According to Courtney Love (not the best source,but still). She was recently in the studio when Don was mixing Exile outtakes. Fast forward to around 1:55





Here is her twitter post about it

[twitter.com]



.

Please say it's not true. This guy is even capable of fu*king that masterpiece up.
Worst move the Glimmers ever made was taking this fool on. Let Jack White do it.

I agree with you in the regard that Exile should be left "as is". I see no point in messing with it. But the fact that he is doing things with the outtakes in a studio could prove to be interesting.

@#$%& great, now it will sound even worse. Oy Vey!

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boogie69
@#$%& great, now it will sound even worse. Oy Vey!

You think Exile On Main Street sounds bad?

Don was mixing Exile outtakes.



ROCKMAN

What he's been sacked? That's Was not was.......

NickB

You can't always get what you want.....

www.myspace.com/thesonkings

I found this article -from 2007 and not especialy about the Exile outtakes-

[www.gibson.com]

Mick and Keith: Longtime Producer Don Was Dishes On The Rolling Stones’ High-Voltage Chemistry

What have you learned from watching the Stones work together?

There’s something in particular that struck me while we were making their last album, A Bigger Bang. We did most of the recording in France, and at the time I was following the NBA, on the Internet. I had also recently read Phil Jackson’s book, Secret Hoops. What started to dawn on me is how a five-piece rock and roll band is in many ways identical to a basketball team. That’s true of the Stones, especially, where you’ve got a center, and two forwards playing guitar, and guards on bass and drums. The Stones are like the Detroit Pistons, who are such a superb team. It’s a joy to watch the Pistons play, because of the interplay that goes on between them. It’s as if you reach a near-utopian condition, or a rare moment when men cooperate because they know it’s in their best interest as a group, and as individuals, to work together. The Pistons are always passing the ball, and they’re extremely generous with one another. The same thing is true of the Stones, when they’re at their best.

So the idea that the chemistry between Jagger and Richards has to do with the tension between them is really a fallacy?

Well, there’s something else I discovered about the Stones. I’ve worked for them for many years now, and what I realized—especially on the last record, because they were really cooperating as a band—is that although people think of them as this sloppy, drunken rock and roll thing, it's not sloppy. What happens is this: Keith Richards is a rhythm guitar player whose rhythm guitar parts are often the melody of the song, just by virtue of the way the Stones write their songs. The rhythm riff for “Start Me Up,” for instance, is also the melody of the song. And that’s true even in instances where Mick might have written the riff—on “Miss You,” for example.

Can you elaborate on how that’s different from the approach most rhythm guitarists take?

If the rhythm guitar player is also playing melody, that’s a pretty unique situation. Normally the rhythm guitar player plays in the holes, where the singer isn’t singing. In the Stones’ case, however, the rhythm guitar player is doing what the lead guitar player normally does, and he’s playing the melody that the singer is singing, simultaneously. However, there’s a little disparity in where they feel the phrasing. Mick is more or less a rhythmically straight up-and-down singer. He’s in the grid, whereas Keith has a more languid approach. That’s how Keith sings, as well. The place where they clash—where it gets a little messy, and they don’t land on the melody at the same time—is what the Rolling Stones’ sound is all about. It’s not messy. Basically it’s a duet—a duet of the melody, by Keith and Mick. And if you don’t have that, you don’t have a Rolling Stones record.

Is some of that also a function of the fact that many of the songs are written in open tunings?

Well, that’s given them distinctive-sounding riffs, but I think it’s really a function of having riffs that are highly musical, that make you want to sing them.

What keeps the Stones hungry to keep making music at this point in their career?

They’re just like every other musician, on every level. They love to play more than anything else in the world. They riff off each other. It’s like a jazz group, really. There’s not enough time to achieve that sort of thing twice, in your lifetime. That’s why they keep going on. I know for a fact that they’re not sitting there thinking, “Let’s go out on tour and make another two hundred million dollars.” They get approached by people who say, “We think you can sell tickets again. Are you willing to go out and play?” They’re actually timid about it. They’re like, “Are you sure people are going to come out? Are you sure they still want to hear this?”

Throughout your production career, you’ve tended to work with people who have really strong personalities. What do such people have in common?

You know, Chris Blackwell from Island Records has a theory that in the case of real stars, you should be able to draw caricatures of them—like the Al Hirschfeld New York Times caricatures. His theory was that you should be able to make cartoon characters out of people like that—people like Bob Marley, for example. And that’s true. If you can’t do that, then you probably don’t have someone who’s a star. And there’s another quality about people like that, too—something Jagger has. It has to do with how far in front of the speakers the voice appears to go. Jagger’s voice jumps out about 20 feet in front of the speakers. You just bring the fader up, with his vocal, and you don’t have to do anything else to it. It’s some kind of gift. Mick and I have talked about this a lot. He’s aware of it, and he has no idea what it is. You can factor in something like frequency response to the voice, but it’s also some kind of crazy vocal charisma. It’s something no vocal teacher can teach.







