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Stu Sutcliffe: Reeperbahn Debauchery, Gangs, and the Birth of the Beatles · DISGRACELAND

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Disgraceland as a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Stu Sutcliffe are insane. He was an original member of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the Beatles, back when they played the violent and depraved
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: nightclubs of Hamburg, Germany. He was arrested when the group
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: double crossed a notorious club owner. In the Reaver Bomb,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: he attacked Paul McCartney on stage in the middle of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: a set. He was beaten up by a gang of thugs.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: That beating may have contributed to what many have suspected
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: was a brain aneurysm which took Stu's life at just
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: twenty one years old. And despite his shortcomings as a musician,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: his influence on the Beatles' style and intellect was massive,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and influence that gave them the confidence to make great music.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Unlike that clip I played for you at the top
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: of the show that wasn't great music. That was a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: preset loop for my melotron called Let's Hear It for
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Dennis o'bell MK one. I played you that clip because
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: I can't afford the rights from its Now or Never
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: by Elvis Presley. And why would I play you that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: specific slice of Mario Lanza parroting cheese could I afford it?
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: August seventeenth, nineteen sixty and that was the day the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Beatles pulled into the notorious Reaper Bond for a residency
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: at a rowdy nightclub, an engagement that would forever change
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: them and forever alter popular music and really the entire world.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: On this episode Violence in Deprevity Thugs a double cross
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: the Reaper Bond and the Beetles. Stu Sutcliffe. I'm Jake
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Brennan and this is Disgraceland Sin as far as the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: eye could see Sin. Saint Polly, the Reaper bond Hamburg's
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: mile of decadence in Depravity stretched out ahead lit by neon,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: lined with prostitutes, pimps and thieves, more red light back
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: alley than yellow brick road. Either way, the Beatles were
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: definitely not in Liverpool anymore. They weren't in Scotland either,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: where they just toured with Johnny Chenn. Contrary to that
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: pop singer's surname, Scotland was anything but gentle. At least,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the locals weren't rough and tumbled, teddy boys looking to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: smash the face of any musician, making eyes at their
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: girls from the stage, but musicians could be rough and
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: tumble too. It came with the territory. War may have
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: been over, but rock and roll groups routinely found themselves
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: in the shit in the spotlight, the afterglow of performance
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: suddenly a combat zone where jealous, drunken boyfriends turned hostile
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: at the first whiff of out of towners. The Beatles
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: could handle the teddy boys, and they had each other's
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: backs because the Beatles weren't just a band. They were
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a gang, which is what a band truly is at
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: its core, all for one and one for all, closer
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: to each other than they were to their own girlfriends,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: and today they were physically close too. Stuffed inside their
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: manager's cream and green colored minibus, their amplifiers and instruments
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: strapped to the top, pulling into Hamburg, Germany, after the
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: longest ride of their young lives, prepared to embark on
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: their most formidable tour of duty to date, a residency
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: at the infamous kaiser Keller Club. Hold up, this is
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: not the Beatles you're thinking of. This is August seventeenth,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty, back when the band's repertoire consisted almost entirely
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: of covers of American R and B and rock and
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: roll back, when eighteen year old Pete Best was still
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: on the drums, when Paul McCartney, also eighteen, was still
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: playing guitar. Stu Sutcliffe at twenty years old, the oldest
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Beatle was the bass player, his good art school buddy
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: John Lennon nineteen also on guitar, and young George Harrison
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: the third guitarist, just seventeen years old, young enough that
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: simply by being there he was breaking the law. And
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: the one place in Europe where breaking the law was
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: very hard to do, Hamburg made I readily available. Sex
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: with women, sex with men, sex with men who dressed
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: like women. Pills Thaspier. The place was wild, especially for
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: five impressionable to repressed English boys. Hamburg was a circus
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: run by the likes of Bruno Koshmeder, himself a former
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: circus cloud, now a gruff character who walked with a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: limp and who carried around a knotted hardwood chair leg
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Why because Bruno's nightclub, the kaiser Keller, was a den
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: of iniquity, a place of sin, and sinners must be punished,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: that is, when they sinned against dark guy Bruno. Here,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: drunken sailors, stupid tourists, petty criminals try to screw Bruno
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: over have more pints than you could afford at his place.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: That was a one way ticket to the dirty floor
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: where Bruno's waiters, big men, capable men, men Bruno hired
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: away from the Hamburg Boxing Academy held you still, Maybe
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: you didn't hear Bruno was in a circus clown no more?
