DISGRACELAND - Brian Jones: To Be On Your Own Like A Sinking Stone

Episode Date: August 28, 2018

Brian Jones invented “The World’s Greatest Rock ‘N Roll Band," The Rolling Stones, but would find himself kicked out of that band just a few years after helping rocket him and his bandmates to international success. He was ousted because of his excessive drug use and his abuse of women and shortly after bottoming out, Brian Jones was found dead at the bottom of his swimming pool under somewhat mysterious circumstances. To see the full list of contributors, see the show notes at www.disgracelandpod.com. This episode was originally published on August 28, 2018. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to a monthly exclusive episode, weekly bonus content and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. Sign up for our newsletter and get the inside dirt on events, merch and other awesomeness - GET THE NEWSLETTER   Follow Jake and DISGRACELAND: Instagram YouTube X (formerly Twitter)  Facebook Fan Group TikTok  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about Rolling Stones, founding guitar player Brian Jones, are insane. He was a serial abuser of women. He bragged of sleeping with 64 women in 19 days, fathering an estimated, though precisely unknown, six illegitimate children. He dressed in full nine.

Raleigh, a solid decade before the punk movement and only 15 years removed from World War II. He sacrificed goats. He was the electric Kool-Aid acid testing ground. He was Bob Dillans and Jimmy Hendrix's favorite guitar player and he was in part, if not almost entirely responsible for young London's obsession with the blues. He was also a paranoid, wildly insecure and an incredibly weak man, all traits that would eventually lead to his downfall. But no doubt, about it. For a moment there, Brian Jones made great music. That music you heard at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron called Slow Walt Celeste Lo MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to get back by the Beatles. And why would I play that specific

slice of Preston-esque Jojo Fire? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on July 3rd, 1969, and that was the day that Brian Jones decided to go for a swim in Winnie the Pooh's pool and never came back. On this episode, Slow Waltzing Celeste, Jojo Fire, Winnie the Pooh's Pool, and Brian Jones. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. The clientele on July 11, 1962, at the dimly lit marquee club in London's West End was strictly trad, goatee, bespectacled, diehard jazz and blues aficionados who took themselves way too seriously and who were dubious at best about R&B.

The more bourgeois among them sipped Matus and looked down their noses at the clocked-out laborers pulling on Pilsners. The one thing they all had in common was a curiosity about this evening's act, a scruffy mishmash of art school kids and middle-class wiseacres billing themselves as the Rolling Stones,

who were waiting out their pre-first show jitters in the back room while being aired out by the club's promoter. Brian Jones, the group's leader, didn't understand what the argument was all about. Mick was just the singer. No one was going to be paying attention to him anyway. The audience was there to see the band, to hear Brian's bottleneck slide slip down the neck of his harmony stratatone, not to watch the singer move the songs from the verses to the choruses.

Besides, Brian would look good. He always did. The promoter was demanding the band change into more suitable attire, something matching, like a proper group, like those nice boys from Liverpool, the Beatles. But the stones weren't having it. Eskewing the safe matching stage attire for their street clothes, tight gaucho trousers, tapered at the ankles, ties optional, Cuban-heeled boots and crew-collared suede jackets that died at the hips,

and of course long hair. It was subversive for the time and went a long way in contrasting the stones with the Beatles. These guys didn't want to hold your hand or let you drive their car. They wanted to get your daughter pregnant and steal your Vespa. The Rolling Stones were a serious R&B group, at least in Brian's mind, even though they'd yet to play a show. The drummer, Charlie, he could swing, and plus he had a Cherry Ludwig kit and a van to transport it.

And the bass player, Bill, he could play. But more important, Bill had a Vox amp with two inputs, which meant Brian could use it too. and the young second guitarist Keith. He was a wild card, but Brian knew there was something there, and whatever it was, it scared Brian. Regardless, Keith was worth keeping around. He was just 19 years old, timid, yet brimming with fuck-all confidence,

and obsessed with Chuck Berry. The piano player, Stu, with the heavy left hand and heavier jawline, now that dude could play, even if he looked more like he was about to unload boxes from a lorry than he did someone about to unload Johnny Johnson riffs from a piano. His playing made up for his looks. But the singer, Mick, the verdict was still out. He claimed he was into Little Walter,

but to this point had shown little to back that up. He was good-looking in a way that annoyed Brian. Mick made little effort. He rolled out of bed and threw on whatever clothes he'd find on the floor and managed to look good. Plus, he was a charmer, young, yes, shy, even to a point. But still, he commanded the attention. attention of everyone.

