In the Show us your rarities thread there is a picture of the back of a fax Jane Rose sent to Ron Wood that apparently said that they were challenging the claims that the Stones used pre-recorded material in 1995 German shows. In that thread a reply was made saying that the German press was correct in making that claim but would not elaborate on it further. So what is up with that? Are the claims true?

See here: [iorr.org]

It's true at least to the extent that they used recorded synthesizer- and drumloops on some of the songs. And click tracks. Die Stern (I think it was) had compared some songs from different sources and saw a striking resemblance. As if to prove they didn't play live. But they didn't dare to go further when challenged by Stones lawyers.

...Sorry. My memory serves me wrong. It was Der Spiegel.

Chuck has MIDI-equipped keys for a select few prerecorded bits: like the funky hooting vocals of “Dance” and the spooky noises on “Doom and Gloom.” But that’s hardly scandalous.

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Stoneage
...Sorry. My memory serves me wrong. It was Der Spiegel.

I remember that text - some kind of bad yellow press writing, speculating etc. Pretty bullshit.

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MAF

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Stoneage
...Sorry. My memory serves me wrong. It was Der Spiegel.

I remember that text - some kind of bad yellow press writing, speculating etc. Pretty bullshit.

I wouldn't agree with that. Der Spiegel is not a tabloid or gossip magazine. It's pretty well respected.

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Stoneage

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MAF

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Stoneage
...Sorry. My memory serves me wrong. It was Der Spiegel.

I remember that text - some kind of bad yellow press writing, speculating etc. Pretty bullshit.

I wouldn't agree with that. Der Spiegel is not a tabloid or gossip magazine. It's pretty well respected.

Der Spiegel has a certain quality, yet it publishes a lot of rubbish - like the mentioned article. It suggested that the Stones performed parts of the VL concerts to a playback. The magazine had to admit that these idiotic allegations were wrong.

[www.spiegel.de]

[www.spiegel.de]

Both links active and pdf downloads possible for those who are interested...

I remember the story well, and also the lame excuse by the Stones' sound guy. My impression was that the Stones and the Spiegel finally arrived at some kind of truce, like "you buy our excuse story and in return we will give you interviews also in the future".

The Spiegel article was extremely cautiously phrased. It's never "the Stones did(n't do) this or that" but always "the available evidence suggests that...", "sound engineers and acoustic specialists analyzed the tapes and came to the conclusion that...", and so on.

Nowadays nobody is scandalized any longer by the use of prerecorded material or click tracks, and in No Filter 2017 one could only have wished that all of SFTD had been prerecorded, with a capable studio hand doing the solo ...

What I found more surprising is that the rumours about Roger Waters' all-star performance of "The Wall" in Berlin five years earlier (1990) didn't raise any attention. Back then, a number of magazines (however, not the Spiegel) claimed that there was a major technical problem on the night of the actual performance and that everything in the second half of the show came from a tape recording of the final rehearsal the day (or so) prior. Interestingly, nobody seems to ever have been sued for spreading the story. And irrespective of that it was a pretty lame show anyway



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-05 06:19 by doitywoik.

It was the claim of using singback that made the Stones react.

The core of the article is the graphic tonality comparison between the same songs from different concerts. It turns out they sound the same everytime.

-"Erstaunlich, das klingt wie ein und dasselbe Konzert", urteilt ein erfahrener Hamburger Tonmeister, dem der SPIEGEL ein Band zur Begutachtung vorspielte: "Es gibt fast einen Stereoeffekt."


- "Auch ohne den Verdacht auf Playback-Einsatz war professionellen Kritikern während der Stones-Tournee der "sterile" Sound (Süddeutsche Zeitung) aufgefallen.

- "In Songs wie "You Got Me Rocking", "Brown Sugar", "Tumbling Dice" oder "Honky Tonk Women" weisen Klanganalysecomputer gleiche Schlagzeugpassagen samt gleichen Zeitschwankungen nach: Bei Aufnahmen des Stückes "Tumbling Dice" von den Konzerten im belgischen Werchter und in Schüttorf etwa läuft der Rhythmus des Schlagzeuges in den ersten zwei Minuten absolut parallel."


