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Authors: John McMillian
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accounted for, at least in minor part, by the transposition error in the flyers that he had illegally pasted all across town.
SUNDAY NIGHT, 7:30 PM.
RHYTHM AND BULSE
Gomelsky shrewdly understood that the Stones’ real problem, however, was that they had yet to build up an audience for grassroots R&B in London. Fortunately, he had a plan.“He was the kind of guy where you could go round to his apartment, have some very strong coffee, smoke some Sobranies, and map out plots, because he was very plugged into the club scene,” Keith Richards recalled. He advised the Stones that instead of hustling for gigs at every opportunity, they should focus on building their reputation with their regular Sunday-night performances. Once word got around, and with the right kind of promotion, he predicted that audiences would be flocking to see them.
Gomelsky says that Brian walked up to him that first night at the Crawdaddy and said:“ ‘Giorgio, there’s six of us, and three of them. Do you think it’s worthwhile? Should we play?’ ”
“I said, ‘Brian, how many people do you think can fit in here? A hundred? Okay, well then play as if there were a hundred people in here.’ And they did. And that was one of the reasons I rarely went to see the Stones in later times, because in some ways, that was like the best show they ever did. For three people.”
Very quickly, Gomelsky’s prediction proved accurate, and the Stones were playing to a packed house every Sunday night. To get inside, you had to queue in line, sometimes for hours. Once you got through the door, you found a smallish room that was pitch-dark, save for the tiny stage, on which the Stones performed beneath two small spotlights (one red, one blue). Drawing heavily from the nearby Kingston College of Art, early audiences consisted predominately of young men. As pop historian Alan Clayson explains, some among them“detected a certain Neanderthal epater la bourgeoisie in the group, and came to understand that this rugged type of pop music was ‘uncommercial,’ and thus an antidote to the contrived splendorof television pop idols.” Others in the crowd didn’t even necessarily identify as R&B fans. Groups of Mods started showing up, decked in tweed jackets, high-heeled boots, and choke-collar shirts, and so too came their supposed enemies, leather-clad Rockers. Before long, brawls between the two subcultures would lead to some sensational news stories in England, but not a single fight broke out while the Stones were playing at the Crawdaddy.
That may be partly attributed to the Stones’ novelty. Initially, fans were riveted by their increasingly edgy performances, but they were unsure of how to respond, and many even seemed afraid to dance. Then one night, Gomelsky’s young assistant, Hamish Grimes, leapt atop a table and started really whooping it up, waving his arms like windmills and yelling “yeah yeah!” Jagger spotted him from the stage, smiled widely, and he too said “yeah!” In an instant, Gomelsky says,“two hundred pair of arms were undulating like crazy! Man, that was something.” For some time afterwards, the Stones made it their trademark to close their second 45-minute set with an extended, hypnotic Bo Diddley jam—either “Pretty Thing” or “Doin’ the Crawdaddy”—that always whipped their fans into a tribal-like frenzy.“No one had seen anything like this in the sedate and reticent London of 1963,” Gomelsky mused. “It was exciting and foreboding.”
Had he been a little savvier and more business-oriented, Gomelsky might have secured a managerial contract with the Stones, but at the time he was so turned off by how vapid and crass the British pop scene had become that the idea scarcely crossed his mind. Instead, he planned to help rejuvenate“formula-ridden commercial popular music” with more authentic, uptempo electric blues, and eventually he hoped to set up “a kind of ‘United Artists’ of the London blues
SUNDAY NIGHT, 7:30 PM.
RHYTHM AND BULSE
Gomelsky shrewdly understood that the Stones’ real problem, however, was that they had yet to build up an audience for grassroots R&B in London. Fortunately, he had a plan.“He was the kind of guy where you could go round to his apartment, have some very strong coffee, smoke some Sobranies, and map out plots, because he was very plugged into the club scene,” Keith Richards recalled. He advised the Stones that instead of hustling for gigs at every opportunity, they should focus on building their reputation with their regular Sunday-night performances. Once word got around, and with the right kind of promotion, he predicted that audiences would be flocking to see them.
Gomelsky says that Brian walked up to him that first night at the Crawdaddy and said:“ ‘Giorgio, there’s six of us, and three of them. Do you think it’s worthwhile? Should we play?’ ”
“I said, ‘Brian, how many people do you think can fit in here? A hundred? Okay, well then play as if there were a hundred people in here.’ And they did. And that was one of the reasons I rarely went to see the Stones in later times, because in some ways, that was like the best show they ever did. For three people.”
Very quickly, Gomelsky’s prediction proved accurate, and the Stones were playing to a packed house every Sunday night. To get inside, you had to queue in line, sometimes for hours. Once you got through the door, you found a smallish room that was pitch-dark, save for the tiny stage, on which the Stones performed beneath two small spotlights (one red, one blue). Drawing heavily from the nearby Kingston College of Art, early audiences consisted predominately of young men. As pop historian Alan Clayson explains, some among them“detected a certain Neanderthal epater la bourgeoisie in the group, and came to understand that this rugged type of pop music was ‘uncommercial,’ and thus an antidote to the contrived splendorof television pop idols.” Others in the crowd didn’t even necessarily identify as R&B fans. Groups of Mods started showing up, decked in tweed jackets, high-heeled boots, and choke-collar shirts, and so too came their supposed enemies, leather-clad Rockers. Before long, brawls between the two subcultures would lead to some sensational news stories in England, but not a single fight broke out while the Stones were playing at the Crawdaddy.
That may be partly attributed to the Stones’ novelty. Initially, fans were riveted by their increasingly edgy performances, but they were unsure of how to respond, and many even seemed afraid to dance. Then one night, Gomelsky’s young assistant, Hamish Grimes, leapt atop a table and started really whooping it up, waving his arms like windmills and yelling “yeah yeah!” Jagger spotted him from the stage, smiled widely, and he too said “yeah!” In an instant, Gomelsky says,“two hundred pair of arms were undulating like crazy! Man, that was something.” For some time afterwards, the Stones made it their trademark to close their second 45-minute set with an extended, hypnotic Bo Diddley jam—either “Pretty Thing” or “Doin’ the Crawdaddy”—that always whipped their fans into a tribal-like frenzy.“No one had seen anything like this in the sedate and reticent London of 1963,” Gomelsky mused. “It was exciting and foreboding.”
Had he been a little savvier and more business-oriented, Gomelsky might have secured a managerial contract with the Stones, but at the time he was so turned off by how vapid and crass the British pop scene had become that the idea scarcely crossed his mind. Instead, he planned to help rejuvenate“formula-ridden commercial popular music” with more authentic, uptempo electric blues, and eventually he hoped to set up “a kind of ‘United Artists’ of the London blues
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