On nights when there’s a World Series game scheduled, there usually aren’t a lot of alternatives. Here’s one, from a cable and satellite network most people seldom watch – but which may be worth finding, and watching, tonight.
Totally Stripped is a music special, a film compiling performances from both concert events and studio sessions, in which The Rolling Stones perform many of their classic songs in stripped-down, acoustic versions. Basically, it’s
The Rolling Stones – Unplugged, though not emanating from MTV, using that name, or employing a single-setting format. Its footage was filmed and compiled, originally, for a planned music documentary called
Stripped, planned to coincide with a Rolling Stones album of the same name, released in 1995. The album was made, but not the documentary – until this, a new movie paired with a 2016 expanded version of the original album, now called, like the documentary,
Totally Stripped. I’m very eager to watch and hear this. I’m betting in advance, though, that Mick Jagger and the Stones won’t be providing a tame, stripped-down, acoustic version of “Start Me Up.” That’s already been done, brilliantly, by The Folksmen, the acoustic alter egos of Michael McKean, Harry Shearer, and Christopher Guest, whose other musical persona is, of course, Spinal Tap. In the Rolling Stones original, you can’t easily decipher the lyrics to “Start Me Up,” because of the boisterous arrangement and the way Jagger sings.
But in the Folksmen version, as heard here, every word is crystal clear. Not that that’s necessarily a plus…