“Rolling Stoned” is a calm instrumental track that originated as a Mild High Club song before making it onto Sketches of Brunswick East. Alex Brettin received sole writing credit on the song, making it the first recorded cover by King Gizzard since their obscure “Lean Woman Blues” recording from 2013.
The song originally appeared as a demo on Mild High Club’s self-titled cassette. This version features a stilted drum beat but runs the same length. On the 2015 album Timeline, a cut down version of the song appears at the end of “The Chat.”
Before King Gizzard ever recorded the song, we know that Stu had played “Rolling Stoned.” During a Mild High Club gig at the Subterranean in Chicago on September 6th, 2015, Stu joined to play flute and guitar on the song. He played it with Mild High Club again on March 3rd, 2016 in Paris, this time alongside Cavs. A clip of this performance appears in BOOTLEG HOLIDAY FROM HELL, where it is listed as “The Chat.”
For Sketches of Brunswick East, the song was performed by Ambrose (harmonica), Andrew Burt (guitar), Cavs (drum kit 1/drum kit 2/maracas/bongo), Cook (bass), Joey (Omnichord/piano), Lucas (piano) and Stu (“wah wah guitar”/flute/synthesizers/piano). It’s the only song on Sketches of Brunswick East to feature Andrew Bert of Mild High Club and is also the only track to not have any recording contributions by Alex Brettin. King Gizzard’s version of the song would be released on August 18th, 2017.
On January 19th, 2018, a 7” single of “Rolling Stoned” was released on Stones Throw Records. It contains both King Gizzard’s version as well as Mild High Club’s, though at a faster speed than the version on their self-titled cassette and Timeline.
The first known performance of the song was on 2017-09-24 at Lincoln Hall in Chicago. The song followed the “Countdown” at the end of the show and was played with members of Mild High Club, who were opening at the time. The following night, the song appeared in the same spot also featuring Mild High Club. The song’s final appearance was on the next night at the Cannery Ballroom in Nashville. No other performances of the song are known to exist.