DISGRACELAND - Rolling Stones Pt. 1: Swinging London, a Prison Break, East End Gangsters and the Anti-Beatles

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

London was swinging. Keith Richards was in jail. The Kray Twins were menacing about. Brian Jones was on too much LSD. Aristocrats were tripping over themselves to hang out with the Rolling Stones. England was smitten. The London Establishment was freaking out and the Stones’ manager wanted to know one thing: Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone? To view the full list of contributors, see the show notes at ⁠www.disgracelandpod.com⁠. This episode was originally published on June 23, 2020. To listen to Disgraceland ad free and get access to 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 To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that.

David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tena Mongeau, Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder.

If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hotter in a doorway than Elizabeth Taylor? That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You,

the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network. Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about the Rolling Stones swinging London. days are insane. They drank and drugged with royals, hung with East End gangsters. In 1967, both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wound up in jail. Keith, with a one-year sentence in Mick with three months. Prior to that, the Rolling Stones jockeyed their way up the charts with the Beatles. Contrast

has dangerous, drug-addled, sex-crazed black hats to Her Majesty's sanctioned lovable mob tops. In the mid-60s, the Rolling Stones did. disrupted London's established social order with their music, their attitude, and their vast influence as pop stars. They attracted into their orbit, not only fellow bohemians and artists, but well-heeled aristocrats and socialites. The appeal of the Rolling Stones was so powerful that it went both ways, drawing in not only British youth accustomed to worshipping pop stars, but also society's upper crust. To the establishment, this was highly disruptive, threatening even. The Rolling Stones made powerful enemies, crooked headlines-seeking police sergeants, Scotland Yard,

the press, American Acid Kings, and disgruntled chauffeurs, and through it all, they also made great music. Throughout their career of more than 50 years and counting, the Rolling Stones have made some of the greatest music ever, and most of it almost never happened. Unlike the music at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Melotron. called Double O No, No, He Didn't, MK2. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to I'm a believer by the monkeys. And why would I play you that specific slice of unbelievable made-for-TV cheese could I afford it?

Because that was the number one song in America on February 11, 1967. And that was the day the police raided Keith Richards Redmond's home, setting off a series of events that threatened to destroy. the ascendant careers of London's most dangerous band. On this special two-part episode, drugged out royals, East End gangsters, crooked cops, swinging London in the Rolling Stones.

I'm Jake Brennan, and this is disgraceland. The prisoner peered out of the D-block corridor window. It was a long way down, a 20-foot drop. If he fell, his ankles could handle it. They had handled worse, Korea. And before that, Germany's invasion of Amsterdam during the Second World War, that was cute.

He and his Dutch cousins showed up at the border on their bicycles to confront the invading Germans. The Germans showed mercy and a sense of humor. Rather than killing them on site, the Dutch were thoroughly outmanned and outgunned. The Germans took some as prisoners of war, let others go, and tracked their moves to learn more about the Dutch resistance. And they, of course, confiscated their bicycles, melted them down and then used the bike materials to make new bombs which they later used to bomb Rotterdam with. Sick bastards, Hitler's men. That was where he started to turn.

Toward communism. His cousin, the Marxist, made a lot of sense. Hitler, the Allies, two sides of the same imperialist coin. The seeds were planted in Amsterdam during World War II, and they fully bloomed during the Korean conflict. By then, the prisoner was an MI6 officer stationed in Seoul. The Korean people's army invaded the South, took him prisoner, locked him up, and gave him all the time he needed to finish up those Karl Marx readings.

Soon, the KGB flipped him and put him to work the spy on the West. It was a fine arrangement until the Polish defector ratted him out to British authorities. The judge gave him 42 years in prison, wormwood scrubs, with its notorious rodent infestation in hard timers. The prisoner thought about his past, how he got here while contemplating his present, mainly his ankles. Amsterdam, Korea, those imprisonments were nothing compared to this. 42 years. He wasn't going to die in the shithole. He was going to bust out.

