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March 31, 2002
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
March 23, 2002
Mokhiber/Weissman
A
Corporate Lawyer
Speaks Out
Saeed Vaseghi
The US and Iran's Quest
for Democracy
Brian
J. Foley
Does
Pedophilia Scandal Spell an Opportunity for Catholics?
Sheperd Bliss
American Soul and Empire
James
Packard Winkler
Occupation
and Terror:
Politics from a Gun Barrel
M. Shahid Alam
A New International Division
of Labor
T.W. Croft
Enron's
Attack on Our
Economic Security
March 22, 2002
Robert Jensen
Corporate Power is a
Threat to Democracy
Tommy
Ates
The
Future of Black Academia
Rep. Ron Paul
Why are We in Ukraine?
March 21, 2002
McQuinn,
Munson, & Wheeler
Stars
and Stripes:
Killing for the Flag?
John Chuckman
How Change is Wrought
David
Vest
Hail
to the Chaff
March 20, 2002
Kay Lee
Censorship at Angelfire
Robert
Jensen
The
Politics of Pain
and Pleasure
Sheperd Bliss
Notes from Hawai'i:
Trouble in Paradise
Rick Giambetti
Prozac
and Suicide:
an Interview with
Dr. David Healy
Philip Farruggio
Bullies
Lori Allen
Live
from Ramallah:
The Madness of Occupation
Resources:
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Five
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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April 1, 2002
Behind
the Scenes of Rock's Greatest Album
The Making of The Rolling Stones'
Exile On Main Street
By Phyllis Pollack
Photographer Dominique Tarlé has documented
the recording of the masterpiece album by the Rolling Stones,
Exile
On Main Street, thirty years after its release. The
result, The Making Of Exile On Main Street, is a leather
bound book, published by Genesis Publications, lushly filled
with up close and personal shots of the Stones in various states
of consciousness. While serving as a showcase for Tarlé's
photos, the tome is also  dense
in text, featuring interviews with many of those who were present,
including members of the band and some of those who worked for
them during that period. The book also includes reprints of the
lengthy 1971 Rolling Stone interview with Stones guitarist Keith
Richards, written by Robert Greenfield, author of the book, Stones
Touring Party: Through America With the Rolling Stones,
about the group's 1972 S.T.P. tour.
Most of the tracks that comprise Exile
On Main Street were recorded at the Villa Nellcote, a mansion
facing the sea on the French Riviera. Stunners on Exile
that were recorded there include such classics as "Happy,"
"Tumblin' Dice" and "Sweet Black Angel,"
an ode to black activist Angela Davis, while the memorable "Sweet
Virginia" was an outtake from the indelible Let
It Bleed. According to producer Andy Johns, "at
least two-thirds" of Exile was recorded there.
Built in 1899, the Villa Nellcote was
rented by Keith Richards, who had fled England, in response to
the large amount of taxes the government wanted from members
of the band. The Stones had to be out of the country by April
5, or the British government would have confiscated their funds.
Nellcote became the unlikely refuge for the group. As a result
of the legendary Exile, Tarlé explains, "Nellcote
has become like a monument, a monument to rock and roll."
After looking for a suitable place to
record, the Stones decided to have a studio built in Nellcote's
basement, ensuring that the often-elusive Richards would be accessible.
The Stones had a mobile studio in a truck parked outside, which
was later immortalized in Deep Purple's track "Smoke On
The Water." In the midst of various electrical problems,
Stones crew members illegally wired the electricity, so that
it would bypass the meter at the house, and instead of using
their own electricity, the power that was generated and that
was used in the house and in the truck's mobile studio, came
from a nearby railway, where the crew had hooked the line coming
into the house.
The band recorded in the basement, and
it was always a matter of who was around at the time, as far
as who was laying down tracks. If two or three of the Stones
were around, they'd go down there and work. The late keyboardist
Nicky Hopkins explained the method used to record the tracks
that would appear on the double album. "We were recording
in the basement with the mobile truck outside. It was very much
a professional studio. They have 8 or 16 track television monitors
so they can see what is going on downstairs. The music is actually
made in the basement, and the knob sliding is done outside."
According to Richards, the house had
served as "the Gestapo headquarters during the war,"
explaining why the floor vents in the basement were decorated
with swastikas. In one passage of the book about the basement,
Tarlé remembers, "I found a box down there with a
big swastika on it, full of injection phials. They all contained
morphine. It was very old, of course, and our first reaction
was, "If Keith had found this box." So one night we
carried it to the end of the garden, and threw it into the sea."
Among the amazing stories in the book
was when Keith Richards buried his Tuinals to hide them from
the police when he crashed his car. "I spun a yarn about
this mysterious Ferrari with Yugoslavian plates," Richards
would later explain in 1990, when describing that encounter with
law enforcement.
Despite any accounts of drug use, two
of those in the book, who visited Nellcote, credit Richards with
intentionally dissuading them from ever using heroin.
The album was produced by the late Jimmy
Miller, who also produced albums by groups including Motorhead
and Traffic. Studio engineer Andy Johns describes "the primitive
set up" used to record the tracks at Nellcote, a far cry
from the digital trick bag that is available to musicians today.
"Keith was the whole thing," John says. Given the conditions
described, it seems amazing the band thrived musically at Nellcote.
The sweltering heat and humidity in the basement was so intense
that it even caused caused guitar strings to expand and go out
of tune.
Drummer Charlie Watts' patience never
seems to falter throughout it all. Looking back on how he had
miked Watts' percussion, Andy Johns would even later ask himself
years later, "What was I thinking?"
Belatedly, Keith's love and deep knowledge
of country music is finally given attention in Tarlé's
book. Richards' contribution on the Hank Williams tribute, Timeless, undoubtedly
tilted the hand in regards to its Grammy win this year for Best
Country Album. Certainly fanning Keith's flame at Nellcote was
the presence of the late Gram Parsons, the guitarist who ushered
in the country rock movement of which he became a patron saint.
There are numerous photos in the book of the two together at
the house.
In the book, Richards is quoted as having
said during the Nellcote period that James Burton was his favorite
guitar player. Thirty years later, Richards would induct Burton
into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, along with keyboardist Johnny
Johnson, who Richards sought out in the wake of filming Hail,
Hail, Hock And Roll, A Tribute To Chuck Berry.
Among those seen in Tarlé's book
is Eric Clapton, who had painstakingly picked out a guitar as
a gift for Richards that he came to the house to deliver. There
are also photographs of the late Nicky Hopkins, and the sixth
Rolling Stone, the late Ian Stewart. In its pages, there are
many images of Richards' longtime partner, Anita Pallenberg,
as well as Tarlé's stunning portraits of Bill Wyman, who
left the band in 1992. Mick Jagger, who married Bianca during
this period, is seen in the book with the only woman he ever
"legally" married.
Although not photographed for the book,
there is an account about John Lennon, who threw up as he departed
from the house, after a forty-five minute visit with Richards.
Exile on Main Street remains a musical testament to the incomparable
legacy of the Rolling Stones.
For those who can afford this pricey
book, it's a must-have for those who want to re-discover the
Exile period of the Stones.
The book can be ordered by calling Govinda-Gallery
at (800) 775-1111.
Phyllis Pollack
lives in LA, where she writes about rock and fights censorship.
These days she's breathing a sigh of relief that her arch-nemesis
Tipper Gore decided not to run for the US senate.
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