What a disappointment. What poor handling of a band’s legacy.

The more I hear about the forthcoming remaster/reissue of the Rolling Stones’ seminal Exile On Main Street album, the more my enthusiasm gets tempered. On Record Store Day, I was thankfully able to score one of the limited edition 45s of “Plundered My Soul,” the first of the unreleased Exile cuts that make up a bonus disc in that set to make its way out. Watch the official video here & give it a listen yourself:

Not too shabby, right? At first glance it’s a shot of the classic, southern-fried, soulful rock that makes Exile so remarkable, but I was troubled by what I heard: something was off. Having never heard the song in unreleased/bootleg format, I had nothing with which to compare it, but parts of it sounded too clean, too polished to really be an outtake from that era, especially when lined up against bootlegs of a similar vintage. It also sounded sluggish to me — something about the pacing is off.

I did some poking around and found this listing of recording credits for the song:

Personnel:
Mick Jagger: Vocals, Guitar & Percussion
Keith Richards: Guitar
Charlie Watts: Drums
Bill Wyman: Bass
Nicky Hopkins: Piano
Mick Taylor: Guitar
Bobby Keys: Sax
Lisa Fisher: Background Vocals
Cindy Mizelle: Background Vocals

Okay, Mick, Keith, Charlie, Bill & Mick Taylor are all accounted for. Nicky Hopkins and Bobby Keys, too — they both were involved in the Exile sessions. Wait, Lisa Fisher? One of their current background singers? She has a hell of a voice, yes, but she was about 13 when the album was recorded, and I doubt a pre-teen would have been in the basement of Keith Richards’ house in southern France to record backing vocals for anything (actually, I’m pretty sure that Keith Richards’ basement is the absolute last place a pre-teen girl should have been in the early 70’s).

I’d heard that Don Was had been put in charge of assembling the added disc of outtakes & bonus tracks, and Rolling Stone (whose attractive new website won’t cough up the story/link) had reported, much to my dismay, that fresh instrumental overdubs had been added to some tracks, while another song, which only existed as an instrumental, had completely new lyrics written and vocals recorded for it by Jagger. This is an absolutely horrible bit of revisionist history — I just can’t see any need whatsoever to tinker with something like that. I’d rather hear the sounds of a band working through ideas, finding their way towards the greatness of songs like “Tumbling Dice” and “Loving Cup” than to hear something that’s neither here nor there. There were reasons why songs like “Pass The Wine” didn’t make the initial cut — let me find out why (maybe with better sound quality than on available bootlegs) on my own rather than trying to recapture the essence of a nearly 40-year old sound which, as the weird vibe all over “Plunder My Soul” proves, absolutely does not work.

I’m still in for purchasing the expanded reissue of Exile — I’m an Exile completist, and am surprised to only have a handful of the unreleased songs on bootlegs — but I wish they’d just let the unreleased stuff speak for itself instead of trying to re-interpret it. Thinking about this has driven me to begin putting together a Reissue Done Right for Exile, along the lines of what I put together for Sticky Fingers a few months back — you’ll see it before this “Exile” set hits, I promise.

I was inspired by Sam’s nuclear post to put together my own list of radioactive music. I grew up at a time of transition for the world. I was born the day before the Watergate break-in (so I have an alibi), when I was six months old the last men walked on the Moon, my entire school life existed under the shadow of the Cold War, a Faustian trade-off for being the first American generation in a long time to not have to march off to war. Right after I graduated high school in 1990, things heated up around the world again, and now of course we’re living in the post-USSR but also post-9/11 world. I know it left an indelible impression on me; growing up knowing that there was a “button” somewhere in the Oval Office that, if pressed, would blow up the world sixteen times over. I see this most clearly when I look through any creative writing I did in high school - there is a subliminal yet detectable apocalyptic undercurrent to everything. My last-inning at bat in the Cold War paranoia game links me in an odd way to an older generation that had birthed “Fail-Safe” and “Dr. Strangelove”, “no nukes” and “ban the bomb”. It also separates me philosophically from a younger generation that grew up during the blissfully unaware years between glasnost and jihad.

