Today's Stories

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Kim Nicolini
Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

March 27-29, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Fall Guy

Arno J. Mayer
Too Big to Fail?

Michael Hudson
How the Scam Works

José Pertierra
Gesture for Gesture: How to Free the Cuban Five

Andy Worthington
A Letter to Obama From a Guantánamo Uighur

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Hog Wallow

Winslow T. Wheeler
What Does an F-22 Cost?

Souad N. Al-Azzawi
Iraq: Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves

Dave Lindorff
A Financial History Lesson

Ian Masters
The Zombie Presidency

Barbara Rose Johnston
Water Culture Wars

Jami Tarn
Smearing Tristan Anderson

Diane Farsetta
The Nuclear Industry Targets Wisconsin

David Ker Thomson Against Democracy

Ramzy Baroud
Netanyahu and the Future of the Peace Process

Rannie Amiri
Saudi Shiites' One-Word Demand

Wajahat Ali
Writer as Fighter: the Genius of Ishmael Reed

Nick Egnatz
Whatever Happened to the Fierce Urgency of Now?

Gregory A. Burris
The Insolents Abroad: a Defense of Iceland

Missy Beattie
This Land

Stephen Martin
The Broken Stone of Corporatism

Charles R. Larson
Obama, Smoking and Me

David Yearsley
How They Built Bach's Face (Is the Bard Next?)

Ben Sonnenberg
Won't You Please Get Thee Behind Me? Buñuel's Simon of the Desert

Kim Nicolini
The Mafia Without Moralizing: Garrone's Gomorrah

Lorenzo Wolff
Pat Boone Syndrome

Poets' Basement
Four Poems by Paulann Petersen

Website of the Weekend
Ann Coulter: a Portrait by Ben Tripp

March 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Is the Bail Out Breeding a Bigger Crisis?

Sharon Smith
Another Blow to Labor ... from the Democrats

Neve Gordon
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Shame

Patrick Madden
Why the Geithner Plan Will Fail

Gareth Porter
The Big Con on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Why Do We Need a Health Insurance Industry?

Hannah Safran
The Israeli Resistance: "Ready to be Traitors"

Keith Newell
Will the Cellphone Please Take the Stand?

Todd Chretien
Behind the Green Collar

Nelson P. Valdés
When It Comes to Cuba and the Media Anything Goes

Website of the Day
G20 Meltdown

March 25, 2009

Robin Blackburn
Media Revolution or Mirage?

Conn Hallinan
Europe in Crisis

David Rosen
Sexting: a First Amendment Challenge for Obama

Jonathan Cook
Turkey's Fallout with Israel Deals Blow to Settlers

Dean Baker
Billions More for Failed Banks

Ron Jacobs
Karzai on a String

Russell Mokhiber
Corporate Liberals vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Slice and Dice on Card Check

Dave Lindorff
Geithner's Power Grab

Sarah Knopp
LA Teacher's Sit-In Over Layoffs

Website of the Day
How to Create an Animal Rights "Terrorist"

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

Harvey Wasserman
People Died at Three Mile Island

Franklin Lamb
Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

Michael Donnelly
Obama's Team of Losers

Norman Solomon
Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

Elizabeth Schulte
The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women

John Goekler
The Most Dangerous Person in the World?

Nicole Colson
Is Justice Finally in Sight for Sami Al-Arian?

Global Balkans
NATO's 78-Day Bombing of Yugoslavia: Ten Years On

William S. Lind
Cat-and-Mouse Off Hainan Island

Website of the Day
Video: IDF Fired on Medics in Gaza

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

Weekend Edition
April 3-5, 2009

On Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and the Hot New Band Saint Jude

An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey

By PHYLLIS POLLACK

It is safe to say there is no one reading this article who has never heard an album in which Chris Kimsey was involved, either as a producer, an engineer, a mixer or co-producer. Kimsey’s contributions can be found on albums by The Rolling Stones, B.B. King, The Cult, Peter Tosh, The Clash, Jimmy Cliff, Bill Wyman, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, New Model Army, Tom Jones, Mott The Hoople, Buddy Guy, Emerson Lake and Palmer’s Brain Salad Surgery, and several Peter Frampton albums, including Frampton Comes Alive! His extensive credits are far too voluminous to list here, and the number of his works continues to grow.

