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.” And then it gets weirder: Due to the controversy, the film itself is under a court order which forbids it from being shown unless Frank is physically present. This means that the only way to see it before now was a bootleg (Marilyn Manson allegedly owns one) or the rare organized screening. Fortunately, it’s impossible to mandate this kind of thing on the internet, so it’s now streaming in nine parts. How a film managed to avoid an online leak for 37 years is beyond us. Watch the documentary here until it is taken down. And then uploaded on another site. UPDATE 8/26: Cocksucker Blues is no longer streaming. We are currently waiting for another site to host the video – and we will post when they do! Check back in the upcoming weeks. View Part 1 and a few stills below.
Durex, Digress, Rock-amps 'n' Regal (Dr. sex)
Of all the tours the Rolling Stones have made across North America, the 1972 tour is still remembered as the most attractive, most provoked, most bang musical retentive five from London ever performed.
I was fortunate enough to see this juicy juggernaut when it made its stop in Vancouver on Saturday, June 3rd, 1972. As Stones expert Harold Jolson has written elsewhere… "The fabled summer 1972 tour through the U.S. and Canada is revered by Stones fans worldwide as arguably the band's greatest ever, and it remains enshrined in the annals of rock lore and popular imagination as the masterpiece speedboat of indoor triumph, outdoor maelstrom, and backstage debauch. In powerful testament to this enduring sway, vast quantities of audio recordings, books, magazines, photographs, films, videos, and other memorabilia have since issued through licit and sub-licit channels to keep the coveted sights and sounds of the Stones Touring Party alive, rolling, and fresh to this very day."
Cocksucker Blues is one of those enduring sub-licit channels which not only celebrates the fore, middle and background of this tour, but which also presents itself as one of the very best rock tour movies ever made, and never seen.
Have You Heard About … It's Not One Of Those
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