"A friend of mine"

Pete Townshend reflects on the Brian Jones he knew and pop's myth of romantic self-destruction.

(Originally printed as part of MOJO's 1999 Feature)

Brian Jones was a friend of mine in the early Who years. We first met the Stones when we were still called The Detours, before Keith Moon joined the band. I spoke about Mick Jagger's effect on me on a VH1 plug-clip recently; he really was quite beautiful and erotic, even to men, I think. Brian by contrast looked like a pretty sheepdog. His stage movements were confined to an urgent head-thrust like a strutting cockerel. But the Mod girls in the audience (pretending to like short haired Mod style, but really wanting teddy bears in bed) screamed more at him than Mick.

He played very well, I thought, and played harmonica, too, in a slightly more country style than Mick. On Last Time it was his guitar that repeated the intoxicating riff-catch. He was musical, almost musicologist, in nature and loved to talk about music.

We hung out a lot from about 1964 to 1966. Part of the time he was seeing Anita Pallenberg. She was a stunning creature. I mean literally stunning. It was quite hard to maintain one's gaze. One time in Paris I remember they took some drug and were so sexually stimulated they could hardly wait for me to leave the room before starting to shag. I felt Brian was living on a higher planet of decadence than anyone I would ever meet.

Brian and I used to go to a club called Scotch Of St. James. Everyone hung out there. We were together when we first heard I Got You Babe. Brian was really excited and enthused by it. He loved pop music as well as R&B; that appealed to me. I hated snobbery, even though I'm sad to say I later became rather snobbish about pop versus rock. Alongside the gems there was so much utter shit in the charts at the time. I wanted to make a distinction. We sat together to watch Stevie Wonder's first UK show. Stevie was so excited he fell off the stage. Brian never offered me drugs. I didn't use them, and he didn't press me. I was not seeing my girlfriend much at the time. Had I been, he may have hit on her and I would hate him, but in fact he was always very kind to me. Very encouraging of my writing. He loved my first Who song, Can't Explain.

When we played The Rolling Stones' Rock And Roll Circus I was very upset about Brian's condition. I was upset at Keith Richards' green complexion, too, but he seemed in good spirits. Brian was defeated. I took Mick and Keith aside and they were quite frank about it all; they said Brian had ceased to function, they were afraid he would slip away. They certainly were not hard nosed about him. But they were determined not to let him drag them down, that was clear. Brian certainly slipped away that evening. He died soon after.

I was melodramatically upset when he died. He was the first friend of mine that had ever died. He was the first person I knew well in my business that died. It seemed to me to be a portent and thus it proved to be. I wrote a really crap song for him, Normal Day For Brian. He deserved better and one day he will get it.

I've become angry about a business in which people (especially the press) sneer if someone tries to save their skin by going into rehab after raising hell. This week my friend Oliver Reed died of raising hell. We applaud, we wait, then we nod sagely when they burn out. It's despicable. Oliver Reed should have been sacked every time he drank on the film set. Brian should have been sectioned into a mental hospital like a street drunk, not allowed to flounder about in a heated swimming pool taking @#$%& downers. If I'm honest I suppose I was one of the friends who should have called the ambulance.

Keith Moon? Well I tried. I thought it would be best to get him back to London after his two-year binge in California and rented for him the London apartment in which he almost immediately died. I had introduced him to Meg Paterson who later helped me. I had found a friend of my father's from AA who watched Keith for a week and pronounced that it was me who had the problem! So I know it isn't always possible to save the skin of someone whose number is up.

But let no-one pretend it's part of the pop myth. I told Jim Morrison he was turning into a fat drunk in 1971. I could tell from his stunned expression that until then no-one had indicated they might even care. A little while before he died Jimi Hendrix told me he owed me a lot. (He meant with respect to the guidance I gave him on what amplifiers to use when he first came to London, but perhaps too for my unadulterated support.)

These people were my friends. Brian was a pleasant and quite well-educated fellow. Really.

Good read, thanks.

Wow, Straight talk from pete

If I'm honest I suppose I was one of the friends who should have called the ambulance.



ROCKMAN

Very good article. Thanks for posting.

Doing the "decent" thing wasn't popular in The Late '60s. All progressive movements
require a degree of loss before people are motivated to act.

