1) After Farewell UK Tour, Stones sign w/Ahmet Ertegun's Atlantic Records. Their upcoming release, "Stick Fingers" will earn them more than for that single record that all of their past records combined.

2) The follow up to SF was gonna have to be really really good, almost in the same vein as Beggar's Banquet was to Satanic Majesties.

3) Keith's heroin use increased to the point that he was no more than an ambulatory corpse. Nellcote was convenient for the musicians and their families to live in and make the new album in the wine cellars. Nellcote was also convenient for the international sycophantic/drugs bearing/groupie offering yobs, who would have have a lot more trouble entering the United States, if the band was recording the new record there.

4) Ahmet became concerned over the stories filtering out of Villenfranche-sur-mer about the drugs use and general lack of interest in focusing on laying down the basic tracks for the album. The plan was to lay down the basic tracks in France (where the band chose as their domicile in order to avoid paying English supertax for the year of 1971, and, I believe, 1972).

5) Mick was absorbed by and preoccupied with the birth of his daughter, who was born on 21/10/71. With Mick away, and Keith and Gram Parsons getting high day and night, there was no leader to push the band along. Add to this that not only Keith, but Mick T. were regularly taking (snorting/injecting) heroin/cocaine/methedrine. The situation was a mess.

6) LOTS AND LOTS AND LOTS of money was riding on the upcoming album and tour. So, in November, everybody migrated to Los Angeles and set up camp at Sunset Studios. Mick J. and Keith spend the next few months mixing and overdubbing the tracks they managed to put down in Villfranche-sur-mer.

7) The upcoming 1972 Tour was critical for the band. They had to give 100% on their worst night and 200% on a good night! Amazingly, despite two months and a killing tour schedule, nobody who saw the STP tour walked away moaning about what a rotten show it was.

8) After the STP tour and the release of "Exile", the Stones were at the very tippy top of the game again.

9) Finally, Mick DID taken over the major decisions for the band until Keith came out of his heroin haze.

To sum up, Esky's post about '71 not being up to snuff was really an obvious reference to Mick's dawning realization that he was going to be running the band until further notice.... that being when Keith got offa the junk.

QRA MGY

I love that sort of obsessive thread (it's a compliment) -

No Quarter - numbered items, 1), 2), - surgeon style

This is really a diehard fans website.

We are absolutely nut, but I like it.

Slightly off-topic but:

Between 1970 and 1972 LED ZEPPELIN did

4 North American tours
3 European tours
3 UK tours
2 Japan tours
1 Australian/New Zeland tour

I wish the STONES would have been on the road more often in those days.

Re LZ - Peter Grant had them consolodating the popularity/superstar status gained w/ LZ II. After the '73 tour (sucked at the show I saw, in terms of self-indulgence: endless Moby Dick, half-hour versions of Dazed & Confused/Heartbreaker w/ unaccompanied gtr solos, muddy sound, etc). The power & mystery of LZ was more on the recordings for me. I much prefer Ya-Ya's, Sticky F, Exile, & Goats Head to LZ's III, IV, & Houses of the Holy. Physical Graffiti may have imo an edge over IORR, 1 of the Stones' weakest. After early 1975's Zep tour that band appeared in the US for only 1 more tour (1977) before Bonham's death in autumn 1980. The only year the Stones did no touring during this peak Zep period was 1974*. (Zep also didn't tour in '74)

* meaning roughly 1970 - 76, when Zep's pact w/ Satan started seriously impacting their level of activity.

Pretending that all that drugs and booze was cool at
the time was b.s., a big mistake. Keith is just
@#$%& lucky, maybe MT too, tho he had
to bail out.

BTW yer right! this is obsessive, but we like it!

What a wonder that the tour did not fail!

What pressure? Everyone was high 24/7 except for Mick who was still into Bianca (which can be a different type of high for a while)... With the Beatles breaking up in 1970 being #1 was for The Stones to loose...Smooth sailing IMO....

john r Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Re LZ - Peter Grant had them consolodating the
> popularity/superstar status gained w/ LZ II. After
> the '73 tour (sucked at the show I saw, in terms
> of self-indulgence: endless Moby Dick, half-hour
> versions of Dazed & Confused/Heartbreaker w/
> unaccompanied gtr solos, muddy sound, etc). The
> power & mystery of LZ was more on the recordings
> for me. I much prefer Ya-Ya's, Sticky F, Exile, &
> Goats Head to LZ's III, IV, & Houses of the Holy.
> Physical Graffiti may have imo an edge over IORR,
> 1 of the Stones' weakest. After early 1975's Zep
> tour that band appeared in the US for only 1 more
> tour (1977) before Bonham's death in autumn 1980.
> The only year the Stones did no touring during
> this peak Zep period was 1974*. (Zep also didn't
> tour in '74)

I also have to say that I didn't care much for the LZ gig that I saw... it was around 71-72. Of course I wasn't a big fan of LZ to begin with, but the show just seemed to be a "ramble"...

On the other hand, the 2 Stones gigs I saw on the Sticky Fingers/Exile tour with Stevie Wonder as opener were BRILLIANT from start to finish. They opened with Brown Sugar and kicked ass from there, you'd never heard anything like it before or since...

