Exile On The Main Dr.

Rocks Off

Well there you go and don’t it make you feel so good with the teens–chickies, man!–down front clamoring and caterwauling and soiling themselves, piss running down the floors of the auditorium–Li’l Anthony anna GOTdamned Imperials nevuh fucked lahk we dew, Bobby Keys sweats out backstage–and the cops are in their fish-front hats downstage with wild eyes praying to St. George: Help a white man in need; it stunk off them, but Mick didn’t notice (Mick never noticed cops) going up the steps via flashlight beam here they are here they are here they are, Houston (or wherethefuckever), the Rolling Stones, the Rolling Stones.

There was something about the band that forced writers to produce paragraphs like that.

Shake Your Hips

They started as a Blues band. The hip English kids were into the Blues in the early 60’s. At first, the UK had to import all of their Blues, possibly under the terms of the Lend/Lease Act, as the British had not treated their black people cruelly enough to have produced the Blues. (Luckily for music lovers, the British government did treat white people cruelly enough to produce Punk.) Rather quickly, the island’s musicians said to themselves, “I could do that,” and they did so, terribly. No English person has ever played the Blues right: the English don’t get the Blues, they cause them. There’s an inherent disunion. Not Clapton, not Jeff Beck, not one of the public school wankers.

And, you know, there’s the meeting on the bus where Mick notices Keith’s bundle of hip records, or maybe it’s the other way around, and the filthy apartment with the slobbish roommate nicknamed Nanker Phelge. The Marquee Club. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Oldham. Stu, can we talk to you over here? The Crawdaddy and Decca. 1963. All the men in their jackets and ties.

Charlie’s not mad, he’s just disappointed. Keith, on the other hand, is furious.

Casino Boogie

Enduring beauty of Exile #181: Mick’s incomprehensibility. Go ahead, put the record on your turntable and glue it down, listen to just Exile on loop for the rest of your days: you’ll still never figure out what the fuck Mick’s on about. He picks his spots, though, bobbing like Ali deep in the mix and POW hitting you with Judge and jury walk out hand in hand and then sinking back into wide-mouthed flipperty-yamp.

There are lyric sheets available, but I still hold that the man’s just making noises half the time.

Tumbling Dice

Younger Enthusiast, let me tell you about a rarified level of the Rock Star status stratus: the Tax Exile. This was an exclusive club. First, you had to be British. The tax rates for high-earners were so onerous–upwards of 90%–as to be confiscatory. (And I’m saying this as a goddamned socialist who actually does want to start confiscating wealth. Especially since the rates didn’t apply to real estate and holdings and stocks and all that other old money posh fucker rich person shit. The taxes just applied to income. And that’s racism, man.) So the Rock Stars had to leave, pausing briefly to write nasty songs about Members of Parliament, and find a safe haven for themselves and their sweet, sweet cash. (But, seriously: 90% is fucked up. Denmark’s top rate is only 36% and they’re full-on Leninists.)

And so Britain sent forth its young men once more, to plunder and poke and yell at locals for not speaking English and crash many fine automobiles. Los Angeles was popular, but you’d run into Rod Stewart. Bowie went to Switzerland because David Bowie was far more European than most Americans remember him as being. Cat Stevens went to Rio because Cat Stevens was always a fucking weirdo.

The South of France. Yes. We’ll get chateaus. That sounds quite pleasant. We’ll do that, yes?

A visa can be procured. This is no problem. Regardless of past busts, or even convictions, and certainly with no regard for low gossip about one’s character. It can be handled. There will be a fee. The fee will be exponentially less than the price of remaining in London, but it is not small. This is no problem. Keith and Anita (who’s pregnant) are deep into junkiedom and sloppy beyond mortal limits, disappearing into and out of rehab centers and getting hassled by the cops every time they leave the house. This is no problem.

Mick and his new wife Bianca move to Paris. Suitable arrangements are found for the other Stones, and Keith is procured a villa on the Cote d’Azur called Nellcôte. It is a grand home in the Belle Époque style, with 16 rooms and a pool and a view of the sea. Keith proclaimed the house “cool” and immediately filled it with guitars and drug dealers.

Nellcôte would go on to be the most famous vacation home in Rock history.

Sweet Virginia

Don’t talk to me about Brian Jones. Toad-faced little creep with a dumb haircut. Couldn’t write a song and never learned how to swim. He’s beating women in heaven now, Brian Jones is.

Torn And Frayed

The Dead went to Europe in ’72, and the Stones came here; it was like the continents exchanged dirtbags. The Stones’ tour was a different caliber, though; a better class of people, doncha know. Jackie Onassis’ sister and Truman Capote and Terry Southern and all the fabulous people, darling. And writers who actually wrote something, too, and a mid-tour stop at the original Playboy Mansion in Chicago.

And riots. The Stones used to cause riots everywhere they went.

These guys:

Those friendly grandpas! They made the little girls piss their pants and the little boys get to fighting. Everything changes; nothing lasts.

Sweet Black Angel

“Oi, Keef.”

“Grumblemumblecoughcough.”

“Oi’m finkin’ ’bout writin’ a sawng ’bout Angela Davis. Th’ Black Panfer chick.”

“Do it.”

“Oi’m finkin’ ’bout puttin’ th’ N-word in th’ sawng.”