Brian suspected he was half a puff, whatever. So long as he didn't steal the spotlight from Brian, there'd be no problem. So Brian committed to keeping making the band only until a better, less threatening option presented itself. Together, even in those early days when they played, it just worked. And Brian Jones's Rolling Stones had something. It wasn't songs because they couldn't write a song to save their lives, not yet at least. But when they broke off a Fred McDowell or Bo Diddley to,

whatever room they were in would just come alive. Their appeal was intense. They seemed less like a group and more like a gang, six brothers clearly pulling on the same rope in the same direction at the same time, and not a weak link among them. On this night, the night of their first ever performance at the Marquis Club,

they took the stage in their street clothes, as they'd wanted. The jazz and blue snobs and the crowd looked upon the stones with barely containable contempt. Standing on stage, tuning their instruments loudly without regard for the audience or proper showmanship, pulling on cigarettes to calm their nerves. They steeled themselves to bust into Little Willie Littlefields, Kansas City. Stu banged out the intro and 16th notes on his piano, and the band roared out of the station, straight ahead with power, like a locomotive,

all six members working their parts for all they could, trying to keep up with each other to not get overrun by the giddy excitement bubbling with the new chest. to keep the train wrong. And the crowd started booing, loudly, with the exception of a small group of mods who'd muscled their way into the dance club. They weren't having the booze from the stuffy marquee club regulars.

This band hit the mods in their sweet spot with high-energy black music from the American South. And the Rolling Stones, despite their scruffy irreverent look, had the stylish mods gripped. The mods, with their immaculate attire and perfectly quaffed hair, The regulatory quarter inch over the ear and blocked back to the nape at the neck

served as an extra affront to the Marquis Club regulars. What do these hooligans know about American music or proper jazz? So they let the mods and the stones know about it. And the booze continued, louder, and made it near impossible to hear the band. Fuck this. The mods turned and attacked the Marquis regulars, violently punching, kicking, and spitting. For a moment, mayhem overtook the club. But Brian and the boys played on and order resumed.

The beatback regulars took their seats. The mods took back the dance floor. And the Rolling Stones took their first steps toward becoming England's newest hitmakers. It didn't take long. The Rolling Stones were off. Their debut album went to number one on both the UK and US charts. And their next nine studio albums released throughout the 60s

would all crack the top five. The early albums rose to the top of the charts and the backs of tunes written by American blues musicians, but in no time, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards realized that to make real money, they needed to learn how to write their own songs. In the beginning, Brian tried his hand at writing too, but he was quickly discouraged by his lack of lyrical prowess.

Amongst the squalor of their cold water flat at Edith Grove where the garbage piled high and the rats roamed freely, Mick and Keith busied themselves with learning how to write. Brian showed little interest. Why did he need to write songs for the stones? He invented the stones. With his growing fame and ego, he hit the town. His drinking and drugging quickly became excessive.

Most likely a distraction from his responsibilities. Depending on how you counted them, four illegitimate children from four different women by this point, as well as dealing with the ongoing drama of his current girlfriend, whom he'd beat savagely whenever she'd get out of line, with little regard for the thin walls at Edith Grove, an act that drove Mick and Keith mad. The last time was the third stone single

to go to number one on the UK charts, but more importantly, it was the first single written by Jagger Richards. They followed it up with a genre-defining satisfaction, then get off of my cloud. Suddenly, there was no longer any need to split the rent. Mick and Keith were happy to bail on Brian at Edith Grove. Brian, feeling marginalized by the songwriting success of Mick and Keith, focused on his new twin obsessions,

getting wasted, and the model, Anita Palenberg. However, his relationship with Anita wouldn't last. By the time the Stone's entourage landed in Morocco in February of 1967, Brian was convinced Keith and Anita had been fucking behind his back. He could tell by their body, language. Keith, normally a bit of adult around the ladies, suddenly had an unexpected ease around Anita, and Anita showed a casual openness with Keith. Brian's heart sank. His insecurity soared, his paranoia stung. Wandering through the Moroccan bazaar, Brian pulled a handful of mandrax

from his trousers' pocket and swallowed them. The pills, along with the LSD he dropped earlier, were sure to push whatever it was Anita and Keith were up to. out of his mind. When they arrived at the home they were staying at in Marrakesh, Brian went straight for the liquor cabinet. He then stumbled into his bedroom, fell onto a dirty mattress, and zonked out. Anita and Keith and the rest of the crew left him to sleep it off

and headed out to explore. Brian stayed in the house in a near paralytic state while Anita fell for Keith hard. Some days later, Brian emerged from his haze, hungry for more drugs and sex. So he arranged for two Berber horrors. When they arrived, they were more than Brian could have bargained for. Exotic, dark-skinned, erotic-looking.

