A political activist today failed in her libel action over a journalist’s blog which referred to her “Baader-Meinhof" link.
In a ruling that gives bloggers some protection against libel actions, Mr Justice Eady rejected a claim by Johanna Kaschke , a Tower Hamlets-based Conservative, against David Osler, a Labour Party member, over an article that was written in April 2007.
Ms Kaschke claimed that some of the comments linked her with terrorism. The judge at the High Court in London, however, struck out the claim as an abuse of process.
Mr Osler, a journalist and blogger, said that he only posted the material after seeing an article on Ms Kaschke’s own website and had never suggested that Ms Kaschke was involved in bank robberies, violence or terrorism.
He accepted that, although she came under suspicion in the 1970s and was imprisoned for a time, she was not guilty of any criminal offence and was paid compensation in Germany for her wrongful arrest.
He said that he had given Ms Kaschke a right of reply, which appeared on the blog in May 2007, and was prepared to join in a statement reaffirming his acceptance of her innocence.
Ms Kaschke issued proceedings in April 2008, just over a year after the blog was originally published.
Mr Justice Eady agreed with lawyers for Mr Osler that the claim should be limited to a publication proved to have happened within the 12 months leading up to the issue of proceedings.
They also argued that the claim should be struck out because the passages relied in part on words from Ms Kaschke’s own website.
Robert Dougans, a media lawyer with Bryan Cave, said: “This ruling is good news for the online media, as Mr Justice Eady was clear that ‘stale’ blog posts and articles available online but not actively linked to a site will not be deemed to have been published without actual evidence that someone has read them.”
He said that would provide some protection for bloggers and online media pending any legislation to tackle the problem of the internet and “multiple publication” giving rise to endless potential libel lawsuits.
He said that the “multiple publication rule” still existed and that meant that each time a blog posting was downloaded there was a separate cause of action, no matter when the posting was originally put online.
However, he added: “This case means bloggers now can rest assured that just because a posting is available on the internet it will not be deemed to have been published. A claimant will need to put forwards real evidence that an old blog post has actually been read.”
The judge said that he was quite satisfied the posting did not link Ms Kaschke to terrorism in the sense of suggesting in any way that she was directly linked with it or that she approved of the extremist activities.
Mr Osler, he added, was merely choosing to highlight an unusual event in the history of someone who was at the material time active in politics in London.
Striking out the claim, he concluded that if a jury found in favour of Ms Kaschke, the damages would be very modest and out of all proportion to the time and money spent on the cost of a two-week trial.
He added: “It is an important consideration for the court to have in mind on any abuse application that the fact of being sued at all is a serious interference with freedom of expression.
“That may be appropriate in the majority of libel actions, where it is necessary to countenance such interference in order to vindicate the rights of another person in respect of whom a real and substantial tort has occurred.
“But the court must be vigilant to recognise the small minority of cases where the legitimate objective of vindication is not required or, at least, cannot be achieved without a wholly disproportionate interference with the rights of the defendant.”
Jackie Leven & Gordon Brown, alumni of Kircaldy High
Despite his clunky name-dropping of Arctic Monkeys early in his premiership, its hard to think of Gordon Brown as a rock and roll man. It was amusing then to learn at a gig last night that Brown is an exact contemporary of Jackie Leven, a great musical maverick who I often think of as Britain’s lost rock star. Leven is probably the most talented singer-songwriter never to have become a household name, producing neglected masterpieces since 1971, while leading a dramatic and colourful life.
Both Leven and Brown are 59 years old and hail from Kircaldy in Fife, where they attended Kircaldy High School. One of the pair became the first schoolboy in Scotland to be busted for drugs, formed cult band Doll By Doll, was nearly murdered in a vicious mugging which left him unable to talk or sing for a year, became a heroin addict, lost his girlfriend to the Dalai Llama’s bodyguard, self-cured and established an addiction charity of which Princess Diana became patron and has released over thirty albums rich with poetry, melody and the metaphysics and mysteries of life. The other became Prime Minister.
At an intimate gig at the Slaughtered Lamb in London to launch his latest wonderful album, ‘Gothic Road’, Leven (one of the great raconteurs, though not always the most reliable of narrators) described a recent encounter with his old school mate (who, it must be stressed, Leven considers a “political hero”).
