[HN Gopher] Charlie Watts has died
___________________________________________________________________
Charlie Watts has died
Author : coloneltcb
Score : 298 points
Date : 2021-08-24 16:37 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| irrational wrote:
| How is this appropriate for Hacker News?
| batch12 wrote:
| How is it not?
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > How is this appropriate for Hacker News?
|
| The energy from Charlie Watts' drum sticks transmuted into more
| lines of code than you will ever be able to count.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Stop this "why is this relevant for HN". If it's not, it'll
| leave the front page soon.
| Pet_Ant wrote:
| The criterion is along the lines of something that may be of
| interest to hackers. Not necessarily as hackers, but to them in
| general.
|
| All communities either become conservative and lock in around a
| few norms and aggressively police them or become liberal and
| become about anything and everything.
|
| There is no healthy middle.
|
| I mean why should economics and housing and finance topics be
| of interests to hackers?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| It's kind of a community feel - I think HN has done a good
| job of flexing occasionally to allow non-tech news around
| cultural influences.
|
| The Rolling Stones are one of the most influential rock bands
| of the past half century and that is potentially worthy of
| discussion.
|
| I think housing and economy and finance are even more
| appropriate at times, especially when discussing topics that
| affect the average person - wonky, technical discussions that
| take a lot of thought and processing of second order effects.
| heyheyheysome wrote:
| He's white, so his death is newsworthy for HN. Contrast with
| say Kobe Bryant.
| giarc wrote:
| I'm always in favour of just letting the upvote/downvote
| buttons determine appropriateness.
| kirykl wrote:
| Presumably the upvotes say it is of interest
| cma wrote:
| If we go by that alone, next up: bikini pics and tabloid
| news.
| argvargc wrote:
| How then would you explain that this has never happened
| here?
| 101008 wrote:
| The Rolling Stones are one of the greatest bands of all times.
| The passing of one of its original members (who, by the way,
| was part of the band for 58 years) it's a cultural event that
| it is worth discussing it.
| guhidalg wrote:
| Yea but it has nothing to do with hacking or technology, and
| if you think it does then please explain how this belongs.
| dang wrote:
| If you read just the first paragraph of
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html you'll see
| that HN is about more than hacking or technology; hopefully
| a lot more.
| 101008 wrote:
| From Guidelines:
|
| > anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosit
|
| I think something like this gratifies intellectual curiosit
| of a lot of people. But as someone else said, upvotes and
| downvotes will decide better than any rule.
| golergka wrote:
| It's one of the best qualities of HN as a community: it's
| never supposed to be so dry.
| swader999 wrote:
| Charlie originally was trained as a graphic artist before
| joining the band so maybe that will give you some
| Satisfaction?
| lisper wrote:
| > it has nothing to do with hacking or technology
|
| Don't be so sure. Music is intimately related to math, and
| the Stones were one of the most innovative [Edit:
| influential] musical groups in human history. There are
| probably hacking and tech connections that are not
| immediately obvious.
|
| Also, social phenomena are interesting from a technological
| point of view as well (there's a reason social media is a
| thing) and the Stones were definitely that.
| pstuart wrote:
| They hacked the blues into rock and roll. They weren't
| the only ones doing so but were obviously major players.
|
| I'm not sure about them being among the most innovative
| but are without doubt among the most influential.
| lisper wrote:
| Yes, good point. I edited my comment.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| > _Music is intimately related to math_
|
| If anyone had told me that when I was a kid, it would
| have been a life changing event.
|
| My mom had a piano and played it, badly. She tried to
| sight read, but had no sense of tempo, or of starting
| with slow practice (playing in time, but slower). And she
| liked to play what she called "schmaltzy" stuff. (Think
| "Heart and Soul" and "Peg o' My Heart" played with a
| constantly varying tempo, speeding up and slowing down as
| she worked out the notes.)
|
| This is not to criticize her: she did what she could to
| instill a love of music in her kids.
|
| But I was happier reading my math and physics books. I
| tried to make sense of Mom's sheet music, but it just
| seemed like a bunch of dots and lines.
|
| If I'd known that sheet music notation had anything to do
| with math, I would have jumped on it!
| TabTwo wrote:
| Impressive uptime
| glitcher wrote:
| I for one am glad there is a wide variety of topics of interest
| posted and discussed here. If we were only pigeonholed into
| tech topics I would probably get bored of HN.
|
| I did prefer the original title which included the fact that
| Charlie Watts was the drummer for the Rolling Stones. I didn't
| know him by name, and adding more context to the title seemed
| helpful to me at least.
|
| In general I feel like HN suffers from title over-editing, but
| never from too much variety.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > How is this appropriate for Hacker News?