Among his venerable projects is the upcoming debut album Diary of a Soul Fiend from the band Saint Jude, whose as yet unreleased debut single, Garden Of Eden, features Rolling Stones guitarist Ron Wood. The album will be released by JDC Music Group, a record label spearheaded by David Hadland, Joe Costa and Chris Kimsey. The album was recorded at St. Claire Recordings.

Saint Jude has already achieved a respectable following in London due to their live performances. Peter Doherty liked the group so much that he personally requested them to open up shows for his group Babyshambles. Saint Jude have also shared the stage with The Waterboys. Led Zeppelin’s guitarist Jimmy Page is also among those who have come to check the band out, and was impressed by their performance. Onlookers were shocked last October when Ron Wood, who was in the audience at one of the band’s gigs, jumped onstage to play the song “Flying” with Saintf Jude.

Here, Kimsey talks about his involvement with Saint Jude, and a bit of his other work.

You have your own recording studio in London, Sphere Studios. The band is from London. Yet you recorded the upcoming Saint Jude album in The States, specifically in Kentucky. Why was that?

Two of them are from Kentucky, the bass player Colin Palmer, and the second guitar player, Artie Bratton, are from Lexington. But that wasn’t the reason. The band has had many sort of versions. I met them maybe five years ago, and did some cuts with them. Then they changed drummers, changed the bass player, and they kept sort of changing, I suppose maybe three times since I’ve known them. Then when David Hadland came over from JDC Music Group to talk to me about the band Very Emergency, and started JDC, he said, “Well, what have you got going on over here?” So I played him Saint Jude, and he just went nuts about it. So we went to see them, and signed them up. Then the bass player at that stage, it was a female bass player actually, she decided she didn’t want to play any more. She decided she wanted to be a gardener, so she quit. David said, “Well, I know some great bass players in Lexington, in Kentucky,” and the idea is to break them over there (The States), and get them there anyway. We flew the band over to Lexington, well, let’s say Lynne and Adam, the principals, and they did some writing in Nashville with some people, and they were over there for I think about two months. Then they met Colin and Artie, and then the drummer (Lee Cook, from Twickenham) and keyboard player (Elliot Mortimer) came over (from England) and they started rehearsing and getting ready for the album. So a bit from both sides of the water.

Saint Jude.

That explains a lot, because I was wondering how a band from London would have that type of feel, somewhat like the Black Crowes, where you feel that Southern vibe, mixed in with a bit of The Faces.

Well, they’re huge fans of the Black Crowes, as well, and Adam, the guitar player, is, I mean, he plays just like Keith (Richards) and Ronnie (Wood). I mean, he’s really grown up with all that.

I had heard that Jimmy Page had come to see the band play live.

I don’t know. Adam is very much the man about town. People have come like Grace Jones, and all.  So they’re quite popular in London, quite a groovy band for people to go see. And Ronnie Wood’s been around to see them a few times.

Who writes the songs and who writes the lyrics?

It’s really Adam and Lynne. There’s another guy called John Robertson, who was in the band. He was a second guitar player in the first kind of version that I met. He left the band, and he co-wrote some of the songs. It’s very Lynne and Adam, and someone else, but Lynne and Adam are the crux, and the lyrics are just kind of shared with everybody.

Ron Wood contributed to the album, specifically on which track?

“Garden Of Eden.”

Woody joined the band on stage a while back at one of their gigs. Were you there?

No, I was in the States, so unfortunately, I missed that. I think Adam has played with Ronnie on a couple of gigs that Ronnie’s done over the last couple of years. Ronnie and Woody met in A.A. (Alcoholics Anonymous). I mean that’s how they met, and became really good mates. Yeah, I mean, Ronnie’s played on a few things Adam has done apart from Saint Jude, and they’ve sort of written a bit together.

Ronnie Wood on stage with Saint Jude.

There has been a comparison of Saint Jude to The Faces. Do you think it’s partially because of tracks like “Garden Of Eden,” or even more so in “Down The Road,” where you can almost, somewhere in the distance, see or hear Woody and Ian MacLagan, far away in the mist?

I think for sure. I think that’s where their roots come from, as well. Definitely for Adam and Lynne.  So yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. And also, just the format of the band with the keyboard, and the way it’s kind of set up. Yeah, the songs kind of fall into that arrangement. That’s what they grew up on, so that’s filtered through. Yeah.

You have worked with a lot of prog rock, progressive rock, groups like Yes, and Emerson, Lake And Palmer. Yet Saint Jude is blatantly much more traditional, straight-ahead rock and roll, like The Faces or The Black Crowes. Was that intentional? In other words, was Saint Jude’s sound, for you, a rebellion of sorts on your part, against the over glut of syrupy pop music that is predominantly being promoted by major labels today? At least, that is the case here in The States.

