Tell Me :
Talk
I stopped reading here, only a few tracks were recorded in Nellcote.
Elton John talks about the conditions at the Jamacian studio that the Stones used for GHS. Elton went there right after the Stones left, to record Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but found the conditions unfit for recording. Apparently there were militia men walking around the "Cyclone fenced" grounds with automatic weapons, possibly due to the Stones problems there? Also, he said the studio itself was a mess. Cabling strewn everywhere, no mics to be found, equipment in bad shape, etc . . .
I'm not bashing the album, just all the BS stories around it.
SG was a great album, but Exile was Exile.....
There's way too little Keith on SG for me to consider it a great Stones album.
However - BTMMR and BOB are up there with anything they've done...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 04:56 by theanchorman.
Olympic Studios is not a mobile studio.
Where did you read that?
BTW, I am not questioning your integrity. I just want to read more about it.
Greetings from the Jersey Shore.
I couldn't agree more.
For a professional writer and for someone who 'was there' during the recording and mixing to print inaccuracies about the number of songs on "Exile" ('Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks...') is sloppy journalism. After TD and Happy, there are but 16 songs left.
I know, I know, nit-picking on my part...
But the REAL corker is this line: "Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing and outlandish mischievousness."
That statement is more than a bit of a stretch. Has this guy listened to the record?
Slim Harpo's "Hip Shake" has nothing to do with any of the above.
Nor does "Just Wanna See His Face" or "Shine A Light".
"Sweet Black Angel"? The lyrics describe a black woman and imprisonment. Injustice, yes. But why is this subject matter necessarily dangerous, aggressive or outlandish?
Maybe the song IS about Angela Davis (although I have yet to see a quote from any Stone to that effect) but she was hardly a "broken spirit".
Nellcote (like any other life experience) was a TIME and a PLACE for those who were there. For others, it serves as a mythological idea upon which to hang press releases. The Stones did not go there to record an album called "Exile On Main St" although it did yield a number of songs which ended up on an album so named. (And I HAVE seen quotes from Stones who said it was amazing that ANYTHING got recorded there).
Like so many Stones albums, Exile was a collection of songs old and new, some going back almost 3 years. As has been mentioned above, not that many of Exile's songs were recorded in France. "Loving Cup" was performed at 1969's Hyde Park concert. "All Down The Line" had its beginnings in LA in 1969. Mick first recorded "Shine A Light" with Leon Russell's band. "Tumbling Dice" could be called an out-take from "Sticky Fingers". And so on...
Don't get me wrong. I love these guys. I love "Exile". It's one of the greatest Stones albums.
But enough with the myth of Nellcote and how such great art came out of such hedonism and turmoil!
Or as my poor sick grandmother used to say:
"Enough is too much already..."
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 22:32 by thkbeercan.
I agree to a certain extent. If you read Greenfield's introduction to Tarle's Exile book - he was only at Nellcote for a week at the most and it was before the stones began recording. I can't help but think what a missed opportunity his Season in Hell book is. It could have been so great. It should have been twice as long as it turned out (or even longer) - fleshed out with discussion of the music. His child like prose could have been curtailed as well. There was no reason for that book to turn out like it did. He should be ashamed of himself.
Turn on the Run would have been a more appropriate title for his book as it came off like a rushed piece of crap...
On the other hand, even though the origin of some songs predate the Nellcote recordings - its been documented that these songs were then re-recorded, rehearsed and overdubbed while at Nellcote. (things like SYH, LC, SBA etc)
The 1969 outtake version probably does, but perhaps the Exile version came a little bit later.
I liked the article. It was good to read something positive on the board after sifting through the five page blood bath aka "Keith Parasite," "Mick best frontman", "Keith & Mick BBF" - or whatever the title has now morphed to...but I digress.
I just wanted to point out the article was written by James Campion who quotes some of Greenfield's comments. And I agree - Greenfield's STP was fantastic, but A Season in Hell - was, well, let's just say it lives up to it's title in terms of bad writing! 
He was much too young to remember...
I wish Anita would write a book.
Tony Sanchez' account of Nellcote is the best we'll probably get.
Talk about your favorite band.
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Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
stonesdan60
()
Date: May 17, 2012 12:17
From:
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
Exile On Main St. Turns 40
I gave you diamonds, you give me disease.
On May 12, nineteen hundred and seventy-two, the greatest rock and roll album by the greatest rock and roll band, smack dab in the middle of the genre's golden age, hit the streets. Recorded in a fog of mystic fumes, bad vibes, drug hysteria, bohemian hedonism, and sweltering temperatures in the dank and foreboding basement of a 19th century French villa called Nellcote, Exile On Main St. emerged raunchy, raucous and anguished. Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing, and outlandish mischievousness. It perfectly captures a period of decadence and revelry unlike anything of its time. It is the sonic version of The Great Gatsby or The Grapes Of Wrath; Mick Jagger as Jay Gatsby and Keith Richards as Tom Joad, setting to music the final toll of '60s fallout and the harkening of a baby boomer dirge.
