Grateful Dead

....i got a letter in the mail yesterday notifying me of a cybersecurity incident involving a number of e-commerce websites operated by Warner Music Group.
Quote...." On August 5, 2020, we learned that an unauthorized third party had compromised a number of US-based e-commerce websites WMG operates but that are hosted and supported by an external service provider. This allowed the unauthorized third-party to potentially acquire a copy of the personal information you entered into one or more of the affected website(s) between April 25, 2020 and August 5, 2020.
While we cannot definitely confirm that your personal information was affected, it is possible that it might have been as your transaction(s) occurred during the period of compromise. If it was, this might have exposed you to a risk of fraudulent transactions being carried out using your details."
Does say later that payments made through PayPal were not affected.
I use PayPal.
Anyone else get this letter??

To many Double IPAs

I've only seen the Rolling Stones play live one time, it was 1994 at the Voodoo Lounge tour. I really enjoyed the show. They opened the show with Not Fade Away. Apparently, they had a place there for famous people called the Voodoo Lounge, and I read that Garcia and Weir were both in there during the show. Anyways, I thought the Stones sounded great.

I love the Rolling Stones. I had my old man's eight tracks in the early seventies... I remember when Some Girls came out and we would continually be snatching the house copy of it back and forth from each other. I was 10.

Seen them live several times, most recently last summer at Mile High Stadium. I have never felt that the Stones were a great live band. They're all over the goddamn place... they never sound much like their records. Which is neither here nor there, depending on what you're looking for, but they went from the raw (Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out!) to the aforementioned late 70's / early 80's affairs with sped up tempos, to the glossed over machine they became on Steel Wheels to date.

Point being, I didn't buy the Brussels Affair when it came out as I already have so many live Stones albums and rarely play them - except for Twenty Flight Rock and Going To A Go-Go off Still Life.

I bit on the iTunes version of this. The audio is cleaned up nicely, there are a number of unearthed gems and it is a great Mick Taylor live show. I've been playing it for two days now. I think it was like twenty bucks and change. For anyone on the fence, I say, go for it.

Keith - that Waiting For A Friend dates from 1973. Yes, that should have been included with the extras for sure.

Probably because I kept on seeing them - the last time was 2007, I think, I do like some of their live recordings from the 1990s up to about 2007. One thing I would highly recommend...to anyone reading this with soul...is the live versions of Gimme Shelter featuring Lisa Fischer. She truly soars through the heavens on this song. I last heard it on the blu ray Bridges to Beunos Ares, bought last week, ( which also features Bob Dylan and Mick Jagger duetting on Like A Rolling Stone - shambolic!), and it is truly amazing. Another great version is on the Totally Stripped box set- from Amsterdam 1995. The sound is incredible on this-Keith Richards sounds as though he is in the room with you - which might or might not be a good thing. One of the remarkable things about the Bridges to Beunos Ares blu ray is the massive crowd, which goes absolutely bananas from the first song.

What I wouldn't give to have seen them with Mick Taylor! Yes they were outstanding onstage in those days, and to be honest, I never would have known it if I hadn't stumbled on the "Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones" movie concert a year or two before they released Brussels Affair.

I was watching VH-1 or AXS (one of those music TV stations), and wham, he'll right in the middle of the opener, Brown Sugar. The thing they caught me first was that Mick Jagger was actually singing, not huffing and puffing out the lyrics. Up until that time I had only heard live albums from the Ron Wood era: Love You Live, Still Life, and Flashpoint, all of which pretty much featured a band whizzing through songs, sloppy as can be. I assumed Mick Jagger was simply just a studio singer, and pretty much the same of Keith as a guitar player. I enjoyed the Hits From The Ron Wood years, but certainly not the live content.

I had been a fan of the Brian Jones and especially the Mick Taylor years for quite some time without ever hearing the band play live from '71 - '73. Then along came the movie concert from '72 on TV, and whoa - Mick was singing! Actually singing. Keith was at his legendary best, which I had also taken as myth, and Mick Taylor was everything and more on stage (he quietly sat back and played his ass off loudly, and with all the virtuoso we hear from him in the studio). Keith (by his own admission) once famously spent a couple of hours in the studio improvising a bridge or solo, or something, and was really just at his wits end trying to land the right notes. Taylor wasn't there, but he eventually showed up, listened for a couple of minutes, picked up his guitar and played exactly what Keith was struggling for. This was close to the end of Mick's tenure with the band; Keith turned to him and only half-jokingly said, "that's why I hate you man." Mick was light years ahead of the rest of the band musically.

The Goats Head box would be worth it for any casual to serious Stones fan who doesn't already own The Brussels Affair. My commentary on that show was strictly in comparison to the '72 Ladies and Gentlemen release. If I didn't already have Brussels, I would snatch up the box on release day. It would have been nice for them to have included the embryonic Waiting on a Friend. I was also hoping for the rumored extended version of Dancing with Mr D.

What I wouldn't give to have seen them with Mick Taylor! Yes they were outstanding onstage in those days, and to be honest, I never would have known it if I hadn't stumbled on the "Ladies and Gentlemen the Rolling Stones" movie concert a year or two before they released Brussels Affair.