Und so weiter..

The use of click track, sequencers and sampling was far from new at the time.

However - if memory serves - Mick and Keith in particular reacted to allegations of not singing and playing live (because they did - there weren't any singback, nor guitar parts in their sampling).

However, they played the songs at the exact same speed everytime.

They were (too) well rehearsed at the time (1989-95), that's why many versions of the usual songs sounded almost identically.

Same thing was there before in Germany 1982 tour. It was about some slip in Charlie's drumming that came out exactly the same to the hundredth of a second in various consecutive gigs.

d.f

I don't think they were too well rehearsed in 1995. Certainly better rehearsed than in 2017, though.

In case the story of shutting down the volume/sound via the soundbord is true, it might be that the shut-down was programmed in the click track and that's why it came out at exactly the same length each time.

I hadn't really heard all too much about the Stones' reaction to the article back then (these were still largely pre-internet days), I just remember Keith ranting somewhere he would never again talk to the Spiegel, but 2, 3 years later gave them a long interview.

Der Spiegel - Keith Interview 1998

It was a "story" by "Spiegel" and, if I remember correctly, the magazine has revoked it (totally or partly). "Spiegel" is not a tabloid magazine of course but who says that only ridiculous media do play games or be parts of misinformation?

Reading the older discussion here (thanks Cristiano!), I thought is very interesting the following angle (I copy it):

"Folks, do you remember the facts? On June 1995 the Stones accused Volkswagen, which was the sponsor of the European tour's leg. The reason was a company's serious arbitrariness, something that happened without being provided for in the contract and without any band's approval...
Volkswagen had lounnched in the market a Golf's model (limited number, of course) "GOLF- ROLLING STONES". This had been written on every car's plate! Mick was very aggressive against Volkswagen in the press conference that took place in Sweeden, then. This was a serious damage to the company's image. In addition, after it Volkswagen lost the next "customer" as Tina Turner stayed clear of. A few days (or weeks) later Der Spiegel published this article- crap!
Coincidence? Call me suspicious, but i don't think so... It smells like "revenge" here..."

Just a speculation, of course. But the sequence of the facts seems really interesting...

You mean, someone tried to frame the Spiegel in order to settle an open bill with the Stones?

It would be interesting to investigate the taped aural evidence by means of today's technology and see what comes out. The Spiegel made it very clear in this article that what they say/assume is based on acoustic analyses (using 1995's software) and statements by professionals in the field.

I just find it funny that it took the Stones a year to come up with an explanation. They could have done so right away and it would have been printed in one of the follow-up issues.

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laertisflash

Volkswagen had lounnched in the market a Golf's model (limited number, of course) "GOLF- ROLLING STONES".

There were also other music-related Golf versions: 1992 Golf-Cabriolet 'Genesis', 1994 Golf-III-model 'Pink Floyd' and in 1996 Golf-III-model 'Bon Jovi' - [de.Wikipedia.org] , [de.Wikipedia.org] .

And Volkswagen really had no license from the Stones for their Golf III in 1995?

Never heard of it and there're still some Golf III-RS on the road in Germany. In case of Copyright-infringements the questionable items must normally be removed from the market ....

"I just find it funny that it took the Stones a year to come up with an explanation".

A year? I don't think so, Ditywoik. And I don't think that the Stones should give explanations. "Spiegel" should prove that it wrote the true. Here is another excerpt taken from the old discussion on IORR:



"SEPTEMBER 11 (1995)
The German magazine Der Spiegel hints that the Stones might have played live to backing tapes on many of the Voodoo Lounge dates.

OCTOBER (1995)
Der Spiegel publish a full page advertisement by the Stones denying they have ever used play-back tapes during their world tour.

OCTOBER 14 (1995)
Plans for afoot for the band to sue Der Spiegel over their accusations of their using backing tapes.

