In the summer before my senior year at Kenyon, I worked at a plumbing warehouse and corrected a critical flaw in my musical education — I got seriously into the Rolling Stones.  “Exile on Main Street”, “It’s Only Rock and Roll,” and “Sticky Fingers” were on the tape deck (remember cassette tapes?) constantly as I headed off to another mind numbing day of loading toilets, pipe, fittings, showers, tubs (tubs are very heavy, man) and even hot water boilers onto trucks.  For a while I even had to deliver those heavy items all by myself. 

But at least I had Mick, Keith and the boys to keep me company.   And we formed quite a bond.  “Exile” to me is the perfect rock album, and I can’t wait to hear what the re-issue sounds like.  I may even buy it on vinyl!!

Not surprisingly for really successful businessmen, the Stones have done an awesome job of packaging the re-release (take a look at all of the options for purchasing in this blog post!), and promoting.  In addition to the Jimmy Fallon wet kiss from all last week, I heard Keith Richards interviewed on NPR this morning, and Mick Jagger will be on NPR tomorrow.  Is there a German word (like shadenfreude) for the feeling you get when everone finally catches on to something you’ve loved forever? 

On the social media front, the Stones have done an outstanding job.  If you go to the Rolling Stones home page, you get a ton of information (with surprisingly honest commentary on controversial issues such as the legacy of Mick Taylor) and embed codes for videos from two new previously unreleased cuts from the “Exile” sessions.    Here’s the video of “Plundered My Soul” — very nice.

Jimmy Fallon cut a deal with the Stones to show video from the new film, “Stones in Exile,” last Friday and every other day of the week had some top bands cover some of the classic cuts from Exile.  I’ve posted some of those videos (and the Stones original versions where appropriate) below.

Phish — “Loving Cup” — Wow is this good!!

For comparison, here’s the Rolling Stones version:

Green Day  “Rip This Joint” — High energy, with some great guitar by Billy Joe..

The Stones Version (Audio only)

Enjoy it…I will write a little more about Exile in a couple of weeks.