I am a Frenchie ,as Mick affectionately called them in the Old Grey Whistle Test in 1977 .

Mixing OUTAKES!! Not the original album.....

Whoohoo! So an new Hole album is on the way!

the cool news here is not the he is mixing, but that he's mixing OUTTAKES looking forward, anyone got a contact to him (facebook?) to find out more?

I'm very excited that we might get to hear Exile outtakes, but I'm also worried that they will be mastered to oblivion like the rest of the current re-issues.

Regarding Don Was, I've always liked his work with the Stones and besides, he is only mixing the outtakes, it's not as if he is doing any production, that was all done by Jimmy Miller back in the day.

If this will be released than it's great news. So let's hope for the best, and a lot of outtakes!

Oh no,I really don't like how he mixed voodoo lounge!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-06-18 13:05 by Rik.

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slasausjes
Please say it's not true. This guy is even capable of fu*king that masterpiece up.
Worst move the Glimmers ever made was taking this fool on. Let Jack White do it.

Don Was is a busted flush - he must be cheap to hire.

"Oh no, he just raped voodoo lounge!"

Eh? Strange term?

I'm amazed - now people also moan beforehand - before they've even heard the mixes of the outtakes *lol* Why not just be a little bit exited right now in anticipation of actually hearing something from the vaults - and then - if they are awful when you hear them - moan, moan, moan by all means

Exactly!

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mofur
I'm amazed - now people also moan beforehand - before they've even heard the mixes of the outtakes *lol* Why not just be a little bit exited right now in anticipation of actually hearing something from the vaults - and then - if they are awful when you hear them - moan, moan, moan by all means

Agreed. I will not moan untill I hear the results (i think)

X



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-19 20:11 by UrbanSteel.

And anyway, I thought Voodoo Lounge sounded excellent!

X



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-08-19 20:10 by UrbanSteel.

Why the consternation? It's the f**king OUTTAKES he's mixing (if this story is correct). They're not supposed to sound like the released versions, after all.

bummer for us fans .myself i would rather have jimmy miller or glyn johns do the job if they are still around .

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The Greek
bummer for us fans .myself i would rather have jimmy miller or glyn johns do the job if they are still around .

Jimmy Miller died in 1994. I haven't heard of any recent activity by Glyn Johns. But Andy Johns would be cool. Don't know how much production work he's doing these days, but he's been generous with interviews and stuff. Another guy who could be great is Ethan Johns -- younger relative to Andy and Glyn. His work with Ryan Adams was awesome and would fit the Exile sound perfectly, IMHO.

But Don Was will probably do a decent job. I suppose it's more about getting the outtakes in shape and releasing them, rather than creating a sound. Hopefully the recorded sound they have from the beginning sounds very much "Exile".

And if they release a remix of Exile ... yeah, I agree it's kind of messing with the holy grail, but it's not like every previous copy of the album is going to vaporise the moment it's released. We still have plenty of old -- great sounding -- LPs and CDs of that album.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-06-18 15:28 by LieB.

Quoting Courtney Love from Twitter:

"i cant say more i may get killed. but howoften do you find yourself truly HONOURED, "Exile" is the most important relationship most musiicans have with a record, to hear that "lovin Cup" t"

(http://twitter.com/courtneylover79/status/1978904552)

I was waiting for someone suggesting Jimmy Miller. Might be somewhat difficult though.

Why is it a bummer? How important can the choice of mixing engineer be to a bunch of ditched recordings that are almost 40 years old? How difficult is it to mix a record?

Glyn Johns was 30 when Exile came out. He's now 67. Who's to assume he's still as capable as an active producer & mixer who's significantly younger?

Having the original personnel available to mix recordings from when they were first recorded decades earlier is not only unlikely, but somewhat meaningless. Doubt it happens on too many archive releases by anyone else.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009-06-18 15:38 by Gazza.

No self-respecting record company would permit the outtakes to be released in their current state. Bootleg quality is one thing and experience has taught me to set my aspirations low when listening to them. But I would expect decent mixes of any commercially-released product. I'm going to look forward to hearing the final package!

Pleasesay this is NOT true. he ruined every album he woprked on with the Stones

I can't believe you are all moaning that he is remixing those OUTTAKES. He's not producing a new album or rearranging Exile after all...I mean, shouldn't we all really focus on the good part here? We'll get good sounding Exile outtakes!