Well, it’s the case here, as well. I don’t really listen to the radio. I mean I listen to radio, but not sort of the top radio stations, because it’s all just pop crap.

Garbage.

Yeah. Most of the major labels that are left, they’re just churning that out, and (British American Idol seminal television shows) X Factor and Pop Idol are very a huge impact on music that way, I feel. So I mean, yeah, out of all the sort of music I’ve been involved with, that’s kind of my heart and soul, that area of music. And also great singers. I just like to work with extraordinarily talented singers, and when I heard Lynne sing, boy, she just blew me away.  I don’t really do the pop thing at all.

It seemed that when Slash’s band Velvet Revolver debuted at Number One, that some of the major labels might have gotten a hint that people are starving for real rock and roll.

Yeah, that’s true. I mean people want it. Absolutely. I just kind of rediscovered Audioslave. I don’t listen to that a lot. That’s a little heavier than what I would normally listen to, but I’ve been getting into that. And then, kind of, my roots also come from the Allman Brothers and that whole Southern thing, as well, I was really into. There are some great bands and good music out there, but it’s tough to get that signed to any major label, because they don’t know what to do with it any more. There’s a big huge hole in the market, and people want to hear it. Even my kids want to hear it. They’re playing old records, because they find it hard to find any of this new stuff that they like.

Yeah, people are starved for it, which I think that is part of the reason why people will not let go of the Rolling Stones.

Yeah.

You know, that sound. My next question relates with that. Comments have been made about Saint Jude’s vintage sound, which I think is one of its best, if not strongest aspects. Did you intentionally make a commitment to make the album not sound over-produced? To what do you attribute the vintage sound that gives this album so much of its appeal?

Well, it’s pretty much with any band that I work with, engineer or produce. I won’t work with anyone unless they all sit down and play live as a band, and the songs are worked out, and people know what they’re playing, so you’re capturing a performance. I really grew up, doing eight albums with the Stones, I definitely learned that’s what it was all about, and I’ve just carried that onto who ever I worked with after that.

Well, that’s interesting you say that for many reasons, including the reason that The Stones if anything, are a live band.

Yeah. Well, all the records I made with them were recorded live, as well. There were hardly any overdubs. You know, it was…

So you were basically nurtured in the studio with that type of…

Yeah. Well, not just then. Also, I worked an awful lot with Glyn Johns, and Glyn was like my mentor. Glyn was expert at capturing that, working with The Who, Joe Cocker and the Eagles. All those records were all cut live. They weren’t started with a drum machine or a click (track). It was a group of people performing in the studio together, which is…Now, that’s another thing that I think people really miss, you know, in recordings. There’s not enough of that. Well, there is, but you’ve got to look for it.

Chris Kimsey with Ronnie Wood.

Here is an irony. Looking back, to me, when it comes to the talk box, the first person that brought it into prominence was Peter Frampton, back on his 1976 “Frampton Comes Alive” that you worked on.

Yeah.

Now, so many of these kids you hear on the radio are using that for their vocals, and it’s just such an over glut, and it’s just so boring, and it has become so overdone.

Yeah, well, a lot of it is the same as when a thing called “Auto-Tune” came out, when you could pitch correctly if you couldn’t sing, and all the sudden, I hear a lot of pop records; that turns me off.

These altered voices for people who can’t sing.

Yeah.

Would you agree that Lynne’s voice is predominately upper register?

Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. She likes to belt it out.

Was it ever difficult recording her voice over the hard rock sound of the rest of the band? She’s obviously a very competent vocalist, but was it difficult?

No, not at all, because she’s loud. She’s louder than the band. (He laughs.)

Really? Because I wondered if you had to compensate with the levels in the studio, you know, if you had to push the volume up really loud on her vocals, or any of that.

No, not at all. She’s a belter. I mean, she’s really loud.

So that is actually real. Wow, that’s amazing. There were a few overdubs, like in “Garden Of Eden,” that were really nice, too, though. There were some overdubbed parts that were really nice.

Yeah, there are a few bits and pieces.

But they weren’t needed for her in order to make her sound like that. They were just sort of embellishments here and there.

Right.

Obviously, the band has been pulling this off with live at their shows with rave reviews. The album is not out yet. What do you expect to happen with the band?

