In the summer of 1986, Pussy Galore recorded a version of Exile on Main Street. The three-day recording
was done as a sort of gag response to Sonic Youth's often-stated intent to cover the Beatles' White Album. [Guitarist] Neil [Hagerty] knew the Stones' "Exile" well and was given the task of interpreting the record and teaching it to the rest of us. Neil would present a song to the band, we would play it a few times, then lay it down. In this manner the entire album was recorded in sequence. By side three everyone had gotten into the swing of it and we were not yet sick of the process. Recorded with the "Pussy Galore Mobile Unit," a borrowed cassette 4-track, in the PG practice space, NYC ...
Only 550 cassette copies of the extremely lo-fi, trashy, hissy
mess were made. I bought #
426 at See Hear on the Lower East Side soon after moving to Brooklyn.
Listen! Do not expect anything even approaching decent sound quality; this tape makes the original Exile (or Metal Machine Music, for that matter) sound like a mint Steely Dan album.
Phish played Exile on Main Street from start to finish during a Halloween concert last year at Festival 8 in Indio, California. Guitarist-singer Trey Anastasio:
The first thing I did was sit down and start learning, note for note, the two guitar players' licks. I really dug in. And lo and behold, there are incredible, distinct guitar lines. It's played with an attitude — that rock & roll attitude. But everybody's playing sloppy together. Sit down someday and try to play along with those drums. It's incredibly intricate. It comes off as sloppy, but it's not sloppy at all.
Also included are scans of the eight-page concert program. Phish lacks the raunch to do Exile's rockers justice, but the soulful, gospel-tinged songs are quite good. Listen (
I and
II)!
Rocks Off
Rip This Joint
Shake Your Hips
Casino Boogie
Tumbling Dice
Sweet Virginia
Torn And Frayed
Sweet Black Angel
Loving Cup
Happy
Turd On The Run
Ventilator Blues
I Just Want To See His Face
Let It Loose
All Down The Line
Stop Breaking Down
Shine A Light
Soul Survivor
Only 550 cassette copies of the extremely lo-fi, trashy, hissy mess were made. I bought #426 at See Hear on the Lower East Side soon after moving to Brooklyn. Listen! Do not expect anything even approaching decent sound quality; this tape makes the original Exile (or Metal Machine Music, for that matter) sound like a mint Steely Dan album.
Also included are scans of the eight-page concert program. Phish lacks the raunch to do Exile's rockers justice, but the soulful, gospel-tinged songs are quite good. Listen (I and II)!
The Phish version of I Just Want to See His Face is really good, so I agree with your assessment about the gospel tunes. Of course, they had horns and back up singers for this part of the show, so it wasn't only the band.
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