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Silver Dagger
Nick is the former NME reporter who "went blue" after going to interview Keith at his Cheyne Walk, Chelsea home in 1974. Nick apparently was already doing junk but had never had anything as strong as what Keith brought to the table and promptly went to the toilet and OD'd.

"I've never turned blue in somebody else's bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners." Keith Richards.

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SomeTorontoGirl

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Silver Dagger
Nick is the former NME reporter who "went blue" after going to interview Keith at his Cheyne Walk, Chelsea home in 1974. Nick apparently was already doing junk but had never had anything as strong as what Keith brought to the table and promptly went to the toilet and OD'd.

"I've never turned blue in somebody else's bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners." Keith Richards.

Exactly. I'm sure that's where that particular phrase emanates from.

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billwebster
Wouldn't it have been better if Keith had put those stories in song instead of writing a book?

Yes, I think so.

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bustedtrousers

I hope Nick Kent doesn't ruin anything by running his mouth too soon, I want to know what happened. I had mixed feelings about this book, but now I'm intrigued. Not from a tabloid, sensationalistic standpoint, but because there seems to be a different, more serious story here than I originally thought, and I'd like to hear it, warts and all.

He's just trying to sell some books, and I think he's taken the correct approach. People WANT to read the tearful blubberings of someone who's bitter and resentful, not an assortment of humorous anecdotes about how much fun everyone had.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-04 02:07 by tatters.

put those stories in song instead of writing a book

.... Here's another number I knocked out recently called Page 269 Blues



ROCKMAN

nme.com offers a clarification of this story:

"Veteran music journalist Nick Kent has reiterated that his role in the writing of Keith Richards' autobiography is minimal, after parts of his recent talk at the Hay Festival were taken out of context.

Kent told NME that he was interviewed for the book once by the co-writer James Fox and is not working with the guitarist on the volume.

"I've not been in direct contact with any of The Rolling Stones for well over a decade," Kent explained. "Three years ago, I gave a single interview to James Fox – the book's real co-writer – specifically about the guitarist's exploits during the post-'Exile [On Main Street]' '70s."

He added: "But I'm only one of many people James has interviewed and my input in the work ended there. According to James, the guitarist has an excellent memory – particularly about his childhood and the '60s – and is using other peoples' reminiscences to contrast with his own, rather than fill in any inconvenient memory gaps. I've not read the finished tome either, although I learned recently it'll be called Life and become available in October 2010."

Richards recently said he is waiting to sign off the proofs of the book."

.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-03 17:32 by tatters.

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Gazza
Going by his previous track record, if Nick Kent is involved, does that mean the book will have to be classified as 'fiction' ?

As "author" of the book, Keith presumably gets to approve the final set of proofs.

As far as Keith's first half of the seventies being incredibly gloomy, I am not in the least bit surprised. Your Keith Richards - the world's most elegantly wasted human being - (is that a Nick Kent quote or Charles Shaar Murray?) - you're a junkie living with a woman you love and have children with but - you know - there are problems. The police seem to show up a lot looking for trouble or better yet, pay-offs and the whole world projects their fantasies of the decadent artist living on the edge onto you. As Steve Earle wrote "Some of you will live through me / Lock the door and throw away the key". You get exiled and your relationship with your closest friend is widening as you fall victim to junkiedom and your friend marries a socialite (whom your woman hates) and is jetsetting around the world. By 1976, your newborn dies in his crib. That's a lot of bad memories if you ask me.

"Just as long as the guitar plays, he'll steal your heart away"

Maybe Keith wants to deflate the myth of the "merry" junkie life he promoted during the 70's.
How many times he has read an interview where a musician addicted to junk said "I started it to be like Keith!!"

Dee Dee Ramone probably was one of the 1st to tell the truth with his song "Chinese Rocks"...



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 2010-06-03 17:59 by dcba.

Thanks for the clarification, johnnythunders.
It all sounds fairly promising. I'm glad Keith let other people tell their views too. Different points of views added immensely to Aerosmith's as well as Mötley Crüe's and Nikki Sixx's autobiographies. It's really cool when the author leaves opposing views in the book and let the reader decide for themselves. (Another example of this is in a Muddy Waters tv documentary where Keith tells the painting-the-ceiling story and then immediately Marshall Chess proceeds to deny it totally, laughing it off.)