OCTOBER 20 (1995)
Mick (on the subject of the Der Spiegel article):
'It's stupid, but people tend to believe what they're told, most of all if it's printed on paper. We've got the audio tapes from every show, and the videos as well ... obviously we're gonna win!'

Keith: 'Call me whatever you want - junkie, criminal, culture-pollutant, but don't tell me I don't play live ... that's the biggest insult in the world. First I want an apology from them, and then, no matter how much money we get from them, it will be sent to the kids of Bosnia. I don't even want to see their money.'

NOVEMBER 21 (1996)
Der Spiegel drops its allegations that the Stones used backing tapes on the Voodoo Lounge tour, affirming that they played live"

And a fan's comment. Probably a fan from Germany, which means way better informed than me and you as for the facts:


"Yes, they (Der Spiegel) excused themselves about that story as a bad researched document and told in that "Gegendarstellung" (sorry, don't know the english word right now) that this fact was not true at all. By the way, Der Spiegel in my opinion always was and still is a good researched, mainly political and in many ways critical magazine standing a little left from the middle, that i enjoy since many years earlier to that "incident". And for sure i had cancelled my subscription if they ain't had the balls to state that this article was total nonsense".

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laertisflash
It was a "story" by "Spiegel" and, if I remember correctly, the magazine has revoked it (totally or partly).

Well, only half-heartedly kind of, and only with respect to the break in "Rock And A Hard Place. More than a year later (Nov 1996, see the link in shortfatfanny's post) came a short piece where it was said that according to the Stones' sound guy, the break was brought about by manually shutting done everything from the mixing desk and then manually opening all channels again, which raises the question how he managed to do that manually with the suggested precision of a hundredth of a second. There was nothing revoked regarding potentially pre-recorded vocal parts or the like.

If a click track was involved I think one should have seen Charlie with headphones on, hard to imagine the clicks would have come via his monitor speakers.

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doitywoik

I just find it funny that it took the Stones a year to come up with an explanation. They could have done so right away and it would have been printed in one of the follow-up issues.

There was already a counter statement on 10-Oct-1995 by the Stones, published in the Spiegel-Magazine No. 44/1995 (30-Oct-1995), page 204:

"Bei keiner Gelegenheit unserer 'Voodoo-Lounge'-Welttournee hat ein Mitglied unserer Gruppe auch nur irgendeinen Teil seiner Darbietung zu vorproduzierter Musik imitiert.
London, den 10. Oktober 1995 Michael Philip Jagger Keith Richards Charles Robert Watts Ronald Wood" - [www.Spiegel.de] :

("At no occasion of our 'Voodoo-Lounge' world tour did any member of our group mimic any part of his performance to pre-produced music.")



The original Spiegel-article with the non-live-accusations was published on 11-Sept-1995 (37/1995).

"And Volkswagen really had no license from the Stones for their Golf III in 1995? Never heard of it..."

Newspapers wrote it then, Irix. And, probably, that's why Jagger said in the end of the opening press conference (European leg of VL tour),in Stockholm: "I´m driving Mercedes!"

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laertisflash

Newspapers wrote it then, Irix.

Any reliable source? Google should know it ....

Ah, can't remember Irix. Greek newspapers published it, as "reprint" from international Press, but it's hard to remember which sources they pointed to. Man, it was 23 years ago. Close to 1/4 of a century...

Irix, as I see, your archive is excellent!

As the main tour sponsor located in Wolfsburg
VW probably thought the deal will include not
only a "special VW show" but some kind of a joint venture concerning a Stones Golf Edition.
But it wouldn't surprise me at all if they stretched the treaty's details interpretation to the limit...and maybe beyond.
Hard to believe Jagger or the lawyers of the Stones camp were'nt aware of what has been signed...

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laertisflash
"I just find it funny that it took the Stones a year to come up with an explanation".