20 feet. That's how far down it was if he were to slip while scaling down the side of the prison's second story. His ankles would need to withstand the impact, because after getting down the side of the prison, to the yard, there was a sprint to the wall. His heart raced. The hum of prisoners enjoying their daily allotted free time filled the walls of the old jail while the soundings.

track from that night's picture show bled out of the common room. Screws barked, inmeats grab-assed. No more thinking. 5.30. Free time on the block. Time to act. He bashed his elbow through the prison corridor window, coughing loudly at the exact same time to obscure the sound of breaking glass. He pushed out the remaining glass from the window frame, hoisted himself up and squeezed himself head first out onto the concrete lip of the exterior wall. There, he collected himself and slid down the top half of the wall before falling the remaining 10 or so feet to the ground landing unscathed ankles intact he sprung to his feet and sprinted the 50 or so yards to the prison wall it was the longest run of his life it was quiet out in the yard no guards barking no prisoners boasting

just the sound of his heart racing in his own labored breath struggling to meet the demands of his exploding lungs he was closing in on the wall it was coming up fast if his man on the outside was worth half a yard bird shit, the rope ladder would be hung, ready for his ascent, and if it wasn't, then he'd be caught. But alas, there it was, hanging right where it was supposed to, smack dab in the middle of the wall, and the prisoner grabbed it and quickly scurried to the top, another 20 feet up. But when he reached the top, he found that there was no way down, no rope ladder on the reverse side. He wasted no time and leapt to his freedom, landing again with his ankles intact, but instead spraining his wrist.

He tore off into the night. It was never again seen by British authorities. He was a legend. George Blake, the escaped spy. Everyone in London knew his story, especially the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, the prison he'd escaped from less than a year prior. A repeat offender noticed the first time prisoner to his right

marveling at the wall in the yard. He nudged him. It's possible, you know. Huh? Nuby asked. The old pro nodded at the wall, Blake got over it. That was nine months prior, and this was the newbie prisoner's first day. Her Majesty's Prison Service Inmate Number 12126-664.

Last name, Richards. First name, Keith. Date of birth, 12, 1843. Convicted on charges of drug possession. Sentence, 12 months. Occupation. Musician. Keith Richards' first day of his one-year prison sentence was typical. Stripped, searched, showered and sprayed down with permacthrin

to kill whatever lice the dirty rock and roller might have been smuggling in. Then, an issuing of his inmate clothes, one sheet, one blanket, and one pillow for one tiny rat-infested cell. Mercifully, soon after, a trip to the yard to cool his jets with the other novices, where he stood, staring at the prison wall, visions of George Blake making his great escape. And now, the filthy traitor, the spy, was living free somewhere off in Russia, while Keith Richards, the filthy musician, the Rolling Stone, deemed too much of a threat,

too much of a disruptive, corruptive force by the British establishment, was locked up for a year with a sordid bunch of hard characters. Not that Keith wasn't used to the hard boys. He was, after all, tight with Spanish Tony. In Spanish Tony, it was believed, at least by Keith, was tied up somehow. with the Kray twins. Keith heard the rumors about the Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, notorious crime lords from the East End.

By the time the early 60s came around, they controlled most of London through a hard mix of murder, armed robbery, the protection rackets, and of course, loan sharking and gambling establishments. London's establishment thought they were doing themselves a favor by legalizing gambling casinos in 1960, cut down on arrests,

jammed up court docket's overcrowded, that sort of thing. But the new casinos only brought more power to organize criminals like Ronnie and Reggie Cray and the excitement of the casinos, with their rampant vice, the glamour of their gangsters and working girls began to attract the smart set, musicians, famous photographers, artists, and Aristos, and with bold-faced names partaking in gambling, drinking, and who knows what else, Greater London followed suit, taking its cue from its famous at the exact same time, the early 60s, when Britain found itself. hungry to cast off the societal restrictions of post-war austerity.

Attitudes were changing dramatically. Art was becoming more innovative and fashion more far out, and rock and roll was taking the nation by storm. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and any and all rock and roll-adjacent artists, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, the photographer David Bailey, painter Lucien Freud, grandson of Sigmund, and film consultant David Litbenoff, among them,

were part of a new movement, a new generation that opened, challenged the UK establishment's conservative way of life. The disruption of polite society was unlike anything London had ever seen. If the bourgeoisie, Lord Effingham, and others among them were happily seen cavorting with known rabble-rousers and scruffy bohemians at gambling establishments owned and operated by known gangsters like the cray twins, then what exactly in the name of her majesty was the country coming to? The craze weren't to be crossed.

