We all know that Keith wanted to tour with Dirty Work.

Mick didn't because of his solo career.

The album got shitty reviews

After they recorded it, the band broke up.

What would have happened if they had toured, instead of breaking up?

i think they then would have broken up...jagger needed to be on his own for better or worse...needed time to find himself...and to find out that he is truely better off being a rolling stone and not just a stone alone!
seems like keith dragged it on by calling mick names instead of just letting him be..so to me both keith and mick needed a brake and if they were forced to go on tour together they end up killing each other...

hot stuff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> i think they then would have broken up...jagger
> needed to be on his own for better or
> worse...needed time to find himself...and to find
> out that he is truely better off being a rolling
> stone and not just a stone alone!
> seems like keith dragged it on by calling mick
> names instead of just letting him be..so to me
> both keith and mick needed a brake and if they
> were forced to go on tour together they end up
> killing each other...


This pressure for solo projects has to be allowed if a "legendary" band is going to remain intact...

Look at Jason Newstead leaving Metallica... they just didn't allow a great bass player to dabble with some sideline projects. Newstead never intended to neglect Metallica stuff, he just wanted to play some different tunes...

same with Keith and Mick, IMO, only they "allow" the bandmembers to do a solo project if they want, who cares...

The Chili Peppers let Frusciante produce those "unusual" solo projects of his, some might say eccentric...

As for what would have happened... I don't think it would have been the end of the Stones by any stretch, though there could have been more political strain in the band.

At the end of the day, KR and MJ are alot more down to earth and "dollar-wise" than to let their egos get in the way and break up the Stones, IMO.


"It's just that demon life has got me in it's sway..."

I think it was a good career move as well. Mick and Keith probably got more attention by the media for habitually bashing each other than they would have received for a Dirty Work tour. It was better to break things up a bit and to come back with Steel Wheels, an album and tour that stood apart from previous work. The same sort of innovation and differentiation also spelled success for Voodoo.

"You look like a leper dressed as Sergeant Pepper"

I thought about it, and I think that Mick actually had a lot of written stuff for his solo album already, and was getting frustrated that he could not use it. They were also going in two different directions.

It's true that it was good to have taken a break, let the water simmer down, and to start again.

mttlacroix Wrote:
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> After they recorded it, the band broke up.

They never broke up, bullsh*t, they had
really bad times as a band then, that´s true.

I can´t describe how happy I am that Jagger´s
solo career failed.

I think he found out that there was more money to be made with the stones.

I read somewhere that Goddess in the doorway sold 954 copies on the first day in shops. pitiful.

[news.bbc.co.uk]

I was reading a review of DW on Amazon recently, thought it might be of interest - particularly the Jagger coments.....





"Dirty Work was originally released March 25, 1986, it was the first studio album in *17 years* that did not go to #1 in either the UK or the US. This one broke an unparalleled string of 10 #1 albums in a row, dating from the release of Let It Bleed in 1969. Dirty Work only made it to #3 in the UK and #4 in the US, making it the lowest charting for a studio album since the US release of The Rolling Stones, Now! only went to #5 in 1965.

The album includes the single hits Harlem Shuffle and One Hit (To The Body). Most people know the music, so in my reviews I try to give you data on the sessions and interesting facts connected with the songs and the album. Here we go:

Interesting notes include:
.....the working title for the album was 19 Stitches
.....the final cut (Sleep Tonight) is followed by a boogie-woogie piano fadeout memorial to Ian Steward, the real 6th Rolling Stone, who died Dec 12, 1985, just before the album was released and dedicated to him
.....Mick brought essentially nothing to the sessions because he had used all his latest ideas for his first solo album She's The Boss (Keith had threatened to "slit his......throat" if he toured with another band), so Keith took over the sessions and ran the band when Mick left to promote his album. When Mick returned, he used a different studio and worked at times when he would not be in the building with Keith.....If you watch the videos for One Hit and Fight you can actually see the (real) anger between them....they made up when the Stones played a memorial gig for Ian Steward Feb 28, 1986 at the 100 Club in Oxford St, London....They were billed as Rocket 86....(If you don't know rock history, that's the 1st rock and roll record, Ike Turner's Rocket 88, minus Brian and Ian).
.....things were so bad with the band that when a reporter asked Charlie what he thought of the album he said he didn't know it was out and asked if it was any good

The Dirty Work sessions occurred in early 1985 in Paris. Final mixing was done in New York at RPM Studios (Jul 16 - Aug 17 & Sep 10 - Oct 15, 1985) and at Right Track Studios (Nov 15 - Dec 5, 1985).
Jan 23 - Mar 2, 1985 at Pathe Marconi/EMI Studios in Paris
.....One Hit (To The Body)
.....Fight
.....Harlem Shuffle
.....Hold Back
.....Too Rude
.....Winning Ugly
.....Back To Zero
.....Dirty Work
.....Had It With You
.....Sleep Tonight

The Paris Dirty Work sessions produced a number of unreleased tracks, including What Am I Supposed To Do, Baby You're Too Much, Deep Love, Sending Out An Invitation, Some Of Us Are On Our Knees, For Your Precious Love, Strictly Memphis, What Are You Goin' To Do With My Love.

