Style Books EveryOne Should Own #1
I have just finished reading Life by Keith Richards. Couldn't put it down. Inhaled it. This surprised me because I knew very little about the Rolling Stones back story and all I knew about Keith Richards was that he took a lot of drugs.
But there is so, so much more to this book than just that. Keith's funny, smart and intelligent and provides lots of intimate insights (sometimes dark) into his family and family life. If you love the music, there's great anecdotes on how the songs were written and the inner workings of the band. It's worth reading just for the Keith and Mick tensions alone. Throw in Anita Pallenberg and you've got a cracking yarn.
Family, music and love aside it's his autobiography which means there is plenty of sex, drugs and well, really just lots of drugs.
"Some of most outrageous nights I can only believe actually happened because of corroborating evidence. The ultimate party, if it’s any good, you can’t remember it. You get these brief vignettes of what you did. ‘Oh you don’t remember shooting the gun? Pull the carpet, look at those holes, man.’ I feel a bit of shame and embarrassment. ‘You can’t remember that? When you got your dick out, swinging form the chandelier, anybody up for grabs, wrap it in a five-pound note?’ Nope, don’t remember a thing of it.”
or
“I had a denim cap with all these pockets in it that were filled with dope. Everything was filled with dope. In the car doors themselves, all you had to do was pop the panels, and there were plastic bags full of coke and grass, peyote and mescaline… In the 70s I was flying high as a kite on pure, pure Merck cocaine, the fluffy pharmaceutical blow. Freddie Sessler and I went to the john, we weren’t even escorted down there. He’s got bottles full of Tuinal. And he’s so nervous about flushing them down that he loses the bottle and all the fucking turquoise and red pills are rolling everywhere and meanwhile he’s trying to flush down the coke".
Keith's had a big influence on fashion too. To this day, his look is referenced for both men and women - skinny jeans, scarves, black eyeliner - he was one of the original urban bohemians and responsible for making the Fedora cool again.
Love him. Love the book. Buying a Fedora.
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