The previous summer the Rolling Stones left England en masse as tax exiles to settle in Villefranche-sur-Mer with seemingly no plan, no songs, and no semblance of boundaries, even for them. Richards, the band's unquestioned musical leader, was a full-blown heroin addict whose outlaw antics was fast becoming the stuff of legend. Jagger, beginning a second career as jet-setting celebrity, had just married Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Perez Morena de Macias beneath a spectacular crush of media. The band was a mere two years removed from burying its founder, Brian Jones, who had died mysteriously in the pool at his home, and even less than that from Altamont, the disastrous free concert in San Fransisco which ended in mayhem and murder.
Honey, got no money, I'm all sixes and sevens and nines.
So, the most powerful rock band left standing (the Beatles were gone, Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison had died within the year) packed up to live in a cavernous mansion once inhabited by the Gestapo in World War II with a lunatic junky, his crazed witch of a de facto wife, Anita Pallenberg (many claimed she could actually cast spells) and an astonishing lineup of freaks, weirdos, bandits, bikers, and pop royalty to create a timeless classic.
These sordid weeks of car-wreck creation are recalled darkly and amusingly by author/journalist, Robert Greenfield in his revelatory Exile On Main St. -- A Season In Hell With The Rolling Stones.
"The Stones were so far in front of the culture when Exile came out most people just didn't get it because it was such a disjunctive leap," Greenfield told me five years ago, upon the record's thirty-fifth anniversary. "The reason it's so brilliant is that they're not just in physical exile, they're in psychic exile, and what the album is saying to people who weren't there yet is 'you're all about to be dispossessed, the culture is about to throw you out, really grim times are coming,' and because they got there early they already know the outlaw counterculture is finished, rock and roll as a statement of social protest is at an end, and they're recording the transition."
Kick me like you've kicked before, I can't even feel the pain no more.
Therein lies what separates Exile on Main St. from just any other classic rock album; it quite literally puts on tape the soul of a band, and in this case, the band. Emotions are not just hinted at or broached with expression, but gushed about, thrown around, poured out furiously through amps and bass drum kicks and cockneyed wails, ripping leads, blasting horns, groaning harps, and beer-soaked honky tonk piano. Where fear and paranoia is needed, it reverberates from our speakers, when loneliness is expressed, the listener is not cheated. And when the boogie hits the road, there is magic, real magic in the performance. It is a postcard from oblivion, a great rock band in its prime doing what great rock bands do. The sloppiness is there. The passion is there. The black arts, flesh-ripping, throat-clearing fury is all there -- pure, raw, gutsy, balls-out grunge.
"I think it's safe to say nobody will ever make another album the way the Stones made Exile", Greenfield explains. "To jam for hours, night after night, without songs or ideas. 'Let me get a riff going,' Keith would say. They were truly artists going out there on their art without limits."
Soul survivor, you're gonna be the death of me.
Originally released as a double-album (yes, kids, albums) with four sides of distinction -- funky gives way to country, then into blues and gospel, and then all-out rocking. Exile on Main St. is everything the Stones did well to imitate, negotiate and discover all in one wonderfully jumbled package. It is one, I have often said, for the time capsule. Why are the Rolling Stones so great? My answer has always been Exile On Main St.
"Having been there when they recorded it, and watching them mix it, I can say that the music in Exile very much comes from the place where it was created," Greenfield adds. "The villa was not just a house, it was some kind of a cauldron, a mixing bowl where lives were turned around. It was as if all these people were trapped together on another planet. As one of the other inhabitants of Nellcote has told me since, 'the '70s began in that place.'"
I'm the man that brings you roses when you ain't got none.
There have been other more hit-laden, influential, and traditional Stones records. Many more. But there was never a better one. Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks has survived the band's decades of concert tours. This is probably why Exile on Main St. has grown in stature over the years; it is not overplayed, gutted for hits, or genuflected to like Sgt. Pepper's or Dark Side Of The Moon. Yet it consistently makes the laughingly sanctimonious glut of annual Top Ten lists and is accepted without much argument among critics and rock historians as the finest of pure rock collections.
His coat is torn and frayed,
It's seen much better days.
Just as long as the guitar plays
Let it steal your heart away.
"The Stones never make another great album after Exile," Greenfield concludes. "They make great songs, but nothing like this. It was the end of an era."
In more ways than one.
[www.huffingtonpost.com]
Exile On Main St. Turns 40
I gave you diamonds, you give me disease.
On May 12, nineteen hundred and seventy-two, the greatest rock and roll album by the greatest rock and roll band, smack dab in the middle of the genre's golden age, hit the streets. Recorded in a fog of mystic fumes, bad vibes, drug hysteria, bohemian hedonism, and sweltering temperatures in the dank and foreboding basement of a 19th century French villa called Nellcote, Exile On Main St. emerged raunchy, raucous and anguished. Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing, and outlandish mischievousness. It perfectly captures a period of decadence and revelry unlike anything of its time. It is the sonic version of The Great Gatsby or The Grapes Of Wrath; Mick Jagger as Jay Gatsby and Keith Richards as Tom Joad, setting to music the final toll of '60s fallout and the harkening of a baby boomer dirge.