On his new album, Leven collaborates with that great English troubadour, Ralph McTell. In October, 2009, McTell was honoured by the UK Parliament’s All Party Folk Music Group at a special award ceremony in the House of Commons, to celebrate his lifetime’s contribution to folk music. Leven was invited as McTell’s guest. It was, according to Leven, an extraordinary event, in which grown MPs started to sniffle and blubber during McTell’s iconic Streets Of London, until a wave of weeping swept through the room and reached the stage, causing McTell himself to break down in tears.
Afterwards, Leven claims he was standing with McTell when the Prime Minister approached to be introduced to McTell. Obviously he needed no introduction to Leven, who was greeted (to judge by Leven’s comedic performance) with a slightly suspicious “Oh, hello Jackie.” “Hello Gordon.”
Brown had a question about McTell’s classic ballad. “I have heard that when you originally wrote Streets Of London it was actually Streets Of Paris. I suppose you changed it to London for sound economic reasons?”
“No Prime Minister,” responded McTell. “I was living in Paris at the time I wrote it, but half way through I realised that I was really writing about London.”
Brown was not to be dissuaded from his theory, however. “All the same, I am sure that sound economic reasons must have played a part in the change.”
Despite the status of his interrogator, McTell was getting politely annoyed with this suggestion. “No, Prime Minister,” he insisted. “I was a young man and I wasn’t thinking about things like money, I was just trying to write the best song I could, and express my feelings about London.”
Brown was, apparently, not entirely satisfied with this version of the song’s creation. “That’s as may be,” he said. “But, of course, I assume you are aware that many of the conditions you describe in that song have been alleviated under New Labour.”
Where some hear poetry, others hear only statistics …
‘Gothic Road’, which will be released by Cooking Vinyl on April 4th. It contains a beautiful duet with McTell on ‘Cornelius Whalen’, a tribute to the last of the Jarrow marchers.
If you haven’t yet heard Leven’s work, despite my many entreaties in the Telegraph, then I urge you to put that right. You could start with ‘Gypsy Blood’, his lost masterpiece with his band Doll By Doll, and then catch up with some of his remarkable solo work, perhaps ‘The Mystery of Love Is Greater Than Death’ (1994), Fairytales For Hardmen (1997), Defending Ancient Springs (2000) or ‘Troubadour Years’ (under his alter ego Sir Vincent Lone) (2009).
Things must be tough over at Atlantic Records and its parent WMG. First label group president Lyor Cohen is selling his $28 million NYC townhouse and now Atlantic is asking fans to help fund an artist's second recording for the company.
While working on his sophomore album for Atlantic Records, trip-hop artist Natty is recording a separate stripped down collection of original songs. But rather than pay for the project, Atlantic has teamed up with fan-funding platform Pledge Music to ask Natty's fans to throw down the cash.
To encourage fans to invest, Natty's offerings offerings include £8 for the EP, introducing Natty from stage for £70, a private acoustic concert in your own home for £600 - £5,000 (not sure why there's such a wide price range), all the way up to Natty remixing your track for for £1,200. Atlantic hasn't announced if they'll be taking their normal full royalty from Natty on the EP. We only know that they won't be sharing the money with the fans that paid for it.
The right wing blogosphere is outraged that the new A-Team movie portrays the US military as the bad guys. I suppose the righties have completely forgoton the
There are songs that are better, there are songs that are worse, there are songs that'll become your favorites and others you'll probably lift the needle for when their time is due. But in the end, Exile On Main Street
spends its four sides shading the same song in as many variations as there are Rolling Stone readymades to fill them, and if on the one hand they prove the group's eternal constancy and appeal, it's on the other that you can leave the album and still feel vaguely unsatisfied, not quite brought to the peaks that this band of bands has always held out as a special prize in the past.
The Stones have never set themselves in the forefront of any musical revolution, instead preferring to take what's already been laid down and then gear it to its highest most slashing level. Along this road they've displayed a succession of sneeringly - believable poses, in a tradition so grand that in lesser hands they could have become predictable, coupled with an acute sense of social perception and the kind of dynamism that often made everything else seem beside the point.
Through a spectral community alchemy, we've chosen the Stones to bring our darkness into light, in each case via a construct that fits the time and prevailing mood perfectly. And, as a result, they alone have become the last of the great hopes. If you can't bleed on the Stones, who can you bleed on?
In that light, Exile On Main Street is not just another album, a two-month binge for the rack-jobbers and then onto whoever's up next. Backed by an impending tour and a monumental picture-book, its mere presence in record stores makes a statement. And as a result, the group has been given a responsibility to their audience which can't be dropped by the wayside, nor should be, given the two-way street on which music always has to function. Performers should not let their public make career decisions for them, but the best artisans of any era have worked closely within their audience's expectations, either totally transcending them (the Beatles in their up-to-and-including Sgt. Pepper period) or manipulating them (Dylan, continually).