Led Zep was quite the rage............I STILL do not know the reason why......

don't give me that ole one two, one two three four

bigfrankie Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Led Zep was quite the rage............I STILL do
> not know the reason why......

Frnakie.... if you go back and comb through each individual album you will find so many brilliant songs... LZ has over 25 monster songs... but the closest thing they have to a "perfect" album is LZ III in my opinion... that's why I'm more into them now than I was then. The albums aren't nearly as listener-friendly as, say, the stones stuff.

Tombstone, bf is quoting the live lyrics to "@#$%&," which mention Jimmy Page.

As far as LZ's heavy touring schedule at that time, didn't the stones do that from 1963-66, at the equivalent stage of their existence? They are several generations up the tree from the goofballs in LZ.

why didnt they tour with sticky Fingers in the U.S.? I guess they had to give the record company another album. I wasnt around back then but that must have been something. If you were in the US you would have seen a show with new songs from two new albums. and from sticky fingers and exile no less. They were so prolific back then.

cc, please don't use phrases like "up the tree" when referring to the Stones - kind of makes me a bit nervous . . . . .

DaveG... lol!

ryan, I guess they were prolific then as compared today, with 5-7 years! between albums, but for both SF and Exile and they actually had to go back into the vaults for enough songs to complete the albums. "Sister Morphine" was quite old and I believe had already been done by marianne, "Brown Sugar" was 2 years old, and "Loving Cup" and maybe a couple of others date from the same time.

I think their only really prolific periods were end of '65 through '66 (Aftermath and Between the Buttons, and all the Pathe Marconi stuff from the Some Girls era.

I've been meaning to start a thread looking at the relatively few albums that were actually done in one piece, but haven't had the chance.

cc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DaveG... lol!
>
> ryan, I guess they were prolific then as compared
> today, with 5-7 years! between albums, but for
> both SF and Exile and they actually had to go back
> into the vaults for enough songs to complete the
> albums. "Sister Morphine" was quite old and I
> believe had already been done by marianne, "Brown
> Sugar" was 2 years old, and "Loving Cup" and maybe
> a couple of others date from the same time.
>
> I think their only really prolific periods were
> end of '65 through '66 (Aftermath and Between the
> Buttons, and all the Pathe Marconi stuff from the
> Some Girls era.
>
> I've been meaning to start a thread looking at the
> relatively few albums that were actually done in
> one piece, but haven't had the chance.


thats true. but its still impressive that Brown sugar, wild horses and you gotta move were recorded while they were on the road.

Tornandfrayed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Slightly off-topic but:
>
> Between 1970 and 1972 LED ZEPPELIN did
>
> 4 North American tours
> 3 European tours
> 3 UK tours
> 2 Japan tours
> 1 Australian/New Zeland tour
>
> I wish the STONES would have been on the road more
> often in those days.


I agree...to a point, if that amount of touring means all the studio outtakes, and recording almost every phase of song development then I disagree....those outtakes are some of the hidden gems.

the shoot 'em dead, brainbell jangler!

Why am I reading something I wrote in 2004? Led Zep (Grant's influence, no doubt) virtually created the long wait between albums for major bands. I won't dismiss Zep but during nthe 60s the RS issued 11 US studio albums (& numerous non lp singles etc), 6 in the 70s (ditto plus classic films & live set), 5 in the 80s. Only 2 full ones during the 90s but that added up to 35 new studio songs if one counts single-only new songs but not Stripped or remixes, and now 19 more in 2005 (23 since 2002). Zep sure went back a ways to pad Grafitti, outtakes from the 3 previous albums plus the usual stealing of credits on "In My Time" & "Boogie w/ Stu" and Shake 'em on down "Custard Pie" which is musically revamped enough to almost deserve a Page Plant credit. And Zep has fewer (7, 8, or 9 except on III which has 10) songs per disc also. They were huge, yes. But their music is much more accessable to kids than the Stones' and got more radio play (except the singles) on "hip" FM - lyrics more testosterone fueled, sappy, dippy, etc. There's a bustle in the hedgerow its just the may queen blah blah...How's a 15 year old gonna relate to "Moonlight Mile" or "Sway" or "Coming Down Again" or 'get' Exile fully, or "Saint Of Me" or "Dangerous Beauty"? Yes I dug 'em, but the RS revealed themselves more over time than Zep's work, which is more about sound for me than songs (Presence is an exception).And I have all the records, because Page was an amazing producer and each disc has some interesting-to-great moments
8, (prolific?!) yes that's Eight Zep studio albums. And I dont count Coda because I didnt count Metamorphosis.

John, I wrote. It was posted by The Menace of Mayfair! (and a very good post, if I do say so myself!)

Re Exile, remember it was not received at first with the enthusiasm of Sticky - reviews were lukewarm, Stones sounding lethargic, murky, muddy, wasted, maybe too old to rock, and cluttered with bleating horns, indecipherable lyrix, the 1st single (Dice) lacked the immediacy of Brown Heroin or Life on the Plantation or whatever it was called. Only after Lester Bangs wrote a long rebuttal of his own initial pan ('73) did its rep build. The tour was a cultural phenom, no doubt, I recall reading Greenfield's dispatches in R Stone, and Exile sunk in real deep at some point too.