Felix Aeppli’s last publication The Rolling Stones, 1962-1995: The Ultimate Guide (1996) was - as you probably know - a hard-cover tome in American letter format, 644 pages long and weighing 2.3 kilos. With all the new data from the “Bridges to Babylon 1997/98 World Tour” and the "No Security Tour" (1999) plus a lot of information regarding the years prior to 1995 - sent by readers, collectors and musicians from all over the world - to be added to that text, serious consideration was necessary regarding the size of the next publication. Bearing in mind the publisher’s warning: “The last one was bulky enough to handle”, Felix Aeppli decided to reduce his book text rather than expanding it by another 38 per cent. This means that in the new edition each year has been split into four sections, carefully avoiding useless repetition: A. Live Performances & Media Appearances (featuring Tour Dates / Set Lists / Representative Shows / Indispensable Soundboard Recordings / Memorable TV Coverage / Rehearsals / Club Gigs for every major tour); B. Studio Sessions; C. Relevant Releases; and D. Solo Section. Of course, the new edition expands the Stones’ career from late 1995 to mid-2002 (July 12, 2002 to be precise, forty years after the band's first appearance at the Marquee Club in London); it oversteps the author's time limit, however, to cover even the first shows of the 2002/2003 "Licks World Tour".

The Rolling Stones, 1962-2002: The Ultimate Guide To The First Forty Years had been discussed and planned by Felix Aeppli and his London based publisher of the previous "Guide" for more than three years. It was meant to be released as a book featuring the four "Sections" outlined above plus a CD-ROM dealing with information not fully covered in the book such as unofficial releases, compilation albums or composers. It therefore came as a shock to the author (and to many readers) when in mid-May, 2003, almost out of nowhere the publisher decided to suspend the project for another year. This was even more annoying since over the preceding 18 months the author (and not the publisher) had prepared the layout of the book - ending up with a fully illustrated two column text running over 496 pages - plus the CD-ROM to accompany the book. In this situation Felix Aeppli - owner of the copyright - decided to take the big step forwards, i.e. to transfer ALL the texts and illustrations onto a CD-ROM and to have this released by a local Swiss publishing house. The CD-ROM, which was officially released on September 1, 2003, allows you to see and to work with "The Ultimate Guide" on your own computer as long as the files are still up-to-date.

The material is being presented in three different formats: Standard Resolution; Plain Text with Entry Numbers; and High Resolution. Samples from the disc and additional information regarding the CD-ROM are available here. Please note that most of the files are in PDF format (to be viewed in the “Adobe Acrobat Reader” which you can download here for free) and that the "High Resolution" version (300 dpis) is not available online.