A year? I don't think so, Ditywoik. And I don't think that the Stones should give explanations. "Spiegel" should prove that it wrote the true. Here is another excerpt taken from the old discussion on IORR:

[...]

OCTOBER (1995)
Der Spiegel publish a full page advertisement by the Stones denying they have ever used play-back tapes during their world tour.

Honestly I cannot recall the advertisement. Unfortunately the Spiegel's online archive only has the articles but not the adds. But anyway, a paid advertisement by the Stones is not a statement by the Spiegel. I may have even had a copy of that issue but a few years ago I committed a bookshelf's worth of Spiegel back issues to the litter bin, so I can't look it up.

The short piece (about half a page, just 2 paragraphs and a photo) explaining the break in RAAHP came in Nov 1996, that is 14 months later. There is nothing about pre-recorded vocals or the like in that short piece, they just say that the break in RAAHP was brought about from the mixing desk and that the Stones do play live, which latter thing had not been generally questioned anyway.

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laertisflash
OCTOBER 14 (1995)
Plans for afoot for the band to sue Der Spiegel over their accusations of their using backing tapes.

The question is if the Stones ever did. In case they had (and had won), the Spiegel would have been sentenced to print something saying that by court order, bla bla bla. That never happened. As I said above, the 95 article was very cautiously phrased, they never bluntly said that the Stones used playback tapes or other types of pre-recorded materials, they just said that sonic analyses of audience tapes suggest this and that, and so on. Rather seems the Stones and the Spiegel worked out a different agreement and settled the matter out of court, in whatever way.
Also, you can bet your bum that if the Spiegel had been sentenced to pay a - potentially considerable - sum in compensation or the like, every paper across the whole German-speaking area would have jumped at it and spread the news.

Back then I rather wondered why the Spiegel published the 95 story at all. They were certainly aware of the fact that the Stones have a legal team you don't wanna mess with. So the Spiegel must have considered the evidence available to them and the assessments by the consulted experts convincing enough to print the story. What really happened we will possibly never find out - unless someone on IORR knows (or is) someone who was in the Spiegel back then and has first-hand knowledge of what really went on.

Were there any further/deeper-going reports in the British press about the actual course of events?

edit:
@Irix,
saw your post only now. So it was not an advertisement but a counter statement, and I looked for the wrong thing in the Spiegel archive (or was there an add in addition maybe?).



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2018-04-05 23:49 by doitywoik.

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Irix

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doitywoik

I just find it funny that it took the Stones a year to come up with an explanation. They could have done so right away and it would have been printed in one of the follow-up issues.

There was already a counter statement on 10-Oct-1995 by the Stones, published in the Spiegel-Magazine No. 44/1995 (30-Oct-1995), page 204:

"Bei keiner Gelegenheit unserer 'Voodoo-Lounge'-Welttournee hat ein Mitglied unserer Gruppe auch nur irgendeinen Teil seiner Darbietung zu vorproduzierter Musik imitiert.
London, den 10. Oktober 1995 Michael Philip Jagger Keith Richards Charles Robert Watts Ronald Wood" - [www.Spiegel.de] :

("At no occasion of our 'Voodoo-Lounge' world tour did any member of our group mimic any part of his performance to pre-produced music.")



The original Spiegel-article with the non-live-accusations was published on 11-Sept-1995 (37/1995).

They signed with those names?

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shortfatfanny

Hard to believe Jagger or the lawyers of the Stones camp were'nt aware of what has been signed...

There was a picture in the german Music-press where Mick & Keith and the former CEO of Volkswagen, Ferdinand Piëch, met with each other. Caption: "CEOs among themselves" :


From: "Rolling Stones", Edition Steffan, Cologne 1998 (ISBN 3-923838-19-0), page 27.


To me it's hard to believe that Volkswagen brought the Golf III 'Rolling Stones' without a license from the Stones - when VW brought in 1992 the Golf-Cabriolet 'Genesis', in 1994 the Golf-III-model 'Pink Floyd' and in 1996 the Golf-III-model 'Bon Jovi' ....