Anyway, here’s my Cold-War-inspired list of glowing recommendations:

1. Bonzo Goes To Washington, “Five Minutes”
Former Modern Lover and Talking Head Jerry Harrison leapt upon the opportunity given to him when Ronald Reagan made an off-the-cuff joke into what he thought was a dead mike. Harrison found a copy of the audio, recruited Bootsy Collins (BOOTSY!) on bass, and built a simple electro-funk track to run behind his primitive and repetitive sampling of the joke. It’s along much the same lines as Paul Hardcastle’s “19″, or Keith LeBlanc’s “No Sellout”, only with an 80s Cold War slant.

2. U2, “Seconds”
This song is wedged neatly between the hits “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and “New Year’s Day” on U2’s fantastic album “War” - and in fact fits there perfectly, combining the rhythm and biting commentary of the first with the blood-red sky apocalyptic imagery of the second. With lyrics like “lightning flashes across the sky, east to west, do or die” and labeling all the world players as “puppets on a string”, the song labels the nuclear threat as the actual enemy, holding the human race under its thumb.

3. Frankie Goes To Hollywood, “Two Tribes”
Here’s one that most will remember for its sublimely satirical Godley & Creme music video, featuring the leaders of the world engaged in a bloody battle in a wrestling ring. The much longer album version also features calmly and coldly read Cold War Era instructions on how to survive a nuclear attack, adding to the overall “we all lose” theme of the song.

4. Roger Waters, “Four Minutes”
Waters has written some of the most pointed anti-war songs in the history of pop music, and in this he finishes off his “Radio K.A.O.S.” opus with the button actually being pushed, and all the world forced to face their final few minutes. Thank goodness he added on his Live-Aid-inspired “The Tide Is Turning” to leave us with at least some hope.

5. Hiroshima, “Atomic Cafe”
And now to prove that not everything apocalyptically-themed has to be a downer, here we have a jazz ensemble named after the first bloody chapter in the Atomic Age, performing a song named after a famous Cold War documentary, and it’s bouncy acid jazz fun! I don’t know what that really means, but I hope you hurry up and enjoy the song. We begin bombing in five minutes.

Download: Bonzo Goes To Washington, “Five Minutes” (AAC)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: U2, “Seconds” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Frankie Goes To Hollywood, “Two Tribes” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Roger Waters, “Four Minutes” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Hiroshima, “Atomic Cafe” (AAC)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download the whole list as a ZIP file:

Download: Half-Life Crisis (ZIP)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

I work in a place that’s got a nuclear policy bent, and my week at work has been frenzied thanks to President Obama’s nuclear security summit. In honor of the assembled leaders’ pledge to corral loose nuclear material, I thought it would be fun to put together a nuclear playlist — enjoy!

• Nena, “99 Red Balloons”
  The Watchmen movie did a respectable job of setting the stage with nuclear tension by including this ditty by German pop band Nena, which tells a story of 99 balloons floating into the air, triggering an apocalyptic overreaction by military forces.
• The Postal Service, “We Will All Become Silhouettes”
  The post-apocalyptic/fallout shelter imagery is haunting stuff — thankfully, the video is more warped than creepy. Or maybe it’s creepy because it’s warped:

• Genesis, “Land of Confusion”
  Okay, the song itself isn’t necessarily about nuclear weapons, but the nuclear imagery of the music video was burned into my brain as a kid:

• Keith Richards, “Oh Lord, Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me”
  I’d never encountered this recording before thinking about putting this list together. It’s a cover of a Charles Mingus recording (from the 50’s? 60’s? I can’t find any info about its origins) that features a host of Rolling Stones collaborators: Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, longtime backing vocalist Bernard Fowler, keyboardist Chuck Leavell, and the Uptown Horns all appear. Loose, fun stuff.
• Tom Lehrer, “We Will All Go Together When We Go”
  If you’ve gotta go, you might as well go with a smile: this wry take on nuclear destruction was recorded at Harvard’s Sanders Theater in back in 1959.
• “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero”
  Fallout makes for some great holiday cheer: “Oh, it’s Christmas at Ground Zero/And if the radiation level’s okay/I’ll go out with you and see the all new/Mutations on New Year’s Day”
• Electric Six, “Nuclear War (On the Dancefloor)”
  These awesome hair metal riffs are offered without comment.
• Electric Six, “I’m The Bomb”
  I had to double-dip with the Six, because this pair of songs go so well together. The catchy disco beat & melody are paired with an impressive Kenny Powers-style bravado, especially when it climaxes in the chorus: “3-2-1 I’m the bomb/And I’m ready to go off in your shit.”