Well, they need to get on the road, and really, outside of the UK. They’ve played in London enough, and they need to get out there. They have a tour in India, I think in April, and they’re out there for eight weeks, doing something. There are some agents in Amsterdam in particular who like them and want to get them some gigs, but I’d love to see them get on a tour in the States opening for someone, and get a hand up that way.

When was the last time you listened to the album?

I’ve been so busy. I just sat down now for an hour…I was just finishing up listening to Chris Jagger, the album I mixed in December, and I just got it back from mastering, and I started listening to it, thinking I was just going to listen to a couple tracks, but I ended up listening to the whole damned thing because it was so good.

You worked with Terry Reid.

Ah, yeah!

I’ve seen him perform, and I wonder why he’s not more well known. Why doesn’t he have a deal on a major label? What happened there? I think he’s an amazing singer. What happened? What was that like back then?

He is amazing. But a lot of people would say he’s crazy, but he’s not. He’s a wonderful human being, and he’s a great singer. He’s just a beautiful singer; he’s terrific.

He’s definitely got a personality.

I think that goes back a long way. His father used to manage him away back, and that burned a few bridges, I know, because his father wasn’t a very personable person. But Terry is one of the great misunderstood in a way, but is he’s a hell of a singer. And yeah, it’s interesting you say that, because you’ve got someone like Amy Winehouse, who was pretty together at the beginning, and then sort of, she made it, and now, she’s a worse mess than Terry is, and that’s for sure (he laughs.).

I’ve got to remember that quote.

It’s a shame. I saw him last year. He comes over to the UK pretty much every year. I actually got up and sang with him. He did a gig at 100 Club, and I got up and sang a couple of songs with him. He was very surprised. He looked surprised to see me over there singing!

Due to time constraints, I have to limit my questions here regarding your work with The Stones. You worked out of EMI-Pathe Marconi Studios in Paris to record “Some Girls” in 1977. I have quite a few of the outtakes that have been flying around for the last thirty odd years. I wanted to ask if you were familiar with something that Keith had recorded during that time period, something that didn’t see the light of day until many years later, albeit a different version. He had recorded the Hank Williams track “You Win Again” in the late Seventies. He later recorded a different version of it, and it was released on the Hank Williams tribute album “Timeless” in 2001. Do you know anything about the original recording of that song?

No, I don’t. I recorded a few things with Keith that have come out, but that wasn’t one of them.

Do you remember any of the The Stones’ unfinished instrumentals, like “Munich Hilton” or “Jah Is Not Dead?”

Oh, yeah. I remember “Munich Hilton,” and there’s a lot of stuff I remember that didn’t get finished.

Do you remember how many songs you went through when selecting what to use for “Some Girls?”

On Some Girls, the only extra tracks that were recorded in that period, “Start Me Up,” was actually recorded the same period of Some Girls. But it was a reggae song, and then it turned into what it is today.

Which later ended up on “Tattoo You.”

Yeah, yeah. Because Tattoo You is actually…That album, I had to go in, Mick and Keith were not getting on. So I had to go in and sort of find…well, I knew of four or five songs that I recorded with the band that had never been used from Emotional Rescue and Some Girls, so I figured if I had five songs, there must be some from Black and Blue. So I just went into the tapes, and went through all the outtakes. And so that’s what Tattoo You is. It’s virtually an outtake album, but one of their best.  It took me about three months to assemble it all and get it all together, and then I just had to get Mick to finish off vocals on it, because they were never finished obviously.

I don’t know if you remember this. I found this gem in some outtakse I have.  Keith had recorded a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Let’s Go Steady Again.”

Yeah, my wife sang on that!

So that is who that was! I am so glad you’re telling me this.

(Chris laughs.)

You have no idea how long I wondered who that was. I wondered, “Were you around when that was recorded? Who is that singing on there with Keith?” That was definitely something I wanted to ask you.

Yes, we cut that in Nassau in The Bahamas. I remember that.

Yes, The Bahamas. I have had some of these bootlegs that have been flying around for centuries. This track is always incorrectly titled by everyone, and on bootlegs, as simply “Let’s Go Steady,” when the actual title is “Let’s Go Steady Again.” I always wondered who was singing with Keith on that. It’s an incredible track. 

Yes.

It deserves a life. Why has it never seen the light of day?

I’ve got no idea! You should ask Keith that! (Chris laughs again.)

It’s a great track.