The Stones have prospered by making the classic assertion whenever it was demanded of them. Coming out of Satanic Majesties Request, the unholy trio of "Jumpin' Jack Flash," "Street Fighting Man" and "Sympathy For The Devil" were the blockbusters that brought them back in the running. After, through "Midnight Rambler," "Honky Tonk Women," "Brown Sugar," "Bitch" and those jagged edge opening bars of "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," they've never failed to make that affirmation of their superiority when it was most needed, of the fact that others may come and go but the Rolling Stones will alway-ways be.
This continual topping of one's self can only go on for so long, after which one must sit back and sustain what has already been built. And with Exile On Main Street, the Stones have chosen to sustain for the moment, stabilizing their pasts and presenting few directions for their future. The fact that they do it so well is testament to one of the finest bands in the world. The fact that they take a minimum of chances, even given the room of their first double album set, tends to dull that finish a bit.
Exile On Main Street is the Rolling Stones at their most dense and impenetrable. In the tradition of Phil Spector, they've constructed a wash of sound in which to frame their songs, yet where Spector always aimed to create an impression of space and airiness, the Stones group everything together in one solid mass, providing a tangled jungle through which you have to move toward the meat of the material. Only occasionally does an instrument or voice break through to the surface, and even then it seems subordinate to the ongoing mix, and without the impact that a break in the sound should logically have.
One consequence of this style is that most of the hard-core action on the record revolves around Charlie Watts' snare drum. The sound gives him room not only to set the pace rhythmically but to also provide the bulk of the drive and magnetism. Another is that because Jagger's voice has been dropped to the level of just another instrument, burying him even more than usual, he has been freed from any restrictions the lyrics might have once imposed. The ulterior motives of mumbling aside, with much of the record completely unintelligible--though the words I could make out generally whetted my appetite to hear more--he's been left with something akin to pure singing, utilizing only his uncanny sense of style to carry him home from there. His performances here are among the finest he's graced us with in a long time, a virtual drama which amply proves to me that there's no other vocalist who can touch him, note for garbled note.
As for Keith, Bill and Mick T., their presence comes off as subdued, never overly apparent until you put your head between the speakers. In the case of the last two, this is perfectly understandable. Wyman has never been a front man, and his bass has never been recorded with an eye to clarity. He's the bottom, and he fulfills his support role with a grace that is unfailingly admirable. Mick Taylor falls about the same, chosen to take Brian's place as much because he could be counted on to stay in the background as for his perfect counterpoint guitar skills. With Keith, however, except for a couple of spectacular chording exhibitions and some lethal openings, his instrumental wizardry is practically nowhere to be seen, unless you happen to look particularly hard behind Nicky Hopkins' piano or the dual horns of Price/Keys. It hurts the album, as the bone earring has often provided the marker on which the Stones rise or fall.
Happily, though, Exile On Main Street has the Rolling Stones sounding like a full-fledged five-into-one band. Much of the self-consciousness that marred Sticky Fingers has apparently vanished, as well as that album's tendency to touch every marker on the Hot 100. It's been replaced by a tight focus on basic components of the Stones' sound as we've always known it, knock-down rock and roll stemming from blues, backed with a pervading feeling of blackness that the Stones have seldom failed to handle well.
The album begins with "Rocks Off," a proto-typical Stones' opener whose impact is greatest in its first 15 seconds. Kicked off by one of Richards' patented guitar scratchings, a Jagger aside and Charlie's sharp crack, it moves into the kind of song the Stones have built a reputation on, great choruses and well-judged horn bursts, painlessly running you through the motions until you're out of the track and into the album. But if that's one of its assets, it also stands for one of its deficiencies--there's nothing distinctive about the tune. Stones' openers ' of the past have generally served to set the mood for the mayhem to follow; this one tells you that we're in for nothing new.
"Rip This Joint" is a stunner, getting down to the business at hand with the kind of music the Rolling Stones were born to play. It starts at a pace that yanks you into its locomotion full tilt, and never lets up from there; the sax solo is the purest of rock and roll. Slim Harpo's "Shake Your Hips" mounts up as another plus, with a mild boogie tempo and a fine mannered vocal from Jagger. The guitars are the focal point here, and they work with each other like a pair of Corsican twins. "Casino Boogie" sounds at times as if it were a Seventies remake from the chord progression of "Spider and the Fly," and for what it's worth, I suppose I'd rather listen to "jump right ahead in my web" any day.