|
| It's not another political or cultural flamewar?
|
| Also, these people have been around for so long, that I was
| starting to suspect they were actually immortal.
|
| > The news comes weeks after it was announced that Watts would
| miss the band's US tour dates to recover from an unspecified
| medical procedure.
| argvargc wrote:
| Because it stayed up long enough for you to see it.
| gpas wrote:
| https://fortune.com/2013/07/21/inside-rolling-stones-inc-for...
| France_is_bacon wrote:
| I wrote an app on the Rolling Stones a while back.
| ajay-b wrote:
| Im speechless. Of all the things the others did and took, damn.
| Just a horrible shame.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| "Charlie's good tonight, isn't he?" One of my favorite parts from
| one of my favorite albums, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out by The Rolling
| Stones. Wherever you are Charlie, keep being good.
|
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=jtno1O7NIGQ
| linksnapzz wrote:
| A demonstration of the Charlie Watts method for handling
| interpersonal conflict on a high-performing team of specialists:
|
| _" One anecdote relates that in the mid-1980s, an intoxicated
| Jagger phoned Watts's hotel room in the middle of the night,
| asking, "Where's my drummer?" Watts reportedly got up, shaved,
| dressed in a suit, put on a tie and freshly shined shoes,
| descended the stairs, and punched Jagger in the face, saying:
| "Don't ever call me your drummer again. You're my fucking
| singer!"_
| [deleted]
| Schiphol wrote:
| This comes from [Keith Richards'
| autobiography](https://www.keithrichards.com/life), apparently.
| Here's the full passage:
|
| _" Mick and I weren't on great terms at the time, but I said,
| c'mon, let's go out. And I lent him the jacket I got married
| in. We got back to the hotel about five in the morning and Mick
| called up Charlie. I said, don't call him, not at this hour.
| But he did, and said, 'Where's my drummer?' No answer. He puts
| the phone down. Mick and I were still sitting there, pretty
| pissed - give Mick a couple of glasses, he's gone - when, about
| twenty minutes later, there was a knock at the door. There was
| Charlie Watts, Savile Row suit, perfectly dressed, tie, shaved,
| the whole fucking bit. I could smell the cologne! I opened the
| door and he didn't even look at me, he walked straight past me,
| got hold of Mick and said, 'Never call me your drummer again.'
| Then he hauled him up by the lapels of my jacket and gave him a
| right hook."_
| the-dude wrote:
| For non native speakers ( like myself ), _pissed_ probably
| means _(very) drunk_ in this context.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| In British and Australian English, yes. We don't say it in
| the US.
| bregma wrote:
| That's interesting. Where I grew up in Canada, "being
| pissed" could mean either very drunk ( _piss drunk_ ) or
| very angry ( _pissed off_ ) and you need to rely on
| context to disambiguate. On the other hand, the British
| phrase "taking the piss" would mean obtaining a urine
| sample and it's just downright confusing.
| mmmpop wrote:
| In America, "piss drunk" has a place but "being pissed"
| means exclusively "to be angry"... at least in every part
| I've ever been. I can't speak for upper New England,
| perhaps they'd take exception.
| edoceo wrote:
| It's called "wicked drunk" down east. "wicked pissed" is
| very angry.
| Folcon wrote:
| "taking the piss" can also mean taking a situation too
| far / making fun of someone =)...
|
| Lots of Britishisms require context to disambiguate.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > the British phrase "taking the piss"
|
| It's an extreme for "irony" - dissimulation (so extreme
| that I should add a /J). In other regions it would be "to
| fuck with someone".
|
| I never understood the exact source of the expression. It
| could have been the mockery of stealing urine from the
| poor (who could actually sell it - I believe for example
| it is still used in tanneries around the world).
| lisper wrote:
| > punched Jagger in the face
|
| That seems a wee bit excessive to me.
|
| [UPDATE, since this has gotten a zillion replies and a zillion
| downvotes]: The point I was intending to make was not that
| Watts's response was inappropriate under the circumstances
| (though I think that is also the case), but rather that
| "Charlie Watts method for handling interpersonal conflict on a
| high-performing team of specialists" is not one that ought to
| be held up as an example to be generally emulated.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| I just finished reading pages from Charlie Munger about the
| importance of putting disincentives to undesirable behaviour.
|
| What one finds excessive is, of course, cultural. The pages
| ended remembering the tribe of two millennia ago who killed
| the last warrior to show at the assembly, or the use of
| George Washington to hang farm-boy deserters forty feet high
| as an example.