One with green eyes and the other incredibly with two different colored eyes. Long, thick, black hair spilled out over their shoulders and down their backs. And of course, as was the tradition in the Middle East, to warn the men away from diseased prostitutes, their curvy, full bodies were covered in tattoos. The similar body art on both women gave Brian in his LSD Hayes illusion that he was sleeping with twins. And the enchanting ink was a giant turn-on for the proper white English boy from the firmly middle-class Cheltingham.

The tattoos started at the top of their feet and wrapped around the ankle, ran up the side of the thigh, curved over the hip, criss-crossed the belly, and over alongside of the abdomen to the back, up around the shoulder, down the bicep, and around the forearm to the wrist, the hand, and finally, over their long, spidery fingers. With bedazzled stone chokers tied around their necks and gold-colored bangles, running up both sets of wrists that jangled loudly as the two women took turns riding Brian,

who was in his sweet spot, too high to come, but not stoned enough to go soft. He lay back. The green-eyed one slithered on top of him and bit softly, at his earloat. And the heterochromatic one, kneeled on the bed alongside Brian, with her head bowed to his other ear, whispering something wicked and wonderful in Arabic. And then it started to happen again.

The idea of Anita fucking Keith crept into his head. The thought of the two of them roused something primal and triggered his deepest insecurities, rousting them from the darkest corners of his sexual psyche. And that did it, he was going to come. But then, over the sounds of bold, women in his ears. He heard Anita's voice. He blinked his eyes open and looked up through the candlelight and saw Anita's face. It was no illusion. It was her, his cheating lover, in the

flesh, and this dank Moroccan hovel watching him get worked over good by two prostitutes. Brian gently pushed the green-eyed woman off his chest and rose up to his knees on the bed. He reached out to Anita, opened his mouth and let a slow stream of molasses-sounding words spill into the squalid bedroom air. Anita disgusted, thought otherwise, and spit in his face. Something in Brian snapped. He leaped to his feet and into Anita's face, grabbed her by the neck and threw her hard into the dresser next to the bed.

The prostitutes split, and Brian proceeded to do what only the weakest of men do in moments of desperation. Beat his woman. And it was a savage beating. Anita would never forget or forgive. Neither would Keith. It marked the end of their relationship. and was the beginning of the end of Brian's tenure in the band he'd created and named the Rolling Stones.

We'll be right back after this word, word, word. After Morocco, Brian was shattered. His interest in being the guitar player for the Stones was little to none. Anita, tossing him off for Keith, meant he'd never be able to really work with Keith again. Emick had used Brian's disinterest in writing songs in deep descent into substances as a way to wrestle control of the band from him. Brian could feel his band slipping away, but he was too weak to do anything about it. So again, with his weakness, getting the best of him, he ran. Specifically, Brian Jones ran to the countryside. Sitting at his dining room table at Cottsford Farm, the estate once owned by A.A. Milne, author of the

Winnie the Pooh books, Brian was quiet amongst his guests, his new girlfriend, Anna Wollin, his living handyman Frank Thorogood and friend Janet Lawson. Brian was feeling melancholic. He ignored his kidney pie and took stock of where he was at the moment. On the outs. He was no longer welcome in his band and contemplating a lucrative cash buyout from Mick, Keith, and Stone's management

to go away quietly. To four of the five illegitimate children that Brian knew about, he was a ghost. Some friends would come visit. Most didn't. life, it seemed, was passing him by. But his life, he thought, despite his complications, did have its perks. He'd basically been partying non-stop and reveling in stardom for the past seven years.

Thinking about this made him feel better, he'd had some times, and now his head was clearer than usual. He'd been abstaining from LSD lately. However, this afternoon, he'd been snorting coke on and off again with Frank and the other laborers working on his estate. Frank wanted to know why Brian was so quiet and what was on his mind. Brian could feel his heart began to race,

an effect of the blow in his system, and the memories flooded back to the time when his life first began to spin out of control. He began to recount for his guess how he'd arrived at this point in the epically debauchrous trip he'd been on since joining the Rolling Stones. For Brian, it all started on that trip

back to the UK from the States. Took a charter to flight on a 747 in London, Atlanta to Heathrow, took a cab to the city center. Don't like Mick Jagger Laddy. Being famous is not for the ugly. I was staying at Kensington House is the most beautiful hotel in the world. Dylan or Robbie R2. We smoke hash, jam. Call a couple of friends who take me to all places, Denmark Street. I flirt with it at Senators, buy some books, and then fall some girls with mud hair. I wandered around trying to get laid until it started to raid and then went back to the marquee.

