Q MAGAZINE
(UK - April 2002)
EXILE was given a maximum 5-star rating in a review titled BLISSFUL in the
April 2002 issue of Q magazine. Mark Blake writes that Dominique Tarlé's
pictures 'provide an irresistible collage of the group's golden era: lay
jamming sessions, a distractingly beautiful Anita Pallenberg, boat trips
around the harbour and Richard's cool reclamation of what are, quite
clearly, pyjama pants.'
While on the subject, I realised that I forgot to mention Exile's appearance
a couple of months back in a special issue of Q magazine dedicated to 'The
100 Greatest Rock'n'Roll Photographs.' Dominique Tarlé's photograph of Keith
Richards and Gram Parsons at Villa Nellcote, which appears in the book, was
no. 23 in the list.
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JUKEBOX MAGAZINE
(FRANCE - April 2002)
Exile also graces the pages of the current (April 2002) issue of France's
Jukebox Magazine. Excerpts from the review by Jacques LeBlanc:
'Il sait se faire discret pour mieux les honorer, entrant dans leur saga pour
en restituer des moments de grâce... Au detour de chaque page, ce livre, de
chevet, se revèle un pavé d'une incroyable densité, qui permet de saisir
toutes le saveurs cachées dans le vinyle de Exile on Main Street... Ces
pages nous font toucher de près une époque magique. Dominique Tarlé a pris
un soin extrême dans la reproduction des tirages originaux afin d'être digne
des plus grands ouvrages d'art. Enfin la qualité des textes qui
accompnagnent ces clichés en noir & blanc et en couleurs et la maquette font
de Exile un livre exceptionnel, capable de combler le fan le plus
exigeant des Rolling Stones.'
Translation follows by Oliver Craske, with due apologies to M. LeBlanc for
massacring his style:
'He [Dominique Tarlé] knew how to make himself discreet in order to honour
them better, entering into their life to realise from it these moments of
grace... With the turn of each page, this bedside book turns out to be a
paving stone of unbelievable density, which allows us to grasp all the
flavours hidden in the vinyl of Exile on Main St... These pages bring us
close to a magical era. Dominique Tarlé has taken enormous care with the
printing of the original images so that they are worthy of the greatest
works of art. And the quality of the texts which accompany these black and
white and colour shots and the production make Exile an exceptional book,
capable of satisfying the most demanding Rolling Stones fan.'
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NEW YORK TIMES
(US - March 2002)
EXILE was the subject of a New York Times magazine feature entitled Gimme
Tax Shelter on 10 March. More details to follow soon.
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MOJO MAGAZINE
(UK - March 2002 - issue 100)
WISH YOU WERE HERE
Rock's most decadent house party: the evidence.
By Andrew Male.
Limited-edition, gold-edged photographic record of rock 'n' roll's most
notorious decadent house party and the classic double album it spawned.
It all begins so cinematically: a ragged rock band in exile, sheltering,
sweltering under the eaves of a rambling, crumbling, once elegant white
mansion in the South of France, perched high on the cliffs overlooking the
Mediterranean. The immense Villa Nellcôte, crammed with chandeliers, staffed
by drug dealers, cut off from the world outside by its big black gates and
jungle grounds, was the backdrop to one of the great rock 'n' roll stories -
one which starts out with the making of an album and turns into rock's
longest, most decadent house party, with sub-plots like society weddings,
Nazis, heroin, diamonds, fist-fights, robberies, and a second exile, the
French police on their tail.
And what a glorious cast of characters this story has. The narcissistic
Jagger, immaculately turned out even in the grubby basement that has been
requisitioned as a recording studio; Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts,
poker-faced, cool; Gram Parsons, stoned and trouserless; Mick Taylor with
his serious baby-face, Paul and Linda; the impossibly beautiful Anita
Pallenberg. The obvious star is, of course, Keef - stoned, magnificently
dissipated, 'appy, wiv 'is crooked teef, his woman, his kid and his drugs.