“Trus’ yer instinc’, Mick.”

Loving Cup

STOP ENUNCIATING THE GODDAMNED WORDS, PHOSH. Yes, technically the line is “What a beautiful buzz,” but Mick pronounces the word “buzz” with a long A. No one knows how the fuck he pulled that off but he did. You guys sound like a second-rate gay men’s choir. Try it again with some gum in your mouth.

…

What?

…

You’re pulling my dick.

…

They covered the whole album?

Jesus Christ, they covered the whole album. There’s too much freedom in this country.

Happy

Keef the Immortal. The knockabout urchin with the messy hair and the blonde. The blood-changeling. Mistuh Rockyroll himself. He’s a pirate. He’s a dracula. He’s a cold Italian pizza. He could use some lemon squeeze-a. Just imagine the scent. Someone find Keith. Someone wake up Keith. Someone bail out Keith. What do you mean, there’s no shepherd’s pie?

This sums it up better than I could.

Turd On The Run

Who invented Rock and Roll? I do not know. Wasn’t Elvis, that’s for sure. Fat, old Bill Haley? How about Johnny Good Times himself, Ike Turner, playing the fuzz guitar on Rocket 88? Easy enough to say Chuck Berry. It wasn’t him, but it’s easy enough to say he did. I do not know who invented Rock and Roll, and no one else does, either.

But the Rolling Stones invented being a Rock Star.

Ventilator Blues

The album was due. Let It Bleed came out in December of ’69 and it was the middle of 1971 already, which was forever in the music industry of the time. A few tracks had been cut at Mick’s house back in England, Stargroves–houses all have names when it comes to the Stones–but now they needed to get down to it.

The French recording studios were found to be wanting.

Call in the Rolling Truck Stones Thing! Call in Jimmy Miller and Andy Johns to produce! (Both would emerge from the sessions with debilitating drug habits.) We’ll put on the show right here!

So they did. Nellcôte had a basement, a chambered and dank cavern that you’d half-expect to come upon a Minotaur in, and they wired it for sound and waited for Keith. He was putting his boy Marlon to bed. Some nights, that would take all night.

There are swastikas engraved on the faces of the air vents. The locals say that Nazis headquartered here. The locals say a lot of things. The locals rip off the Stones and steal from them and accept their bribes only to pretend no money was exchanged. There are beatings and rapes and people are packed up into cabs and disorbited from the band and John Lennon throws up a whole bottle of red wine on a perfectly lovely rug.

Put the horns down the hall.

Put the piano over there, and the drums in that room. They’re rolling in the truck. Keith will be down any moment.

I Just Want To See His Face

The best choice you can ever make in life is to be fuckable. Smart is good, lucky is better, but fuckable means you get to go to the best parties.

Let It Loose

Nicky Hopkins. Allen Klein. John Jaymes. Marianne Faithful. Spanish Tony. Jim Price. Rupert Louis Ferdinand Frederick Constantine Lofredo Leopold Herbert Maximilian Hubert John Henry zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, Count of Loewenstein-Scharffeneck. Anita Pallenberg. Freddie Sessler. Sam Cutler. Jo Bergman. Gram Parsons. Andrew Loog Oldham. Tommy Weber. Bianca. Marshall Chess. Bobby GOTdamned Keys.

And Ian Stewart.

All Down The Line

Watch the men all workin’, workin’, yeah. Keep that motor runnin’, yeah. Charlie holds it together, but Charlie follows Keith–this is the way of all great bands, the drummer follows the guitarist–and Keith can’t keep it together, so the groove is raggedy and half-ruined and speeds up as it goes–Rock and Roll is supposed to end faster than it starts, anyway–Christ, it sounds like a bar fight and Mick Taylor’s slide is steel just like a knife is; this is before the gargantuan stages, the backup singers, the support musicians, it’s just the lads and the horns and Nicky and a spotlight and a spotlight and all the cocaine in Texas; no one has any loose skin; no one has hips at all; and high heels and eye makeup and all that throbbing, and that which isn’t kohl is shiny and that which isn’t shiny doesn’t exist, dig: the Stones, baby, the Rolling fuckin’ Stones!

There is something about the band that forces writers to produce paragraphs like that.

Stop Breaking Down

You can’t mix in the mobile. That’s a Rock and Roll Rule, kids. Gotta go to Los Angeles to do the final mixes, and so Mick and Keith dragged the rest of the band–who were both unnecessary and unwelcome in this part of the process–to Los Angeles, where the weather is just as fine as in the South of France and everyone speaks English. Mick Taylor hates America and takes up cocaine to pass the time; this would prove a poor strategic decision. Bill Wyman fucks teenagers and scrapbooks. Charlie Watts takes care of himself.

At one point, Mick and Keith want to hear how the record sounds over the car stereo. They send Ian Stewart to the local radio station with an acetate and called him from the limo.

“Okay, Stu. Play it now.”

Such was the life of the Rock Star.

Shine A Light

It’s about Keith. Mick wrote it about Brian Jones, but it’s about Keith. Hunter write He’s Gone about Lenny Hart, but the tune’s about Pigpen. Songs choose their subjects sometimes.

Soul Survivor

What do you mean “Liz Phair told this joke first?”