The previous summer the Rolling Stones left England en masse as tax exiles to settle in Villefranche-sur-Mer with seemingly no plan, no songs, and no semblance of boundaries, even for them. Richards, the band's unquestioned musical leader, was a full-blown heroin addict whose outlaw antics was fast becoming the stuff of legend. Jagger, beginning a second career as jet-setting celebrity, had just married Nicaraguan beauty Bianca Perez Morena de Macias beneath a spectacular crush of media. The band was a mere two years removed from burying its founder, Brian Jones, who had died mysteriously in the pool at his home, and even less than that from Altamont, the disastrous free concert in San Fransisco which ended in mayhem and murder.
Honey, got no money, I'm all sixes and sevens and nines.
So, the most powerful rock band left standing (the Beatles were gone, Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison had died within the year) packed up to live in a cavernous mansion once inhabited by the Gestapo in World War II with a lunatic junky, his crazed witch of a de facto wife, Anita Pallenberg (many claimed she could actually cast spells) and an astonishing lineup of freaks, weirdos, bandits, bikers, and pop royalty to create a timeless classic.
These sordid weeks of car-wreck creation are recalled darkly and amusingly by author/journalist, Robert Greenfield in his revelatory Exile On Main St. -- A Season In Hell With The Rolling Stones.
"The Stones were so far in front of the culture when Exile came out most people just didn't get it because it was such a disjunctive leap," Greenfield told me five years ago, upon the record's thirty-fifth anniversary. "The reason it's so brilliant is that they're not just in physical exile, they're in psychic exile, and what the album is saying to people who weren't there yet is 'you're all about to be dispossessed, the culture is about to throw you out, really grim times are coming,' and because they got there early they already know the outlaw counterculture is finished, rock and roll as a statement of social protest is at an end, and they're recording the transition."
Kick me like you've kicked before, I can't even feel the pain no more.
Therein lies what separates Exile on Main St. from just any other classic rock album; it quite literally puts on tape the soul of a band, and in this case, the band. Emotions are not just hinted at or broached with expression, but gushed about, thrown around, poured out furiously through amps and bass drum kicks and cockneyed wails, ripping leads, blasting horns, groaning harps, and beer-soaked honky tonk piano. Where fear and paranoia is needed, it reverberates from our speakers, when loneliness is expressed, the listener is not cheated. And when the boogie hits the road, there is magic, real magic in the performance. It is a postcard from oblivion, a great rock band in its prime doing what great rock bands do. The sloppiness is there. The passion is there. The black arts, flesh-ripping, throat-clearing fury is all there -- pure, raw, gutsy, balls-out grunge.
"I think it's safe to say nobody will ever make another album the way the Stones made Exile", Greenfield explains. "To jam for hours, night after night, without songs or ideas. 'Let me get a riff going,' Keith would say. They were truly artists going out there on their art without limits."
Soul survivor, you're gonna be the death of me.
Originally released as a double-album (yes, kids, albums) with four sides of distinction -- funky gives way to country, then into blues and gospel, and then all-out rocking. Exile on Main St. is everything the Stones did well to imitate, negotiate and discover all in one wonderfully jumbled package. It is one, I have often said, for the time capsule. Why are the Rolling Stones so great? My answer has always been Exile On Main St.
"Having been there when they recorded it, and watching them mix it, I can say that the music in Exile very much comes from the place where it was created," Greenfield adds. "The villa was not just a house, it was some kind of a cauldron, a mixing bowl where lives were turned around. It was as if all these people were trapped together on another planet. As one of the other inhabitants of Nellcote has told me since, 'the '70s began in that place.'"
I'm the man that brings you roses when you ain't got none.
There have been other more hit-laden, influential, and traditional Stones records. Many more. But there was never a better one. Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks has survived the band's decades of concert tours. This is probably why Exile on Main St. has grown in stature over the years; it is not overplayed, gutted for hits, or genuflected to like Sgt. Pepper's or Dark Side Of The Moon. Yet it consistently makes the laughingly sanctimonious glut of annual Top Ten lists and is accepted without much argument among critics and rock historians as the finest of pure rock collections.
His coat is torn and frayed,
It's seen much better days.
Just as long as the guitar plays
Let it steal your heart away.
"The Stones never make another great album after Exile," Greenfield concludes. "They make great songs, but nothing like this. It was the end of an era."
In more ways than one.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Chris Fountain
()
Date: May 17, 2012 12:26
Great article and absolute truth. Thanks for the post!
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
DiamondDog7
()
Date: May 17, 2012 12:44
EXILE ON MAIN STREET was a cool and a epic album! No doubt about that. But I'm a little bit tired of the whole Exile (and Some Girls) hype and talk.
I'm more curious about GOATS HEAD SOUP and IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL. Those two albums weren't the Stones' best work. In fact, some say it went downhill from there. But I want to know what happened in Jamaica during the recordings. With Keith, Taylor etc etc.