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ryanpow
One thing Ive thought about recently when I rememberd reading about the time he was estranged from his father and they didn't speak to each other, from some time in the late 60's to the early 80s (after which they became very close), was how his heroin use cooincided with that time in his life. I think there is a relationship there.

Drugs as an emotional crutch/veil? That makes sense.

>>One thing Ive thought about recently when I rememberd reading about the time he was estranged from his father and they didn't speak to each other, from some time in the late 60's to the early 80s (after which they became very close), was how his heroin use cooincided with that time in his life. I think there is a relationship there

I recall reading that Bert buggered off when Keith was 18...early 60s.

you have to keep in mind there is the image that keef projects in public and the private side .he is not a clown ,he is a pretty deep and well read gentelman .so anything is possibile .

Nick Kent is a very good writer - who also knew Keith quite well at that time, indeed as Apathy For The Devil reveals, he shared several 'adventures' with Keith. Kent worked for the NME which in the Uk was the main weekly music rag - he learnt his trade the hard way and writes very honest accounts.

The problem tends to be people often don't want to hear the truth - I struggle to understand why some of you can't comprehend that Keith might have been essentially unhappy at a certain period of his life! A period when he was hugely addicted to heroin, had massive pressures on him tour and write new songs to meet contractual deadlines and losing a child as well. Being a heroin addict, no matter at which glamourous level, is a dirty business and the logistics of having to tour as a junkie are extremely complicated and would have taken as much planning as the songs at that time.

Did you all really think he was going to say it was a blast and that he was living the @#$%& dream. If that's the case you are very deluded. Rock and Roll is a dirty game especially at he levels Keith had to move in.

People change. Perhaps Keith isn't happy about how his actual life was opposed to his music life.

Johnnythunders, thanks from me too, for clearing up Nick Kent's role in the book, not co-writer, with Keith and James Fox.

In any case, my picture of Keith is that he is a deeply sensitive person though the King of Cool too, in public. I wouldn't expect the bad times of life to just roll off of him without an impact. And, as he likes to say to others about emulating him, "Don't try this at home, you know".

if this is true or true-ish and not pre-release hype, then i take it as a good sign actually; in that we, or i, do not need gloss ghost-written table ornament; especially about this man. their press is mostly very very controlled and has been for decades; they know what they're selling; what to give what not to...and really, they have never been open imo. here and there we get a glimpse or spark when they KNOW they are being filmed and it's being distributed and they are only there to push a product. i don't criticize this btw. i have no personal experience at this kind of thing. none. whats it like to be famous just out of your teens when you've only been playing a few years...maybe 3... ?

and all the stuff that happened...the feel of the 'reality' of these people is something we adore as fans and admire as peeps who love super artists the rest is guesswork. it WOULD show balls, and keith has them, to at least kinda approach the breadth of his feelings....despair as well as elation... even the president of the united states must sometimes stand naked his friend bob has written...
i hope he does.

and now in this coffeehouse in venice cali

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tatters

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bustedtrousers

I hope Nick Kent doesn't ruin anything by running his mouth too soon, I want to know what happened. I had mixed feelings about this book, but now I'm intrigued. Not from a tabloid, sensationalistic standpoint, but because there seems to be a different, more serious story here than I originally thought, and I'd like to hear it, warts and all.

He's just trying to sell some books, and I think he's taken the correct approach. People want to read the tearful blubberings of someone who's bitter and resentful, not a collection of funny stories about what a great time it all was.

I was just concerned he may have been talking out of school, or before it's appropriate. The way the article was written, that Keith is waiting for final proofs so he can sign off on them made me think that if the wrong thing gets out beforehand and causes a stir that Keith doesn't like, he may not let the book out as it, supposedly, is. That's all I meant by the quote above.

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bustedtrousers

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It just wasn't pleasant." Kent said that Richards' memories "are incredibly gloomy. A lot of resentment, bitterness

I wonder what could have been so bad, outside of what he brought on himself with heroin addiction, which he has never seemed to feel too bad about. In the early 70's he was in the number 1 group in the world, especially since the Beatles had fallen away, he got to do whatever he wanted, he was with the woman he wanted to be with. He and Anita seemed happy then. He did have a child die, that's something you never fully get over, but it was in 1976, not the early 70's, and he doesn't seem bitter about it.

