Exiled On Six Forks
It's weird being unemployed. I had been with the same company for 13 and half years and in the same store since it opened almost eleven years ago. Now, I have no idea if I will ever step in the store ever again.
Not sure its really sunk in yet. It seems like a vacation right now, especially since its around the time I take my annual March Madness vacation. Even when I was driving home it seemed surreal. I was a bit numb, but not really upset since no tears were shed. The writing had been on the wall for almost two years now and I was the obvious choice to go.
One of the reasons I wasn't really upset was because of the cd I listened to on the way to work, for whatever reason I grabbed the Stones 'Exile on Main Street' for the seven mile trip.
'Exile' is one of my top 5 albums and if you don't own this album, you need to. It ends the greatest four studio album stretch in rock history. Between 1968 and 1972 the Stones released 'Beggars Banquet', 'Let It Bleed', 'Sticky Fingers' and finally 'Exile'. Are you fucking kidding me? Today bands take longer breaks between albums than this and the Stones release 4 of the best 100 albums ever during this time.
But 'Exile' wasn't always in my top 5, the first two or three time I listened to it I hated this album. Alot. So much so that I didn't listen to it for years after that. Where was the 'Brown Sugar' or 'Sympathy For The Devil', the only song my local classic rock radio station played from this album was 'Tumbling Dice', really? That's the best song on it? If you were lucky they played 'Happy', which was sung by Keith and really doesn't count as a Stones song. The production was muddy, Jagger was buried somewhere underneath everything and the second half of the album, what the hell? This is a classic album? It sounds like the engineer was deaf and the band didn't really care.
Then, years later, I listened to it again and was shocked. How the fuck did I miss this the first time? I know its trite, but its the kind of album that you discover something new each time you listen. Like the piercing horn parts, the hidden piano parts, the words to 'Just Want To See His Face.' It's like an ogre, it has layers.
Its an amazing double album and you barely know its the Stones. There's a reason their greatest hits Hot Rocks encompasses 1964 to 1971. 'Exile' has no real singles. There really isn't a riff on the album that you sing and people know the song (i.e. Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction, etc). Keith and Mick Taylor seem more interested in hiding their parts and solos, daring you to separate them from the organic noise of the album.
Charlie Watts proves that he is a great rock drummer and not just a four-on-the-floor kind of guy. The second half of the album, contain some of his best grooves, as well as one of the best drum lines ever (aka Ventilator Blues) which sounds like an evil whip cracking experiment gone wrong.
And they were never more poetic than on 'Exile'. "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me", "I would love to spill the beans with you till dawn", "Always took candy from strangers", "In the bar you're getting drunk, I ain't in love, I ain't in luck." Genius. That's if you can understand the words. It's taken me ten plus years to find those buried on the album and I can still sing along with only half the album, maybe.
'Exile' has made the transition from gainfully employed to jobless slug-about a bit easier. Two days in and its still the only album I've listened to. So, now it has taken on another important meaning in my life. Besides being the best album that I 're-discovered' it will also be tied to my last day at Borders.
In honor of me losing my job I want everyone to 're-discover' an album in your collection. You can't make it something you haven't listened to in years, but still own (like Hooties 'Cracked Rear View' or the first Arrested Development record). But something you bought on someone's recommendation or read in a magazine, listened to once or twice and buried it away.
Now is the time to take that album out and try it again. So, if you bought The Byrds 'Sweetheart Of The Radio' during your alt-country phase, or 'Unknown Pleasure' by Joy Division after digging The Strokes and Interpol in 2002. Go back, dig them out and give them another chance.
Do it for me, then let me know what you find.
Not sure its really sunk in yet. It seems like a vacation right now, especially since its around the time I take my annual March Madness vacation. Even when I was driving home it seemed surreal. I was a bit numb, but not really upset since no tears were shed. The writing had been on the wall for almost two years now and I was the obvious choice to go.
One of the reasons I wasn't really upset was because of the cd I listened to on the way to work, for whatever reason I grabbed the Stones 'Exile on Main Street' for the seven mile trip.
'Exile' is one of my top 5 albums and if you don't own this album, you need to. It ends the greatest four studio album stretch in rock history. Between 1968 and 1972 the Stones released 'Beggars Banquet', 'Let It Bleed', 'Sticky Fingers' and finally 'Exile'. Are you fucking kidding me? Today bands take longer breaks between albums than this and the Stones release 4 of the best 100 albums ever during this time.
But 'Exile' wasn't always in my top 5, the first two or three time I listened to it I hated this album. Alot. So much so that I didn't listen to it for years after that. Where was the 'Brown Sugar' or 'Sympathy For The Devil', the only song my local classic rock radio station played from this album was 'Tumbling Dice', really? That's the best song on it? If you were lucky they played 'Happy', which was sung by Keith and really doesn't count as a Stones song. The production was muddy, Jagger was buried somewhere underneath everything and the second half of the album, what the hell? This is a classic album? It sounds like the engineer was deaf and the band didn't really care.
Then, years later, I listened to it again and was shocked. How the fuck did I miss this the first time? I know its trite, but its the kind of album that you discover something new each time you listen. Like the piercing horn parts, the hidden piano parts, the words to 'Just Want To See His Face.' It's like an ogre, it has layers.
Its an amazing double album and you barely know its the Stones. There's a reason their greatest hits Hot Rocks encompasses 1964 to 1971. 'Exile' has no real singles. There really isn't a riff on the album that you sing and people know the song (i.e. Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction, etc). Keith and Mick Taylor seem more interested in hiding their parts and solos, daring you to separate them from the organic noise of the album.
Charlie Watts proves that he is a great rock drummer and not just a four-on-the-floor kind of guy. The second half of the album, contain some of his best grooves, as well as one of the best drum lines ever (aka Ventilator Blues) which sounds like an evil whip cracking experiment gone wrong.
And they were never more poetic than on 'Exile'. "The sunshine bores the daylights out of me", "I would love to spill the beans with you till dawn", "Always took candy from strangers", "In the bar you're getting drunk, I ain't in love, I ain't in luck." Genius. That's if you can understand the words. It's taken me ten plus years to find those buried on the album and I can still sing along with only half the album, maybe.
'Exile' has made the transition from gainfully employed to jobless slug-about a bit easier. Two days in and its still the only album I've listened to. So, now it has taken on another important meaning in my life. Besides being the best album that I 're-discovered' it will also be tied to my last day at Borders.
In honor of me losing my job I want everyone to 're-discover' an album in your collection. You can't make it something you haven't listened to in years, but still own (like Hooties 'Cracked Rear View' or the first Arrested Development record). But something you bought on someone's recommendation or read in a magazine, listened to once or twice and buried it away.
Now is the time to take that album out and try it again. So, if you bought The Byrds 'Sweetheart Of The Radio' during your alt-country phase, or 'Unknown Pleasure' by Joy Division after digging The Strokes and Interpol in 2002. Go back, dig them out and give them another chance.
Do it for me, then let me know what you find.
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