| technothrasher wrote:
| Did Munger have any citations for these two claims? There
| seems to be plenty of discussion around on what executions
| did or didn't happen during the American revolutionary war,
| but I couldn't find anything even close to hanging farm-boy
| deserters "forty feet high". On the 2000 year old tribe, I
| couldn't find anything at all.
| yann2 wrote:
| If Native Americans displayed undesirable behavior such
| as not accepting his "fair price" for their land George
| did have them "extirpated".
| AdamN wrote:
| Watched the most recent Berkshire Hathaway meeting which
| was really fascinating. However, Munger seems like he
| doesn't challenge his assumptions very often and also
| builds anecdotes whole cloth without alot of true
| historical facts to back up the claims.
|
| Which book/essay are you referring to?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| "The Revised Psychology of Human Misjudgment"
|
| Text accessible e.g. at fs.blog/great-talks/psychology-
| human-misjudgment/
|
| > _However_
|
| He is having fun trying to transmit wisdom of his to the
| interested. That is the scope.
| choeger wrote:
| Somehow I doubt that this tribe had a lot of successful
| wars...
| upearly3 wrote:
| > two millennia ago who killed the last warrior to show at
| the assembly
|
| Given Shaka Zulu, you don't have to go back that far.
| brodouevencode wrote:
| That's rock and roll for ya.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| I think you ought to reserve judgement until after you've had
| to manage a drunken Mick Jagger on your team. I won't condone
| this as a general approach, but I can see it working in
| certain circumstances, with certain people.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| if that's what you do with a drunk Mick Jagger what the
| hell do you do with a drunk Keith Richards?
|
| You should grab Jagger by the shirt collar and threaten
| him, so that you can punch Richards and have somewhere to
| escalate as need be.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Show me a sober keith richards to compare to, and we can
| have a talk. Otherwise, it's just dealing with keith.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| ok so if you punch Jagger, what do you do with Keith?
| dylan604 wrote:
| O.K. Just a little pin prick There'll be no more
| aaaaaaaah! But you may feel a little sick
|
| Can you stand up? I do believe it's working, good That'll
| keep you going through the show Come on, it's time to go
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| So Dylan, in answering a question about Keith Richards,
| quotes the lyrics of Pink Floyd.
| dylan604 wrote:
| just seemed so appropriate to use lyrics from the
| greatest band ever to answer questions about another band
| bandied about being the greatest but just not quite.
| <ducks>
| upearly3 wrote:
| Give him either Ronnie Van Zant as the lead singer or
| Buddy Rich as his drummer.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| > what do you do with Keith?
|
| Probably just tip him over with a slight push of your
| palm.
| linksnapzz wrote:
| I was about to say; please tell me how you plan to
| establish "drunkeness" in Keith; the heuristics applied,
| the methodology used, the Keith-related emissions to be
| analyzed && the make and model of the mass-spec and HPLC
| used in the process.
| dylan604 wrote:
| what ever that machine is, it would be the most sought
| after machine by every DUI defense lawyer ever.
| crispyambulance wrote:
| > That seems a wee bit excessive to me.
|
| It was a very different, more flamboyant and volatile, era.
|
| Recently watched "Gimme Shelter" a documentary about the free
| concert at Altamont in 1970 that ended with someone in the
| Hells Angels (which had been hired for security!) stabbing a
| concert-goer to death. This film, according to some,
| documents "the end of the 60's" and marked the beginning of a
| much meaner era. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidchiu/2019
| /12/03/altamont-a...).
|
| "Gimme Shelter" (the film) captures the band personalities in
| a really preceptive way. Watts is pensive and brooding,
| Jagger is mercurial and far-removed from Earthy reality.
| grawprog wrote:
| Not the song that was actually playing during the stabbing,
| as the urban legend goes, but, I still think the Altamont
| show has one of the best versions of Sympathy for the
| Devil. So raw sounding and you can hear the crowd starting
| to get riled up and stuff.
| MichaelMoser123 wrote:
| It's Rock & Roll, they had to take it rough, sometimes.
| earleybird wrote:
| +1 for the Tina Turner reference
| meepmorp wrote:
| Obviously you've never encountered Lead Singer's Disease; a
| punch in the face is the only way.
| fridif wrote:
| This is why you aren't on a team of high performing
| individuals
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| It's important to set boundaries and expectations in a long
| term business relationship, with the approach tailored to
| like minded practitioners.
| pjmorris wrote:
| I'm pretty sure that this is my favorite Rolling Stones story,
| ever. In 'Life', Keith Richards talked about it really being
| Charlie's band, he was just in it.
| oger wrote:
| Charlie Watts was not only a great rock musician but (unbeknownst
| to many) a gifted jazz player and a gentleman. Rest in peace.
| riffic wrote:
| You know that xkcd post about people who've walked on the moon?