Download the songs here:

Download: Nena, “99 Red Balloons” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: The Postal Service, “We Will All Become Silhouettes” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Genesis, “Land of Confusion” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Keith Richards, “Oh Lord, Don’t Let Them Drop That Atomic Bomb On Me” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Tom Lehrer, “We Will All Go Together When We Go” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: “Weird Al” Yankovic, “Christmas at Ground Zero” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Electric Six, “Nuclear War (On the Dancefloor)” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Download: Electric Six, “I’m The Bomb” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

This ZIP of the entire list is da BOMB:

Download: That’s noo-klee-er (ZIP)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Things around these parts have been pretty dormant for months, and I’m sorry about that. Life has a habit of getting in the way, and when you’re feeling down, it’s really hard to sit down & write about something as seemingly trivial as music.

It’s been almost six weeks since my grandmother Alice Leveton passed away. She fought a months-long battle against a variety of ailments that were precipitated by a serious fall in the home she shared with my mother in Florida. We all called her Mac: it was a nickname she gained while serving as an Army nurse during WWII, short for McAlister, her maiden name.

Today, as my iPhone shuffled during my AM commute, Johnny Cash’s touching cover of “We’ll Meet Again” played, and all I could think about was Mac. His Rubin-era recordings have been the accompaniment to my experience with her illness: I was listening to his Unearthed collection before I got some serious news about her condition in January, and the only CD I had or driving music while in Florida at the time of her passing was his most recent posthumous set, American VI: Ain’t No Grave. Listening to Cash coming to terms with his mortality and spirituality at the same time I was considering Mac’s and my own was equal parts upsetting and comforting, but I can’t imagine any better voice for the experience.

Grave is an emotional rollercoaster of an album, and the one song that will forever hit me like a sledgehammer is “I Don’t Hurt Anymore.” I was with Mac at the end, and her final hours, her silent gasps for air, seemed like such a struggle — I know the song is really about a breakup, but that sentiment, “At last I am free/I don’t hurt anymore,” makes me feel both barrels of the pain and relief of her passing every time I hear it.

Mac and I had a shared love for many things — The Late Show with David Letterman, cheeseburgers with grilled onions from the now-closed Paul’s Famous Hamburgers in Milford, CT, — but we had very different taste in music. The tapes (tapes!) I remember her playing most came from her sons, my late uncles Peter and Philip, and I think the fact that they came from her boys meant more than any of the music therein.

There are 3 artists who will forever be associated with Mac in my mind. First: Polish-born chanteuse Basia, who, on the cover of her album Time and Tide, I mistook for Tiffany. Mac’s favorite, tho, was London Warsaw New York, which featured this bit of deliciously mangled English, “Cruising for Bruising”:

The second is Michael Franks, who’s giving off a classy pedophile vibe on the cover of the uncomfortably-titled Skin Dive:

Yikes. I never heard her listen to Skin Dive, but that creepy album cover stayed with me all these years. Check out some of his synth “jazz”:

Mac’s absolute favorite singer, though, was Barbara Streisand, who she often just called “Barbara.” Every time she was on TV, it was appointment viewing for her. I remember her listening to Back to Broadway most, a collection of showtunes from the Great White Way:

The last gift I gave Mac was a CD of Barbara’s, her last album, Love Is The Answer. Mac was hospitalized and not completely coherent, and she didn’t have a CD player or radio anywhere in her hospital room, but I thought just having it would bring her a little bit of joy. The back cover photo was a bonus, too, because it featured a little white dog that looked like her last dog Dolly.

After Mac passed, my family began the process of cleaning out her bedroom, and we came across Barbara’s CD, still sealed. My mother offered it to me, but I declined.

I guess there’s no tidy way to sum up and end this post, so I’ll say goodbye to Mac the way Johnny Cash said goodbye on Ain’t No Grave with a tender cover of “Aloha Oe” — we’ll meet again, indeed:

Download: Johnny Cash, “Aloha Oe” (mp3)
(Right-click/control-click link to download)

Last therapeutic, over-personal venting for a while, I promise. New lists & other recommendations to come.