international news_9th August, 2005
Death In Vegas' Sympathy For The Dregs
Richard Fearless from 90s alternative electronic band Death In Vegas chatted to Skrufff this week about his upcoming mix CD for Fabric and revealed that since moving to the States he's also taken up a parallel career directing films.
"I'm studying photographing but I'm mainly doing film directing, I'm actually just doing some stuff for the Stones," said Richard.
"The Rolling Stones" he clarified, "I'm shooting a film for Sympathy for the Devil, I pitched for it a few months ago and I won. That's my first quite exciting project over here."
In more Stones news, newly released police files published this week revealed that cops viewed the band as 'the dregs of society' when they targeted Mick Jagger in the infamous drugs bust in the 60s, which saw him being arrested and later convicted of possessing marijuana.
Following the raid, the Stones singer accused the cops of planting drugs including heroin and a massive quantity of cannabis though authorities dismissed his allegations out of hand. The incident led to the band becoming synonymous with drugs, prompting numerous scrapes with the forces of law and order.
"We were doing drugs in the dressing room when suddenly the tour manager stuck his head round the door and said: 'The Police are here'. We all panicked and threw our drugs down the toilet," said Ronnie Wood, in a tale about the early 80s excesses.
"And then Sting, Andy Summers and Stuart Copeland walked in." (Daily Mail).
More recently, Keith Richards succeeded in enraging New York mayor Michael Bloomberg by provocatively smoking a cigarette on stage at a Madison Square Gardens and even issued a provocative challenge to Al Qaida after Paul McCartney cancelled a tour of Australia due to terrorism concerns.
"I say to Osama and the boys, 'Bring it on, evaporate me'," Richards told the Standard in January 2003. "If it gets to the stage where these guys are dictating whether we rock or not, then forget about it. Don't give them the power."
Fabric Live 23: Death In Vegas is out shortly via Fabric's website.
(Jonty Skrufff)