Spanish Tony told Keith all about David Litvinov. It was at Esmeralba's barn, one of the Cray's casinos. Litvinoff got with a croupier in one of the back rooms, a croupier that Ron Cray, who, like David Litvanov, was gay, happened to be having an affair with. When Cray found out he was being two-timed, the gangster's vengeance was swift. Two heavies held David Lithenov down.

His screams were useless. Even if they were heard, there was no one brave enough outside the casino's backroom doors to do anything about it. The razor blade pierced the skin just below Litvinas right here. Slowly, Ron Cray pressed it through the flesh and drew it down the neck in the shape of a U, stopping briefly at the Adams apple, careful not to penetrate too far while angling the pole of the razor back up the left side of Letvinas' neck toward his left ear. The scream ceased.

It was shock. David Litvinov was still alive, but properly maimed. Cray's point made, he nodded to his heavies, and they knew what to do. They grabbed the blooded lip-in-off, stripped him naked, bound his arms and ankles with heavy rope, and hung him outside of the second-story window, 20 feet above the sidewalk for all the sea. Swinging. Just like the rest of London in the early 60s. Keith Richards remembered those days.

The early days when things first started to turn. The squares, the establishment, the authorities, they knew little, and they were too busy trying to quell violent East End gangsters to concern themselves with scruffy art school dropouts who fancied black music. And drugs were so new onto the scene that the coppers were oblivious. They had no clue. Keith remembered walking down Oxford Street with a brick of hash the size of a small acoustic guitar under his arm, right there out in the open. And that was back in 65. My, how things had changed. This season on Dear Chelsea, with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fanci. Fantastic guests, like Amelia Clark.

When, like, young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever. My first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary. I wake up, and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me. Like, making karate noises.

And his entire the Kardashians family over there, everybody's going to be. and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yellowo. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting.

like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things. Tena Monsu. Camilla Marone, Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters. He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows

something happened. His father just grabs him and says, she's gone, she's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits, and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I'm. I can't believe that really happened.

Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien. And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast.

Dear Movies I Love You from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the Criterion Clause? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, Gripe I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra P and an E at the end.

So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Deer Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. By the time 1966 rolled around, the Beatles were untouchable, the biggest stars on the planet. Old Guard London bit their tongues, held their snickers, swallowed their well-established pride, and celebrated the fab, as their greatest exports since, well, capitalism.

All four Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, had recently been awarded membership in the most excellent order of the British Empire, the British equivalent of the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. This stirred great controversy among staunch Tories and Labormen and Her Majesty's government. But the Beatles were special, and they now had the medals to prove it.

And they were introduced to the Queen as nice boys, even if they did have to sneak away to the loo to calm their own nerves with a jazz cigarette beforehand. No matter. The Favre 4 were now cultural ambassadors, so it was in the establishment's best interest to keep the Beatles out of the papers. They were, after all, now part of the establishment themselves. And on the other hand, you had the Rolling Stones, who were cast by their manager, Andrew Lou Geh Oldham,

as the complete opposite of the Beatles. Dirty, dangerous, not to be left alone with you. daughters. The Beatles were pop. The parts of their musical lineage that connected to Willie Dixon and Motown were ignored by the tea and crumpets crowd. Lennon and McCartney were acute, albeit a little rough around their Liverpool edges, but steeped in the tradition of Tintan Alley and therefore allowed, with a wink and a nod, into the club, whereas the Rolling Stones, by comparison, were Black A-F. From down the road of peace, singing about pork and beans, they massed none of their Black American blues influence.

