was the early eighties and when not roaming the ranges on my BMX, I could be found lying on my bedroom floor staring into a ghetto blaster. One hand on the radio dial, the other resting on the pause button of the tape deck, waiting for a signal. It hadn’t occurred to me why I would do this, but I would spend hours doing it. I was discovering a whole new world through stations like PBS and RRR.

I can honestly say that hearing Honky Tonk Woman on the radio that day saved at least one young fella from the clutches of the KISS ARMY who were recruiting just about everyone I knew at the time. (I still feel for the poor souls who weren’t saved like I was).

I think The Stones’ strength is their apparent lack of formula. Obviously there is a method to which they arrange their songs, but the listener is somehow given the feeling that nothing is set in stone. And what amazes me is that they kept this quality album after album.

Just listen to Hey Negrita or even Fool to Cry from the fantastic album Black and Blue. The music has an immediate quality to it. Sometimes you hear a song and think with horror that if the mics weren’t turned on at that very moment the song would never have been put to tape. Never to be recreated. The very thought that sends a chill up your spine.

Listening to Beggars Banquet (my favorite Stones' album) you can almost smell the band. Jagger has so much charisma is his voice and miraculously the band seems a perfect foil for it.

Street Fighting Man is still one of the most urgent songs you can wrap your ears around. Everything about it keeps you guessing. From the weird sounding acoustic guitar introduction, to Charlie’s savage hi-hat. And of course there’s Jagger's amazing vocal.

I don’t want to go into the old 'Beatles or The Stones’ debate, but listening to this album (Beggars Banquet) I believe that John Lennon would’ve at times preferred to be a member of The Stones. They could inject a fistful of defiant soul into a mix. Something that the Beatles often couldn’t deliver.

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matt saved by a

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the necessary few

dave mc comb

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band of brothers...alone

a new season

in a humble peep

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