And what happened in Munich during IORR? Many things happened there, The fight with Taylor, his illness, his writing, the role of Ronnie Wood, Kenny Jones, Willie Weeks.
I mean... of course do we know how it all went, but I want to see MORE photos about those two albums. I want to read more stories. Just like they did with EXILE. That's all. ;-)
I'm more curious about GOATS HEAD SOUP and IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL. Those two albums weren't the Stones' best work. In fact, some say it went downhill from there. But I want to know what happened in Jamaica during the recordings. With Keith, Taylor etc etc.
And what happened in Munich during IORR? Many things happened there, The fight with Taylor, his illness, his writing, the role of Ronnie Wood, Kenny Jones, Willie Weeks.
I mean... of course do we know how it all went, but I want to see MORE photos about those two albums. I want to read more stories. Just like they did with EXILE. That's all. ;-)
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Bliss
()
Date: May 17, 2012 13:42
Good article, but I think Greenfield really exaggerates his presence and importance - "Having been there when they recorded it, and watching them mix it, I can say that the music in Exile very much comes from the place where it was created," Greenfield adds. "The villa was not just a house, it was some kind of a cauldron, a mixing bowl where lives were turned around. It was as if all these people were trapped together on another planet. As one of the other inhabitants of Nellcote has told me since, 'the '70s began in that place.'"
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
His Majesty
()
Date: May 17, 2012 13:55
Load of waffle.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Ket
()
Date: May 17, 2012 14:10
"The Stones never make another great album after Exile," Greenfield concludes. "They make great songs, but nothing like this. It was the end of an era."
Have to disagree, it is mostly true but I think Some Girls qualifies as a great album.
Have to disagree, it is mostly true but I think Some Girls qualifies as a great album.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Koen
()
Date: May 17, 2012 15:31
Quote
stonesdan60
Recorded in a fog of mystic fumes, bad vibes, drug hysteria, bohemian hedonism, and sweltering temperatures in the dank and foreboding basement of a 19th century French villa called Nellcote
I stopped reading here, only a few tracks were recorded in Nellcote.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
mickschix
()
Date: May 17, 2012 16:06
Oh, OK, Koen, so much of it was recorded in the MOBILE STUDIO...splitting hairs..EXILE has always been IT for me, the definitive album of all time...maybe because the very first time I saw the Stones it was July 19, 1972 and they were touring behind EXILE...and the Stones played more than just 2 songs from this album, they also played " Rip This Joint"...I recall they blasted through it! How they physically survived the 70's is the question...a true miracle! So very glad they did, it has been a wonderful ride!
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Fuman2
()
Date: May 17, 2012 17:10
Quote
DiamondDog7
EXILE ON MAIN STREET was a cool and a epic album! No doubt about that. But I'm a little bit tired of the whole Exile (and Some Girls) hype and talk.
I'm more curious about GOATS HEAD SOUP and IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL. Those two albums weren't the Stones' best work. In fact, some say it went downhill from there. But I want to know what happened in Jamaica during the recordings. With Keith, Taylor etc etc.
And what happened in Munich during IORR? Many things happened there, The fight with Taylor, his illness, his writing, the role of Ronnie Wood, Kenny Jones, Willie Weeks.
I mean... of course do we know how it all went, but I want to see MORE photos about those two albums. I want to read more stories. Just like they did with EXILE. That's all. ;-)
Elton John talks about the conditions at the Jamacian studio that the Stones used for GHS. Elton went there right after the Stones left, to record Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but found the conditions unfit for recording. Apparently there were militia men walking around the "Cyclone fenced" grounds with automatic weapons, possibly due to the Stones problems there? Also, he said the studio itself was a mess. Cabling strewn everywhere, no mics to be found, equipment in bad shape, etc . . .
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
treaclefingers
()
Date: May 17, 2012 17:17
Better than a photograph or even video of the time, exile captures the vibe. It is in itself a time capsule of the period, possibly the best, because it transports you there.
just another thought...Sgt. Pepper is similiar in that 'time capsule' analogy, but somehow for me, as great as the songs are, they sounded dated, which Exile never does.
Quite remarkable in that respect.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-17 17:18 by treaclefingers.
just another thought...Sgt. Pepper is similiar in that 'time capsule' analogy, but somehow for me, as great as the songs are, they sounded dated, which Exile never does.
Quite remarkable in that respect.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-17 17:18 by treaclefingers.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Koen
()
Date: May 17, 2012 18:16
Quote
mickschix
Oh, OK, Koen, so much of it was recorded in the MOBILE STUDIO...splitting hairs..EXILE has always been IT for me, the definitive album of all time...maybe because the very first time I saw the Stones it was July 19, 1972 and they were touring behind EXILE...and the Stones played more than just 2 songs from this album, they also played " Rip This Joint"...I recall they blasted through it! How they physically survived the 70's is the question...a true miracle! So very glad they did, it has been a wonderful ride!