I don't think people knew at all what to do in the late 60s. These heavier drugs they were being introduced all came on the scene so fast. It was one thing to maybe do a speed pill or smoke a joint in the early days. In a very short span they were overwhelmed with LSD, then coke and then heroin. And being young, and indestructible, they didn't believe it would affect them.

Brian's death was not directly attributed to drugs at the time. It looks like Hendrix didn't OD on heroin, but on an accidental overtaking of unfamiliar german sleeping pills, mixed with wine. I don't think a lot of people thought of Janis as having had a problem. They knew she drank a bit, but she seemed to have kept her heroin use private. No one understood exactly how Morrison died, and to this day it's still a bit of a mystery. It was reported as a heart attack in 1971, but he may very well have ODed on Heroin.

You didn't hear much about heroin for a while as the 70s moved into cocaine, which people thought wasn't that harmful. In fact, I can't think of any rock and roll cocaine deaths off the top of my head. (Until we moved into crack). As you can read, Pete was trying to do something about Keith Moon right before he died. Unfortunately, as anyone who has dealt with an addict, they're not going to do shit because you want to. They will only do it when they want to in their own sweet time.

In this country it was comedian John Belushi's death in '82 that caught people's attention. No one stopped taking drugs totally, but they might have taken their foot off the accelator a bit and scaled back. It was disturbing when the grunge groups of the 90s took up with heroin, with predictable results. By the time Amy Winehouse died from mostly alcohol abuse it was like ho-hum, who didn't see that coming? You can't stop self destructive people, and who among us is a saint anyway?

There was plenty of rehab available for Amy Winehouse. There were plenty of people to support her. She was loved and respected. But only Amy could have saved Amy.

That's the kind of books I like to read....

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24FPS
I don't think people knew at all what to do in the late 60s. These heavier drugs they were being introduced all came on the scene so fast. It was one thing to maybe do a speed pill or smoke a joint in the early days. In a very short span they were overwhelmed with LSD, then coke and then heroin. And being young, and indestructible, they didn't believe it would affect them.

Brian's death was not directly attributed to drugs at the time. It looks like Hendrix didn't OD on heroin, but on an accidental overtaking of unfamiliar german sleeping pills, mixed with wine. I don't think a lot of people thought of Janis as having had a problem. They knew she drank a bit, but she seemed to have kept her heroin use private. No one understood exactly how Morrison died, and to this day it's still a bit of a mystery. It was reported as a heart attack in 1971, but he may very well have ODed on Heroin.

You didn't hear much about heroin for a while as the 70s moved into cocaine, which people thought wasn't that harmful. In fact, I can't think of any rock and roll cocaine deaths off the top of my head. (Until we moved into crack). As you can read, Pete was trying to do something about Keith Moon right before he died. Unfortunately, as anyone who has dealt with an addict, they're not going to do shit because you want to. They will only do it when they want to in their own sweet time.

In this country it was comedian John Belushi's death in '82 that caught people's attention. No one stopped taking drugs totally, but they might have taken their foot off the accelator a bit and scaled back. It was disturbing when the grunge groups of the 90s took up with heroin, with predictable results. By the time Amy Winehouse died from mostly alcohol abuse it was like ho-hum, who didn't see that coming? You can't stop self destructive people, and who among us is a saint anyway?

There was plenty of rehab available for Amy Winehouse. There were plenty of people to support her. She was loved and respected. But only Amy could have saved Amy.

John Entwistle, but that was in the 2000s...

Good honest interview. My two cents: mandrax, downers, sleeping pills of all sorts are heavily addictive. Downers and drinks are deadly. Hendrix took smack but that's now what killed him.

Thanks for posting that! Pete does tell it like it was, and I am currently reading his biography. I believe that most rock/pop stars in the 60's were totally unfazed by the real danger of drugs. They just were so young and thought they were immortal. No one DIED at 27...they thought, and then the big ones began to drop like flies. You'd have thought that after Brian,Jimi, Morrison & Janis they would have wised up. Mick Jagger DID, thank God!

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mickschix
Thanks for posting that! Pete does tell it like it was, and I am currently reading his biography. I believe that most rock/pop stars in the 60's were totally unfazed by the real danger of drugs. They just were so young and thought they were immortal. No one DIED at 27...they thought, and then the big ones began to drop like flies. You'd have thought that after Brian,Jimi, Morrison & Janis they would have wised up. Mick Jagger DID, thank God!