Tradnight is dead, so I go to Baggan House, but it's all guitarist. I find the one American chick and we drive home on the dance floor. We cab it back to Kensington House, I'd turp and we fuck. Hang out for four or five days, met the world's greatest. guitarist Jimmy Hendrix, kept missing calls from making Keith, wrote my dad a postcard I never sent. Stood trial for last year's drug bust in front of a judge with hard eyes. Smoked a lot of hash and the trial

gets postponed, got paranoid, got weird, tried jumping got a window, got committed. It was boring, I'm annoyed, I split for the U.S. with Hendrix. His band doesn't do acid, so I dose Noel Redding on the plane. He loses his mind on a flight to California. We land, I insist on visiting a sex show, smoke a lot of hash. I meet an American TV actress when we drink Absinth at a bar called Absinth.

Monterey Pop was cool, lots of Snowans fans, and the backstage was intense, wandered around trying to pick up Grace Slick, ended up with Nico. Snore coke with Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda until I found some blob of big tits that reminds me of Anita. I gave her $100, and the end, she pulls me out and I come between your tits, even though I'm so high, I'm barely hard. Afterward, we make small talk about venereal disease, her pimp and herself, I wait to the sound of Jerry Garcia singing, it's 8 a.m. in hottest places. I pretend to like it, but Jerry sounds like Pist, Trades songs to Janet Schopler, then split from London by plane, wander around the airport,

before locating my driver. It's only 7 p.m., my relationship with Keith is broken. Got the hang of copping, heroin is everywhere. Went to a Ford model party, hooked up with a Romanian a model named Carina. She chugs my cock back at the Hilton, which is good. Played billiards when shopping, I think she gave it craps. Drove an ass to Martin that belonged to George Harrison, made out with an Apple secretary from an Abby Road. So I'm making the live broadcast of all he needed is love with the Beatles.

Alan Klein invites us to New York, we fly commercial and stay at the Walderoff. New York swings like you can't imagine. Hendricks lets me jammer them on the village. New York girls are tough like Berber horrors. I swat pickies with a drunk woman after brushing my hair and calling me Mr. U.K., she stirs for me in the bathroom with a club. Sneak into a cathedral and Steel Shrew is so

good my dick goes her. I fly to which is a low rent bus, too many fat American tourists, too many lame pencilles. That dropped acid into the Sagra enough Amelia, which is a trip to say the least. Cruise at the coast with Salvador Dali, but had no more acid, which sucked. Suki from London wires my hotel, I tell her to ignore making Keith's calls. Cantacruise is beautiful, but there are no girls, they are just young hippies. So I went to Switzerland where, ironically, I couldn't find anyone with time. Took F.O. Railway to the Shelton, which is beautiful in the way I can't describe.

Took a train in Italy and ended up in Venice where I met a hot girl who looks like Mary and faithful and speaks better English than I do. She's living for a year and only one dollar a day. Gondola around, buy some hash, she thinks my capital is because my hotel room costs more for one night than she's spending her entire trip. She doesn't mind so much when I pay the bills. I did sure to hook up with a couple who obviously won a threesome. Too much tension there with the geek office and driving to Rome and off where I jump at. I'm too stoned to arrange for travel. The wife turns out to be a freak. The guy starts to freak out on me. It's like a Polanski

film. We stopped for a while in Florence before I see some big dome. I'm so high and I lose the weird couple, which is probably for the best. Ended up in Morocco, which is hot, sexy and dirty, just like Rome, but with music. I tracked down to Juka players who were ridiculously good. I tried to record them for two hours, but it's too hot, the tape machine doesn't want to work. I meet two underage Italian girls, so I try to talk into fucking while I jack off, or to buy them some hash instead. My drug trial is coming up, so I do more drugs. I bump into some guy from Darfur who says he'd make Jacker, but I'm sure he's a poof, so I go to London. The band is surprised to see me. The music they're working on is a shit, peppers ripoff.

I pass out and dream about Elmore James when I wake up and prop down pillows, sit-tar in my lap. I tell him make you go fuck Keith. I don't know what it means, but I shake with paranoia, I strum the sit-turned to sit-turn in the booth and check out. I make my way back to Tangiars with Suki, hang in the hills, sacrifice a goat with the locals in a pan rights vest, get annoyed with Suki and beat her to near death, flew back to London to a way trial for possession, pleaded guilty, judge has mercy, fine, 50 pounds, attend the rock and roll circus filming and get lost in wardrobe for a full day, and I can't find my way out. I watch John Lennon's new girlfriend freak out Chuck Barry, make scraps the whole thing.