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you did hear, and why the fuck are
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: you treating him like a clown. Bruno reached in the
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: back of his pants and pulled out the knotted chair
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: leg tonight's dead beats played out on the floor. Proceeded
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: to get his head cracked open, one whack for stealing,
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: another for thinking he could actually get away with it.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: One more, well, just for kicks. The guy's face opened up,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: blood painted the floor Bruno's office while his goons kicked
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: the poor bastard for good measure. The goons proceeded to
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: pick up the offending patron, opened the back door with
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: his bloody head, and dump his barely breathing body in
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: the alley where the neon lights and the strip joints
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: and sex shops and every other that praved outlet in
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: the same Poli district lit up his pummeled face like Christmas.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Best to get on Bruno's good side, and get on
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: it early. The Beatles understood this. Bruno was their benefactor,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: their lifeline. John, Paul, George, Stu and Pete. They were
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: all Nobody's an amateur band if there ever was one.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: But like all amateur bands, the Beatles had dreams of
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: making it big. Making it big meant no more looking
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: for a real job, and no more school, not that
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: school would take them back. Paul was such a poor
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: student that his teachers stopped trying, and George failed every
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: one of his high school exams. Pete renounced education for
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: the siren call of music, and John Board of Art
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: School released himself from Higher ed on his own recognisance.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: They needed a guy like Bruno to like them. Well,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: like was maybe too strong a word. The Beatles weren't
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Jerry and the Pacemakers, and they certainly weren't Worry Storm
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in the Hurricanes, the group with that wonderbard drummer, the
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: one with all the rings on his fingers. The Beatles
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: were on a good day. Liverpool's third best rock and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: roll band, but demand for live music in Hamburg, especially
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: for rock and roll, far exceeded the supply. So when
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Bruno needed to book a band to entertain the rowdy
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: clientele patronizing his place of business, he took what he
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: could get, and he got the Beatles. He needed the Beatles,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: just like John needed somebody, not just anybody, not Paul, Stu. Stu.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Suckcliffe had it all. The Chelsea boots, the leather jacket,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the dark shades, and the cool attitude. He read the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: beats and studied the impressionists. He was handsome and beautiful
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: at the same time. John wanted to get girls like Stu,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: got girls to have a brain like Stu, to be
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: talented like Stu and Stu. Suckcliffe did have crazy talent,
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: just not necessarily when it came to music. He was
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: a painter so unique and impressive that his teachers didn't
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: even try to teach him. He taught them. He taught
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: John too, how to approach a canvas, how to be
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: an intellectual, and he taught the Beatles how to look,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: how to dress how Any rock and roll band worth
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: their salt was first and foremost a gang, A gang
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: with a unified front and a unified look, a look
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: to cut like a switchblade, a look that was cool
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: as fuck. Stu Suckliffe was the template not just for
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: the Beatles, but for the Ramones and for the Strokes,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: for the new band you're going to fall in love
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: with ten years from now. It didn't matter that Stu
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: didn't know how to play. He was Sid Vicious years
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: before sid Vicious was a thing, and just like Sid,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: stue knew image was everything, which is why in any
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: given photo he looked so badass holding his big archie
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: top Hofner president base, an instrument he didn't want in
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the first place. No one wanted to play bass, not
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: even Paul. Bass players were a hermetic breed shoved in
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: a corner of the stage while a guitar play there
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: was peacocked out front and got all the girls. But
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: John was persistent, always putting the bug in Stu's ear,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: especially after he sold one of his paintings for sixty
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: five pounds. Though he used to do with that money.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: Stew by that Hoffner and join our gang. John needed
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: Stu as inspiration, as a friend, as a beatle. Meanwhile,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Stu needed a gang and Bruno. Bruno needed the Beatles,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: but not here, not at the kaiser Keller, which was
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: even bigger and better than advertised, with a killer sound
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: system in a stage like a pirate ship. No, Bruno
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: had booked them for his other club in Hamburg, the Indra,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: a reaper bond shithole with a waning pulse and drab curtains.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: It was at the Indra that the Beatles were to
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: perform four and a half hours every night, six hours
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: on weekends, a far cry from the one hour show
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: is on the Johnny Gentle Tour, the twenty minute seve
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: that were used to playing back home. But this wasn't Liverpool.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: This was Battle, a test of the gang's strengths. We
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: young artists are like young sailors do, Suckcliffe wrote in
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: his notebook around this time. Unless we encounter rough seas
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and are buffeted by the winds, will not become real sailors.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: So Stu and the Beatles steadied themselves in anticipation of
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the oncoming waves ways of adversity and temptation that were
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: about to crash into their unified front. With this, Hoffner
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: slung over his shoulder, Sutcliffe turned his back to the audience.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: He knew he wasn't any good at his instrument. He
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: wasn't thinking about the bass or about music. He was
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: thinking about painting. He missed it. Oils in a brush
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: didn't make him feel like this insecure forced to turn
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: his back, not because it was Miles Davis level cool,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: which it most certainly was, but because he was embarrassed,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: not unlike George was embarrassed when he lost his virginity
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to that German bombshell. While Paul, John and Pete watched
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: their accommodations here in Hamburg were atrocious, tiny rooms that
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: had to share with each other in the back of
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a movie theater, filthy cubicles with no windows, no heat,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: no privacy, not even for a shag. But at the
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Indra it was hot and loud. The Beatles grinding through
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Ray Charles's What I Say, an R and B single
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: originally divided into two parts five minutes, told that they
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: were now stretching into an hour. They were at Bruno's
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: club to do one thing, play for hours, whatever it took.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Mock show. Bruno screamed like some Wild West outlaw, telling
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: a fellow to dance before filling his boots full of lead.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: Mack schaw as in make show. In other words, loosen
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the hell up and entertain us. The Beatles took the
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: challenge to heart. Proper English manners tossed to the wayside,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Paul dressed in nothing but a bedsheet, John Goose stepping
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: cursing out the German audience in English, go on, you
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: fucking crowds, you fucking igre in German bastards. The audience
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: didn't know what they were hearing or what they were seeing,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: but they loved it. John Lennon, the original troll, the
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Beatles were feral animals. Word around the Reaper Bond was
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that they were verruchd, absolute nut jobs. But the Beatles
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: didn't just get crazy, they got better. We have improved
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to a thousandfold since our arrivals, Stue wrote to his
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: sister nearly two months into their residency. Stu himself wasn't
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: improving as fast as the others. He continued to struggle
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: to turn his back on stage and let us tell
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: John get all the attention. This irritated Paul to no end,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: not just because Stu's remedial skills were holding the band back,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: but because John was going to defend his art school friend.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: To the bitter end. John didn't want to hear Paul's
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: criticism of Stu. The Beatles were a gang, all for
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: one and one for all. Besides, who was going to
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: play bass if not Stu? Paul, Ah, that'll be the day.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: It was, like George said, better to have a bass
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: guitarist who couldn't play than not have a bass guitarist
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: at all. Stu was a Beatle. Stu was playing, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: for hours, days, months on end, the Beatles played Little Richard,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: Larry Williams, Jerry Lee Lewis, upbeat Up Temple, so fast,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: so furious, so physically demanding, that the suits they wore
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: literally fell apart. They replaced their lilac colored sport coats
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: with black leather bomber jackets, pointy towed shoes with cowboy boots,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: and then they replaced the Indra with the kaiser Keller.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: By October third, the Beatles had performed forty eight sets
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: at Bruno's small club, hundreds of hours hours of noise
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: that generated one too many complaints, So Bruno moved the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: Beatles over to the kaiser Keller, the place they wanted
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: to play in the first place where they began opening
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: for Rory Storm in the Hurricanes, that band with the
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: drummer with the awesome beard and the Zephyr Zodiac. What
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: a badass, But I digress. The kaiser Keller had a
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: bigger stage, a bigger crowd, A crowd that consisted not
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: just to thieves and prostitutes and drunken gis, but gangsters,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Gangsters with money to burn, Gangsters who said jump and
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: all of Hamburg said how high. Members of the city's
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: organized crime family sent trays of schnapps to the band.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: The band was expected to stop what they were doing
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: and to drink them. Soon it was more than schnapps.
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: Soon the wise guys were sending up Prelles by the handful.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Prellies preduline over the counter, uppers, real rocket fuel. The
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Beatles did as they were told. They gobbled them up
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: like candy and washed them down with pints of German beer.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: Prellees gave them energy, stamina. Prellees made them feel invincible.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Five lads turned into Superman, and they took so many
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: that they were frothing at the mouth, foaming, complete and
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: utter lunatics, making a horny, sweaty perverted racket. It was unadulterated,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: liberating one hundred percent root. The air was thick with derangement,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: cat calls from the audience, tables, overturned, fights breaking out,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: waiters with their truncheons, wailing on the unruly wood of
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: Runer Hashmeiter's chair leg, delivering yet another punishment. Blood, sex, music,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: sim and then she walked in blonde hair, blue eyes,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: a stoic face, a German face, a face full of
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: mystery and wonder. She was beautiful of all the gin
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: joints in all the towns in the world. Stu was
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: smitten head over heels, not in the way Pete had
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it for his saint poly stripper girlfriend, the one whose
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: actual boyfriend was doing time in prison. This was different.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: Astard Kercher was different, and so were her friends, all
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: of them dressed in suede jackets, wool sweaters, jeanes, existentialists
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: aka xies, intellectuals, visionaries, artists. Stu's kind of people, yes,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: but also the Beatles' first serious fans. And Astor was
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: the Beatles' first serious photographer. The shots she took of
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the group hanging around a municipal park near the Reaperbahn
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: weren't just one offs. They came to define how rock
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: bands would be photographed for years to come. No mugging
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: for the camera, just attitude and unfazed, cool faces of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: mystery and wonder, just like the face of the woman
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: behind the lens and Stu with his dark sunglasses, slick
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: back hair, black turtleneck, one part of the Formidable Beatles Gang,
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: a gang that felt stronger together, emboldened by their new
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: German fans. Stu emboldened by the love he was now
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: feeling for Astrid and that she felt for him. So
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: embolden that when a new club opened in Hamburg, they
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: came together as a group. As a gang, they made
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: the collected decision to burn a bridge in order to
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: reach greener pastures. The Top Ten club was where it
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: was at. It was larger than the Kaiserkeller. It had
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: a new stage, a the art sound system with echo
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and reverb. The working conditions were better and so was
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: the pay. But it was a crazy idea to go
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: behind the back of a guy as crazy as Bruno
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: Cashmeier to accept a gig at the Top Ten, a
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: decision that was a violation of their existing contract. A contract,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: which included a clause forbidding them from performing at another
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: club within a five kilometer radius. Bruno was beyond pissed.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Who did they think they were? The fucking Beatles? Didn't
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: they know that the Germans pronounced their name as Beetles,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: local slang for the little Willie's. They were a dick joke,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: But Bruno wasn't laughing. He was clinging to his knotted
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: old wooden chair leg and thinking about the ways in
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: which it could rearrange stew Suckless's face, or maybe Paul's
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: send them pretty boy straight to hell. But then he
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: thought of something better, a sweeter revenge. Hamburg got to
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: George first, busted for being under a given twenty four
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: hours to leave the country or go to prison. Next
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: were Paul and Pete arrested for attempted arson, some childish
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: prank in which they nailed the condom to a wall
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: lit it on fire, and that wall being in the
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: building where they lived in Hamburg, in those cramped rooms
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: behind the movie theater, a building that Bruno owned. Paul
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and Pete were taking to the airport in handcuffs and
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: deported immediately. Stu wasn't aware of any of this when
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: he showed up at the Top ten with Astrid ready
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to play that night, hadn't he heard George, Paul Pete.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: They're all on their way back to Liverpool and the
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: cops were looking for John and Stu at this very moment.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Why because someone had let slip that they'd been working
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: in Hamburg this whole time without the proper permits. Shit Bruno.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: Stu just turned himself in, even though he hadn't done
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: anything wrong, not really. He wasn't sure what he was
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: being charged with. Marched into a holding cell where he
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: sat on a bench alone for six hours. He signed
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a confess and written entirely in German. He said he
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: was not aware of any burning rubbers, at least he
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: hoped that's what it said, and then the cops let
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: him go. The next day, John flew home to Liverpool.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: He was broke and depressed, and so were the rest
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: of them. George went looking for a real job. Paul
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: found work at a factory winding electrical coil. Just absolute drudgery.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: None of them were speaking to each other and none
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of them were happy. Back in Hamburg, Stu fared better.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: He was falling deeper in love with Astrid. She inspired him,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: She gave him purpose. She made him want to dream,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: not about rock and roll, and not about gangs, but
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: about art, about painting. It was November nineteen sixty. The
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Beatles as a band, as a gang, for all intents
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: and purposes, were over you right back after this word
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: word word. The Beatles, of course, were not over, not
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: for another decade, give or take. They recognized this pretty quickly,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: mostly in terms of how they compared with other bands
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: back home. When they first left Liverpool in August, they
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: were mediocre at best. Now three months later they returned
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: completely changed. Five rocous wild lunatics. All that playing hours
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: upon hours, the reps, the prellies, the trial by fire,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: under a constant threat of violence. It made them stronger
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: than even they realized. And when they further realized that
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: they were not cut out to be working stiffs, that
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: they were rooted to their core, true children of the Riaperbond,
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: they gave the band their gang one more shot. Liverpool
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was not prepared. The audience had assembled at the Litherland
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: Town Hall on December twenty seventh, nineteen sixty, went into
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a full blown riot. The Beetles the way they looked
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the way they sounded, dripping with sex and sweat, a
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: true manifestation of the red light pleasures of Hamburg, who
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: was overwhelming, disorienting. The crowd shrieked, they shed tears of joy,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and they went crazy. Beatlemania was born. Stu Suckcliffe wasn't
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: there the day his band suddenly blew up in their hometown.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: He showed up a few weeks later, in January of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: sixty one, with Astrid Kircher, now his fiancee. For Stu,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Liverpool was no place to get born. Liverpool was a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: brass coffin, so he wrote in the letters he sent
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: home from Hamburg, the city where he now envisioned spending
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: the rest of his life. He could say the same
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: about the Beatles. Rock and roll wasn't his thing. Making
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: music didn't make him artistically fulfilled. But the band needed him.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: John needed him at least for now, and Stue needed
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: them The Beatles his gang Liverpool, though not so much
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: in Liverpool. Stu didn't turn his back like he had
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: on a Hamburg stage. He was forward, facing, on high alert,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: slowly backed into a corner by a group of pissed
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: off teddy boys. They hated him, or maybe they hated it.
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: They loved him. Didn't matter. Teddy boys didn't need a reason,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Not in Scotland on the Johnny Gentle Tour, not here,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: the one place on earth where Stu didn't want to be.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: He was outnumbered. One Tad threw the first punch. Stu
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: put his hands up, but the fist connected anyways. Then
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: another and another, and all of them now beating on him.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Stu on the ground, dirt in his mouth, a foot
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: straight to his head. That fucking hurt. His vision went
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: a little blurry. He couldn't be sure if what he
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: was seeing was actually happening. But it was John and
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Pete materializing before his very eyes, throwing themselves into the scrum,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: peeling the Teddy Boys off Stew's bloody and battered body.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: His boys, his gang, there when he needed them. Back
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: in Hamburg, it wasn't Stu or the other Beatles who
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: were taking the beating. Once again, it was the unruly patrons.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Now it was April nineteen sixty one. Thanks to a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: polite apology and also to procuring actual work permits, this time,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: the Beatles were once again standing on a Reaperbond stage.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: The top Ten to be exact, the club they had
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: previously tried to play before Bruno went all vindictive and
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: pulled the rug out. Better hours, better room, better money,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: better connections too, like Tony Sheridan, the fellow English ex
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: pat rock and roller, who could get them some studio time.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: But the violence, the punishment, it grew in direct proportion
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: with the opportunity. Jacked waiters patrolled the place with teargas
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: guns and knuckle dusters, just dying for some dumb motherfucker
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: to do something stupid. And when they did, those meatheads
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: sprang into action like it was their job, which it was.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: And as the Beatles ripped through dizzy Miss Lizzie top
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: Ten's muscle dragged another drunk victim outside with the trash,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: a rank smell of urine ripening on a slimy alley wall,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: and proceeded to beat the living shit out of them
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: with a fistful of brass. But it wasn't the calendars,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: say hey, the waiters that the Beatles had to worry about.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: It was each other, a gang that had once been
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: so close that it spent hours together, not just on
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a stage, but in small vans and cramped living quarters,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the guys that had been there for each other when
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: they needed it the most. Those close knit bonds were
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: now becoming as worn as the outfits they wore on
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Hamburg stages. Just as quickly as they had rebounded, the
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Beatles were falling Apart's love for Stu was beginning to curdle.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: His hero worship turned to jealousy. No longer thinking like
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Stu and looking like Stu and wanting the girls that
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Stu got. The simple fact that Stu had all those
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: qualities and all those things that John lacked ate away
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: at John and made him angry, resentful, nasty. He pushed
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Stu away. Paul was angry too, not just because Stuke
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: continued to be a less instellar bass player, because Stu
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: was hogging all of John's attention, attention that Paul desperately wanted.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: When Stu showed up with a brand new haircut, no grease,
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: just this combed forward mushroom head, pills and cough the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Germans called it, the boys gave him an endless amount
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: of shit, but within days the rest of the group
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: began to wear their hair the same way. Like everything
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: else about the Beatles' style, the group soon to be iconic.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Mop tops started with Stu Suckcliffe. Stu, however, didn't think
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: of himself as a trend. He was an artist, but
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: his pursuit of art, of real art, was taking a
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: back seat to all of this, to whatever this bizarre
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: love triangle was with John and Paul to the bass,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: an instrument he would never master, to the insults so
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: many from John and Paul both now, no matter how
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: playful they were intended to be. The insult on stage
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: at the top ten though, that wasn't meant to be playful.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: That was Paul being a sad, pathetic little dick, as
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the Germans put it, a peedal to take out his
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: anger about Stu's playing and Stu's role in that way,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: to make a derogatory comment about Astrid. Stuart had enough.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: He dropped his Hofner bass in the middle of the song.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: It landed on the stage with a thud, and then
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: he ran at Paul sitting there at the piano like
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: he was fucking Mozart more like Seliary, that smug fuck.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Stu wasn't a violent man, at least he didn't think so.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: But it just came out of him, came from somewhere
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: down inside, don't you dare talk about her like that?
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And Stu hit Paul so hard that Paul fell off
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: the piano stool. Paul hit him back, and they rolled
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: around on the stage all while John, George Pete they
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: kept playing Mack Shaw Mack Show. Paul and Stu were
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: still throwing punches, and the rest of the band pried
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: them apart. It was the end. Everyone could see that,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: not just the end of the song or the fight.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: It was the end of Stu Suckcliffe's time as a Beatle.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: Stu Suckcliffe quit the Beatles about a third of the
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: way through their run at the top ten in Hamburg.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: He handed his base to Paul. Because Paul, despite his
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: growing position as the group's primary motivating force, drew the
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: short straw. John just bought a brand new Rickenbucker and
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: George could play raunchy like nobody's business. Paul had no excuse,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: seeing as how he was left handed. Paul flipped Stu's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: base upside down and accepted his fate. Like Paul, Stu's
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: own fate was rewritten, free to pursue his two loves,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: Art and Asterid, and because he was no longer a beatle.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: His relationships with Paul and John actually began to improve
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: once again. His creativity was unbounded. He painted like a
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: man possessed, like an artist who is no longer crippled
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: by his own insecurities. He was Miles Davis level cool
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: whether he had a base or a paint brush in
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: his hand, and he knew it. Everyone knew it. But
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: before long, Stu's newly rewritten fate was flipped upside down,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: just like that Hoffner President of his migraines convulsions see
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: flashes of pain that came out of nowhere. Pain not
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: unlike that experienced by Kaiser Keller deadbeats who found themselves
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: on the wrong side of Bruno Kashmeiter's wooden chair leg.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Stew's pain was in punishment for his sins. Steu's pain
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: was a question that one of the German exies would ask.
