May 27, 2010

Unless you’re deaf, you’re probably aware that there’s a newly-remastered version of the Rolling Stones’ listing, disheveled masterpiece, “Exile on Main St.,” now available for re-re-re-purchase…or, just to maintain that alluring outlaw edge, illegal downloading. Either way, it’s worth the effort, but I personally think Mick and Keith have enough fucking money, much of which used to belong to you, me, and everybody we know.

This isn’t a matter of wiping the grime off a fresco only to discover it looked better when it was filthy, by the way, which was my initial fear when I heard what the Stones were up to with “Exile.” Although the album was partially and famously recorded in the dank basement of a rented mansion in the south of France, the cleaned up tapes display a great deal of extra pop and crack; Charlie Watts’ drums, in particular, ring with more swinging urgency than ever before, and it only adds to the experience.

Still, the “bonus” cuts in which Mick laid new vocals over previously forgotten rhythm tracks are about as appealing as putting ketchup on a 40 year-old hamburger, with the condiment being a preservative-laden variation on the original squished and drippy tomato. I’ve seen Jagger describe this unholy process on TV about 50 different times in the past week, and he seems blissfully unaware that he pissed on his own legacy by doing it, which is not quite the same as the old Stones, who once got arrested for pissing on a gas station wall.

You get the feeling today’s Mick doesn’t spend a lot of time running around the house looking for his misplaced harmonica. Maybe Dylan still does, but not the Monkey Man. He’s got a meeting with his accountant, and then he’s got that 8 o’clock blow job to tend to.

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So there’s no keeping a good exile down, and “Exile on Main St.” remains one of the greatest rock & roll albums ever made, a two (vinyl) disc collection so bedraggled, tawdry, ridiculous, and, finally merciful, it’ll stand up to repeated listening until the day they finally put me in that cold, cold ground.

"Exile on Main St." – Radio Ad

Jagger, back when he was still capable of making insightful comments, once called “Exile” the hangover after the ‘60s, or something like that. I don’t remember the exact quote. But this album sounds like a mere hangover only when the participants don’t seem wasted beyond repair, which isn’t often.

A lot of the songs weren’t recorded by “the Rolling Stones” at all, but by anybody laying around who knew how to play an instrument, with Mick doing the singing and Keith and Mick Taylor throwing out building-block riffs. I mean, there aren’t too many tracks that sound driven by a big pot of black coffee. Jagger’s vocal on “Sweet Virginia,” as great as it is, appears to have been recorded seconds before he scampered off for a barf.

"Sweet Virginia"

Rocking tracks, of course, abound, but I’d argue that none of them rock harder than “Rip This Joint,” which suggests Chuck Berry on a drunk with his head bursting into flames. Frankly, I don’t think the Stones have ever rocked harder than this, not on any cut on any album. And the lyrics are pointless enough to become almost profound through the back door.

"Rip This Joint"

Mama said yes, Papa said no,
Make up you mind 'cause I gotta go
Gonna raise hell at the Union Hall
Drive myself right over the wall

Wham, Bham, Birmingham, Alabam' don't give a damn
Little Rock, and I'm fit to drop
Ah, let it rock!

I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about, outside of some crazy cat substance abuser making a Berry-style cross-country trek. But I’ll be damned if “Blowing in the Wind” has anything on that one. And listen to Nicky Hopkins on that barrelhouse piano! Holy shit. That’s what you call getting the message across through “feel.”

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Once again, we’re dealing with a record here that really doesn’t have a bad cut, although the circumstances under which it was recorded occasionally allowed for too much wandering and too little focus. That sloppiness is camouflaged by sheer rocking muscle, so the more overtly tender songs tend to get ignored when “Exile on Main St.” is discussed.

But “Sweet Black Angel,” a folkie ode to the American radical feminist, Communist, and Black Panthers supporter, Angela Davis, is a real standout, with a descending melody that pulls genuine pathos from the Stones’ allegiance to a (at the time; she was later found innocent) potential murderer. In short, Davis, who had been an assistant professor of philosophy at UCLA, was accused of giving guns to some Panthers who abducted and killed a federal judge in a misguided attempt to keep one of their members out of prison. Davis made a break for it, but was captured by the FBI and was awaiting trial when the Stones were recording “Exile.”

Someone had taped a picture of Davis on the wall of the studio, and Jagger was moved to write a song about her. Note the inflection of the shackled African-Americans who came before Davis, and that the dreaded “N-word” appears in the lyrics, but as an expression of how many Americans viewed the Panthers.

Apparently, neither the Panthers nor Davis were offended, since no one ever took Jagger or any other Stones to task for it. Jagger’s intent, and high regard for black culture, seemed pretty obvious to anyone who ever paid any attention to him. Surely, the Panthers - who, like a good many ‘70s radicals, were vigorous self-romanticizers - played a 45 of “Street Fighting Man” on occasion.

"Sweet Black Angel"

Got a sweet black angel
Got a pin-up girl
Got a sweet black angel
Up upon my wall
Well, she ain't no singer
And she ain't no star
But she sure talk good
And she move so fast

Free de sweet black slave
Free de sweet black slave
Free de sweet black slave
Free de sweet black slave

John Lennon, who also wrote a song about Davis during his “Look— I bought some fatigues at the Army-Navy store” radical rich-guy phase, couldn’t touch what Jagger accomplished here. Even though it’s pretty well hidden among the assorted tumbling dice, “Sweet Black Angel” might be my favorite track on “Exile on Main St.”

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Before I close, I want to address something that always comes into play when people contemplate “Exile.” Hard drugs, not just pot and pills, were free-flowing during the album’s creation, and a lot of listeners like to spin that sort of thing into “Whooo-hoooo rock & roll!” when too many performers - and fans of performers - back in the day were waking up dead for their indulgence.

It’s not without reason that, for the past four decades, the Stones have successfully squelched the official release of “Cocksucker Blues,” Robert Frank’s raw, fly-on-the-wall documentary of their 1972 American tour in support of “Exile on Main St.” But Wall of Paul…um…has access, so let’s take a look at all the fun Richards and his partners in needles were having while Jagger and his more consistently lucid band mates were trying to hold everything together on the road.

There might be stupider things to do than getting yourself hooked on heroin as a symbol of your soul-deep hipness, but I’d be hard pressed to name them, and I’m always leery of the concept of artists who are supposedly more in touch with our shared heartbeat because they’re fucked up.

The miracle of “Exile on Main St.” should be the music itself, but that gets trumped by the fact that Richards - between the smack, the coke, the speed, and the Rebel Yell - didn’t keel over while it was being made. Bass player Bill Wyman got so tired of Richards’ exiles from existence he doesn’t appear on most of the album, and he and Keith didn’t bury the hatchet over the sessions until many years later.

Charlie Parker was convinced his genius would have burned even brighter were it not for the monkey on his back. Music fans should pause and reflect on what could have been for the Rolling Stones, had Richards been clean when the band still wanted to make records rather than simply sell them. If you care about great rock & roll as deeply as I do, you have to realize that we missed out on a lot.

Paul Tatara