Jumped up Chuck Berrylicks, laid back Jimmy Reed grips, Bobby Womack's last time, Irma Thomas' time is on my side, and Howling Wolf's version of Willie Dixon's Little Red Rooster. In Old Blues, a song about a fucking chicken at number one on the charts in November of 1964. White kids, art students, English kids with scruffy hair, bad skin, and skin-tight trousers, singing about a uniquely black American experience, and sitting at the same thing. the top of the English charts, and increasingly rubbing shoulders with people from the top of England's social class, not at Her Majesty's request like the Beatles, but at social gatherings

and in clubs owned by the notorious cray twins. It was completely novel and it made no sense. Who the hell were these guys? This wasn't the way things were supposed to happen. It was totally disruptive to the accepted way of how things were supposed to work. From the perspective of the establishment, the Beatles were one thing, okay, but two groups of long hair. at the top of the charts, competing for attention of young English girls and influencing young English boys. The establishment was just sick of it, tired of it, fed up with it, especially when one of those groups was clearly unacceptable by any set of established societal norms, and no doubt dangerous. Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone? This was the question being posed

by lazy British journalist being spoon-fed by Stone's manager Andrew Lou Goldham, who was eager to draw a contrast between his group and the Beatles. And the press, of course, did as was expected. The establishment clutched their pearls, guffod, and longed for the days of chastity belts, crusades, and all. The Rolling Stones played the part Oldham and the press cast them in.

Once they took to writing their own hits, their singer Mick Jagger's lyrics went dark. Play with fire. I can't get no satisfaction. Heart of stone and painted black. Took the deep-rooted darkness of the blues and added a layer of anti-establishment cynicism to the band's fast-evolving modern production,

fuzz, sitars, in an ever-growing blend of Keith Richards' deadly guitar riffs that went far beyond Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reed and Monsieur's Lennon and McCartney. The blending of guitars in the Stone's production technique was born out of necessity. Keith came upon it by accident in an effort to compensate

for his so-called band leader Brian Jones, derelict of duty. Brian Jones had let fame go to his head. He was consumed by drugs, increasingly LSD and alcohol, and to his bandmates, had become an insufferable asshole, not to mention unreliable. Brian bagged out of gigs, and Keith had to figure out how to play Brian's parts on top of his own parts.

Brian bagged out of recording sessions or was content to mess around on the marimbas or whatever the fuck, and Keith was tasked with coming up with complimentary guitar parts to his own, and then mixing them together into a scene. seamless and consistent clap of guitar thunder, a mix that would prove irresistible to teenage record buyers. In May of 1965, I can't get no satisfaction went to number one on the back of Keith's vicious guitar playing. No thanks to Brian Jones, who was busy fucking off with whoever were given the requisite amount of craven rock star attention. And that someone was an enterprising undercover journalist from the notorious British tabloid, the news of the world.

We'll be right back after this word, word, word. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark. When like young people come up to me and they want to be an act or whatever, and my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. Dennis Leary.

I wake up and I'm hitting him in the head with a water bomb. And Bruce Jenner is on the aisle in a karate stance, like he's about to attack me, like, making karate noises. And the entire the Kardashian family over there, everybody's going, and the air marshal is trying to grab my arms and screaming. And I immediately know that I've been asleep walking. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction

or you just go straight for the guts. Guy Branham. So anyway, Nicole Kidman broke up with Keith Thurban. Being half of a country couple was always a hat she was going to wear, not like a life she was going to lead. Oh, interesting. I like that. Did you practice that on your way over? Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things.

Tena Monsu. Camilla Morone, Carrie Kenny Silver. And more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Remember when you'd walk into your local video rental place and there were always those two employees behind the counter arguing about movies? Well, that's us. I'm Millie de Cherico. And I'm Casey O'Brien.

And now we're arguing about movies on our podcast, Dear Movies I Love You, from the Exactly Right Network. Can I say something about the criterion closet? Go ahead, dude. They're letting too many people in there. Okay, that's another film, grape I got two. Sadly, that rental place doesn't exist anymore. It's probably a store that sells running shoes. Or an ice cream shop with an extra pee and an E at the end.

So consider us your slacker movie clerks in podcast form. I would like to establish a timeline of the moment you figured out who Channing Tatum was. Every Tuesday, we dig into the movies we can't stop obsessing over, from hidden gems to big screen favorites. New episodes drop every week on the exactly right network. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Wicked Words podcast. Each week I sit down with the true crime writers behind some of the most compelling true crime stories and discuss their years spent investigating and why it still matters.