Keith was too deep to get out at that point. Which always brings me back to the curious realization that no major English rock stars at the top of their game died in the late 60s, early 70s. Meanwhile America lost it's Rock Royalty in Jimi, Janis, and Jim Morrison, and it's future in Duane Allman (due to a motorcycle crash, not drugs). Luck? Hardier stock? Bad Luck? In fact I don't remember the first major British rock star death from drugs. Was it Moon? All the way up to '78?

I wish pete's book had more insight and stories like
this article

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24FPS
I don't think people knew at all what to do in the late 60s.

Yup, we've discussed this before. Betty Ford can take much of the credit here,
at least in terms of alcohol abuse. But most of this bunch started there anyway
so drug rehab clinics were just part of the ascendant track. But it's kinda hard
to get help when everyone around you is using too.

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mickschix
Thanks for posting that! Pete does tell it like it was ...

... from a forty-five year distance. Seriously doubt he was even close to the person
he makes himself to be when he says "(I) should have called the ambulance."

More Pete on Brian:


"Brian should have been put in a straitjacket and treated. I used to know Brian quite well. The Stones have always been a group I really dug. Dug all the dodgy aspects of them as well, and Brian Jones has always been what I've regarded as one of the dodgy aspects. The way he fitted in and the way he didn't was one of the strong dynamics of the group. When he stopped playing with them, I thought that dynamic was going to be missing, but it still seems to be there. Perhaps the fact that he's dead has made that dynamic kind of permanent. A little bit of love might have sorted him out. I don't think his death was necessarily a bad thing for Brian. I think he'll do better next time. I believe in reincarnation." Pete Townshend, on his tribute song 'A Normal Day For Brian'

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24FPS

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mickschix
Thanks for posting that! Pete does tell it like it was, and I am currently reading his biography. I believe that most rock/pop stars in the 60's were totally unfazed by the real danger of drugs. They just were so young and thought they were immortal. No one DIED at 27...they thought, and then the big ones began to drop like flies. You'd have thought that after Brian,Jimi, Morrison & Janis they would have wised up. Mick Jagger DID, thank God!

Keith was too deep to get out at that point. Which always brings me back to the curious realization that no major English rock stars at the top of their game died in the late 60s, early 70s. Meanwhile America lost it's Rock Royalty in Jimi, Janis, and Jim Morrison, and it's future in Duane Allman (due to a motorcycle crash, not drugs). Luck? Hardier stock? Bad Luck? In fact I don't remember the first major British rock star death from drugs. Was it Moon? All the way up to '78?

Ray Davies attempted suicide on stage in 1973, having taken an overdose of pills and champagne before going on. His first wife had just left him, so he was depressed and also disillusioned with his place in the music industry. So at one point he planned to retire The Kinks--by dying onstage.

Well now, that's Kinky.

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TheDailyBuzzherd
Well now, that's Kinky.

Yes, but still not a drug death. Marc Bolan went the old fashioned Eddie Cochran way of car crash. Moon might be the first major British drug death in rock; one that actually affected a major group. There's just nothing comparable to American Rock being beheaded by 4 major artists at their peak a 13 month period that began with Hendrix and ended with 24-year old Duane Allman. It was even more traumatic than the earlier rock tragedy that saw Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran die, while Chuck Berry was thrown in prison on a trumped up violation of the Mann Act, something for which 25-year old Elvis Presley probably did violate with 15-year-old Priscilla, who actually lived in his house.

Not that I wanted, or ever want, something tragic to happen to British rockers. I guess peaceful John Lennon being gunned down outside his own dwelling in NYC was harsh enough. So...be a rich rock star with access to pharmaceutically pure dope seems to be the message here. And don't be a dumbass and carry a year's supply into Canada with you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-18 00:04 by 24FPS.

I don't usually believe anything Pete says or writes these days but this comes from the heart. Time had to be moving fast for all these young rockers but no one had yet died, really they were all kids. PT is correct when an abuser is hell bent on dying they can't be stopped. It still happens in show biz, Whitney and Amy for example. Lots of pressure, lots of free time and people everywhere turning you on...

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24FPS

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TheDailyBuzzherd
Well now, that's Kinky.