Here he is, showing Gram some chords on the balustraded patio, clutching his
son Marlon to his chest, writing at the piano, or grinning like an anorexic
Buddha in a dog basket in the big black-and-white opposite the foreword he
wrote for this amazing record of an amazing time.
Dominique Tarlé's photographic documentary of the recording of Exile On Main
Street (as featured in MOJO 98) is a thing of ruined beauty - like the
stills from a lost movie or a fantastical photo-album glimpsed in a brief
opium dream of out-of-grasp rock stardom. And yet, it's all true. Tarlé, a
young French rock photographer who was living in London when the immigration
department told him he had to leave the country at the same time as the
Stones' tax advisers were telling them the very same thing, wound up joining
them through the summer of '71 in Keith and Anita's mansion. 'I was rarely
aware that he was working,' writes Keith, 'WHICH IS RARE!' That 'quality',
as Keith calls it, 'of blending into the furniture' resulted in some
remarkably candid shots, which are supplemented with blow-by-blow comments
from the culprits themselves: the Stones, their sidemen, friends, family,
crew and hangers-on. They fill in the details - the near electrocutions in
the basement studio, John Lennon paying a visit and puking on the stairs,
Anita Pallenberg going out of her mind trying to host this never-ending
party.
Like Borges' Book Of Sand, you'll keep discovering ravishing pictures and
strange tales long after the first read is over - Cap'n Keef, in cable-knit
sweater on the prow of 'The Mandrax'; the whole gang reading Sunday papers
on the steps of the villa; a rabbit in a guitar case. Even the snaps of a
topless Bill Wyman playing croquet possess a curious period-charm.
There is more than enough here to keep you wilfully lost in this magic
kingdom of ravaged rock lords for weeks on end. But it's the photos that
you'll keep coming back to. Whether in washed-out Kodachrome or
black-and-white, this is a magnificent record of high rock'n'roll ruin. Yes,
it does cost a hell of a lot. But aren't there some kinds of pleasure you're
meant to pay a price for?
(UK - January 2002 - issue 98)
Britain's leading music monthly magazine Mojo ran a 14-page
feature on Exile in their January 2002 issue. Titled 'The Aristocats', the
article described Exile as 'the ultimate Stones photo book...
exquisitely-crafted ... probably the most intimate document of a band at work
and play ever published.'
[MOJO website]
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BBC RADIO SCOTLAND
(UK - February 2002)
EXILE was discussed by Brian Morton and Andrew Male on BBC Radio Scotland
on 19 February. Brian Morton described it as 'a quite magnificent piece of
work... Dominique Tarlé captures the mood around the making of the album
extremely well... he really gets behind the thinking that went into that
album.'
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FORBES MAGAZINE
(US - February 2002)
In the Spring 2002 issue of the major US magazine Forbes FYI,
Lorraine Korman wrote the following review.
Moving Pictures
Exile: The Making of Exile on Main St.
The Beatles had Abbey Road Studios; Elton John had his Honky Château, but no
studio had the mystery or the aloof cachet of the Villa Nellcôte, where the
Rolling Stones recorded what some consider to be their finest album, Exile
On Main St. This lavish new book exquisitely captures that moment in time -
the steamy summer of 1971 - when high society, showbiz, youth culture and
the underworld all became one fabulous decadent mélange. At least, that's
how it looked from the outside. Judging from the photos in Exile, it's
pretty much how it felt on the inside, too. Intrepid photographer Dominique
Tarlé bunked up for four months at Nellcôte, on the French Riviera, which
the Stones' guitarist/heart-and-soul/hoodlum manqué Keith Richards rented
when he and the other Stones fled England for tax reasons. His pictures,
accompanied by frank, surprisingly lucid remembrances from those who were
there, document the record's painstaking birth in Nellcôte's dank, hot
basement, and the parade of fellow rock stars, drug dealers, girlfriends,
session players, hangers-on and children who floated into the villa and out
again. Unlike the pop cyborgs that dominate the music industry today, these
people all seem to have had one hell of a good time.
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ROCK & FOLK
(FRANCE - February 2002)
'An absolute marvel'
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TIME OUT
(London, UK - 16 January 2002)
'Most extravagant book to come out in recent months... stunning black and
white photography... weighs about the same as a small donkey.'