I'm not bashing the album, just all the BS stories around it.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
Silver Dagger
()
Date: May 17, 2012 18:33
Great read that captures the sweaty, hazy vibe of the album. Who cares if he exaggerates his presence? We are lucky he was there to record some of the mayhem and shenanigans at the creation of one of rock's defining moments. And as the case with all great rock writing, he's made me want to put the album on right now.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
stupidguy2
()
Date: May 17, 2012 18:38
Quote
Ket
"The Stones never make another great album after Exile," Greenfield concludes. "They make great songs, but nothing like this. It was the end of an era."
Have to disagree, it is mostly true but I think Some Girls qualifies as a great album.
SG was a great album, but Exile was Exile.....
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
duke richardson
()
Date: May 17, 2012 18:41
this article is very self serving, yes Exile is a great album, but lots of bands made records that way..the Allman Brothers for one...
set up and play in a house, get some grooves going, develop songs from that, all the while having a continuous party...not unique to Exile or the Stones.
Greenfield's STP book was good but this article is histrionic.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-17 18:43 by duke richardson.
set up and play in a house, get some grooves going, develop songs from that, all the while having a continuous party...not unique to Exile or the Stones.
Greenfield's STP book was good but this article is histrionic.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-17 18:43 by duke richardson.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
pinkfloydthebarber
()
Date: May 17, 2012 19:32
"******The previous summer the Rolling Stones left England en masse as tax exiles to settle in Villefranche-sur-Mer with seemingly no plan, no songs...."******
------
i think they had songs; they had some partially worked on and worked up stuff dating back to '69 even
------
i think they had songs; they had some partially worked on and worked up stuff dating back to '69 even
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
theanchorman
()
Date: May 18, 2012 04:55
Quote
Ket
"The Stones never make another great album after Exile," Greenfield concludes. "They make great songs, but nothing like this. It was the end of an era."
Have to disagree, it is mostly true but I think Some Girls qualifies as a great album.
There's way too little Keith on SG for me to consider it a great Stones album.
However - BTMMR and BOB are up there with anything they've done...
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 04:56 by theanchorman.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
rocker1
()
Date: May 18, 2012 05:30
Those of us who frequent a board like IORR can pick nits about the technical accuracy of this article. But I really think this is a great piece, and am glad to see such a positive shout-out for an album that continues to offer surprises for me after 7257 complete start-to-finish listens.
Exile is my favorite Stones album, even though I can somehow also acknowledge that it may not be the Stones' *best* album. Somehow, through accident or by karma, it just connects with me in a way that Mick Jagger himself cannot appreciate, as he's not really been in a position to "listen" to Exile in the same that a music fan might. He's too close to it to appreciate how all those things that he knows "could have been better" somehow "work"... in ways that he probably didn't anticipate. God, I just love this album, and I have to confess, on first listen, it was just a mess of noise that didn't seem to be "catchy" enough. But as the years have gone by, THIS has been the album I've fallen asleep to, woken up to, gotten drunk to, and just LISTENED to, more than any other.
Again, I like this article. It gets it mostly right, although a little wrong, but hey, the overall vibe is very appreciative, and I appreciate THAT.
Exile is my favorite Stones album, even though I can somehow also acknowledge that it may not be the Stones' *best* album. Somehow, through accident or by karma, it just connects with me in a way that Mick Jagger himself cannot appreciate, as he's not really been in a position to "listen" to Exile in the same that a music fan might. He's too close to it to appreciate how all those things that he knows "could have been better" somehow "work"... in ways that he probably didn't anticipate. God, I just love this album, and I have to confess, on first listen, it was just a mess of noise that didn't seem to be "catchy" enough. But as the years have gone by, THIS has been the album I've fallen asleep to, woken up to, gotten drunk to, and just LISTENED to, more than any other.
Again, I like this article. It gets it mostly right, although a little wrong, but hey, the overall vibe is very appreciative, and I appreciate THAT.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
His Majesty
()
Date: May 18, 2012 14:27
Quote
mickschix
Oh, OK, Koen, so much of it was recorded in the MOBILE STUDIO...splitting hairs..
Olympic Studios is not a mobile studio.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
misterfrias
()
Date: May 18, 2012 21:58
Quote
Fuman2
Elton John talks about the conditions at the Jamacian studio that the Stones used for GHS. Elton went there right after the Stones left, to record Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, but found the conditions unfit for recording. Apparently there were militia men walking around the "Cyclone fenced" grounds with automatic weapons, possibly due to the Stones problems there? Also, he said the studio itself was a mess. Cabling strewn everywhere, no mics to be found, equipment in bad shape, etc . . .
Where did you read that?
BTW, I am not questioning your integrity. I just want to read more about it.
Greetings from the Jersey Shore.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
thkbeercan
()
Date: May 18, 2012 22:14
Quote
duke richardson
this article is very self serving, yes Exile is a great album, but lots of bands made records that way..the Allman Brothers for one...
set up and play in a house, get some grooves going, develop songs from that, all the while having a continuous party...not unique to Exile or the Stones.
Greenfield's STP book was good but this article is histrionic.