But it's left to "Tumbling Dice" to not just place a cherry on the first side, but to also provide one of the album's only real moves towards a classic. As the guitar figure slowly falls into Charlie's inevitable smack, the song builds to the kind of majesty the Stones at their best have always provided. Nothing is out of place here, Keith's simple guitar figure providing the nicest of bridges, the chorus touching the upper levels of heaven and spurring on Jagger, set up by an arrangement that is both unique and imaginative. It's definitely the cut that deserved the single, and the fact that it's not likely to touch number one shows we've perhaps come a little further than we originally intended.
Side two is the only side on Exile without a barrelhouse rocker, and drags as a result. I wish for once the Stones could do a country song in the way they've apparently always wanted, without feeling the need to hoke it up in some fashion. "Sweet Virginia" is a perfectly friendly lazy shuffle that gets hung on an overemphasized "shit" in the chorus. "Torn and Frayed" has trouble getting started, but as it inexorably rolls to its coda the Stones find their flow and relax back, allowing the tune to lovingly expand. "Sweet Black Angel," with its vaguely West Indian rhythm and Jagger playing Desmond Dekker, comes off as a pleasant experiment that works, while "Loving Cup" is curiously faceless, though it must be admitted the group works enough out-of-the-ordinary breaks and bridges to give it at least a fighting chance; the semi-soul fade on the end is rhythmically satisfying but basically undeveloped, adding to the cut's lack of impression.
The third side is perhaps the best organized of any on Exile. Beginning with the closest thing to a pop number Mick and Keith have written on the album, "Happy" lives up to its title from start to finish. It's a natural-born single, and its position as a side opener seems to suggest the group thinks so too. "Turd On The Run," even belying its gimmicky title, is a superb little hustler; if Keith can be said to have a showpiece on this album, this is it. Taking off from a jangly "Maybellene" rhythm guitar, he misses not a flick of the wrist, sitting behind the force of the instrumental and shoveling it along. "Ventilator Blues" is all Mick, spreading the guts of his voice all over the microphone, providing an entrance into the gumbo ya-ya of "I Just Want To See His Face," Jagger and the chorus sinuously wavering around a grand collection of jungle drums. "Let It Loose" closes out the side, and as befits the album's second claim to classic, is one beautiful song, both lyrically and melodically. Like on "Tumbling Dice," everything seems to work as a body here, the gospel chorus providing tension, the leslie'd guitar rounding the mysterious nature of the track, a great performance from Mick and just the right touch of backing instruments. Whoever that voice belongs to hanging off the fade in the end, I'd like to kiss her right now: she's that lovely.
Coming off "Let It Loose," you might expect side four to be the one to really put the album on the target. Not so. With the exception of an energy-ridden "All Down The Line" and about half of "Shine A Light," Exile starts a slide downward which happens so rapidly that you might be left a little dazed as to what exactly happened. "Stop Breaking Down" is such an overdone blues cliche that I'm surprised it wasn't placed on Jamming With Edward. "Shine A Light" starts with perhaps the best potential of any song on the album, a slow, moody piece with Mick singing in a way calculated to send chills up your spine. Then, out of nowhere, the band segues into the kind of shlock gospel song that Tommy James has already done better. Then they move you back into the slow piece. Then back into shlock gospel again. It's enough to drive you crazy.
After four sides you begin to want some conclusion to the matters at hand, to let you off the hook so you can start all over fresh. "Soul Survivor," though a pretty decent and upright song in itself, can't provide the kind of kicker that is needed at this point. It's typicality, within the oeuvre of the Rolling Stones, means it could've been placed anywhere, and with "Let It Loose" just begging to seal the bottle, there's no reason why it should be the last thing left you by the album.
Still, talking about the pieces of Exile On Main Street is somewhat off the mark here, since individually the cuts seem to stand quite well. Only when they're taken together, as a lump sum of four sides, is their impact blunted. This would be all right if we were talking about any other group but the Stones. Yet when you've been given the best, it becomes hard to accept anything less, and if there are few moments that can be faulted on this album, it also must be said that the magic high spots don't come as rapidly.