Is it Jagger? I don't think Mick ever maneuvered to take over the group. To Whatever degree that happened, Keith brought it on himself by not being "there". Anyways, Jagger took the lead early on business wise, and Keith was the creative drive, which they both seemed happy with. If he lost his position as creative leader, it was his own fault, I don't think Mick was after it, certainly not back then. And surely he made peace with it long ago, since he's admitted he f-ucked up towards the end by staying a junkie for so long.

I know it got pretty bad in the year or two before the bust in Toronto, but up until then, he seemed to enjoy being a junkie. And he never seemed to really struggle and suffer with the addiction in the way most junkies do. Even among his peers, he never seemed to go through what people like Papa John or James Taylor did with their addictions.

I can understand it wasn't all fun and games, but resentment and bitter? Keith doesn't seem the type. And did Kent mean he felt that way then or now? If he meant then, what did he have to be bitter about and resent at that point? And if he means now, again, Keith has never seemed the type. Outside of losing his son, what could have been so unpleasant before the Toronto bust? He always seemed to be enjoying himself. Even the legal problems he'd had pre-Toronto he seemed to slyly take a kind of pride in. Am I wrong in thinking he enjoyed being a dangerous rebel?

I hope Nick Kent doesn't ruin anything by running his mouth too soon, I want to know what happened. I had mixed feelings about this book, but now I'm intrigued. Not from a tabloid, sensationalistic standpoint, but because there seems to be a different, more serious story here than I originally thought, and I'd like to hear it, warts and all.

Are you serious? Obviously, you've never been an addict because you seem to think Keith somehow deserved everything that happened to him. If you've never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, then congratulations. It's probably difficult for you to understand addiction, and perhaps you have made generalizations about them that you really cannot prove. In reality, most drug addicts are some of the most very sensitive people, not to mention creative.

Let me see, what could make Keith sad? Well, how about the guilt he feels over Brian's untimely death, what with everyone accusing him of "stealing" Anita from him. I still maintain that you can't steal one person away from another, but I do believe Anita and Keith felt a lot of guilt over that for many years.

How about the time when Anita was in Jamaica and was jailed and raped by both prisoners and prison guards? Now, that's a tearjerker, in my opinion. But, you probably think she brought it upon herself because she was a white woman hanging out with Rastafarians and smoking spliffs. Ever read about the details of the Jamaican rape debacle and what Keith had to do to get her out of that prison, and what their reunion was like?

I'm sure the loss of Gram Parsons in 1973 wasn't easy either. They loved one another like brothers, sharing their music together. But Gram probably deserved to die because he was also a junkie. Gram has a very tragic life story, but you probably wouldn't care, and it would take ages for me to type that up.
How about that Keith really loved Anita and wanted her to be the wife and mother that Patti ended up being? He tried to make it work with Anita, but she wasn't ready to get clean and be a housewife. That had to tear him up a bit inside, I would think. He loved her so much that he tried to have that nonchalant, rebellious attitude that he displayed regarding the Toronto drug bust in order to impress Anita. It didn't work, obviously.

If anyone comes across as "bitter" I'd say it's you. You seem like you're angry that Keith never had to do hard time. Oh, and I am fully aware that if you or I did just one or two of the things Keith has, we'd be in prison for years, if not decades. You don't think Keith has anything to be sad about, but you give the impression that you'd kind of like to see Keith on his knees, crying and begging for forgiveness for being a junkie.

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crumbling_mice
Nick Kent is a very good writer - who also knew Keith quite well at that time, indeed as Apathy For The Devil reveals, he shared several 'adventures' with Keith. Kent worked for the NME which in the Uk was the main weekly music rag - he learnt his trade the hard way and writes very honest accounts.

The problem tends to be people often don't want to hear the truth - I struggle to understand why some of you can't comprehend that Keith might have been essentially unhappy at a certain period of his life! A period when he was hugely addicted to heroin, had massive pressures on him tour and write new songs to meet contractual deadlines and losing a child as well. Being a heroin addict, no matter at which glamourous level, is a dirty business and the logistics of having to tour as a junkie are extremely complicated and would have taken as much planning as the songs at that time.

Did you all really think he was going to say it was a blast and that he was living the @#$%& dream. If that's the case you are very deluded. Rock and Roll is a dirty game especially at he levels Keith had to move in.