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INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY
(UK - December 2001)
Alongside a picture from the book of Keith seated on a wicker chair,
Britain's Independent On Sunday (9 December) described Exile as: 'A deluxe
present for the die-hard Stones fan... a luxurious volume of rare photos and
in-depth interviews detailing the decadent life at the Villa Nellcôte in the
south of France, with Keith Richards, Anita Pallenberg and vast numbers of
hangers-on.'
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THE OBSERVER
(UK - 2 December 2001)
'A sumptuous memoir of that summer' - The Observer, 2 December 2001.
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BBC RADIO 4
(UK - 28 November 2001)
'A wonderful, sumptuous book' - Libby Purves, on Midweek
'An absolutely beautiful book' - Ed Victor, leading literary agent, on
Midweek
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BBC RADIO 2
(UK - 27 November 2001)
'A magnificent book' - Johnnie Walker
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ROLLING STONE
(GERMANY - 2 December 2001)
'On 250 large-format, beautifully laid out and expensively printed pages the
atmosphere is captured in which the sessions for the most explosive and
feverish of all albums took place... A pleasure.'
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THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE
(UK - 2 December 2001)
'The story might never have been fully chronicled but for Dominique Tarlé, a
young freelance photographer who had attached himself to the band before
their emigration and was accepted as one of their inner circle. Between 1971
and '72, Tarlé spent several months living with Richards, snapping him and
the other Stones and their women and followers. Penniless and obscure,
Tarlé did not sell any of his exclusive shots at the time. Only now are they
seeing the light in a book, Exile. They give a fascinating insight into how
healthy and almost wholesome the Dracula of rock learnt to be.'
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KULTUR SPIEGEL
(GERMANY - December 2001)
There was also a 6-page interview feature in Kultur Spiegel, the
monthly supplement to Germany's leading magazine Der Spiegel, which you can
read online - in German, of course.
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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
(US - November 2001)
Giving the
book a top-scoring 'A' rating, the massive-circulation US magazine
Entertainment Weekly (30 November) wrote: 'Granted, this limited edition
photo book costs more than two front-row tickets to the next inevitable
Rolling Stones reunion tour. But it's hard to imagine a niftier collectible
for die-hard fans. Tarlé's intimate shots - taken during the Stones' 1971
stay in the south of France to record Exile on Main St. - capture Keith,
Mick, and various hangers-on in the studio and in repose; coupled with an
insightful text, it's a rare glimpse at the creative process.'
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FT
(UK - 24 November 2001)
Exile was listed in the Financial Times' review of Christmas Books on 24
November. Below a photograph from the book (Mick watching Keith play guitar
at the Nellcote dining table) was the following text: 'Stones strictly
limited: above, Jagger and Richards making music in the South of France,
1971. That year, a tax bill of staggering size propelled the band members,
with their families and entourage, to move to France, where they made the
'Exile on Main St' album. Photographer Dominique Tarlé recorded their lives
and work, girls and meals, houses, friends and families in 'Exile', a
sumptuous limited edition of 2,000 copies.'
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VOGUE.COM
(November 2001)
Vogue.com, the online version of Vogue magazine, ran a news item on Exile on 2 November, focusing on Anita Pallenberg's contribution to the book. Vogue's verdict was that Exile 'documents one blissful six-month stint in the South of France with the Rolling Stones,' and that it 'is bound to become a coffee table essential for the rich and fabulous.' You can read the news item here.
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LA REPUBBLICA
(ITALY - October 2001)
On 19 October Italy's national newspaper La Repubblica ran a 6-page photo
feature on Exile in their weekly colour magazine supplement Il venerdi di
Repubblica. Here's an excerpt from the accompanying article (translation
thanks to Paul Nathanson):
'Exactly 30 years after the Stones' stay at the villa Nellcôte a book of
photos is being published - symbolically called Exile - which narrates
this episode with exceptional beauty, snatched poses, fleeting moments. It
is an accurate, elegant X-ray into the deep heart of the legend.'
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