I couldn't agree more.
For a professional writer and for someone who 'was there' during the recording and mixing to print inaccuracies about the number of songs on "Exile" ('Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks...') is sloppy journalism. After TD and Happy, there are but 16 songs left.
I know, I know, nit-picking on my part...
But the REAL corker is this line: "Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing and outlandish mischievousness."
That statement is more than a bit of a stretch. Has this guy listened to the record?
Slim Harpo's "Hip Shake" has nothing to do with any of the above.
Nor does "Just Wanna See His Face" or "Shine A Light".
"Sweet Black Angel"? The lyrics describe a black woman and imprisonment. Injustice, yes. But why is this subject matter necessarily dangerous, aggressive or outlandish?
Maybe the song IS about Angela Davis (although I have yet to see a quote from any Stone to that effect) but she was hardly a "broken spirit".
Nellcote (like any other life experience) was a TIME and a PLACE for those who were there. For others, it serves as a mythological idea upon which to hang press releases. The Stones did not go there to record an album called "Exile On Main St" although it did yield a number of songs which ended up on an album so named. (And I HAVE seen quotes from Stones who said it was amazing that ANYTHING got recorded there).
Like so many Stones albums, Exile was a collection of songs old and new, some going back almost 3 years. As has been mentioned above, not that many of Exile's songs were recorded in France. "Loving Cup" was performed at 1969's Hyde Park concert. "All Down The Line" had its beginnings in LA in 1969. Mick first recorded "Shine A Light" with Leon Russell's band. "Tumbling Dice" could be called an out-take from "Sticky Fingers". And so on...
Don't get me wrong. I love these guys. I love "Exile". It's one of the greatest Stones albums.
But enough with the myth of Nellcote and how such great art came out of such hedonism and turmoil!
Or as my poor sick grandmother used to say:
"Enough is too much already..."
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-18 22:32 by thkbeercan.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
stonesdan60
()
Date: May 19, 2012 10:56
Quote
rocker1
Those of us who frequent a board like IORR can pick nits about the technical accuracy of this article. But I really think this is a great piece, and am glad to see such a positive shout-out for an album that continues to offer surprises for me after 7257 complete start-to-finish listens.
Exile is my favorite Stones album, even though I can somehow also acknowledge that it may not be the Stones' *best* album. Somehow, through accident or by karma, it just connects with me in a way that Mick Jagger himself cannot appreciate, as he's not really been in a position to "listen" to Exile in the same that a music fan might. He's too close to it to appreciate how all those things that he knows "could have been better" somehow "work"... in ways that he probably didn't anticipate. God, I just love this album, and I have to confess, on first listen, it was just a mess of noise that didn't seem to be "catchy" enough. But as the years have gone by, THIS has been the album I've fallen asleep to, woken up to, gotten drunk to, and just LISTENED to, more than any other.
Again, I like this article. It gets it mostly right, although a little wrong, but hey, the overall vibe is very appreciative, and I appreciate THAT.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
tomcasagranda
()
Date: May 19, 2012 18:52
Exile is brilliant, no doubt about it: it knocks Dark Side of The Moon, Sgt Pepper, and Pet Sounds into a cocked hat; perhaps, because it was recorded differently. The other three albums pride themselves on the recording studio being an extra instrument. Exile sounds low-fi, scuzzy, and just the wrong side of sleazy. No other album, be it by the Stones, or any other band, can match Exile.
I have always believed Exile to be an anomaly in Stones recordings: it sounds like nothing before, or after. Sticky Fingers doesn't sound like Exile, nor does Goats Head Soup.
If you consider the golden-era of Stones recordings: Beggars through to Goats Head Soup. Beggars was Keith discovering open-tuning, and the diminution of Brian Jones. Let It Bleed was the introduction of Mick Taylor, Bobby Keyes, horns, and the demise of Brian Jones. Sticky Fingers was Mick Taylor fully integrated into the band, Billy Preston's first appearance, and Paul Buckmaster's strings: it was, also, unfortunately, the initial sign that Keith's drug use was detrimental to the band - not appearing on Moonlight Mile a case in point.
Exile was the summit of all Stones influences, and the last time that they were trend-makers, not watching what was going on around them, and creating their own music from what influenced them. Goats Head and It's Only Rock n Roll highlight the fact that the Stones were listening to wah-wah guitars, funk, reggae, power ballads, and kicking the Stax, blues, Chuck, to the back-burner. Winter even sounds like a Hard Nose the Highway Van Morrison outtake.
Goats Head is my personal favourite though, and is a great album. However, it is the beginning of what Mick Jagger wished to do with the band, i.e play material that sounds like other bands at the time. It wasn't a long step from Faces-lite It's Only Rock n Roll title track, through to Hot Stuff Ohio Players funk, and then on to the Talking Heads/Lou Reed sounds of Shattered.
