I’m working my way through Keith Richards’ autobiography, ‘Life’, which has been a surprisingly great read so far. It’s helped me to really appreciate what the Stones contributed to the evolution of blues rock, as I previously knew little about their early days, and it has been very entertaining. Keith was a completely ridiculous individual for many years. Here are a couple representative passages about some of his crazier years:
“One time in Chicago there was a big party in my room…I was getting sick of it, and I kept telling them to go and they wouldn’t. I wanted to clear the room and no one would listen to me. Get the fuck out. For five minutes I tried. So boom, I fired a shotgun through the floor.
What amazed me was that, I was stuffing the shooter, waiting for security to come up or the cops, and nothing fucking happened! The times guns have gone off in hotel rooms and never, ever has security or cops or anybody arrived. Not in America, at least.”
And then there’s this:
“Some of the best stories about me relate to when I’m not actually there, or at least not consciously so. I am obviously operating, because I’ve had it corroborated by too many people, but I can reach a point, especially on cocaine after a few days, where I just crack, where I think I’m totally crashed out and asleep, but in actual fact I’m doing things that are quite outrageous. This is called pushing the envelope.”
The musical history is less quotable, but has also been a lot of fun to read.