Exile On Main Street appears to take up where Sticky Fingers left off, with the Stones attempting to deal with their problems and once again slightly missing the mark. They've progressed to the other side of the extreme, wiping out one set of solutions only to be confronted with another. With few exceptions, this has meant that they've stuck close to home, doing the sort of things that come naturally, not stepping out of the realm in which they feel most comfortable. Undeniably it makes for some fine music, and it surely is a good sign to see them recording so prolifically again; but I still think that the great Stones album of their mature period is yet to come. Hopefully, Exile On Main Street will give them the solid footing they need to open up, and with a little horizon-expanding (perhaps honed by two months on the road), they might even deliver it to us the next time around.
A renegade Thai general was shot in Bangkok on Thursday as the military planned to encircle the barricaded encampment of antigovernment demonstrators.
Gen. Khattiya Sawatdiphol, 59, better known as Seh Daeng, was allied with the protesters. He was struck in the head by a bullet during an interview with this reporter. The Associated Press reached an unidentified aide to the general who described his wound as “severe.”
The general, an incendiary figure who was in charge of security for the protesters, had been called a terrorist by the prime minister, who named him as the chief obstacle to a compromise plan to end a two-month sit-in here in return for an election in November. The latest violence is the most serious since a failed crackdown in April that killed at least 25 people.
Commanding his own paramilitary force of former Rangers, he was suspended without pay from the armed forces. A special committee was considering whether to strip him of his rank.
In an interview on Sunday, he denied being responsible for any violence. “I deny!” he cried in English, with a laugh, when asked about the dozens of bombings that have set Bangkok on edge and about the mysterious black-shirted killers who escalated the violence on April 10 that killed 25 soldiers and civilians. “No one ever saw me.”
A tentative deal had been reached between the protesters and the government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, only to fall apart this week.
Witnesses heard a loud blast followed by bursts of automatic gunfire near the heavily guarded Silom area, which is close to the protesters’ encampment, The Associated Press reported.
Last month TorrentFreak exclusively revealed that Disney Enterprises and Paramount Pictures in association with Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. (collectively as the MPA) had begun threatening CyberBunker owner CB3ROB Ltd with legal action over their hosting of The Pirate Bay.
The MPA stated that since CB3ROB knows that The Pirate Bay is “an infringing site”, then the company had to take responsibility for bringing those infringements to an end – in other words, stop providing the site with hosting and bandwidth. Failure to comply would result in the MPA taking legal action against CB3ROB in Germany.
After receiving new information from a previously reliable source, we can now confirm that the MPA have made good on their threats.
It appears that Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures,Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. have obtained a preliminary injunction against CB3ROB Ltd from the Regional Court of Hamburg.
The injunction, which was granted without an oral hearing, states that the CB3ROB company (and its Managing Director Mr. Sven Olaf Kamphuis personally) are hereby prohibited from connecting The Pirate Bay website and associated servers to the Internet.
The injunction relates specifically to The Pirate Bay offering torrents which allow users to download the following movies – The Bounty Hunter, Alice in Wonderland, Our Family Wedding, Green Zone, Repo Men and Cop Out.
The Court agreed that CB3ROB and Sven Olaf Kamphuis are liable for infringements on the above movies pursuant to the “Störerhaftung” principle. Also known as “disturber” or “interferer” liability, it means that someone who is knowingly connected to infringements can become the subject of an injunction, without actually carrying out those infringements themselves.
From the information currently available, in order to satisfy the Court it appears that CyberBunker have to either disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet, or the operators of the site have to do something that has never happened in the site’s history – remove the torrents listed in the injunction on copyright grounds.
The penalties for failing to comply appear to be very severe indeed.
The Court can fix a fine of up to 250,000 euros for each recorded case of infringement on the above movies. In the event that the fine cannot be enforced, it appears that Sven Olaf Kamphuis is being threatened with up to 2 years in jail.
“We have no information about this,” CB3ROB told TorrentFreak. “No letters have reached us or our attorneys.”
Q: There must have been a ton of outtakes from those sessions. How come you didn’t release more?
A: I went through a lot of stuff but then I started asking questions if it was really from “Exile” or not. And then I had to work out, well, what does that mean? It wasn’t all recorded in one go. I had to define for myself what the “Exile” period was. The first song recorded for “Exile” and eventually used for the album was “Loving Cup.” That was [a demo] in 1969. As far as unreleased things, I tried to avoid songs that had already been heavily bootlegged. I chose alternative takes of some songs, and others not so well known. One of them had some kind of vocals on it, which was “I’m Not Signifying.” The rest had no vocals or words, just [rhythm] tracks. So I wrote melodies and lyrics for those. That was my main thrust. I wasn’t interested in finding take nine of “Tumbling Dice.” I’m sure it’s there, it’s just that I’m not that interested in it personally. So for “So Divine (Aladdin Story),” “Following the River,” “Plundered my Soul,” I started from scratch on vocals. There was nothing in terms of melody or lyrics. The most challenging one was “Following the River,” because the chorus doesn’t go where I would expect it to. I was quite pleased with it in the end. All of the tracks had working titles, some of which I left on, like “Sophia Loren” and “Aladdin Story.” But “Following the River” was originally called “Wally’s Whistling Saw.” I wasn’t going to stick with that title for a romantic ballad.