Yes, it is, isn’t it? Yes, there’s another one called “You And Me, We Had It All.”

I have that one, as well.

Yes, that’s a beautiful song, too. It was really cool.

Does it seem strange that I would be familiar with these outtakes?

Well, no, because I’m always amazed actually at how many…Well, I truly don’t know where they came from. There are some ridiculous amounts of outtakes. Someone even sent me a CD, I think it was Some Girls, they had outtakes or trial edits that I had been doing on songs. It was really strange! I figure either one of the French assistants or someone in The Stones road crew must have nipped it, and started burning them off, or whatever. But, yeah.

Well, nowadays, I think they’re easier to find because CDs are so easy to duplicate.

Yeah.

But way back when I started get them...

Well, they would have been on cassette or on quarter inch…

When I started collecting them, they were on vinyl. They had been transferred to vinyl, and that was the only way I ever found them back in those days.

Wow. Wow. Well, they must have gone from like cassette tape to vinyl, or from 15 ips quarter-inch to the vinyl.

Oh, yeah. I obviously didn’t get them from anyone directly involved first-hand. Just asking, because that track is so great. Does your wife still sing?

No, she doesn’t sing any more unfortunately. We made a record that never got released with a band called Doc Holliday playing on it, a guitar player, who Frank Carillo, who I met working with Peter Frampton. He was Frampton’s second guitar player. We cut a bunch of tracks that never saw the light of day. Yeah, but that one thing with Keith was really something…

That recording of “Let’s Go Steady Again” sounds like something Keith would have done on the first X-Pensive Winos albums with Sarah Dash. 

Yeah, they both sing so well on it, it’s really quite special.

It’s so amazing that it is your wife!

(Kimsey continues to laugh.)

When you were working on “Undercover,” did you expect the band to be playing “She Was Hot” live twenty-five years later?

No, I didn’t at all. Well, the title track (“Undercover Of The Night,”) that was a fabrication.

Multi-layers of…

Yeah, a lot of editing on that one. It was a very weird, strange time when they were making the album.

You produced Jimmy Cliff’s 1982 album” Special.”

Yeah. One of my favorites.

Yes, and a few of his compilations. 

I love Jimmy Cliff. He’s obviously an extremely prolific artist, if not a musical prophet. How was different for you when you first started working with him, producing a reggae album, and working with him?

Well, it was wonderful. I just went down to Jamaica, on almost a whim. Someone said, “You should go down and check it out down there.” A manager a friend of mine knew Jimmy’s manager at the time. So I went down there, and just hung out in Channel One Studios (in Kingston) for three or four days, watching and listening. And they invited me, sort of for input, and then it all started to kick off. I remember I brought in Byron Allred, the keyboard player with Steve Miller’s band, I got him down to Jamaica to do some keyboards, and there was someone else I brought in as well, I can’t remember who, to mix it up a little, so it wasn’t just straight all the players from Jamaica. I had such a good time. I ended up staying there for a whole year actually. I did a Peter Tosh album, as well. Jimmy was just extraordinary. And all those musicians were wonderful.

I’ve met Jimmy, and he’s just such a cool cat.

Oh, he is. He’s blessed. He’s got such a marvelous voice, and he’s such a wonderful person.

And then you had someone who had a totally different temperament, and that was Peter Tosh.

Oh, yeah. Very much so. Yeah.

And you ended up being chosen to produce the posthumous EMI Tosh compilation.

Yeah, Mama Africa. Yep, that album.

I have that album, and...

See, there’s a funny story. I suggested to Peter that he do a cover of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B Goode.” And Peter said to me, he said, “Me no sing no white man’s song.” So I went and got a picture of Chuck Berry, and said, “This is the man who wrote “Johnny B Goode,” and he said, “Me sing the song.”

That is such a great story.

Yeah, that track, that was great, because there’s a guy, Donald Kinsey, out of Chicago, a great blues player, who was very influential on that album as a guitar player. He’s got a band called The Kinsey Report. I’m sure they’re still going. Don was great. But Peter would just come in and he’d play a song on the acoustic or the electric, just play it once to myself and the band, and then he’d just say, “Okay. I’m going for some fish,” and he’d disappear, and we wouldn’t see him all day. And he’d come back at about six o’clock, and we’d cut three or four songs, and he’d just start singing on top of them. Quite strange. But good, very good.

I had wondered what was behind Tosh’s version of that song coming out.

He didn’t want to do it until he realized it was a brother who had penned it, and then it was cool.