He sees his father coming out of the woods with his hands over his face, and he knows something happened. His father just grabs him and says she's gone. She's gone. These are the cases that leave survivors, families, and the journalists, who cover them changed forever. Working in national television, it'll push you to your limits,

and you'll end up doing things you never thought you'd do. You know, you look back at it, and you're like, I can't believe that really happened. Join me and step inside the investigation. New episodes drop every Monday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. June 11, 1916.

166, 130 a.m. UK pop star Donovan is stoned. Lying back in his edgeware road flat, ignoring his guests, basking in the beauty of a boy called Donovan, the myth-making documentary about none other than his own beautiful Bohemian Brit self, complete with all the requisite bullshit of the time, hip drugs and hip explorations on the concept of being modern.

And oh yeah, some music, the Sunny Goog Street track about Hash, of course. There's a knock on the door. At this hour? Gypsy Dave isn't concerned. Life's a party, right? What even are clocks, anyway? Time is a construct foisted upon those of us in the know by the establishment as a means to keep us constrained to the past and worried about the future.

The present, man, the moment. No matter when it is, it's all that matters. Don't you know that? Oh yeah, the door. There's a semi-hip-looking chick through the peephole. Gypsy Dave opens it, of course. And behind the women come nine police officers from out of nowhere, rushing into the apartment, busting up Donovan's hippie hamlet.

They are led by headnobby himself, Norman Pilcher, police sergeant, scourge of swinging Londoners everywhere. Pilcher and his boys locate Donovan's hash and place him, his girlfriend and Gypsy Dave, under arrest. Then, celebrity slut that he is, Pilcher asked his prize scout Donovan for his autograph. Paul McCartney and George Harrison pitch in to help Donovan hire a barrister to fight the case. Sergeant Pilcher confirms what he's long suspected.

Drugs are his way in. Drugs are the hammer he can use to nail the disruptive anti-establishment threat posed by influential musicians corrupting Britain's youth. He leaks the details of the Donovan raid to the news of the world, and they run with it. The nation is enthralled by the details, a symbiotic relationship between the tablion. and the police is formed. The headlines draw attention, drum up support for Pilcher's cause, give him himself a little bit of celebrity,

and why shouldn't he enjoy it? And the raids and the arrests give the tabloid the salacious content it needs to sell newspapers and the bigger the star, the better. So the interest in the Rolling Stones from Sergeant Pilcher and the news of the world made sense for both self-interested parties.

Where's Brian, Keith? Have you seen Brian? No, I haven't seen. seen the prick in some time. What about you, Charlie? Have you seen him? Charlie Watts said nothing. He just sat in the back seat of Brian Jones's Rolls-Royce suppressing a smile. Brian sat in the driver's seat. He couldn't see Charlie behind him. He couldn't see much ahead of him either, above the steering wheel and the car was so huge. Brian was not happy. He'd been enduring this joke since the beginning days of the band. Mick didn't care. He sat next to him and kept at it. Keith, where is Brian? I can't see him

Is he back there? Keith smiled, knowing full well that Mick's comments were lighting Brian up with anger. Nah, Mick, I haven't seen him. He's a hard one to spot so little and all. That was the long-running joke, that Brian Jones was so short that even when he was standing or sitting amongst his bandmates, that his diminutive stature made him so hard to see that Mick, Keith, and Brian's other bandmates were forced to repeatedly look for him and to ask each other how the other seen him. It was vicious, cruel, and justified. By 1967, Brian Jones was fast becoming a one-man wrecking ball of narcissistic rock star bullshit and threatening to bring down the band he founded the Rolling Stones with his drugged-out Napoleonic complex.

Mick and Keith's words stung. Brian was silent, pissed. Mick didn't care. The little shit had it coming. Because Brian gave that fucking interview to the news of the world. the one that started the whole mess with the police, the one that resulted in strange cars following Mick and Keith around, and stranger still, the clicks on the telephone lines whenever they'd ring each other up.