Q: What was it about these particular tracks that made you want to finish them as opposed to all the others that must’ve been in that archive?
A: Between us -- and Don Was had quite a lot of input -- these tracks were not that heavily bootlegged. They weren’t as well known as others. And these were the ones that sounded most interesting, that felt musically quite diverse.
Q: Were the original “Exile” tracks remixed at all?
A: The original album hasn’t been touched, except being remastered. It’s been remastered about five times since released originally. Don and I did the remix on the unissued songs in the spirit of “Exile.” We kept it in the feeling of the original, we didn’t employ extra sampling or any sort of new tricks.
Q: Were you surprised by anything you found in the “Exile” archives?
A: Some were a bit loose, they were unfinished and very raw. But “Plundered my Soul” was very together, no mistakes, no messing about, very arranged, very thought out, obviously very together. The same with “I’m Not Signifying,” we didn’t really have to do anything. Others were a bit more loose, they went on and on, got a bit repetitive, so we had to do a bit of editing. I didn’t do any vocals on the alternate tracks. Keith did a guitar overdub on “So Divine,” he did a bit on that. But most of Keith’s things were all done. I did some acoustic overdubs and I did some harmonica on “I’m not Signifying,” along with the horn line. I did vocals, percussion, acoustic guitar, and a bit of background vocals.
Q: During the original sessions, was it tough whittling down to the original 18 tracks. Could it have been longer?
A: Probably, but at that time, it was released on vinyl. And short sides on vinyl gave you the best fidelity. That was quite good to have it the way it was set up, to have four sides, in the mastering process you got a better and hotter fidelity the shorter the side was. When you had 30-minutes-plus music on the side of a vinyl record, you lost volume and bass end as the record moved to the center. So we thought 18 tracks was good for a double album, and would give us a good, loud, rocking sound.
Q: You’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about “Exile” when you’ve been asked about it in subsequent interviews. Why is that?
A: I was being slightly annoying because people would always say, “Isn’t that your favorite?” And I would be a bit rebellious, just to annoy people who kept asking me if it was the best Stones record. I don’t have favorite records. I’m more familiar with songs when you put them on a set list for a show. It’s not a period, it’s just a song. And since you don’t play the whole record in a concert, you don’t really hear it as a record. You pick your favorites and find out what works live. For that reason, I don’t have a favorite Stones record.
Q: But “Exile” is now routinely cited as the best Stones record.
A: And it is a great record. What’s interesting about it is that it has so many sides to it, so many different musical styles, very bluesy, and it has soul, gospel, and the other quirky little bits that perhaps you wouldn’t have put on a record with only 12 songs. You would’ve thrown out stuff maybe like “Just Wanna See his Face,” but on a more sprawling record like this you could afford to let those things go. Which perhaps explain why it wasn’t immediately reviewed as stunningly wonderful. But after a while people get to appreciate the breadth of it.
Q: The record didn’t get great reviews at first
A: Oh, yeah. You know what reviewers do, they play the first three songs and then review the record.
Q: Thanks, man.
A: [Laughs] But you know what I mean. You can’t take in 18 tracks in a day. It’s hard. So you get through those four sides, it could take a while to really get the full picture. It’s a lot of stuff to get through. It took a while for the record to be appreciated for what it was.
Q: A lot of mythology is attached to the record about the working conditions not being the greatest.
A: It wasn’t ideal at the beginning. It took a while to pull the place together. Even a studio that’s brilliant is like that. It takes a while to make it work. There were a lot of teething problems with the studio. We had some experience doing that already. It was a few different rooms. It wasn’t perfect acoustically. We had to work at getting a really good drum sound, which is always the most difficult thing. An acoustic instrument only, that is always the challenge in these places. You want to get a great drum sound, and that was difficult. There were a lot of breakdowns of power. Once it got going. You get used to these surroundings. I think in the end it wasn’t that difficult.