After Tosh died, and you produced the posthumous album, was part of your being chosen to produce it due to the relationship that EMI had with…

No, it was totally separate. The whole thing with Tosh was more through Danny Simms, who was managing Peter, Betty Wright, Jimmy Cliff and a white Jamaican band named Native.

Well, you know EMI reissued all those six Tosh albums, including “Mama Africa” on July 30, 2002.

No, I didn’t know that. But I know it’s still available. But I didn’t know they reissued it.  That’s interesting.

Aren’t you getting royalty statements?

Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it takes a while, because they have to come from Jamaica, so it’s a little bit uh…It comes through someone else.

Well, someone’s a little late with their royalty statement.

What is your preference for listening to music? Vinyl, CD or digital downloads?

I don’t download, so CDs, but I still got have all my vinyl. So I like to listen to my old vinyl, but yeah, CDs.

In addition to my CD players, iPods and my turntable and all that, I also have a jukebox.

Ah, cool.

I asked that question because most music fans do not know that a digital download is merely a compressed file.

Yeah, that’s right.

As compared to a commercially manufactured CD.

Yeah.

And therefore, the CD has better sound quality. These people lose fidelity when they rip CDs to their iPods or any other mp3 player…

Yep.

Additionally, you can only crank up digital files so loud before they start distorting.

Yes.

Okay, so what I am going to ask you is this. Younger producers today, or future producers who are growing up in the age of digital downloads…

Mmmm…

And who are growing up listening to everything on digital downloads are going to be a lot less experienced…

Absolutely.

In having a really good ear as far as sound.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. There won’t be any high-fi buffs any more because um, yeah.

It’s frightening.

Yeah.

I doubt any kid growing up today could tell if his speaker wires were reversed, or out of phase.

No, you’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right, Phyllis. That’s totally right.

So you don’t think I’m crazy.

No, no. It’s totally right.

To me, that makes producers like you even more important when it comes to working with valid artists. Can you comment on this?  Because there is a technology gap where a lot of these young producers are not really going to have a grasp on the art of sound the way that…

Well, now unfortunately, they’re not. And technology is moving so fast, and the whole music business has changed so much. Even the sound of music has changed to my ears. So I don’t know how it’s going to survive, or how young kids coming through… Although I say that, but the experience I have with my kids, who are twenty-six and twenty-two, they’re very fussy about what music they listen to. They’re listening to it, not from downloads, but from CD, but on small systems. They’re still fussy about the actual performance and the quality of what they’re listening to.

Do you think part of that is because they grew up with you, and they’re used to hearing…

Um, no, I don’t think so. No. No, I don’t think so.

Really?

No, I don’t think so. Possibly, I don’t know, difficult to know. Although I tell you what I do see. I see a lot of kids in resale, second hand stores, where they’ve got old vinyl records, and I see kids in there listening to them. I’ve been to a few. There was one in Cincinnati and one in Lexington, as well, and kids were sitting around listening to vinyl with headphones like you used to. So that was encouraging. I think once if the kids get a chance to hear vinyl, or even know what vinyl is, then they’ll go, “Wow, get me more of this.”

Economically, it became cheaper for the record labels to manufacture CDs…

Absolutely, yeah.

Because the weight of shipping cassettes and CDs to retailers was cheaper, so they paid less for that…

Yeah, yeah.

And vinyl was more expensive because it was made out of petroleum, and we know about the price of oil.

Yep. Well, maybe there’ll be a big bang, and all the hard drives will just collapse, so that everyone will have to dig up their vinyl to listen to music again. (He laughs).

A great conspiracy! How did you end up recording “Dead Flowers” on The Rolling Stones “Stripped” album. Ed Cherney recorded the rest of the album, so how did you end up recording that track?

Oh, that was when the band were playing at Brixton Academy (July 15, 1995), and I think Don (Was) wasn’t available, or Ed wasn’t available, or something, so they asked me to come in and record it. It’s strange. It’s funny you should mention that, because strange enough, because as I recorded it, I mixed it, as well, and Pierre (De Beauport) who’s Keith’s tech, said that my mixes sound ten times better than the album ever sounded, which was quite nice. I actually don’t have a copy of that, either. I was very upset that I didn’t think to take a copy of that with me, although Pierre must have a copy. Yes, he must have one.

Well, write that down to get a copy, so you don’t forget.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Phyllis Pollack lives in Los Angeles where she is a publicist and music journalist. She can be reached through her blog

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