| Culturebox "Why Did You Want to Film That?" Robert Frank's unfairly obscure Rolling Stones documentary captured the band at its best—and worst. By Jack Hamilton
Posted Tuesday, Jul 09, 2013, at 09:15 AM ET  The Rolling Stones are in the midst of celebrating 50 years as a rock-and-roll band, a golden anniversary that's occasioned a tour, countless merchandising opportunities, and some pesky ontological questions as to what actually constitutes 50 years as a rock-and-roll band. In the first 25 years of the Rolling Stones' existence, they released 21 albums' worth of original material; in the second 25, they've released four. The Stones have mostly spent this half of their careers as a lucrative self-tribute act, masters of the deluxe re-master, salesmen of their own history. Earlier this year the band released a boxed set of a long-circulating bootleg of a 1973 live show, replete with photo book, souvenir wristwatch, and an asking price of $750. That's a steep surcharge for a concert that happened 40 years ago. It's all rather charmingly distasteful, and to love the Rolling Stones has always been to love them slightly in spite of themselves. And yet there's one piece of the band's history that remains untouched, unmarketed, un-reissued-with-limited-edition-pair-of-dog-overalls. This would be the 1972 tour documentary Cocksucker Blues, the most famous rock-and-roll movie that barely anyone has ever seen, the lost chord of the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band. It's a film that deserves to be watched, and heard, by anyone who thinks they love the Rolling Stones and anyone who thinks they don't, and the greatest gift the band could give to This Our Year of Stonesian Extravaganza ... To continue reading, click here.
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