I was watching VH-1 or AXS (one of those music TV stations), and wham, he'll right in the middle of the opener, Brown Sugar. The thing they caught me first was that Mick Jagger was actually singing, not huffing and puffing out the lyrics. Up until that time I had only heard live albums from the Ron Wood era: Love You Live, Still Life, and Flashpoint, all of which pretty much featured a band whizzing through songs, sloppy as can be. I assumed Mick Jagger was simply just a studio singer, and pretty much the same of Keith as a guitar player. I enjoyed the Hits From The Ron Wood years, but certainly not the live content.

I had been a fan of the Brian Jones and especially the Mick Taylor years for quite some time without ever hearing the band play live from '71 - '73. Then along came the movie concert from '72 on TV, and whoa - Mick was singing! Actually singing. Keith was at his legendary best, which I had also taken as myth, and Mick Taylor was everything and more on stage (he quietly sat back and played his ass off loudly, and with all the virtuoso we hear from him in the studio). Keith (by his own admission) once famously spent a couple of hours in the studio improvising a bridge or solo, or something, and was really just at his wits end trying to land the right notes. Taylor wasn't there, but he eventually showed up, listened for a couple of minutes, picked up his guitar and played exactly what Keith was struggling for. This was close to the end of Mick's tenure with the band; Keith turned to him and only half-jokingly said, "that's why I hate you man." Mick was light years ahead of the rest of the band musically.

The Goats Head box would be worth it for any casual to serious Stones fan who doesn't already own The Brussels Affair. My commentary on that show was strictly in comparison to the '72 Ladies and Gentlemen release. If I didn't already have Brussels, I would snatch up the box on release day. It would have been nice for them to have included the embryonic Waiting on a Friend. I was also hoping for the rumored extended version of Dancing with Mr D.

Billly the Kid - excellent cut by Little Walter. I have never heard anyone who made a harmonica sound so expressive-wonderful tone. Having said that, apart from Charlie Musslewhite ( and even there, I am not familiar with his music) I have never even heard of the other harp players you refer to. Some checking out to do, I think.

Keith - I enjoyed reading your thoughts on Goats Head Soup. I was 16 when that came out, and as I had a ticket to see them the month it came out-September 1973 - I thought I'd buy it to get some idea of what they sounded like. It was the first Stones album I got - I just had a vague memory of their singles at this point. In comparison with contemporaneous offerings by David Bowie, Black Sabbath Hawkwind etc it sounded quite middle of the road. The only track that really rocked was Starfucker. I can remember the press making much of the fact that Mick Jagger was now 30, and whether he was now too pooped to pop ( seemingly unaware that many of the new glam breed were about the same age).
But live...they were amazing !-a fantastic night. Suddenly, Goats Head Soup shot up in my estimation and I began buying all their other albums. Today, I rank it with the 4 others from Beggars Banquet onwards-although most people rate it less highly than the 4 that came before it.

This new edition looks like the rip off of the year. As you say, Brussels Affair has already been released as a download. The price of it is ridiculous, too. It all meant so much to me at the time though, that I am still sort of tempted.

. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5xj7gwFOvcM. Send this one out to Dave Rock , over in England. I also dedicate this to Charlie Musselwhite, Gary Smith, Mark Ford and Rick Estrin, the greatest blues harmonica players alive.

Thanks for posting this article. Every six months or so I check to see if there are any plans for the type of reissue of this album that Sticky Fingers and Exile received. Those two records had fantastic unreleaseded live tracks and studio outtakes.

What a disappointment to hear they're simply re-releasing The Brussels Affair as the companion piece. I already own the digital copy that was on the Rolling Stones website 8 years ago. It would be like reissuing American Beauty with the Download Series show from October '71. No sense in re-spending money on that - it's already been engineered and mastered professionally. Strike 1.

The author of the article is correct in saying that the two standout tracks from The Brussels affair are You Can't Always Get What You Want and Midnight Rambler. Probably the two best live versions of those songs. Beyond that, the album is a starfucker less than Ladies and Gentlemen The Rolling Stones (this was the movie from the Exile on Main St tour that was in movie theaters shortly after the Exile tour, and then shelved for 30 years; eventually it was released on Blu-ray and then later on CD). Brussels is a great live show, don't misunderstand me, but Ladies and Gentlemen is from a year earlier, has almost the exact same setlist, and is played a little bit tighter and sung a little bit better). The primary difference is more Goats Head songs that don't measure up to the songs they replace from the Exile concert (which itself is the best of four shows). Beyond Doo x5 (Heartbreaker) and Dancing with Mr. D, the live Goats Head tracks don't really do much for me. Did I mention they already released this almost 10 years ago? Strike 2.

The author of the article stated he could "imagine how much of a bummer Goats Head Soup must have felt in the moment. But for those of us who came along later, and without the generational baggage, Goats Head Soup has an incredible, melancholic beauty".
I was a year-and-a-half-old when this record came out, and I have to disagree with him on this point. It has three great songs on it and a whole lot of missed opportunities that separate it from the previous four albums. It was so close to greatness too (Can You Hear The Music, Hide Your Love, and 100 Years Ago almost caught it) - bloody shame. By and large it does not rock, it does not transition mood easily or frequently enough, and as the author also pointed out, there are too many guest musicians (it feels very un-Stonesy). If it rocked more they could have gotten away with it; but it is primarily a morose downer, as the author implied. If I wanted melancholy I would listen to The Cure. Strike 3.