This information comes from "It's Only Rock And Roll: The Ultimate Guide To The Rolling Stones" by Karnbach and Bernson and from my own collection, with some of the notes from Davis' "Old Gods Almost Dead." Both books are available from amazon.com."

In the US Undercover broke a string of # 1 albums, all for Atlantic beginning w/ Sticky Fingers. In the 60s, (and 80s/90s/00s) they always made top 5 w/ studio albums, but only one non-Atlantic # 1 ("Out Of Our Heads", riding the wave of Satisfaction).
I still have my positive reviews of DW by John Rockwell (NY Times), & Robert Christgau (Creem/Village Voice) who gave it an 'A' for a grade. Mick sounds real, angry, & not mannered. Christgau: "Dreaming of solo glory, Mick...just plugged into Stones mode and spewed whatever he had to spew, assing some lyrics and a few key musical ideas to tracks Ron and Keith recorded...for once Mick's lyrics are impulsive and confused...the straightest reports he can offer from the top he's so lonely at, about oppressing and being oppressed rather than geopolitical contradiction. In the three that lead side two, always playing dirty is getting to him, as is his misuse of the jerks and greaseballs and @#$%& and dumb-asses....yet for all his privilege he's just another nuclear subject who's got no say in whether he rots or pops....Especially with the hard advice of 'Hold Back' these are songs of conscience well-known sons of bitches can get away with.et him have his own life and [solo] career, I don't care. What I want is the Stones as an idea that belongs to history, that's mine as much as theirs. This is it."
Mick's decision to tour, he says,would have broke up the band: Mick said he himself was not in great shape, Charlie was a wreck, Ron ditto from freebase, Bill bored & distracted...Seems to me it all more or less worked out after this mid-life band crisis!

I don't know what would've happened had they toured in support of DW. It is interesting to think about what could've happened. Maybe someone like Bill would've quit a little earlier from the band due to boredom or frustration. I have no idea, I'm just speculating. I'm anxious to see what the set list would've been like. Anybody wanna try one?

mttlacroix Wrote:
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> We all know that Keith wanted to tour with Dirty
> Work.
>
> Mick didn't because of his solo career.
>
> The album got shitty reviews
>
> After they recorded it, the band broke up.
>
> What would have happened if they had toured,
> instead of breaking up?


the Stones have NEVER split up for even a day in their entire career

You're also wrong about Mick's reason for not touring. He had released Shes The Boss a year earlier and wouldnt start work on Primitive Cool until 10 months after the release of Dirty Work

Mick refused to tour in 1986 because a) relationships within the band were very fractious and b) the health of the band was atrocious.

In his words, the band "wasnt fit enough to cross the Champs Elysees, let alone go on the road". Charlie, to give one example, was addicted to heroin at the time (unknown to the general public).

Whilst Jagger got a lot of shit for this refusal to tour at the time (probably because most 'outsiders' werent aware of the various health problems within the band), hindsight has proved that he was 100% right not to do so.

The band would have probably split up had they spent a long time on the road or else one of them could have died. Either way, its almost certain it would have finished them as a band.

theres little doubt that Mick at the time wasnt hopeful about the long-term future of the Stones. Had his solo career been a success on a par with that of the band (no doubt he was hoping for something akin to Michael Jackson's solo career when he branched out from the Jacksons!), the Stones would not have survived into the '90's

Two events basically ensured the band's survival beyond 1988 :

1) Not touring with Dirty Work
2) the failure of Mick's solo career

I don't think Mick and Keith ever really got back together after the She's The Boss/Dirty Work explosion.

Nothing good came of the band hiatus and time that was lost. Remember MJ and KR started fighting during Some Girls when KR was back from the Heroin Haze and Mick did not want to give away any control gained after Exile.

The tension really perked up during the 81 tour. They both started keeping different camps and just about stopped writing songs together, in the true sense, up until just the 2 of them sat down and wrote A Bigger Bang.

KR wanted the Stones to go on and was pissed that MJ attempted to Hijack the Stones and use them as a springboard for a solo career. If I were KR I would have been pretty pissed also having written so many great songs alone, or with MJ and vice versa.

I 86 they could not have toured cause Charlie suddenly went to the needle. Ronnie and Steve Jordan play Drums on half the tracks, Wyman was invisible......"Biff @#$%&" played bass on many songs and yeah, Mick came to the session empty handed and screamed out the lyrics to just about everysong. His worst vocals ever.

To this day I still don't think they are close. They are in a band together that is bigger than life. Corporations pressure them to tour because of the money that rolls in.

Maybe in the process of creating BANG they finally did bury the hatchet and truly enjoy each others company again.

After the band is officially over and the books start coming out, not the glossed over history, the real behind the scenes stuff I think we will be shocked to learn the intensity and duration of anomosity that MJ and KR had (have?) for each other.

Milo NYC
Ain't no use in crying

Even more interesting: How would The Undercover-tour have been? Better album, fresher tunes.