Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Keith Richards, BMG 2022.
Yes he’s still alive. While many of his contemporaries have passed on to join God’s big band, the man who has courted death so many times, Keith Richards, somehow seems to be indestructible.
In 2019 he released a special box-set edition of his well-received debut solo album, Talk Is Cheap, which was eagerly snapped up by his legion of fans and now he’s followed with a similar treatment of his second album, Main Offender.
The album was originally released in 1992 and it initially didn’t sell as well as Talk Is Cheap.
I’m not sure why because I think it’s equally as good and it’s an album that I regularly go back to.
Main Offender features Keith’s ‘alternative’ band, The X-Pensive Winos, which consists of drummer, Steve Jordan (who recently played with the Stones on their 2021 No Filler Tour of the US); guitarist, Waddy Watchel; bassist, Charley Drayton; keyboardist, Ivan Neville; and singer, Sarah Dash.
It also includes background singers, Bernard Fowler and Babi Floyd.
The box set includes the remastered original album plus a second album, Winos Live In London ’92.
The new super deluxe package is available in LP and CD formats and comes in an exclusive collector’s case which houses a removable, hand numbered print of the original uncropped album cover artwork, plus a unique Art-Book with the album pressed on smoke coloured vinyl.
There’s even a tour guitar pick, stickers, posters and more.
I know these re-releases are expensive, especially in LP form, but for the fan there really is a great incentive to outlay the money.
There are tracks on the live album that are unavailable anywhere else and the 88-page booklet contains never-before-seen photos and Keith’s handwritten lyrics.
