Editor's Note: In 1972, the Rolling Stones commissioned filmmaker

Robert Frank and his partner Danny Seymour to make a documentary of that

year's North American tour.

And the rest was hysteria.

The result, "Cocksucker Blues," turned out to be a 90-minute exercise in

rock 'n' roll excess. There was sex, and there were drugs, and yes, there

was rock 'n' roll. Apparently, however, there was a bit too much of the

former two items for the Stones themselves, who promptly forbade the

release of the film -- restricting Frank to showing it only under tight

legal strictures.

Which, of course, turned the film into a legend. It became a part of rock

lore, the film that the cognoscenti twittered and nudged each other about,

the film that everyone claimed to have seen.

The film's title was drawn from a 1970 single that the Stones created to

fulfill a contract requirement of its old label, Decca. The Stones were

moving on to a new label and Decca demanded one more single. So the Stones

gave it to them -- replete with a refrain that went: "Oh where can I get my

cock sucked? Where can I get my arse fucked?"

Given that background, how could the Stones have expected anything less of

Frank?

Fifteen years after its previous screening in the city, "Cocksucker Blues"

came to San Francisco as part of the 41st San Francisco International Film

Festival (which was honoring Frank for his cinematic career).

The film was screened at the Castro Theatre, a wonderful rococo absurdity

that looks as outrageous as the Stones themselves. It was ringed by fans,

the lucky ones ticket holders; the rest, ticket-hopefuls. In fact, demand

was such that the festival people could have hired Candlestick Park and put

up a 300-foot stage with inflated ladies and lasers and a Diamond Vision

screen and sold the joint out.

SonicNet was there -- two rock generations of it. There was Nick Tangborn,

28, who'd never seen the Stones in concert. And there was Harry Sumrall,

47, who'd first seen the Stones in 1966, when Brian Jones was plucking away

at a dulcimer on "Lady Jane."

Neither had seen "Cocksucker Blues." They sat next to each other in the

front row of the balcony and, somehow, managed not to say a word about the

film as they watched it. All the better to get their reviews to you,

unbiased by the decades that separate them.

Nick Tangborn Transfixed By Empty Ennui Of Stones Tour

Robert Frank's "Cocksucker Blues" is a searing vision of rock 'n' roll as

an inhuman, decadent, materialistic and possibly hopeless void. It is an

image of the superstar British band as one cynical observer (and -- I think

-- fan) saw them. It is a wild, jerky hallucination, full of vivid, often

disgusting, often hilarious, often downright hideous pictures.

Frank's black-and-white images of life backstage and on the road are

crusted and violent; like scars, they're branded into the soft membrane of

your consciousness.

In the live scenes, shot in vivid color, we see the Stones as the rock

stars they are, the band tight and snarling, singer Mick Jagger rhythmless

but magnetic.

Jittery, constantly searching, Frank's hand-held camera doesn't stay on the

same subject for long.

But when he finds something that fascinates him, the way he holds the

camera on his subject reveals truths lesser filmmakers might miss. In one

particularly striking scene, a lanky, blonde groupie has just shot some

junk. She sits facing the camera, dead center and upright in the frame,

mumbling some sort of groupie-babble (the sound is god-awful). Suddenly you

realize that the window behind her seems tilted expressionistically,

leaning to the left. Once you process this, you realize that the groupie,

in fact, is the one leaning -- she's practically tipped over, completely

out of it but trying to maintain some sort of grip on reality.

In another revealing scene, guitarist Keith Richards sits in a locker room,

waiting with another groupie for something to happen. As with many scenes

in the film, it's not exactly clear for what, exactly, they're waiting.

Richards starts to nod off. But he doesn't nod off the way a person does

when he's tired; he nods off with a slow, deliberate, heroin-induced

slumping, as if his body were gradually melting into a submissive heap.

Frank keeps cutting back to Richards, as he sinks more and more into a

lifeless bundle, until, finally, Frank just holds the camera on Richards

and the groupie, a tangled, passed-out mass of limbs and hair and bell

bottoms and scarves.

Both Jagger and Richards only seem truly alive onstage. You can tell why

Richards has managed to live this long, given the excesses of his

hedonistic life. Offstage, he just shuts down, immersing himself in a hazy

womb of cigarette smoke, junk and protective, mothering groupies.