Move forward into the 80s, and you get the dance-floor Too Much Blood, Undercover, Emotional Rescue. The ultimate conflict of the Rolling Stones, thus, resulted from Exile. It wasn't just the drugs, but Mick thinking how do I keep this thing trendy, Keith wondering where Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, Muddy and Stax are as influences, and that remains the burning issue ? Factor in the loss of a virtuoso guitarist, and Exile still remains their greatest album.
I have always believed Exile to be an anomaly in Stones recordings: it sounds like nothing before, or after. Sticky Fingers doesn't sound like Exile, nor does Goats Head Soup.
If you consider the golden-era of Stones recordings: Beggars through to Goats Head Soup. Beggars was Keith discovering open-tuning, and the diminution of Brian Jones. Let It Bleed was the introduction of Mick Taylor, Bobby Keyes, horns, and the demise of Brian Jones. Sticky Fingers was Mick Taylor fully integrated into the band, Billy Preston's first appearance, and Paul Buckmaster's strings: it was, also, unfortunately, the initial sign that Keith's drug use was detrimental to the band - not appearing on Moonlight Mile a case in point.
Exile was the summit of all Stones influences, and the last time that they were trend-makers, not watching what was going on around them, and creating their own music from what influenced them. Goats Head and It's Only Rock n Roll highlight the fact that the Stones were listening to wah-wah guitars, funk, reggae, power ballads, and kicking the Stax, blues, Chuck, to the back-burner. Winter even sounds like a Hard Nose the Highway Van Morrison outtake.
Goats Head is my personal favourite though, and is a great album. However, it is the beginning of what Mick Jagger wished to do with the band, i.e play material that sounds like other bands at the time. It wasn't a long step from Faces-lite It's Only Rock n Roll title track, through to Hot Stuff Ohio Players funk, and then on to the Talking Heads/Lou Reed sounds of Shattered.
Move forward into the 80s, and you get the dance-floor Too Much Blood, Undercover, Emotional Rescue. The ultimate conflict of the Rolling Stones, thus, resulted from Exile. It wasn't just the drugs, but Mick thinking how do I keep this thing trendy, Keith wondering where Chuck Berry, Slim Harpo, Muddy and Stax are as influences, and that remains the burning issue ? Factor in the loss of a virtuoso guitarist, and Exile still remains their greatest album.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
His Majesty
()
Date: May 19, 2012 19:06
It's not really a Rolling Stones album, it's more like Mad Dogs and Englishmen or something. A small, disjointed core band with a mass and mess of outside musicians, they take over the record too much.
Exile is also very much them playing the styles of other bands, loads of stuff like this going around in early 70's. Cod rock/blues/soul was everywhere.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 19:11 by His Majesty.
Exile is also very much them playing the styles of other bands, loads of stuff like this going around in early 70's. Cod rock/blues/soul was everywhere.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2012-05-19 19:11 by His Majesty.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
theanchorman
()
Date: May 19, 2012 19:18
Quote
thkbeercanQuote
duke richardson
this article is very self serving, yes Exile is a great album, but lots of bands made records that way..the Allman Brothers for one...
set up and play in a house, get some grooves going, develop songs from that, all the while having a continuous party...not unique to Exile or the Stones.
Greenfield's STP book was good but this article is histrionic.
I couldn't agree more.
For a professional writer and for someone who 'was there' during the recording and mixing to print inaccuracies about the number of songs on "Exile" ('Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks...') is sloppy journalism. After TD and Happy, there are but 16 songs left.
I know, I know, nit-picking on my part...
But the REAL corker is this line: "Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing and outlandish mischievousness."
That statement is more than a bit of a stretch. Has this guy listened to the record?
Slim Harpo's "Hip Shake" has nothing to do with any of the above.
Nor does "Just Wanna See His Face" or "Shine A Light".
"Sweet Black Angel"? The lyrics describe a black woman and imprisonment. Injustice, yes. But why is this subject matter necessarily dangerous, aggressive or outlandish?
Maybe the song IS about Angela Davis (although I have yet to see a quote from any Stone to that effect) but she was hardly a "broken spirit".
Nellcote (like any other life experience) was a TIME and a PLACE for those who were there. For others, it serves as a mythological idea upon which to hang press releases. The Stones did not go there to record an album called "Exile On Main St" although it did yield a number of songs which ended up on an album so named. (And I HAVE seen quotes from Stones who said it was amazing that ANYTHING got recorded there).
Like so many Stones albums, Exile was a collection of songs old and new, some going back almost 3 years. As has been mentioned above, not that many of Exile's songs were recorded in France. "Loving Cup" was performed at 1969's Hyde Park concert. "All Down The Line" had its beginnings in LA in 1969. Mick first recorded "Shine A Light" with Leon Russell's band. "Tumbling Dice" could be called an out-take from "Sticky Fingers". And so on...
Don't get me wrong. I love these guys. I love "Exile". It's one of the greatest Stones albums.
But enough with the myth of Nellcote and how such great art came out of such hedonism and turmoil!
Or as my poor sick grandmother used to say:
"Enough is too much already..."