Yes, but still not a drug death. Marc Bolan went the old fashioned Eddie Cochran way of car crash. Moon might be the first major British drug death in rock; one that actually affected a major group. There's just nothing comparable to American Rock being beheaded by 4 major artists at their peak a 13 month period that began with Hendrix and ended with 24-year old Duane Allman. It was even more traumatic than the earlier rock tragedy that saw Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran die, while Chuck Berry was thrown in prison on a trumped up violation of the Mann Act, something for which 25-year old Elvis Presley probably did violate with 15-year-old Priscilla, who actually lived in his house.

Not that I wanted, or ever want, something tragic to happen to British rockers. I guess peaceful John Lennon being gunned down outside his own dwelling in NYC was harsh enough. So...be a rich rock star with access to pharmaceutically pure dope seems to be the message here. And don't be a dumbass and carry a year's supply into Canada with you.

Except that this is what Keith credits for getting him to quit, so it turned out to be maybe not so dumbass after all.

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DoomandGloom
PT is correct when an abuser is hell bent on dying they can't be stopped.

... 'cept, Jones didn't want to die. Remember when you were 25? We wuz Supermen!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-18 00:30 by TheDailyBuzzherd.

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24FPS
I can't think of any rock and roll cocaine deaths off the top of my head

Maybe not directly, but I have a feeling that Entwistle did enough that he did long term damage to his heart, and it finally did him in. I'm sure smoking didn't help, but the dude wasn't that old.

24-year old Duane Allman. He was wasted on that motorcycle

'cept, Jones didn't want to die. Remember when you were 25? We wuz Supermen![/quote] True enough... It's a shame really somewhere Brian would have done more great stuff. Maybe he would have ended up in a supergroup like Blind Faith or The Plastic Ono Band. In 2012 The Stones would have called him up for one song.

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carlorossi

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24FPS
I can't think of any rock and roll cocaine deaths off the top of my head

Maybe not directly, but I have a feeling that Entwistle did enough that he did long term damage to his heart, and it finally did him in. I'm sure smoking didn't help, but the dude wasn't that old.

Yes, Entwistle's death was the result of cocaine. Maybe not an overdose, but that was what finally did it. And yes, it was also a lifestyle issue. He was on heart medication at the time, and his drinking and smoking didn't help. With Entwistle there were always parties going on, both out on the road and at home, whether The Who were a working unit or not.

In the 2007 career-spanning authorized documentary on The Who, his mother, Queenie, is interviewed at one point: "I'm afraid John takes after me. Dancing, drinking--I love partying."

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DoomandGloom

True enough... It's a shame really somewhere Brian would have done more great stuff.

Precisely why people as us still yak about him ... there was more there,
lots more ... but it had its roots outside the limitations of The Rolling Stones.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2013-01-18 03:41 by TheDailyBuzzherd.

Pete's own book was like Keith's a disapointment. Reading what he wrote here he could have penned a masterpiece.

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mikeeder
Pete's own book was like Keith's a disapointment. Reading what he wrote here he could have penned a masterpiece.

The trouble with Pete publishing a memoir is that he has editors insisting on cutting it down from its original 1000-plus pages. It probably was a masterpiece in the beginning, but in the end was whittled down to just a piece, as the publishers were targeting a more general audience. Pete has mentioned the possibility of publishing the full-length version on line, at some point.

There's a little more Pete on Brian mixed up in his induction speech for the Rolling Stones for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

"Rock and roll has quite obviously been around for a lot longer than I thought. And I've learned so much this evening - and I didn't expect to. And I hope that I can carry on the course. Because there's obviously a lot to learn, and for the star of this evening, for Little Richard, I just want to tell him that I think I'm old enough now to come to your room. When Little Richard walked onto the stage, I thought for a moment he was Keith Moon. I think they're the same person.

It's been great to see so many people that I know and would like to know. I've got a lot of paper here. Keith Richards once told me that I think too much. The truth is that I think, generally, that I talk too much. But I don't think first. And faced with injecting the Rolling Stones this evening, I realized that thinking isn't going to help me very much. I mean, Ahmet said a lot of things, and I thought I'd have to go there and say it all again, but in a slightly different way. I can't analyze what I feel about the Stones, because I'm really an absolute stone fan of the Stones, and always have been. Their early shows were just shocking, and absolutely riveting and stunning and moving, and they changed my life completely. The Beatles were fun - there's no doubt about that; no, I'm talking about their live shows, you know - I'm not demeaning them in any way. But the Stones were really what made me wake up.