Q: Did you do it in Keith’s house because you were worried he wouldn’t show up anywhere else?
A: No, not really. He rented a house with a lot of room, and there weren’t a lot of studios in that part of the world at the time. We had done previous recording in my house with the same mobile back in England. We did some tracks on “Sticky Fingers,” like “Bitch” and “Moonlight Mile” on the mobile, so it wasn’t a major issue.
Q: What was the songwriting like with Keith? Were you collaborating head to head, or bringing your own stuff in?
A: There was some stuff from England that we brought, licks and half bits of songs. We had stuff recorded in London like “Shine a Light.” And there were riffs born in that basement, like “Ventilator Blues,” “Rocks Off.” We had bits of everything from everywhere, and then we took it to LA to finish it off.
Q: So do you think it’s overstated how big a role that basement played in the way the record came out?
A: We recorded a lot of stuff in there, and it was a very important part of the record. How much is complete conjecture. Would it have sounded the same at Sunset Sound? Probably not. The way you record, the people around you, are what gives each record its personality.
Q: Was the constant party a distraction?
A: We were separate from all that down in the basement. We were cut off from the rest of the house, and people didn’t come down and do a lot of gawking. There wasn’t a peanut gallery, like a regular studio where you could stand in the control room behind glass. There was nowhere to watch from. Once we went to the basement, we were working. They didn’t bother us in the basement much. People get very bored watching people record.
Q: Jimmy Miller gets slagged sometimes as the producer for the murky sound. How do you feel about his role?
A: I think Jimmy was a good producer. At the beginning of his production work with us he had more authority than the end, to be honest. He was enthusiastic, always good with time signatures, that was a forte of his because he was a drummer. He did have a good attitude to time signatures, which is always useful. I’m very involved in time signatures, because just getting to the groove was important, and he was always good with that. Producing can be all kinds of roles. Help pick the good songs, you might have 25 and you have to tell the writer that something isn’t quite up to snuff, because writers think everything they write is always brilliant.
KEEF
Q: How come we didn’t get more unreleased stuff besides the 10 tracks?
A: That would be a whole ‘nother album. It’s amazing how much stuff was left behind. It was a very prolific year that year. We went through everything we could find. It was an enormous backlog. This was the best we had. Some of them were like 40-year bells going off. “Wow, we didn’t finish that one?”
Q: How did “Plundered my Soul” get left off the original?
A: It was difficult. That was why “Exile” became a double album. The record company wanted a single album, but the damn thing had a life of its own. We probably could’ve made it a triple. We tried to make a single, but it became impossible, like cutting babies in half. Q: Did you feel like the band was in a great place musically?
A: The vibe was very good. It was a long, hot summer. Not recording in a studio was unique for us, as it was for anybody at the time. Once things got going, it had its own rhythm. With every album you make you go in with that feeling. But maybe that we really were exiles put some extra bite into it.
Q: Really? I know you had some tax problems back home, but it wasn’t like you guys were homeless?
A: Yeah, I didn’t mind living in the south of France, actually. But it was more of a collective feeling. “Hey, none of us are going home tonight.” That attitude pervaded the mood, and made us get down to work.
Q: There’s a lot of mythology about your nocturnal habits, Keith. How big of a party animal were you at Nellcote?
A: There were very late nights, for sure. I heard loads of stories too, but that was upstairs, baby, because where I was I didn’t see much debauchery. Yeah, it’s true: There was a continual party going on in the house. But I couldn’t write songs, make a record and debauch at the same time, man.
Q: Band members were coming in and out during the sessions. It sounded very casual, bordering on haphazard.
A: It was. A lot of those tracks came about with only two or three guys around, as we waited for everyone to show. It would be just me and Mick [Jagger], or me and Charlie [Watts]. An idea would start and you worked on it. It was haphazard. The first few weeks especially, no one quite knew their asses from their [expletive]. But once we got into the swing of things, it was like a bunker down there, and a lot of hard work got done.
Q: It was hot, instruments going in and out of tune. That can’t be a good thing for recording.
A: Yeah, all true. There was an overcome and adapt spirit about it. But if it was really terrible we wouldn’t have stayed down there that long.
Q: Then you went to LA to finish the album. How come?
A: We couldn’t do anything more to it in Nellcote. It was a great place for cutting the tracks, but it’s not a place to do vocals or any other overdubs. But the bone and the muscle was done down there in that bunker.
Q: Judging by his comments, Mick wasn’t happy with the album when it came out.