And of course, Brian's little shit interview kicked off the whole mess at Redlands. The news of the world journalists sucked Brian in, massaged his ego like an East End working girl for one of the crazed casinos, and Brian jumped all over it like the desperate little fame John he was, admitting to taking LSD for the first time on the Stone. tour of America with Bo Diddley, so hip. The interview played nice within the news of the world's regular editorial context that exploited the hard schism between the establishment and the dangerous druggy musicians and artists from swinging London storming the gates of polite society.

And it flew off newspaper stands, totally salacious and totally true, except for one major detail. The interview attributed Brian's quotes about illegal drug use to Mick Jagger, which of course, made matters for the Rolling Stones even worse, because by 1967, Mick was firmly established as the group's frontman and was thus the bigger name than Brian, and as such, a bigger shit show ensued. The interview ran as part of a three-part series entitled, Pop Stars, the Truth That Will Shock You.

The series not only covered Mick Jagger, as Brian Jones, and his illegal LSD use, but it also detailed the drug habits, hard partying and corruptive ways of other artists like The Who, the Moody Blues, Cream's Ginger Baker, and of course, Donovan, with unknown details from the night of his arrest that could only have been supplied by Headnob himself, Sergeant Norman Pilcher. The battle lines were cemented, and with Pilcher and corrupt members of the press

heading up the fight for the establishment, a full-fledged war with the likes of the disruptive Rolling Stones was about to ensue. John Paul Getty Jr., son to one of the richest men in the world at the time, John Paul getting senior was distracted. His wife, Talatha Paul, was attracting all kinds of attention at the party, which he'd supposed would be the case. She did wear the dress, the one he dreaded, the see-through one. And as if that weren't a nod, Talatha wasn't wearing any underwear.

So modern. Mick Jagger was impressed. So was his girlfriend, Marianne faithful. Though mildly annoyed at the amount of attention Mick was paying to John Paul's wife, Marianne was becoming a bit paranoid. The LSD was kicking in. Alan Ginsberg was not interested. He was sitting on the floor in the corner

bullshitting on an old concertina and being largely ignored, even though the party was being thrown in his honor. It was hosted by a swinging London's hippist antiques dealer and style guru noted Wildman Christopher Gibbs. Educated at Eaton, Gibbs was the Rolling Stones gateway into the upper class. Mick Jagger was quoted as saying

he looked upon Christopher Gibbs to learn how to become a gentleman. And Gibbs, noted bibliophile and sophisticated that he was, was not above the subterranean adolescent antics of the growing drug culture. He sponsored wild LSD-fueled trips to Stonehenge with Mick, Keith, Marianne, and Princess Margaret, and Keith chaufford Bentley. He'd spin off with the stones and other Aristos on a moment's notice to herifixir to drop tabs and chase flying saucers. Gibbs was a serious chap who loved his drugs.

and who knew how to handle them. He also knew how to share them. At the party for Alan Ginsberg, Gibbs Butler served guests a batch of hash brownies on a silver tray. Princess Margaret indulged and quickly freaked the fuck out. The hash, in its over-concentrated edible form, knocked her sideways. She wound up in the emergency room,

supposedly from quote-unquote food poisoning. Perhaps Margaret felt the pull of peer pressure. She wasn't the only one. Brian Jones most certainly felt pressured when it came to taking LSD. He and Keith first dropped acid on a West Coast tour of America. They were turned on by Ken Kesey's freaks the day after the second of Kesey's famed acetes. The way Brian saw it, he had an image to uphold. Head of the Head, self-proclaimed leader of the Rolling Stones,

far-out multi-instrumentalist capable of ripping Wicked Elmore James slide rifts in one moment and previously unimagined sit-to-ar pop structures in another. which of course was all true, but how much of that was due to Brian's LSD usage versus his own innate genius is up for debate. Regardless, the price of admission was costly because when Brian was on acid, which was often, he was an even looser cannon than when he was on the sauce. His moods calibrated by imaginary snakes slithering on the sidewalks beneath his Marrakesh moccasins, undiscovered colors rainbowing above his blonde Dutch boy locks, previously unheard sounds that only he could