At the Beatles shows, there were lots of screaming girls, and at the Stones - I think the Stones were the first to have a screaming boy. And the sheer force of the Stones on stage, and that perfectly balanced audience - a thousand girls, and me - it kind of singled them out. They're the only group I've ever really been unashamed about idolizing, apart from today, a new idolization of Little Richard begins - and each of them in their own way has given me something as an artist, as a person, and as a fan. And it would be crazy to suggest that any of the things they gave me were wholesome, practical, or useful. Even Bill Wyman hurt me - and not really because I'm jealous of the female company he keeps, no. He got such a big advance for this book he's doing about the Stones' life that the book is obviously expected to sell more copies than the last couple of Stones albums. You've heard how much he got? You've heard how much they sold. It's a wonder Ahmet even bothered, really. Charlie wounded me in the last year by having a much more dramatic drug problem than mine. Keith had a much more dramatic cure. And Brian Jones hurt me by not bothering to take a cure. Because I loved him a lot. He was very, very important to me. He was the first real star who befriended me in a real way - I spent a lot of time with him before I really got to know Mick and Keith, who I love very much now. But he was the... I hung out with him quite a lot, and I've missed him terribly, and I always felt than when he finally did collapse, that the Stones were a very different group.

Mick gave me something too. A bad case of VD. Sorry, sorry, sorry - no, no, that's wrong. Mick's mix CD had a bad case, it says here, and I suppose that's really a complaint for you blokes at VBS. And Ronny Wood of course is now a Rolling Stone; I can't help but think of him as the new boy. And it's wonderful to note that, due to his tender age, he still has his own teeth. But I did notice that tonight, they've been set into what looks like someone else's face. Will the Stones ever work again? On an early British TV show the producer took Andrew Luke Holden [?] and said, 'Hi Andrew, great to see you, haven't seen you for 40 million years.' Andrew - the wonderful Andrew Luke hauled him aside, and advised him to sack the singer. I don't know whether you know this. I'm glad that after all these years, the lads in the group have finally seen fit to take his advice. Whoo! I'm having fun now.

The Stones have made some great records, and everyone will know that it isn't easy to make great records. A few people here close to the stones will know that sometimes it isn't easy to make records at all. And I'm not just saying that 'cause Charlie isn't here. But we have a great legacy from the Stones, and it remains primarily with Atlantic Records, despite the wonderful VBS deal a couple years ago for the Stones. In fact Walter asked me to take this opportunity to urge the lads to hurry forward, and take advantage of the new vistas offered at VBS records for the boys. Because Ahmet and me now, with little to gain financially, we'd agree with him.

It won't be easy for the Stones next time 'round, and if it wasn't for the vast sums of money they can make, they might not bother at all, really - or at least, Mick probably wouldn't. So it's lucky for us fans, then, that Mick has such expensive tastes. Because the Stones feel to me as though they still have a future, and this is at a time - I'm probably just speaking as a fan here, but that's how I feel - and this is a time when most sensible artists their age are doing this kind of thing. It's too easy! You get a room, air ticket... Seriously - whatever they do, they can only embelish an already sinister reputation for miracles.

And to Mick, Keith, Charlie, Bill, and Ronnie, to Mick Taylor, and of course, to the late Brian Jones, and to the late Ian Stuart - I don't know how many of you know Ian - I offer thanks on all our behalves. Without you all there, there wouldn't have been a London R&B scene at all in the '60s - that's what I feel. What there was of it wouldn't have come to much. And that's where I grew up, and then later, grew strangely down. But in a way, it's where a big part of me still is, and where Jimmy Reed and John Lee Hooker cannot be regarded as rock and roll enough to induct here - no matter; their musical blood runs in the veins of this band we honor tonight.

And so to the Stones and all the as yet uninducted black R&B artists - and I've put here 'they ripped off' - that they were influenced by, I offer solidarity. That's how I feel. I mean, it's been so great to see all these different threads come together, and for me, this evening, it's been, as I said, an education. So much of what I am I got from you, the Stones, and I had no idea most of it was alread second-hand. Seriously, the Stones - no more gags - the Stones are the greatest for me. There's some wonderful artists we've seen tonight, and many other inducted in the past, and many will be in the future. There are some giant artists here tonight. But the Stones will always be the greatest for me. They epitomize British rock for me, and even though they're all now my friends, I'm still a fan. Guys, whatever you do, don't try and grow old gracefully; it wouldn't suit you."