Much of the film is made up of scenes of the group waiting around; they

wait and smoke and wait and smoke. They primp. They get dressed. Again and

again and again. Televisions drone endlessly in the background. Groupies

silently stare at the camera. Charlie Watts skips around the director's

gaze, seemingly the innocent trying to hold it together in a sick world of

leering hedonists. Frank is more interested in the empty ennui of the

touring lifestyle than the music.

When the film finally ended, fading on a mocking shot of Jagger's hand held

upright in a display of victory, I turned to singer/songwriter Brendan

Benson, who was sitting next to me. Benson spent a good portion of the last

year touring throughout the world, with pit stops in Tokyo and Paris. He

has tasted the rock-star/limo/major-label lifestyle.

"So is that what life on the road is like?" I asked.

"Yeah, totally," joked Benson, sarcastically.

He paused a moment, then added, in all seriousness, "No. They were like

aliens or something."

Harry Sumrall Digs The Stones' Devotion To Rock 'N' Roll

The Band's Levon Helm once noted that he could never understand the whole

thing about "sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll." To him, the music seemed to be

good enough on its own without the help of the other two.

The writers and assorted media and promo men and multitudes of idiot

rockers and fans aside, Helm was right.

The oddest thing about "Cocksucker Blues" is what isn't odd about it -- the

Rolling Stones. Throughout this purposely outrageous documentary of the

group's '72 tour, the Stones themselves seem to be individual islands of

purpose and inspiration, surrounded by seas of the very deviance and

decadence they themselves are supposed to embody. Yes, there is much drug

intake -- with needles being stuck and joints being pulled on and lines of

coke being sniffed at. Yes, there are various moments when lithe young

women are despoiled by hulking, loutish men. Yes, there are scenes of

partying and tired wildness.

But, for the most part, the Stones are never part of it. Richards does toss

a TV out of a hotel window -- but not before telling an assistant to look

over the balcony to make sure that no one's below. The lads take a swig of

hooch or two while playing a game of pool in the back room of some Southern

dive. No doubt, Bill Wyman -- the renowned cocksman of the group -- is

having his cock sucked in the background most of the time, but it's off

camera and therefore out of sight if not out of mind.

When we see the Stones in "Cocksucker Blues," they are either chugging away

onstage, their eyes closed, their mouths snarling with emotion, thoroughly

ensconced in their music; or they are trying to recover from the above and

get by -- in hotels and limos and airports -- while the craziness goes on

about them.

Backstage, while groupies are being banged by roadies and other

rock'nnnnnnnnnnn'rollllll, slobs are posing and performing for the

cameras, the Stones are going about their business. Richards and Mick

Taylor pick away at their guitars over a couple of tiny amplifiers, lost in

their blues. Mick Jagger mouths his harp; Charlie Watts taps at anything

nearby with his drumsticks. Even Wyman -- when not otherwise engaged --

drops by to do a sound check. Ah, the "quiet Stone."

O.K. ... O.K. ...O.K. ... No one's being naive here. Jagger might lounge

about his suite in a bathrobe, trying to soothe The Missus, Bianca, who's

obviously upset about something. But who's the black chick -- in the

parlance of the day -- who seems to be around the rest of the time? Jagger

seems to be having much more fun in her company. And, let's face it

- - either Richards is doing some serious shit constantly or he's

got a hell of a metabolism problem. His participation in the tour and the

film -- short of when he's jamming backstage or onstage -- consists of a

few nods and many mumbles. (Ah, but they are very cool and aristocratic

nods and mumbles.)

So, yes. The Rolling Stones are bad. We all know it -- because, hell,

they're the Rolling-fucking-drugging-Stones. Right?

Yes, but then there's the scene in a darkened hotel room. Jagger and

Richards are sitting on a bed, listening intently to what appears to be a

test pressing of a new song. Richards hears something amiss and explains it

to Jagger with intense sweeping motions of his arms, Jagger mumbles

something about the bass. Then, a smile from Richards. He's heard something

he likes and seems to be scrawling out a mental note to himself. The

attention level is fierce. The dedication to the craft, mesmerizing. This

isn't cocksucking fucking rock 'n' roll. This is cocksucking, fucking brain

surgery.

And when the camera is led onstage with Stevie Wonder at one of the shows

and he and the Stones rock-rock-rock-rock their butts off on "Uptight" and

then slam into "Satisfaction," with the horns blaring and Jagger licking at

the mic and Richards standing at the very edge of the stage, head back,

hair flowing, guitar screaming ... well, my dears, that is rock 'n' roll.

And it's enough.