here because the rest of the world just wasn't as turned on as he was, painting his inner monologue black. Brian Jones wasn't only on a trip. He was a trip unto himself. And Brian Jones and Princess Margaret weren't the only ones getting far out. It's hard to imagine now, but Keith Richards himself felt pressured by the LSD culture being spun out by Ken Keesey and his merry pranksters. The American hippie dictate that if you weren't experimenting with acid, you couldn't possibly be turned on, couldn't possibly be hit. It helped that unlike Princess Margaret and Brian Jones, Keith could handle his drugs. Even when the trips turned bad, as they often did, one minute you're chasing the hallowed lost cord through a field of wild horses, and the next you're down a bad

road dealing with demons your conscious has up to that point, successfully kept dormant. Christopher Gibbs was helpful to have around in those moments. Gibbs had a way of reassuring Keith, talking him down off the ledge, bringing him back into the good graces of his trip. And Christopher Gibbs wasn't the only one. Keith, Mick, Brian, Marianne Faithle, the rest of the Rolling Stones and the London musicians they hung around with had numerous upper-class friends, Aristos, whose experience they could rely on to steer them successfully up through the ranks of society and through the psychedelic twists and turns of drug culture. Christopher Gibbs Eaton Chum, the gallerist Robert Frazier, with his double-breasted suits,

Kutti and the M.G.'s records and a growing taste for heroin, his Tiffany lamps and silver-line Tibetan skulls, avant-garde, exotic, as formative and influence as there ever was on young Keith Richards. Fraser and Gibbs were fearless, confident, and gay, and really could give a fuck who knew about it. They trucked with high society, princesses and thieves among them, LSD, Black American R&B, exotic art. They searched out and sometimes stole and hoarded rare first editions. Set the trends, chased flying saucers, Dosed the Queen's sister, schooled Rolling Stones and fucked with brazen,

criminal-minded charlatans like David Litvinov and his lot of East End gangsters, the Cray twins included. They opened the Rolling Stones up to a whole other world, and in the process introduced the spy into their ranks. Mick and Keith's very own George Blake, a turncoat, a snitch working double time for the establishment. For Sergeant Pilcher in the news of the world,

a walking pharmacy, really, he could procure whatever you wanted, mandrecks, dope, grass, and of course, acid, the good kind, strawberry fields and purple haze. He was, after all, the acid king, a.k.a. Mr. X. A.k.a. David Schneiderman, aka. David Britton, A.k.a. David Henry, the American. And he would very nearly bring national disgrace to what London's Old Guard had deemed the most disruptive challenge

the establishment had seen in years. The most dangerous band on the planet, the Rolling Stones. 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 notes page at disgracelandpod.com. If you're listening as a Disgraceland All-Axist 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. 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 disgracelandpod.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 Disgracelandpod. This season on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler, we have some fantastic guests like Amelia Clark.

When like young people come up to me and they want to be an actor or whatever. And my first thing is always, can you think of anything else that you can do? Rather be disappointed in. Do that. David O'Yello. I love this podcast, whether it's therapy or relationships or religion or sex or addiction or you just go straight for the guts. Dennis Leary, Gaten Moderato from Stranger Things, Tanna Mongeau, Camilla Morone,

Carrie Kenny Silver, and more. Listen to these episodes of Dear Chelsea on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Sometimes a suspect is found guilty before a verdict is ever read in court. On the Wicked Words podcast, I talk with the writers who dig deep

into the cases that changed history, including Marsha Clark, who went from prosecuting one of the most famous murder cases to writing crime fiction. It doesn't matter that you didn't take part in the murder. If you were at the scene at all, you're guilty of murder. Every week, the real story is revealed. Join us every Monday for new episodes of Wicked Words.

Listen to Wicked Words on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Movies can make you feel, make you dream. Sometimes they even make you appreciate architecture. Is there anybody who's been hot? in a doorway, then Elizabeth Taylor. That's the kind of analysis you'll find every week on Dear Movies I Love You, the new podcast from the Exactly Right Network.

Every Tuesday, we break down the films we're crushing on, from blockbusters to deep cuts. Listen to Dear Movies I Love You on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.