A: All I can say, as far as Mick’s concerns, I haven’t met a lead vocalist yet who thought his voice was loud enough. But then again, Mick and I and [producer] Jimmy Miller mixed it, I don’t quite get [his complaints]. But I watched him working on this [reissue] and he’s really been digging it, hearing more things than he did at the time.
Q: What about the remix of the older material?
A: My approach was basically hand’s off, don’t touch. I don’t want to do any fancy, modern ideas on top of a 40-year-old record. My job was to guard the sanctity and purity of the original tracks. But there was some overdubbing of vocals on some of the extra tracks. There was one track where we heard an acoustic guitar, then about one-third of the way through another acoustic guitar because I string must’ve broken, so I overdubbed that. I wouldn’t touch the original tracks with a barge bull.
Q: Jimmy Miller was criticized for some of his original production, which some listeners thought was a bit murky. How do you feel about it?
A: I very much like what he did with us. I don’t think another guy could’ve pulled it off. He was a great producer, great friend. He had a lot of good ideas, and he was a damn good drummer himself.
Q: Did it help that he was musician himself?
A: Yeah. It definitely made a difference. He wasn’t just a sound artist. He could play it too.
Q: Was Charlie at all threatened by Miller as a drummer?
A: Nah! Drummers love each other. They go into immediate conversation about tom toms and paradiddles (laughs).
Q: “Exile” is generally perceived as the best Stones album. Do you understand why that is?
A: Maybe because it was a double. I couldn’t put my finger on why people like it. It holds up with time. I can still listen to it, and that says something. I enjoyed gong back through it. Going back through the tracks, I could smell that basement and all the dust. It was very evocative.
Q: People view it as the quintessential Keith record in the Stones catalog. Do you agree?
A: I get it that people would think that from the fact that it was done in my house. But I never thought of those sessions as a different balance between me and the rest of the band. You’re in the middle of it, and your perception of things can be a bit blurred, especially with me.
Q: American roots music factored heavily into a lot of the songs. What inspired that?
A: It certainly wasn’t conscious. But after all we’d been touring America for six years pretty much constantly. I think “Exile” gave us a chance to pick out the things we heard in America. We do play American music, rock ‘n’ roll and blues. So a lot of things came out from working in America all those years. Within the Stones there are never meetings or a setting out of goals. The band is all about capturing a certain feel, and first you have to find out what that is. When you do, you go to work.
Q: How was your relationship as a guitarist different with Mick Taylor than with [his predecessor] Brian Jones?
A: Brian and I worked very close together as far as rhythm and leads were concerned. With Mick Taylor, he’s far more of a soloist, and I had to adjust. It was great fun to reinvent the sound of the band, because Mick certainly changed it a lot. He’s a beautiful player and it’s just a matter of finding the new slot. And I enjoyed playing with him. I was really pissed off when he left.
Q: Did you write specifically with his guitar playing in mind?
A: That goes along with songwriting. When you’re down there doing it, you can put the break into it. What’s beautiful about songwriting is just piddling around on the guitar and there it is, and something appears out of nowhere. The rest is trimming, editing and thinking. The best time is when it comes out of nowhere. That’s when I love it.
Q: How did you and Mick write at Nellcote?
A: We were trying to keep up with the band. We’d say, we haven’t got a song for tomorrow yet. We were scrambling writing them on the spot. “Happy” came like that one afternoon and several others. “Tumbling Dice,” that came quick. Started as a song called “Good Time Women.” The only difference was that we still didn’t have the lyrics, but it’s the same riff.
Q: How did you determine you’d sing “Happy”?
A: I did it before Mick arrived that day. He shows up and says, “Wow, great, there’s one I don’t have to do.” Mick joined in on the choruses. That’s what I mean by working quickly. We’d start at 2 and by 5 it’s done.
Q: I can’t imagine the record label was happy when you turned in a double album.
A: The record company wanted to cut it in half. There was quite a fight in a way, lawyers and blah-blah. The damn thing had a life of its own, insisted on being a double, and Mick and felt strongly about it. We got our way.
Q: What’s in the immediate future for the band? A: I don’t know. I’m seeing the guys in a week or so. We’ll probably kick around some ideas then. There’s no road work this year, but maybe we’ll do some sessions.
Q: Would you like to make a new record?
A: I would, I sure would. When I see the guys, you have to take the temperature of everybody, because everybody’s gotta want to. Greg Kot @'Chicago Tribune'
I think I will be sticking with my boots of the 'real' "Exile" outtakes thanx!
