Episode #36 | 7.23.19
The Rolling Stones: Fugitives in Exile
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In this episode
Gun fights, heroin trafficking, burglaries, kidnapping threats, intra-band infidelity and the greatest rock ‘n’ roll record ever made, Exile on Main St. The Rolling Stones created this album as fugitives––tax fugitives––exiled from their homeland to the French Riviera and desperate to keep their career afloat after a near decade of scandal and near financial ruin amidst a cast of colorful characters including Gram Parsons, Anita Pallenberg, starlets, aristocrats, drug dealers, junkies and thieves. All of the chaos contributed to one of Keith Richards’ and Mick Jagger’s finest creative achievements, a wholly new and unique interpretation of America.
Sources
The Guardian: The Stones and the true story of Exile on Main St
Stones in Exile directed by Stephen Kijak
The Atlantic: How Exile on Main St. Killed the Rolling Stones
Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music
New York Times: Revisiting Main St, Rethinking the Myth
Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Music
Score by Jake Brennan.
Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.
Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.
*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak