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

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

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. The stories about
0:14
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones Swinging London days are insane. They drank
0:19
Speaker 1: and drugged with royals, hung with East End gangsters. In
0:23
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wound
0:27
Speaker 1: up in jail, Keith with a one year sentence and
0:30
Speaker 1: Mick with three months. Prior to that, the Rolling Stones
0:34
Speaker 1: jockeyed their way up the charts with the Beatles. Contrast
0:37
Speaker 1: has dangerous drug addled, sex crazed black hats to her
0:40
Speaker 1: Majesty's sanctioned lovable mob tops. In the mid sixties, the
0:45
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones disrupted London's established social order with their music,
0:49
Speaker 1: their attitude, and their vast influences pop stars. They attracted
0:53
Speaker 1: into their orbit not only fellow bohemians and artists, but
0:56
Speaker 1: well healed aristocrats and socialites. Of the Rolling Stones was
1:01
Speaker 1: so powerful that it went both ways, drawing in not
1:05
Speaker 1: only British youth accustomed to worshiping pop stars, but also
1:09
Speaker 1: society's upper crust. To the establishment. This was highly disruptive, threatening.
1:16
Speaker 1: Even the Rolling Stones made powerful enemies crooked headlines seeking police,
1:22
Speaker 1: Seargeant Scotland Yard, the Press, American Acid kings and disgruntled chauffeurs.
1:27
Speaker 1: And through it all, they also made great music. Throughout
1:31
Speaker 1: their career of more than fifty years in counting, the
1:34
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones have made some of the greatest music ever
1:37
Speaker 1: and most of it almost never happened, unlike the music
1:40
Speaker 1: at the top of the show. That wasn't great music.
1:43
Speaker 1: That was a preset loop for my melotron called double ow.
1:47
Speaker 2: No, he didn't MK two.
1:50
Speaker 1: I played you that loop because I can't afford the
1:53
Speaker 1: rights to I'm a Believer by the Monkeys, And why
1:56
Speaker 1: would I play you that specific slice of unbelievable made
1:59
Speaker 1: for TV cheese?
2:00
Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
2:02
Speaker 1: Because that was the number one song in America on
2:06
Speaker 1: February eleventh, nineteen sixty seven, And that was the day
2:10
Speaker 1: the police rated Keith Richards Redmand's home, setting off a
2:14
Speaker 1: series of events that threatened to destroy the ascended careers
2:17
Speaker 1: of London's most dangerous band. On this special two part
2:22
Speaker 1: episode Drugged Out Royals, East End Gangsters, crooked Cops Swinging
2:28
Speaker 1: London in the Rolling Stones, I'm Jake Brennan and this
2:33
Speaker 1: is Disgraceland.
2:59
Speaker 2: The prisoner peer out of the D Block Carridor Window.
3:02
Speaker 2: It was a long way down a.
3:03
Speaker 1: Twenty foot drop. If he fell, his ankles could handle it.
3:07
Speaker 1: They had handled worse Korea before that. Germany's invasion of
3:12
Speaker 1: Amsterdam during the Second World War, that was cute. He
3:16
Speaker 1: and his Dutch cousins showed up at the border on
3:18
Speaker 1: their bicycles to confront the invading Germans. The Germans showed
3:21
Speaker 1: mercy and a sense of humor rather than killing them
3:25
Speaker 1: on site. The Dutch were thoroughly outmanned and outgunned. The
3:28
Speaker 1: Germans took some as prisoners of war, let others go
3:31
Speaker 1: and track their moves to learn more about the Dutch resistance,
3:34
Speaker 1: and they of course confiscated their bicycles, melted them down
3:37
Speaker 1: and then used the bike materials to make new bombs,
3:40
Speaker 1: which they later used to bomb Rotterdam with sick bastards
3:44
Speaker 1: Hitler's men. That was where he started to turn toward communism.
3:51
Speaker 2: His cousin, the Marxists made a lot of sense. Hitler.
3:54
Speaker 1: The Allies two sides of the same imperialist coin. The
3:58
Speaker 1: seeds were planted in Adam during World War Two, and
4:01
Speaker 1: they fully bloomed during the Korean conflict. By then, the
4:05
Speaker 1: prisoner was an MI six officer stationed in Seoul. The
4:09
Speaker 1: Korean People's Army invaded the South, took him prisoner, locked
4:12
Speaker 1: him up, and gave him all the time he.
4:13
Speaker 2: Needed to finish up those Karl Marx readings.
4:16
Speaker 1: Soon, the KGV flipped him and put him to work
4:19
Speaker 1: the spy on the West. It was a fine arrangement
4:22
Speaker 1: until the Polish defector ratted him out to British authorities.
4:26
Speaker 1: The judge gave him forty two years in prison, wormwood
4:29
Speaker 1: scrubs with its notorious rodent infestation. In hard timers, the
4:36
Speaker 1: prisoner thought about his past, how he got here, while
4:39
Speaker 1: contemplating his prison, mainly his ankles. Amsterdam, Korea. Those imprisonments
4:44
Speaker 1: were nothing compared to this forty two years. He wasn't
4:48
Speaker 1: going to die in the shithole. He was going to
4:50
Speaker 1: bust out twenty feet that's how far down it was.
4:54
Speaker 1: If he were to slip while scaling down the side
4:56
Speaker 1: of the prison second story, his ankles would need to
4:59
Speaker 1: withstand the impact because after getting down the side of
5:02
Speaker 1: the prison.
5:02
Speaker 2: To the yard, there was a sprint to the wall.
5:05
Speaker 1: His heart raced. The hum of prisoners enjoying their daily
5:08
Speaker 1: allotted free time filled the walls of the old jail
5:11
Speaker 1: while the soundtrack from that Knight's picture show led out
5:14
Speaker 1: of the common room. Screws barked in means grab asked
5:18
Speaker 1: no more thinking five point thirty.
5:20
Speaker 2: Free time on the block. Time to act now.
5:26
Speaker 1: He bashed his elbow through the prison cardor window, coughing
5:29
Speaker 1: loudly at the exact same time to obscure the sound
5:32
Speaker 1: of breaking glass. He pushed out the remaining glass from
5:35
Speaker 1: the window frame, hoisted himself up, and squeezed himself headfirst
5:39
Speaker 1: out onto the concrete lip of the exterior wall. There
5:42
Speaker 1: he collected himself and slid down the top half of
5:45
Speaker 1: the wall before falling the remaining ten or so feet
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Speaker 1: to the ground, landing unscathed, ankles intact. He sprung to
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Speaker 1: his feet and sprinted the fifty or so yards to
5:55
Speaker 1: the prison wall. It was the longest run of his life.
6:02
Speaker 1: It was quiet out in the yard, no guards barking,
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Speaker 1: no prisoner's boasting, just the sound of his heart racing
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Speaker 1: in his own labored breath, struggling to meet the demands
6:12
Speaker 1: of his exploding lungs. He was closing in on the wall.
6:15
Speaker 1: It was coming up fast. If his man on the
6:18
Speaker 1: outside was worth half a yardbird shit, the rope ladder
6:21
Speaker 1: would be hung ready for his ascent, and if it
6:23
Speaker 1: wasn't then he'd be caught. But alas, there it was,
6:27
Speaker 1: hanging right where it was supposed to smack dab in
6:30
Speaker 1: the middle of the wall, and the prisoner grabbed it
6:32
Speaker 1: and quickly scurried to the top, another twenty feet up.
6:36
Speaker 1: But when he reached the top he found then there
6:38
Speaker 1: was no way down, no rope ladder on the reverse side.
6:42
Speaker 1: He wasted no time and leaped to his freedom, landing
6:45
Speaker 1: again with his ankles and tacts, but instead spraining his wrist.
6:49
Speaker 1: He tore off into the night. It was never again
6:52
Speaker 1: seen by British authorities. He was a legend. George Blake,
6:56
Speaker 1: the escaped spy. Everyone in London knew his story, especially
7:03
Speaker 1: the prisoners in Wormwood Scrubs, the prison he'd escaped from
7:06
Speaker 1: less than a year prior. A repeat offender noticed the
7:11
Speaker 1: first time prisoner to his right marveling.
7:13
Speaker 2: At the wall in the yard. He nudged him. It's possible,
7:16
Speaker 2: you know, huh, the nuby asked. The old pro nodded
7:20
Speaker 2: at the wall. Blake cot over it.
7:23
Speaker 1: That was nine months prior, and this was the newbie
7:26
Speaker 1: prisoner's first day Her majesty's prison service. Inmate number one
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Speaker 1: two one two six dashed sixty six four last name
7:35
Speaker 1: Richard's first name Keith, date of birth twelve, eighteen forty three.
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Speaker 1: Convicted on charges of drug possession, sentence twelve months occupation
7:47
Speaker 1: Musician Keith Richards first day of his one year prison
7:54
Speaker 1: sentence was typical. Stripped, searched, showered and sprayed down with
7:59
Speaker 1: permathrin to kill whatever lice the dirty rock and Roller
8:01
Speaker 1: might have been smuggling in. Then an issuing of his
8:04
Speaker 1: inmate clothes one sheet, one blanket, and one pillow for
8:08
Speaker 1: one tiny rat infested cell mercifully. Soon after a trip
8:13
Speaker 1: to the yard to cool his jets with the other novices,
8:15
Speaker 1: where he stood staring at the prison wall visions of
8:19
Speaker 1: George Blake making his great escape and now the Filthy Trader,
8:23
Speaker 1: the Spy was living free somewhere off in Russia, while
8:27
Speaker 1: Keith Richards, the filthy Musician, the Rolling Stone, deemed too
8:31
Speaker 1: much of a threat, too much of a disruptive, corruptive
8:33
Speaker 1: force by the British establishment, was locked up for a
8:37
Speaker 1: year with a sordid bunch of hard characters not that
8:41
Speaker 1: Keith wasn't used to the hard boys. He was after all,
8:45
Speaker 1: tight with Spanish Tony and Spanish Tony. It was believed,
8:48
Speaker 1: at least by Keith was tied up somehow with the
8:51
Speaker 1: Crate Twins. Keith heard the rumors about the Cray twins,
8:56
Speaker 1: Ronnie and Reggie, notorious crime lords from the Geast. By
9:01
Speaker 1: the time the early sixties came around, they controlled most
9:04
Speaker 1: of London through a hard mix of murder, armed robbery,
9:07
Speaker 1: the protection rackets, and of course, loan sharking and gambling establishments.
9:12
Speaker 1: London's establishment thought they were doing themselves a favor by
9:16
Speaker 1: legalizing gambling casinos in nineteen sixties, cut down on arrests,
9:21
Speaker 1: jammed up court dockets, overcrowded prisons, that sort of thing.
9:24
Speaker 1: But the new casinos only brought more power to organized
9:27
Speaker 1: criminals like Ronnie and Reggie Cray, and the excitement of
9:30
Speaker 1: the casinos with their rampant vice, the glamour of their
9:33
Speaker 1: gangsters and working girls began to attract the smart set musicians,
9:38
Speaker 1: famous photographers, artists and aristos and with bold faced names,
9:42
Speaker 1: partaking and gambling, drinking, and who.
9:44
Speaker 2: Knows what else.
9:45
Speaker 1: Greater London followed suit taking its cue from its famous
9:48
Speaker 1: At the exact same time, the early sixties, when Britain
9:52
Speaker 1: found itself hungry to cast off the societal restrictions of
9:55
Speaker 1: post war austerity, attitudes were a cham dramatically. Art was
10:01
Speaker 1: becoming more innovative and fashion more far out, and rock
10:05
Speaker 1: and roll was taking the nation by storm. The Beatles,
10:08
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones, and any and all rock and roll
10:11
Speaker 1: adjacent artists Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, the photographer David Bailey,
10:15
Speaker 1: painter Lucien Freud, grandson of Sigmund, and film consulting David
10:19
Speaker 1: Littbanoff among them, were part of a new movement, a
10:22
Speaker 1: new generation that openly challenged the UK establishment's conservative way
10:27
Speaker 1: of life. The disruption of polite society was unlike anything
10:31
Speaker 1: London had ever seen, with the bourgeoisie Lord Effingham and
10:35
Speaker 1: others among them were happily seen cavorting with known rabble
10:38
Speaker 1: rousers and scruffy bohemians at gambling establishments owned and operated
10:42
Speaker 1: by known gangsters like the Cray Twins. Than what exactly
10:46
Speaker 1: in the name of her Majesty was the country coming
10:49
Speaker 1: to the crae weren't to be crossed? Spanish Tony told
10:55
Speaker 1: Keith all about David Litvanoff. It was at Esmerelda's Barn,
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Speaker 1: one of the craze casinos. Litvanov got with a croupier
11:02
Speaker 1: in one of the back rooms, a croupier that Ron Cray,
11:06
Speaker 1: who liked David Litvanoff was gay, happened to be having
11:09
Speaker 1: an affair with. When Cray found out he was being
11:12
Speaker 1: two timed, the gangster's vengeance was swift. Two heavies held
11:19
Speaker 1: David lit knocked down. His screams were useless even if
11:22
Speaker 1: they were heard. There was no one brave enough outside
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Speaker 1: the casino's back room doors to do anything about it.
11:27
Speaker 1: The razor blade pierced the skin just below Litvanov right ear. Slowly,
11:32
Speaker 1: ron Cray pressed it through the flesh and drew it
11:35
Speaker 1: down the neck in the shape of a youth, stopping
11:37
Speaker 1: briefly at the atoms apple, careful enough to penetrate too far,
11:41
Speaker 1: while angling the pull of the razor back up the
11:44
Speaker 1: left side of Lettanov's neck toward his left ear.
11:47
Speaker 2: The scream ceased. It was shocked.
11:50
Speaker 1: David Litvanov is still alive, but properly maimed. Cray's point
11:55
Speaker 1: made he nodded to his heavies, and they knew what
11:57
Speaker 1: to do. They grabbed the blood and litanof stripped of naked,
12:00
Speaker 1: bound his arms and ankles with heavy rope and hung
12:03
Speaker 1: them outside of the second story window, twenty feet above
12:06
Speaker 1: the sidewalk for all to see, swinging just like the
12:11
Speaker 1: rest of London in the early sixties. Keith Richards remembered
12:17
Speaker 1: those days, the early days when things first started to turn.
12:21
Speaker 1: The squares, the establishment, the authorities, they knew little, and
12:25
Speaker 1: they were too busy trying to quell violent East End
12:27
Speaker 1: gangsters to concern themselves with scruffy art school dropouts who
12:31
Speaker 1: fancied black music and drugs. Were so new onto the
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Speaker 1: scene that the coppers were oblivious. They had no clue.
12:38
Speaker 1: Keith remembered walking down Oxford Street with a brick of
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Speaker 1: hash the size of a small acoustic guitar under his arm,
12:44
Speaker 1: right there, out in the open. And that was back
12:47
Speaker 1: in sixty five. My how things had changed. By the
13:13
Speaker 1: time nineteen sixty six rolled around. The Beatles were untouchable,
13:17
Speaker 1: the biggest stars on the planet. Old Guard London bit
13:21
Speaker 1: their tongues, held their snickers, swallowed their well established pride
13:24
Speaker 1: and celebrated The Fab four as their greatest exports since
13:28
Speaker 1: well capitalism. All four Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney,
13:32
Speaker 1: George Harrison and Ringo Starr had recently been awarded membership
13:36
Speaker 1: in the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, the
13:39
Speaker 1: British equivalent of the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. This
13:43
Speaker 1: stirred great controversy among the staunch Tories and Labormen and
13:46
Speaker 1: Her Majesty's government. But the Beatles were special and they
13:49
Speaker 1: now had the medals to prove it, and they were
13:52
Speaker 1: introduced to the Queen as nice boys, even if they
13:54
Speaker 1: did have to sneak away to the loud to calm
13:56
Speaker 1: their own nerves or a jazz cigarette beforehand. Matter, the
14:00
Speaker 1: Fab four were now cultural ambassadors, so it was in
14:04
Speaker 1: the Establishment's best interest to keep the Beetles out of
14:06
Speaker 1: the papers. They were, after all, now part of the
14:10
Speaker 1: establishments themselves. And on the other hand you had the
14:14
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones, who were cast by their manager Andrew loub
14:18
Speaker 1: Oldham as the complete opposite of the Beatles, dirty, dangerous,
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Speaker 1: not to be left alone with your daughters. The Beatles
14:26
Speaker 1: were pop the parts of their musical lineage that connected
14:28
Speaker 1: to Willie Dixon and Motown were ignored by the Tea
14:31
Speaker 1: and Crumpet's crowd. Lennon and McCartney were cute, albeit a
14:35
Speaker 1: little rough around the Liverpool edges, but steeped in the
14:38
Speaker 1: tradition of tinpan Alley and therefore allowed with a wink
14:41
Speaker 1: and a nod into the club. Whereas the Rolling Stones,
14:45
Speaker 1: by comparison or Black af from Down the Road a
14:49
Speaker 1: piece singing about pork and beans, they masked none of
14:52
Speaker 1: their Black American blues inflorts jumped up Chuck Berrwicks laid
14:56
Speaker 1: back Jimmy Rei Griffs, Bobby Womack's Last Time Irma to
15:00
Speaker 1: Almas's Time is on My Side and Howling Wolfe's version
15:03
Speaker 1: of Willie Dixon's Little Red Rooster in Old Blues a
15:06
Speaker 1: song about a fucking chicken at number one on the charts.
15:09
Speaker 2: In November of nineteen sixty four.
15:13
Speaker 1: White kids art students, English kids with scruffy hair, bad
15:17
Speaker 1: skin and skin tight trousers, singing about a uniquely black
15:20
Speaker 1: American experience and sitting at the top of the English
15:23
Speaker 1: charts and increasingly rubbing shoulders with people from the top
15:27
Speaker 1: of England's social class.
15:28
Speaker 2: Not at her Majesty's.
15:30
Speaker 1: Request like the Beatles, but at social gatherings and in
15:33
Speaker 1: clubs owned by the notorious Kray Twins.
15:39
Speaker 2: It was completely novel and it made no sense. Who
15:43
Speaker 2: the hell were these guys. This wasn't the way things
15:45
Speaker 2: were supposed to happen.
15:46
Speaker 1: It was totally disruptive to the accepted way of how
15:49
Speaker 1: things were supposed to work. From the perspective of the establishment,
15:52
Speaker 1: the Beatles were one thing, okay, but two groups of
15:55
Speaker 1: long hairs at the top of the charts competing for
15:57
Speaker 1: attention of young English girls in influencing young English boys.
16:02
Speaker 1: The establishment was just sick of it, tired of it,
16:04
Speaker 1: fed up with it, especially when one of those groups
16:07
Speaker 1: was clearly unacceptable by any set of established societal norms
16:12
Speaker 1: and no doubt dangerous.
16:15
Speaker 2: Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?
16:17
Speaker 1: This was the question be im posed by lazy British
16:20
Speaker 1: journalists being spoon fed by Stone's manager Andrew Luke Oldham,
16:24
Speaker 1: who was eager to draw a contrast between his group
16:27
Speaker 1: and the Beatles, and the press, of course did as
16:30
Speaker 1: was expected. The establishment clutched their pearls, guffad and longed
16:34
Speaker 1: for the days of chasteat belts, crusades, and all the
16:38
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones played the part Oldham and the press cast
16:41
Speaker 1: them in, and once they took to writing their own hits,
16:44
Speaker 1: their singer Mick Jagger's lyrics went dark. Play with Fire,
16:48
Speaker 1: I Can't get No Satisfaction. Part of Stone and Painted
16:51
Speaker 1: Black took the deep rooted darkness of the Blues and
16:54
Speaker 1: added a layer of anti establishment cynicism to the band's
16:58
Speaker 1: fast evolving modern production. Fuzz sitars in an ever growing
17:02
Speaker 1: blend of Keith Richard's deadly guitar riffs that went far
17:06
Speaker 1: beyond Willie Dixon, Jimmy Reid and Messrs Lennon and McCartney.
17:11
Speaker 1: The blending of guitars in the Stones production technique was
17:14
Speaker 1: born out of necessity. Keith came upon it by accident
17:18
Speaker 1: in an effort to compensate for his so called bandleader,
17:21
Speaker 1: Brian Jones derelict of duty.
17:25
Speaker 2: Brian Jones had let fame go to his head.
17:27
Speaker 1: He was consumed by drugs, increasingly LSD and alcohol, and
17:32
Speaker 1: to his bandmates had become an insufferable asshole, not to
17:35
Speaker 1: mention unreliable. Brian bagged out of gigs and Keith had
17:39
Speaker 1: to figure out how to play Brian's parts on top
17:42
Speaker 1: of his own parts, Brian bagged out of recording sessions
17:45
Speaker 1: or was content to mess around on the marimbas or
17:47
Speaker 1: whatever the fuck, and Keith was tasked with coming up
17:50
Speaker 1: with complimentary guitar parts to his own and then mixing
17:53
Speaker 1: them together into a seamless and consistent clap of guitar thunder,
17:57
Speaker 1: a mix that would prove irresistible.
17:59
Speaker 2: To teenage good buyers.
18:01
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen sixty five, I Can't Get No
18:04
Speaker 1: Satisfaction went to number one on the back of Keith's
18:07
Speaker 1: vicious guitar playing No thanks to Brian Jones, who was
18:11
Speaker 1: busy fucking off with whoever were given the requisite amount
18:14
Speaker 1: of craven rock star attention, and that's someone was an enterprising,
18:19
Speaker 1: undercovered journalist from the notorious British tabloid The News of
18:24
Speaker 1: the World.
18:26
Speaker 2: We'll be right back after this word were word.
18:36
Speaker 1: June eleventh, nineteen sixty six, one thirty am UK pop
18:41
Speaker 1: star Donovan is stoned, lying back in his Edgeware road flat,
18:46
Speaker 1: ignoring his guests, basking in the beauty of a boy
18:49
Speaker 1: called Donovan, the myth making documentary about none other than
18:52
Speaker 1: his own beautiful Bohemian brit self complete with all the
18:56
Speaker 1: requisite bullshit of the time, hip drugs and hip expiration
19:00
Speaker 1: on the concept of being modern, and oh yeah, some music,
19:04
Speaker 1: the Sunny Goog Street track about Hash, of course, so hip.
19:09
Speaker 1: There's a knock on the door at this hour. Gypsy
19:12
Speaker 1: Dave isn't concerned. Life's a party, right, What even are
19:16
Speaker 1: clocks anyway? Time is a construct foisted upon those of
19:19
Speaker 1: us in the know by the establishment as a means
19:22
Speaker 1: to keep us constrained to the past and worried about
19:24
Speaker 1: the future. The present man, the moment, no matter when
19:28
Speaker 1: it is, is all that matters.
19:30
Speaker 2: Don't you know that?
19:31
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, the door, there's a semi hip looking chick
19:35
Speaker 1: through the people. Gypsy Dave opens it, of course, and
19:40
Speaker 1: behind the women come nine police officers from out of nowhere,
19:43
Speaker 1: rushing into the apartment, busting up Donovan's hippy hamlet. They
19:47
Speaker 1: are led by head Nabby himself Norman Pilcher, police sergeants
19:51
Speaker 1: scourge of swinging Londoners everywhere. Pilcher and his boys locate
19:55
Speaker 1: Donovan's Hash and place him his girlfriend in Gypsy Dave
19:59
Speaker 1: under arrest. Then, celebrity slut that he is, Pilcher asks
20:03
Speaker 1: his prize scout Donovan for his autograph. Paul McCartney and
20:08
Speaker 1: George Harrison pitch in to help Donovan hire a barrister
20:11
Speaker 1: to fight the case. Sergeant Pilcher confirms what he's long suspected.
20:16
Speaker 2: Drugs are his way in.
20:18
Speaker 1: Drugs are the hammer he can use to nail the
20:21
Speaker 1: disruptive anti establishment threat posed by influential musicians corrupting Britain's youth.
20:27
Speaker 1: He leaks the details of the Donovan raid to the
20:29
Speaker 1: News of the World and they run with it. The
20:31
Speaker 1: nation is enthralled by the details. A symbiotic relationship between
20:35
Speaker 1: the tabloid and the police is formed. The headlines draw attention,
20:39
Speaker 1: drum up support for Pilcher's cause, give him himself a
20:42
Speaker 1: little bit of celebrity and why shouldn't he enjoy it?
20:45
Speaker 1: And the raids and the arrests give the tabloid the
20:47
Speaker 1: salacious content it needs to sell newspapers, and the bigger
20:51
Speaker 1: the star, the better. So the interest in the rolling
20:54
Speaker 1: Stones from Sergeant Pilcher and the News of the World
20:57
Speaker 1: made sense for both self interested parties. Where's Brian Keith?
21:07
Speaker 1: Have you seen Brian?
21:09
Speaker 2: Uh No? I haven't seen the prick in some time.
21:11
Speaker 2: What about you? Charlie, have you seen him?
21:14
Speaker 1: Charlie Watt said nothing, He just sat in the back
21:16
Speaker 1: seat of Brian Jones's Rolls Royce, suppressing a smile. Brian
21:21
Speaker 1: sat in the driver's seat. He couldn't see Charlie behind him.
21:24
Speaker 1: He couldn't see much ahead of him either, above the
21:26
Speaker 1: steering wheel, and the car was so huge. Brian was
21:30
Speaker 1: not happy. He'd been enduring this joke since the beginning
21:32
Speaker 1: days of the band. Mick didn't care. He sat next
21:36
Speaker 1: to him and kept at it. Keith, where is Brian?
21:39
Speaker 1: I can't see him?
21:40
Speaker 2: He is he back there?
21:41
Speaker 1: Keith smiled, knowing full well that mixed comments were lighting
21:45
Speaker 1: Brian up with anger. Now, Mick, I haven't seen him.
21:48
Speaker 1: He's a hard one to spot, so little and all.
21:52
Speaker 1: That was the long running joke that Brian Jones was
21:55
Speaker 1: so short that even when he was standing or sitting
21:58
Speaker 1: amongst his bandmates, his diminutive stature made him so hard
22:02
Speaker 1: to see that Mick Keith and Brian's other bandmates were
22:05
Speaker 1: forced to repeatedly look for him and to ask each
22:08
Speaker 1: other had the others seen him. It was vicious, cruel,
22:12
Speaker 1: and justified. By nineteen sixty seven, Brian Jones was fast
22:17
Speaker 1: becoming a one man wrecking ball of narcissistic rock star
22:20
Speaker 1: bullshit and threatening to bring down the band he founded,
22:23
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones with his drugged out Napoleonic complex. Mick
22:28
Speaker 1: and Keith's words stung. Brian was silent, pissed. Mick didn't care.
22:33
Speaker 1: The little shit had it coming because Brian gave that
22:37
Speaker 1: fucking interview to the News of the World, the one
22:39
Speaker 1: that started the whole mess with the police, the one
22:41
Speaker 1: that resulted in strange cars following Mick and Keith around,
22:45
Speaker 1: and strangers still, the clicks on the telephone lines whenever
22:48
Speaker 1: they'd bring each other up, and of course Brian's little
22:51
Speaker 1: shit interview kicked off the whole mess at Redlands. The
22:55
Speaker 1: News of the World journalists sucked Brian in, massaged his
22:58
Speaker 1: ego like an East End working girl for one of
23:00
Speaker 1: the crazed casinos, and Brian jumped all over it like
23:03
Speaker 1: the desperate little fame John he was admitting to taking
23:07
Speaker 1: LSD for the first time on the Stones tour of
23:09
Speaker 1: America with Bo Didley, so him. The interview played nice
23:13
Speaker 1: within the News of the World's regular editorial contexts that
23:16
Speaker 1: exploited the hard schism between the establishment and the dangerous
23:20
Speaker 1: drugging musicians and artists from Swinging London, storming the gates
23:23
Speaker 1: of polite society, and it flew off newspaper stands. Totally
23:29
Speaker 1: salacious and totally true except for one major detail. The
23:34
Speaker 1: interview attributed Brian's quotes about illegal drug use to Mick Jagger,
23:39
Speaker 1: which of course made matters for the Rolling Stones even
23:42
Speaker 1: worse because by nineteen sixty seven, Mick was firmly established
23:46
Speaker 1: as the group's frontman and was thus the bigger name
23:49
Speaker 1: than Brian, and as such a bigger shit show ensued.
23:53
Speaker 1: The interview ran as part of a three part series
23:55
Speaker 1: entitled pop Stars The Truth That Will Shock You. The
23:59
Speaker 1: series not only covered Mick Jagger as Brian Jones and
24:02
Speaker 1: his illegal LSD use, but it also detailed the drug habits,
24:06
Speaker 1: hard partying and corruptive ways of other artists like The Who,
24:10
Speaker 1: The Moody Blues Cream's Ginger Baker and of course Donovan,
24:14
Speaker 1: with unknown details from the night of his arrest that
24:16
Speaker 1: could only have been supplied by headnob himself, Sergeant Norman Pilcher.
24:21
Speaker 1: The battle lines were cemented and with Pilcher and corrupt
24:24
Speaker 1: members of the press heading up the fight for the establishment.
24:28
Speaker 1: A full fledged war with the likes of the disruptive
24:30
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones was about to ensue. John Paul Getty, junior
24:54
Speaker 1: son to one of the richest men in the world
24:56
Speaker 1: at the time. John Paul Getty was distracted his wife
25:00
Speaker 1: Talitha Pole, was attracting all kinds of attention at the party,
25:04
Speaker 1: which he'd supposed would be the case. She did wear
25:08
Speaker 1: the dress, the one he dreaded the sea through one
25:11
Speaker 1: and as if that weren't a nod, Talitha.
25:13
Speaker 2: Wasn't wearing any underwear so modern Mick Jagger was impressed.
25:18
Speaker 1: So was his girlfriend Mary Anne Faithful, though mildly annoyed
25:21
Speaker 1: at the amount of attention Mick was paying to John
25:23
Speaker 1: Paul's wife, Mary Anne was becoming a bit paranoid. The
25:27
Speaker 1: LSD was kicking in. Alan Ginsberg was not interested. He
25:32
Speaker 1: was sitting on the floor in the corner, bullshitting on
25:35
Speaker 1: an old concertina and being largely ignored, even though the
25:38
Speaker 1: party was being thrown in his honor. It was hosted
25:41
Speaker 1: by Swinging London's Hippos, antiques dealer and style guru, noted
25:45
Speaker 1: wild man Christopher Gibbs, educated at Eton Gibbs was the
25:50
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones gateway into the upper class. Mick Jagger was
25:54
Speaker 1: quoted as saying he looked upon Christopher Gibbs to learn.
25:57
Speaker 2: How to become a gentleman, and.
25:59
Speaker 1: Gibbs noted bibliophile and sophisticate that he was, it was
26:03
Speaker 1: not above the subterranean adolescent antics of the growing drug culture.
26:07
Speaker 1: He sponsored wild LSD fueled trips to Stonehenge with Mick, Keith,
26:11
Speaker 1: Mary Anne and Princess Margaret, and Keith Schaufford Bentley. He'd
26:15
Speaker 1: spin off with the Stones and other aristos on a
26:17
Speaker 1: moment's notice to herrifit shear and dropped tabs and chase
26:20
Speaker 1: flying saucers. Gibbs was a serious chap who loved his
26:25
Speaker 1: drugs and who knew how to handle them. He also
26:28
Speaker 1: knew how.
26:28
Speaker 2: To share them.
26:29
Speaker 1: At the party for Alan Ginsburg, Gibbs Butler served guests
26:33
Speaker 1: a batch.
26:33
Speaker 2: Of hash brownies on a silver tray.
26:36
Speaker 1: Princess Margaret indulged and quickly freaked the fuck out. The
26:39
Speaker 1: hash in its over concentrated edible form knocked her sideways.
26:44
Speaker 1: She wound up in the emergency room supposedly from quote
26:47
Speaker 1: unquote food poisoning. Perhaps Margaret felt the poll of peer pressure.
26:52
Speaker 1: She wasn't the only one. Brian Jones most certainly felt
26:57
Speaker 1: pressured when it came to taking LSD, and Heith first
27:00
Speaker 1: dropped acid on a West coast tour of America. They
27:03
Speaker 1: were turned on by Ken Kesey's Freaks the day after
27:06
Speaker 1: the second of Kesey's famed acid tests. The way Brian
27:09
Speaker 1: saw it, he had an image to uphold head of
27:12
Speaker 1: the head, self proclaimed leader of the Rolling Stones, far
27:15
Speaker 1: out multi instrumentalists capable of ripping wicked Elmore James slide
27:19
Speaker 1: riffs in one moment and previously unimagined sitar pop structures
27:23
Speaker 1: in another, which, of course was all true. But how
27:26
Speaker 1: much of that was due to Brian's LSD usage versus
27:29
Speaker 1: his own innate genius is up for debate. Regardless, the
27:34
Speaker 1: price of admission was costly, because when Brian was on acid,
27:37
Speaker 1: which was often, he was an even looser cannon than
27:40
Speaker 1: when he was on the sauce, his moods calibrated by
27:43
Speaker 1: imaginary snakes slithering on the sidewalks beneath his Marrakesh moccasins,
27:47
Speaker 1: undiscovered colors rainbowing above his blonde Dutch boy locks previously
27:51
Speaker 1: unheard sounds that only he could hear, because the rest
27:54
Speaker 1: of the world just wasn't as turned on as he
27:56
Speaker 1: was painting his inner monologue. Black Brian Jo Jones wasn't
28:00
Speaker 1: only on a trip, he was a trip unto himself,
28:04
Speaker 1: and Brian Jones and Princess Margaret weren't the only ones
28:07
Speaker 1: getting far out. It's hard to imagine now, but Keith
28:11
Speaker 1: Richards himself felt pressured by the LSD culture being spun
28:14
Speaker 1: out by Ken Kesey and his Mary pranksters. The American
28:18
Speaker 1: hippie dictate that if you weren't experimenting with acid, you
28:21
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly be turned on, couldn't possibly be hit. It
28:25
Speaker 1: helped an Unlike Princess Margaret and Brian Jones, Keith could
28:28
Speaker 1: handle his drugs even when the trips turned bad, as
28:31
Speaker 1: they often did. One minute, you're chasing the hallowed lost
28:34
Speaker 1: Cord through a field of wild horses, and the next
28:37
Speaker 1: you're down a bad road dealing with demons your conscious
28:40
Speaker 1: has up to that point successfully kept dormant. Christopher Gibbs
28:44
Speaker 1: was helpful to have around in those moments. Gibbs had
28:47
Speaker 1: a way of reassuring Keith, talking him down off the ledge,
28:51
Speaker 1: bringing him back into the good graces of his trip.
28:54
Speaker 1: And Christopher Gibbs wasn't the only one. Keith, Mick, Brian,
28:57
Speaker 1: Maryanne Faithful, the rest of the Rolling Stone and the
29:00
Speaker 1: London musicians they hung around with had numerous upper class friends,
29:04
Speaker 1: aristos whose experience they could rely on to steer them
29:07
Speaker 1: successfully up through the ranks of society and through the
29:10
Speaker 1: psychedelic twists and.
29:12
Speaker 2: Turns of drug culture.
29:14
Speaker 1: Christopher Gibbs eton chum the gallerist Robert Fraser, with his
29:17
Speaker 1: double breasted suits, booker t and the MG's records and
29:20
Speaker 1: a growing taste for heroin his tiffany lamps and silver
29:24
Speaker 1: lime Tibetan skulls avant garde exotic as formative an influence
29:29
Speaker 1: as there ever was on young Keith, Richards, Frasier and
29:32
Speaker 1: Gibbs were fearless, confident and gay, and really could give
29:36
Speaker 1: a fuck who knew about it. They trucked with high
29:38
Speaker 1: society princesses and thieves, among them LSD, Black, American r
29:43
Speaker 1: and B exotic art. They searched out and sometimes stole
29:46
Speaker 1: and hoarded.
29:47
Speaker 2: Rare first editions. They set the trends, chased.
29:50
Speaker 1: Flying saucers, dosed the Queen's sister, schooled Rolling Stones and
29:54
Speaker 1: fucked with brazen, criminal minded Charlatans like David Litvanoff and
29:58
Speaker 1: his lot of East End gangsters Cray Twins included. They
30:03
Speaker 1: opened the Rolling Stones up to a whole other world
30:06
Speaker 1: and in the process introduced the spy into their ranks.
30:10
Speaker 1: Mick and Keith's very owned George Blake, a turncoat, a
30:14
Speaker 1: snitch working double time for the Establishment, for Sergeant Pilcher
30:18
Speaker 1: and the News of the world. A walking pharmacy. Really,
30:21
Speaker 1: he could procure whatever you wanted, mandrex, dope, grass and
30:25
Speaker 1: of course acid, the good kind, strawberry fields and purple haze.
30:29
Speaker 2: He was, after all, the Acid.
30:31
Speaker 1: King aka mister X aka David Schneiderman aka David Britain
30:37
Speaker 1: aka David Henry the American, and he would very nearly
30:42
Speaker 1: bring national disgrace to what London's Old Guard had deemed
30:45
Speaker 1: the most disruptive challenge the Establishment had seen in years,
30:49
Speaker 1: the most dangerous band on the planet.
30:52
Speaker 2: The Rolling Stones. I'm Jake brennand in this this disgrace.
30:58
Speaker 3: Stand Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced
31:07
Speaker 3: in partnership with double Elvis credits for this episode can
31:10
Speaker 3: be found on the show notes page.
31:12
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Speaker 1: Hen