Your right, and I for one don't think it was all fun and games, but I took the time period mentioned, the EARLY 70's literally. To me, that would be 70-73, most of which seems to have been before the junk became a major problem and caused the resulting tension between him and Mick. If Kent/the article would have said the mid to late 70's and/or leading up to Toronto, that would of made more sense to me. But the early 70's? I think he was still living the dream at that time. Later in the decade, not so much. However, I really have no idea, I can only base my beliefs on what I've read in books and articles, and based on what I've read, 70-73 was still a good time. Certainly at least 70-72 was.

I have to admit, the way he has always seemed to take things in stride still leads me to believe he wouldn't be bitter or resentful. Of course, none of us has any way of knowing how Keith really feels about anything.

What's nice in a way, if it is warranted as hyped, is that Keith is human and not just some rock'n'roll blues infused alcohol riddled knobby fingered cigarette factoried drug addled rude mean talking dissing comments about people monster. Maybe a lot of the world thinks he doesn't have any feelings - but it's the total opposite with the fans of the man and his bands and his music - he's all about feelings - wrong or right, truths or lies, myths, stories, invented scenarios, made up shit because he can't exactly remember or perhaps less than the actual truth even.

This could be a nice eye opener - or it couldn't. Regardless, I look forward to getting it. After all it's just a book that will cost considerably less than a Rolling Stones ticket so I wouldn't consider it a bust if it isn't good and only costs $25 or whatever.

Hopefully, as it's been expressed many times here, it's better than Ronnie's book. And I hope it is and I think it will be. Keith's history is - and this isn't knocking Ronnie's - a tad bit more interesting. Keith's never been a name dropper so much as to say someone's name like Ronnie does. Ronnie's caught up in the myth of someone where as Keith is just into what they do. And that's a pretty big difference in my eyes. Keith is full of shit half the time, like the so called palm tree incident and Muddy painting the ceiling and on and on and I know I complain and so do many people about his three note solos and posing and spaced out bum playing and whatever else about the past 15 or 20 years whatever but the dude's been around the block way more than he should have perhaps.

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gypsy18

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bustedtrousers

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It just wasn't pleasant." Kent said that Richards' memories "are incredibly gloomy. A lot of resentment, bitterness

I wonder what could have been so bad, outside of what he brought on himself with heroin addiction, which he has never seemed to feel too bad about. In the early 70's he was in the number 1 group in the world, especially since the Beatles had fallen away, he got to do whatever he wanted, he was with the woman he wanted to be with. He and Anita seemed happy then. He did have a child die, that's something you never fully get over, but it was in 1976, not the early 70's, and he doesn't seem bitter about it.

Is it Jagger? I don't think Mick ever maneuvered to take over the group. To Whatever degree that happened, Keith brought it on himself by not being "there". Anyways, Jagger took the lead early on business wise, and Keith was the creative drive, which they both seemed happy with. If he lost his position as creative leader, it was his own fault, I don't think Mick was after it, certainly not back then. And surely he made peace with it long ago, since he's admitted he f-ucked up towards the end by staying a junkie for so long.

I know it got pretty bad in the year or two before the bust in Toronto, but up until then, he seemed to enjoy being a junkie. And he never seemed to really struggle and suffer with the addiction in the way most junkies do. Even among his peers, he never seemed to go through what people like Papa John or James Taylor did with their addictions.

I can understand it wasn't all fun and games, but resentment and bitter? Keith doesn't seem the type. And did Kent mean he felt that way then or now? If he meant then, what did he have to be bitter about and resent at that point? And if he means now, again, Keith has never seemed the type. Outside of losing his son, what could have been so unpleasant before the Toronto bust? He always seemed to be enjoying himself. Even the legal problems he'd had pre-Toronto he seemed to slyly take a kind of pride in. Am I wrong in thinking he enjoyed being a dangerous rebel?

I hope Nick Kent doesn't ruin anything by running his mouth too soon, I want to know what happened. I had mixed feelings about this book, but now I'm intrigued. Not from a tabloid, sensationalistic standpoint, but because there seems to be a different, more serious story here than I originally thought, and I'd like to hear it, warts and all.