We get stoned and I record percussion on Midnight Rambler, and the next morning I wake up talking to myself. I retired at Christopher Robbins's home in the country. I get my drugs, but barely making the music. Back here, without a band, I no longer know who I am, and I feel like a ghost of a total stranger. Brian's guest stared in him across the table. Brian took a swig of his wine and said, So then I ended up out at Winnie the fucking Poo's house, and now I'm going to go for a swim. You're only as good as your weakest link. Mother Nature knows this, which is why Fratricide exists.

Fratricide, when one sibling kills another, is a characteristic of life in the wild. hyenas, sharks, eagles, all practice fratricide as a way of weeding out the weakest among them. It's Darwinian and crucial to the survival of some species. And this is what happened with the Rolling Stones. Ryan Jones was the weak link. He couldn't write songs. He couldn't stay sober. He refused or was unable to keep himself together enough

to contribute to the growth of the band, to their evolution, and ultimately to their survival. Think of it. If the Rolling Stones had kept Brian around back in the 60s, would they have done so much to transform culture? Would classic records like Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, or some girls ever have been made? And would Brian Jones have been able to contribute to the Rolling Stones in the 1980s, 90s, and beyond?

Touring stadiums, playing SNL, making movies with Martin Scorsese. Doubtful. More likely than not, Brian's behavior would have caught up to and handcuff the group. halting their ascent to world's greatest rock and roll band. The Rolling Stones back in the early days of Edith Grove were brothers. But as they evolved from Shadubi Pub Band into mold-shattering rock stars, to sustain their status in the pecking order of pop stardom,

to survive the weakest among them, Brian Jones, had to go. So that's what happened. Brian was ousted from the band by his rock and roll animal brothers, Mick and Keith the stronger of the brute who'd seized control to survive. And Brian's survival, without the identity that being in the Rolling Stones had allowed him, would be short-lived. He'd created the band, so he'd taken his place in it for granted. Without being a Rolling Stone, there wasn't much to live for.

To hang out on your own, with no direction home. Like a complete unknown, but decidedly not like a Rolling Stone. night. After recounting his epic flameout to his Cotchford farm guests, Brian went for a swim in his pool, and he never came back. He was found shortly after by his guest, Janet Lawson,

dead as a stone at the bottom of the pool, drowned. There was a rumor about Bryant Jones's death. It goes like this. Brian's living handyman, Frank Thorogood, was taking advantage of Brian, overstaying his welcome, milking the job for more than it was worth,

Using his time away from home while working on Brian's estate to party and cheat on his wife with the local girls. Brian wanted him gone, but was, of course, too weak to get him to go away. And Frank believed Brian owed him money. Besides, the job wasn't done, so Frank wasn't going anywhere. Fuck that little moon-faced junkie chariot. That night after dinner, Frank and Janet hung by the pool while Brian swam. Janet left Brian and Frank to go inside to grab an inhaler for Brian. and before she could return, minutes later, Frank was in her face inside the house, shaking and

yammering on about how something had happened to Brian. Janet ran for the pool. Frank did not. Janet dove into the pool to pull what looked like a dead stone from the bottom. Frank stood by idly. Janet pulled Brian from the pool by herself. She tried reviving him, and Frank did nothing. Call the damn police, Janet shouted. Frank stood still. Janet ran to make the call herself. Authorities arrived shortly after, but it was too late, and Brian Jones was dead, the official cause of death, death by misadventure.

Janet Lawson in recent years claimed that she believed an altercation between Frank and Brian took place while she'd gone to grab Brian's inhaler and that Frank either unintentionally or on purpose did something to cause Brian to drown. And allegedly years later, on his deathbed, Frank Thorogood confessed to Tom Keylock, the Rolling Stone chauffeur, the following. It was me.

I did, Brian. Do I believe this? Maybe. Does it matter? Not really. Whether it was drowning or murder, one way or the other, Brian Jones died because he was weak. Either he was too weak to fend off his attacker, or too weak to stay sober enough to not drown in six feet of water, or too weak to live life without abusing substances and women, behavior that led to

being alienated from his band, his friends, and his loved ones, who, had they been in his life, likely would have been able to keep him upright and alive. Anyway, you cut it. Brian Jones was responsible for the demise of Brian Jones, which is a shame, and some would say, the disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show, page at disgracelandpod.com.

If you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com slash membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland Ad free. Plus, you'll get one brand new exclusive episode

every month. Weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit Disgraceland pod.com slash membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook at DisgracelandPod,

and on YouTube at YouTube.com slash at disgraceland pod. Rockerola.