Heart of Stone
February 5th, 2012
As recent F-Book activity indicates, a new project with Al Harlow involved, “Heart of Stone”, a Rolling Stones theatrical production, filmed a debut video at Pan Am Lake City studios on Feb 2. An invitation-only studio audience witnessed the otherwise-secret filming, so word is leaking out. We asked Harlow to comment on the project:
“It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. There are many Stones “tribute” bands out there, a few of them good. But we’ve never seen the full presentation that the best Abba and Beatle shows bring, multi-media screens and so forth, applied to a Stones production. Rather, the tendency often seems toward a bar-band, low-budget approach; Stones music deserves better. Shooting this video was a fitting debut: Pan Am is the movie-prop centre, a Disneyland of Hollywood sets, from airplanes to full-scale godzillas. Pan Am lent an artsy atmosphere to our event on the sound stage.
As a life-long Stones fan, I’ve been playing 5-string open slide guitar tunings & harmonica since I was a kid, so how about a cool excuse to play Stones music? But the real key to all this is a band that can really play, underneath the feel of the music; Charlie and Keith both rock and swing in a way nobody can touch. There’s a groove that many miss & dismiss. But now I found the right guys.
Two years ago we started Monday-night sessions, just for the love of playing this stuff, and it continued for two whole years, just our weekly jam, Mondays with the boys. Then we recorded nine songs in the studio, and upon hearing the playback, realized we must stage this thing. The groove is there.
I generally don’t care for tribute bands, or copy bands. But Heart of Stone is a stage production, a show that deserves to be presented. Singer-actor Steve Stone, aka “Mick Believe”, Elio “Keef” Martelli, Garry “Wyman” Koenig, and Slam as Charlie, or when Slam is away, John “Charlie” Cody are the only guys I know who really understand this music. Now that we’re together, we gotta run with it. And I get to slide on the strings!”
Okay Al, bring it on!
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