"The Rolling Stones" Thread

[Jérôme Frenchise]

I hope you will. When you do, could you please share a link? Must be a killer.

[FORD]

That version of Beast of Burden is the true highlight of the 8 track. There's also an extended cut of "Miss You" which is about a minute longer than the album version, but if you have the 8 minute 12" single (or any of it's CD reissues) then there's nothing in the 8 track version you haven't already heard

[Jérôme Frenchise]

Maybe the sound is worth the listening.

[Terry]

I picked up the six disc Steel Wheels thing. Haven't got into it yet though.

Forgot to ask about the Goat's Head Soup set while I was there. Might just get it off Amazon.

That whole Steel Wheels period, from the album itself to the tour, becomes less impressive to me as the years have wound on.

Think the album was pretty mediocre. I will say the tour was well-rehearsed and performed competently night after night...I dunno. For me, it was perhaps a case of too many extra/augmenting musicians onstage and the band being a bit TOO rehearsed.

[Jérôme Frenchise]

That whole Steel Wheels period, from the album itself to the tour, becomes less impressive to me as the years have wound on.

Think the album was pretty mediocre. I will say the tour was well-rehearsed and performed competently night after night...I dunno. For me, it was perhaps a case of too many extra/augmenting musicians onstage and the band being a bit TOO rehearsed.

I guess "too rehearsed" means they didn't sound stonesy enough to you.

I saw them on June 25, 1990 in Paris. I liked the Steel Wheels album a lot back then. Last summer I found a bootleg of that concert, "The Singer and the Fly" (the title explained by the fact Jagger swallowed a fly or a mosquito (I remember he said in French it was a fly when he came back after a while. He had choked with the bug, walked away and didn't finish the song).
I still enjoy Mixed Emotions, Sad Sad Sad, Blinded by Love and Keith's Slipping Away. Now it makes me think of a Mick Jagger solo album.

BTW, I prefer Keith's 1988 Talk is Cheap and Mick's Wandering Spirit that are both great records IMO.

[Terry]

I guess "too rehearsed" means they didn't sound stonesy enough to you.

I saw them on June 25, 1990 in Paris. I liked the Steel Wheels album a lot back then. Last summer I found a bootleg of that concert, "The Singer and the Fly" (the title explained by the fact Jagger swallowed a fly or a mosquito (I remember he said in French it was a fly when he came back after a while. He had choked with the bug, walked away and didn't finish the song).
I still enjoy Mixed Emotions, Sad Sad Sad, Blinded by Love and Keith's Slipping Away. Now it makes me think of a Mick Jagger solo album.

BTW, I prefer Keith's 1988 Talk is Cheap and Mick's Wandering Spirit that are both great records IMO.

I think the band sounded a bit...too polished on the Steel Wheels tour. Which I can understand to a degree, I suppose, with the size of the stage production and the amount of musicians onstage.

I'd sooner watch the 1978 Texas dvd, where it sounded a bit more like the band were flying by the seat of their pants.

I'd agree that both Talk Is Cheap and Wandering Spirit were better efforts than Steel Wheels was. In point of fact, a lot of the tracks on Steel Wheels sound like lesser tracks off of Jagger/Richards solo albums.

[FORD]

Actually "Almost Hear You Sigh" from Steel Wheels was literally an outtake from "Talk Is Cheap", which is why Steve Jordan has a co-writing credit on the song.

[FORD]

And even when they finally got together to make Steel Wheels, Keef was originally going to sing the song....

Guess he let Mick have it, because he thought "Slipping Away" was a better ballad for him, maybe?

[Terry]

Perhaps re: Slipping Away vs. Almost Hear You Sigh.

I do recall when [Steel Wheels] first came out I listened to it quite a bit, mostly in the run-up to the Stones show I saw on that tour. But after the tour was over, the album (actually a cassette) just gathered dust. Same for Voodoo Lounge.

About the only tracks off of Steel Wheels I could see even wanting to hear these days...maybe Terrifying. Maybe Break The Spell. Too much of the rest of the record these days seems like the band were just recycling riffs/ideas and moods from previous albums, whereas from, say, Beggar's Banquet to Let It Bleed to Sticky Fingers to Exile On Main Street to Goat's Head Soup to It's Only Rock And Roll to Black and Blue to Some Girls the band wasn't sort of content with ripping themselves off. Even an uneven album like Emotional Rescue or Undercover would manage to come up with at least a couple of tracks that were decent in their own right.

[twonabomber]

Steel Wheels is more of a sentimental thing to me. My first Stones show, $35 and we sat right behind the right field dugout at old Cleveland Muny Stadium. It was COLD! Late September or early October, I don't remember and too lazy to look.

I like Continental Drift. Don Was doesn't let them do stuff like that any more, he plays it very safe. Saint of Me, Might As Well Get Juiced and Gunface on Bridges To Babylon were produced by others.

[FORD]

Continental Drift was interesting, but obviously that's something they probably could never pull off live (which is why they used it for the intro music on the Steel Wheels tour... it's as close as you'll ever get to hearing that on stage)

In addition to The Master Musicians of Jajouka playing all the Moroccan stuff, you also had Keef playing "percussion" with a bicycle wheel. Definitely a one of a kind performance.

Of course the association with The Master Musicians of Jajouka goes back to the late 60s when Brian Jones produced an album for them.....

[FORD]

[FORD]

[FORD]

First time I've seen this one without the annoying radio DJ talking over the intro....

[Jérôme Frenchise]

I recently went through the whole Let's Spend the Night Together compilation from the 1981 tour again. I hadn't done so for about 20 years (had it on videotape), remembered it and found it on the net.
I had almost forgotten how masterful the show was. My first Stones album was Undercover and first live album was Still Life.

The behind the curtain moment and the very beginning of Under my Thumb are very impressive. They all look so laid down while a whole stadium is waiting for them to start, and the way they walk on stage as if they were rehearsing...