I agree to a certain extent. If you read Greenfield's introduction to Tarle's Exile book - he was only at Nellcote for a week at the most and it was before the stones began recording. I can't help but think what a missed opportunity his Season in Hell book is. It could have been so great. It should have been twice as long as it turned out (or even longer) - fleshed out with discussion of the music. His child like prose could have been curtailed as well. There was no reason for that book to turn out like it did. He should be ashamed of himself.
Turn on the Run would have been a more appropriate title for his book as it came off like a rushed piece of crap...
On the other hand, even though the origin of some songs predate the Nellcote recordings - its been documented that these songs were then re-recorded, rehearsed and overdubbed while at Nellcote. (things like SYH, LC, SBA etc)
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
His Majesty
()
Date: May 19, 2012 19:21
Loving Cup and Stop Breaking Down are not from Nellcote.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
tomcasagranda
()
Date: May 19, 2012 19:49
I think Loving Cup even predates Brian's death.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
His Majesty
()
Date: May 19, 2012 20:00
Quote
tomcasagranda
I think Loving Cup even predates Brian's death.
The 1969 outtake version probably does, but perhaps the Exile version came a little bit later.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
memphiscats
()
Date: May 19, 2012 20:01
Quote
theanchormanQuote
thkbeercanQuote
duke richardson
this article is very self serving, yes Exile is a great album, but lots of bands made records that way..the Allman Brothers for one...
set up and play in a house, get some grooves going, develop songs from that, all the while having a continuous party...not unique to Exile or the Stones.
Greenfield's STP book was good but this article is histrionic.
I couldn't agree more.
For a professional writer and for someone who 'was there' during the recording and mixing to print inaccuracies about the number of songs on "Exile" ('Aside from the infectiously groove-maddened "Tumbling Dice" or the explosively rapt "Happy", none of the remaining 18 tracks...') is sloppy journalism. After TD and Happy, there are but 16 songs left.
I know, I know, nit-picking on my part...
But the REAL corker is this line: "Every track reeks of dangerous liaisons, broken spirits, fueled aggression, outsider longing and outlandish mischievousness."
That statement is more than a bit of a stretch. Has this guy listened to the record?
Slim Harpo's "Hip Shake" has nothing to do with any of the above.
Nor does "Just Wanna See His Face" or "Shine A Light".
"Sweet Black Angel"? The lyrics describe a black woman and imprisonment. Injustice, yes. But why is this subject matter necessarily dangerous, aggressive or outlandish?
Maybe the song IS about Angela Davis (although I have yet to see a quote from any Stone to that effect) but she was hardly a "broken spirit".
Nellcote (like any other life experience) was a TIME and a PLACE for those who were there. For others, it serves as a mythological idea upon which to hang press releases. The Stones did not go there to record an album called "Exile On Main St" although it did yield a number of songs which ended up on an album so named. (And I HAVE seen quotes from Stones who said it was amazing that ANYTHING got recorded there).
Like so many Stones albums, Exile was a collection of songs old and new, some going back almost 3 years. As has been mentioned above, not that many of Exile's songs were recorded in France. "Loving Cup" was performed at 1969's Hyde Park concert. "All Down The Line" had its beginnings in LA in 1969. Mick first recorded "Shine A Light" with Leon Russell's band. "Tumbling Dice" could be called an out-take from "Sticky Fingers". And so on...
Don't get me wrong. I love these guys. I love "Exile". It's one of the greatest Stones albums.
But enough with the myth of Nellcote and how such great art came out of such hedonism and turmoil!
Or as my poor sick grandmother used to say:
"Enough is too much already..."
I agree to a certain extent. If you read Greenfield's introduction to Tarle's Exile book - he was only at Nellcote for a week at the most and it was before the stones began recording. I can't help but think what a missed opportunity his Season in Hell book is. It could have been so great. It should have been twice as long as it turned out (or even longer) - fleshed out with discussion of the music. His child like prose could have been curtailed as well. There was no reason for that book to turn out like it did. He should be ashamed of himself.
Turn on the Run would have been a more appropriate title for his book as it came off like a rushed piece of crap...
On the other hand, even though the origin of some songs predate the Nellcote recordings - its been documented that these songs were then re-recorded, rehearsed and overdubbed while at Nellcote. (things like SYH, LC, SBA etc)
I liked the article. It was good to read something positive on the board after sifting through the five page blood bath aka "Keith Parasite," "Mick best frontman", "Keith & Mick BBF" - or whatever the title has now morphed to...but I digress.
I just wanted to point out the article was written by James Campion who quotes some of Greenfield's comments. And I agree - Greenfield's STP was fantastic, but A Season in Hell - was, well, let's just say it lives up to it's title in terms of bad writing! Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
stonesrule
()
Date: May 20, 2012 01:54
Marlon is the only one who could really write the story of Nellcote.
Re: Great Article About Exile On Main Street
Posted by:
theanchorman
()
Date: May 20, 2012 03:40
Quote
stonesrule
Marlon is the only one who could really write the story of Nellcote.
He was much too young to remember...
I wish Anita would write a book.
Tony Sanchez' account of Nellcote is the best we'll probably get.
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