I preface by saying, as I have elsewhere, that I think Sticky is the better album, but...I was lucky enough to have relatives going to the UK and be returning exactly to Perth as both Sticky and then Exile were released. They knew to pick me up 2 copies of the zippered Sticky FIngers and a year or so later the original huge vinyl Exile package.

At this moment I have 2 original zippered Stickys on LP (one unopened), a Virgin one with zip (unopened), an original LP with cardboard zip, an original CD and a Virgin remastered zippered CD.

For Exile, the original vinyl, the Virgin remaster vynil with postcards again, the original CD, the Virgin remaster and then the Virgin reissue with postcards.

I LOVE these albums.

But I so recall the original Exile...

My relatives had a stereogram on which you could play the vinyl and tape simultaneously (remember...this was 72 in Australia...this WAS a big deal to me as I needed to have a tape for the newly installed cassette deck in my LC Torana), so not only did they bring it back from London for me, they also offered me the chance to record it straight away.

I sat in their loungeroom, volume almost off, music barely audible, tape running. My relatives were in their 70s and they didn't want to hear the record, for some odd reason! Anyways, I taped the whole thing, an went out to the car to try it out...

...what the? I obviously had made a bad recording, had the levels set too high or something...the tape was an audio shambles. Back into their house, re-recorded the whole thing, recording level set down a notch or two and back into the car....no change...what gives? At this stage, about 2.5 hrs after 'owning' Exile, I had played, loudly, about 60 seconds of Rocks Off....

Somethings up/wrong??? Back in to the house...."Can I PLEASE hear some of this on your stereo, somethings up with my recordings?"....They gave in, I pumped up the volume on their stereo and......SHIT, THAT"S HOW IT SOUNDS??????

So I re-recorded it a third time, back to the recording level of the first one I had done hours before, and settled on that.

Thanks and off I went into the car for my drive home, Exile pumped up....

Well..........what to make of it? I have to admit, as it was playing through I thought "this is so odd, so strange, out of whack, it's not focussed...oooh I like that, but what's this...." ...

and then, 1 minute into Turd on the Run.....I GOT IT !!!!!!!!!! From the one minute mark through to the 1.33 mark on Turd, the Stones just pump, and grind out this simple, but tough, riff, propulsion underneath just so 'on'...so explosive, these 32 seconds of music both made me "get" Exile and it to me it sounds exactly like The r'n'r Stones should. Where the riff just grinds away, there are no superfluous overdubs, no solos, no instrument is 'lifted' in the mix at the expense of others...it JUST chuggssssssssssssssss......THIS is where everyone else (even the Stones now) go wrong, there is a compulsion to "fill the void"...but NOT on this half minute of purely adrenalin-ised Stones.

That 30 second slab STILL stands as my favorite moment on the record, a record I now, along with ALL others, admit IS a classic. I listen to it regularly, but I 'twitch" as I wait for Turd onthe Run, and those 30 classic seconds....but the rest of it is beautiful too!

Thanks for reading.

Rgds
Rod

great heartfelt story!.............thanks for sharing....now i HAVE to play Exile

me too - I will be listening to Turd momentarily
thx!

Yee, very nice, Roddy!
I understand what you mean about the sound. I was in a record store when I was about 10, and wanted to buy either Exile OR Emotional Rescue.
I listened to both of them by the counter, And guess what I bought? Emotional. I only had the time to listen a bit to every track, and I just didn't hear any energy in Exile. Especially "Rocks Off" (which I love now)... Mick didn't sing like he usually did. I thought he was tired or something. And when I finally bought the whole album later that year, I had to listen to it 2-3 times, before I started sensing something quite unique.
Had completely forgotten about it, thanks for remainding me!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2006-02-03 03:54 by Erik_Snow.

Thanks man, I love that story. I'm listening to Turd right now.

I got Exile as a gift on my 12th birthday. I knew it was the album that everyone said was the best, but I could never get into it. It seemed really messy and @#$%& up, especially compared to Between The Buttons and Undercover, my favorite albums in 1984.

Fast-forward 4 years - I got kicked out of Catholic high school (I'm not even a Catholic - go figure) and was grounded for the first month of the summer. I spent the whole month sitting around in my room reading Calvin & Hobbes comic books and, for some reason, decided to give Exile another shot.

And then it clicked - the magnum opus became my favorite album of all time - and it is all due to "the sunshine bores the daylights out of me", which is the greatest lyric ever written. Once I heard that line under the right circumstances, the rest of the album just seemed to make sense.

When I turned 30, I threw a joint party - for me and for Exile. This was back when the official Stones website listed Exile as being released on April 12, 1972 - the same day I was released. Now they say it came out sometime in late May, but I'm not buying that!

I still choose to believe that Exile came out the day I was born, true or not. The record is like my retarded yet brilliant twin brother. I can't even look at it objectively - it's Exile and nothing else can even come close.

Love Turd. You can almost see them in some hot, sweaty room in Nellcotte, just in a groove.

It's for these stories that day in day out I come to this damn forum! A while back Jumping Kent Flash was documenting his quest for a Stonesticket with pics and all. That was another inspired moment on 'Tell me'
That is what I love to read. Makes me think of the very first timne I jammed my own "Exile" on vynil in my mom's old Stereo set. I went STRAIGHT to "Happy". I saw on the liner notes that Keith sings lead and I just had to hear him. Several of my sisters were standing behind me and they always called the Stones (and Me) the "Whores". I think they had recently learned the word.
Love what you say about "getting Exile". That is the only way to truly dig "Exile". "Exile" comes as a whole. You either get it or you don't. Just like Charlie and Keith.

"...no longer shall you trudge 'cross my peaceful mind."

drbryant Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Love Turd. You can almost see them in some hot,
> sweaty room in Nellcotte, just in a groove.

Are you sure that this one wasn't recorded in L.A as well as most of the other Exile tracks?