|
| same thing applies for 60s cultural icons. so it goes.
| milesskorpen wrote:
| Reference:
| https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/893:_65_Years
| drivers99 wrote:
| Of interest is the updated graph (red line shows actual,
| which is sadly right on track): https://imgur.com/G7DbbBi
| wyldfire wrote:
| > The universe is probably littered with the one-planet
| graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision
| that there's no good reason to go into space--each
| discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the
| irrational decision.
| toyg wrote:
| I understand and agree, although some are somewhat preposterous
| and only ever made sense in context. I finally watched Easy
| Rider recently, and sure, the freedom, riding with no
| protection, sleeping wherever - but it's such a mediocre,
| badly-woven film. Same for quite a few Stones songs and a lot
| of other '60s/70s stuff - except Jimi Hendrix, that man was an
| alien.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Could it be that they just had a different agenda for their
| art than you do, and that the context and agendas changed
| over time? I find it more interesting to try to understand
| their time, to try to learn what their view of art was, what
| the norms were, what the context, was, and why - rather than
| try to judge their work by my standards, as if the changes of
| time have made my way superior.
| toyg wrote:
| Context allows us to forgive some sins (which is what I was
| alluding to, in the first half of my comment on Easy
| Rider), not all of them.
|
| It is an objective fact that the centralization and
| scarcity of mass-media broadcasting, back then, effectively
| acted as a funnel towards certain works, amplifying their
| influence well beyond their merit.
| LunaSea wrote:
| Popular has never implied quality. Even more so now that
| the choice is practically infinite.
|
| No doubt in my mind that the Stones or the Beatles would
| be big in the 21st century if they were upcoming bands
| nowadays.
| icare_1er wrote:
| Saw him at Pizza Express in London, playing with his boogie-
| woogie mates... will miss that chap. I fear the rest of the
| Stones will soon follow. RIP Charlie.
| krylon wrote:
| I am not big Stones fan (I have nothing against them, either,
| they are a legend!), but I always liked his style.
|
| Rest In Peace.
| gdubs wrote:
| I learned to drum listening to Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones
| albums my dad set up for me in the garage. Watts is one of those
| great drummers who a lot of people miss because on the surface he
| seems simple. But, he's hands down one of the greatest rock and
| roll drummers, up there with Ringo, Bonham.
| marban wrote:
| The biggest prize I ever won were _on-stage_ tickets for the RS
| some twenty years ago and it turned out to be my greatest concert
| experience ever since. RIP.
|
| https://imgur.com/a/kt1VB7n
| goatherders wrote:
| This one hurts. One of my favorite parts of his style was he
| often didn't hit the high hat on 4 of a 4/4 beat. It's hard to
| hear it but I always thought that was an interesting choice.
| Whether he did it because that's how he learned to play or to
| deliberately leave some room for other sounds on the downbeat, it
| was interesting to me.
| mgarciaisaia wrote:
| Here's an interview in which he says he didn't ever noticed it
| - and some other guy (whom I'm too ignorant to identify) -
| explains how Charlie came up with that.
|
| https://youtu.be/CrAQQZi1Jf4
| [deleted]
| mgkimsal wrote:
| I first noticed that watching... the ... 81 tour film (album
| was 'Still Life' IIRC), I think, when I was first really
| digging in (well, it was ... probably 1990 when I was watching
| it, but that was still relatively 'recent').
|
| I've watched for it in most videos and live perf since then and
| yep, didn't seem to change much. Unsure if it was a jazz-
| flavored thing or what, but distinctive.
| agumonkey wrote:
| sometimes those simple removals make all the salt
| beermonster wrote:
| RIP. I shall play some Stones tonight!
| wombatmobile wrote:
| "I don't need to hear Bill to go through a song. I need to hear
| Keith to go through a song. I know Bill will be playing what I'm
| playing anyway. I need to hear Keith because it's all there: the
| time, the chord changes, and all the licks you have to follow."
|
| -- Charlie Watts
| mgkimsal wrote:
| It's hard to talk too much about Charlie specifically, as in...
| he was a generally private person, and didn't do half the
| interviews the others did, but I remember a moderately 'techie'
| Stones connection from way back...
|
| The Stones were a pretty early adopter of some tech, and were
| 'streaming' back in 1994.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mbone
|
| 'A November 1994 Rolling Stones concert at the Cotton Bowl in
| Dallas with 50,000 fans was the "first major cyberspace multicast
| concert."'
| l-_l-_l-_lo_ol wrote:
| There's going to be a lot of people who rose to fame in the 60's
| fame-boom who are going to drop like flies soon.
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(page generated 2021-08-24 23:01 UTC)