Are you serious? Obviously, you've never been an addict because you seem to think Keith somehow deserved everything that happened to him. If you've never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, then congratulations. It's probably difficult for you to understand addiction, and perhaps you have made generalizations about them that you really cannot prove. In reality, most drug addicts are some of the most very sensitive people, not to mention creative.

Let me see, what could make Keith sad? Well, how about the guilt he feels over Brian's untimely death, what with everyone accusing him of "stealing" Anita from him. I still maintain that you can't steal one person away from another, but I do believe Anita and Keith felt a lot of guilt over that for many years.

How about the time when Anita was in Jamaica and was jailed and raped by both prisoners and prison guards? Now, that's a tearjerker, in my opinion. But, you probably think she brought it upon herself because she was a white woman hanging out with Rastafarians and smoking spliffs. Ever read about the details of the Jamaican rape debacle and what Keith had to do to get her out of that prison, and what their reunion was like?

I'm sure the loss of Gram Parsons in 1973 wasn't easy either. They loved one another like brothers, sharing their music together. But Gram probably deserved to die because he was also a junkie. Gram has a very tragic life story, but you probably wouldn't care, and it would take ages for me to type that up.
How about that Keith really loved Anita and wanted her to be the wife and mother that Patti ended up being? He tried to make it work with Anita, but she wasn't ready to get clean and be a housewife. That had to tear him up a bit inside, I would think. He loved her so much that he tried to have that nonchalant, rebellious attitude that he displayed regarding the Toronto drug bust in order to impress Anita. It didn't work, obviously.

If anyone comes across as "bitter" I'd say it's you. You seem like you're angry that Keith never had to do hard time. Oh, and I am fully aware that if you or I did just one or two of the things Keith has, we'd be in prison for years, if not decades. You don't think Keith has anything to be sad about, but you give the impression that you'd kind of like to see Keith on his knees, crying and begging for forgiveness for being a junkie.

Jeesh, lighten up. I didn't say, feel, or do half of what you claim. You seem to have read too much into my post, and made assumptions about me that are not true and way off base from what I wrote.

Whatever, douche.

Keith has always been about the music and one thing in hindsight that may make him sad or possibly bitter: the tremendous drop in quality of the Stones musical output. BB, LIB, SF, EOMS and then GHS, IORR and B&B. Makes me kinda sad too. And the live act after '73 also suffered. Junk and apathy will do those things.

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tatters

He's just trying to sell some books, and I think he's taken the correct approach. People WANT to read the tearful blubberings of someone who's bitter and resentful, not an assortment of humorous anecdotes about how much fun everyone had.

I don't WANT to read a book which concentrates exclusively on either of those things - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Keith, with the help of his co-writer (who is not Nick Kent!), manages to resist the temptation to produce a routine Shock Horror Revelations rock book and tells us an honest story, the sweet and the bitter together.

I read some of the best critics on The Stones by Nick Kent. Now, if this autobiography is mostly on drugs ( like the "Exile"by Robert Greenfield which I dosliled unlike his STP book)), I will buy it and put it on a shelf without reading.

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phd
I read some of the best critics on The Stones by Nick Kent. Now, if this autobiography is mostly on drugs ( like the "Exile"by Robert Greenfield which I dosliled unlike his STP book)), I will buy it and put it on a shelf without reading.

??? and I will read it cover to cover but nothing in between.

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bustedtrousers

I wonder what could have been so bad, outside of what he brought on himself with heroin addiction, which he has never seemed to feel too bad about.

The only way to really answer that question is to have been him at that time. The next closest think would be to read the book,which is what Mr. Kent wants us to do, hence this sensationalist statement...

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Silver Dagger

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SomeTorontoGirl

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Silver Dagger
Nick is the former NME reporter who "went blue" after going to interview Keith at his Cheyne Walk, Chelsea home in 1974. Nick apparently was already doing junk but had never had anything as strong as what Keith brought to the table and promptly went to the toilet and OD'd.

"I've never turned blue in somebody else's bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners." Keith Richards.

Exactly. I'm sure that's where that particular phrase emanates from.

If you are talking about the phrase "turn blue" then that is not where that phrase comes from. It comes from people who start to OD on dope literally turn blue; the lips. A scary sight.

I belive it was Exile On Main St. Back up singer Clydie King who was quoated in "Its Only Rock N Roll, song by song" who said of keith "His life has had both good and bad in it , and he is a better person for it".