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: Why was he losing weight? Why was he falling over
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: when he walked? Why were his moods so volatile? Why
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Astard's family doctor ran blood tests and X rays. Increased
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: in skull pressure, so said the diagnosis. He was given
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: cranial hydrotherapy and massage, but the pain got worse and
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the pressure built. He could feel his brain crowding his cranium.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: It was like a bomb going off in his head slowly.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: That's how Astor described it to John and Paul. On
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: April eleventh, nineteen sixty two, one year after Stu left
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: the group, a year in which the Beatles gained steam
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: at a furious rate, now managed by by Brian Epstein,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: auditioning for George Martin, soon to sack Pete Best and
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: replace him with that bearded force of nature from Rory
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Storm's band. They were making a triumphant return, back in
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: the city that made them, the City of Sin, the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: city run by the unforgiving hands of men like Bruno Koshmeiter.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: Back for round three, this time with an engagement at
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a place called the Star Club. This time traveling not
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: by bus but by plane at the Hamburg Airport, they
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: were greeted by Astrid, but this seemed odd. She was alone.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: Where was Stu? Astard didn't answer at first. John could
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: sense something was wrong. He knew what Astor was going
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to say before she said it. Stewart died. He's gone
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: just one day earlier, the day before the Beatles returned
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: to Hamburg, Stu slipped into a coma. He died in
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: arms on the way to the hospital. Cerebral paralysis due
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: to bleeding into the right ventricle of the brain was
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: the first official cause of death. Like a bomb going
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: off in his head, perhaps a brain aneurysm, as many suspected,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: though it was never known for sure, Perhaps from getting
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: kicked in the head by that gang of teddy boys
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: in Liverpool the year prior, or perhaps as Stue's sister
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: shockingly claimed, from an unprovoked attack by a jealous John
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Lennon in a fit of rage. That claim would be
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: made years later, back in nineteen sixty two and Hamburg
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: for the first time without his friend Stu. John indeed
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: had rage inside him. He grieved with equal parts rage
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: and absurdity at the Star Club. He no longer goosestepped.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Now he dressed as a cleaning woman, knocking over all
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the mic stands like a lunatic. Paul too grieved in
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: his own private way, racked with guilt for how he
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: treated Stu, the things he would say say if only
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: his friend wasn't gone. But though he was physically gone,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Stu Suckcliffe never actually left the Beagles, how they looked,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: how they dressed, how they remained above all else, A
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: gang that was all Stu's doing. Their patrons. Saint He
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: gazed down on them from above, not from the heavens,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: but from the top left corner of the Sergeant Pepper's
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Lonely Hearts Club band album cover, or a black and
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: white cut out of Stew sandwiched in between a Hindu
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: guru and a wax model of Sonny Liston watches over
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: his old band as their unprecedented rise to the toppermost
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: is about to go super sonic. Turn off your minds.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: You can imagine Stew saying, relax, float downstream, surrendered to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: the void. This is not the end. This is simply
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the end of the beginning. I'm Jake Brennan, and this
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: this Disgraceland. Disgraceland was created by Yours Truly and is
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: can be found on the show notes page at disgracelampod
• 35:13
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• 35:17
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• 35:20
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• 35:22
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• 35:27
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• 35:30
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• 35:51
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