Spanish Tony has been discussed before on this forum. Quite a mysterious character. I researched Tony Sanchez was an alias. He was born as Antonio Dominguez and died in 2000 in Croydon in the UK at the age of 58.

He wasn't entirely stupid I believe.

There’s an Instagram account supposedly run by one of Tony’s relatives. Some of the pics had to have come from Tony. There’s one of reel to reel tapes labeled as “Stones in France” plus a few Nellcote pics I’ve never seen anywhere else. Could be BS tho, who knows

I think his son (or perhaps nephew) used to post here

I remember an article in a British tabloid promoting his book on Keith where he mentions Keith threatening him with a gun and asking him not to released the book.

It was a great book if you haven't read it but very unflattering towards Keith, but i kind of loved all that, just makes it more incredible that Keith is still with us today.

Yes, his grandson who has posted here is called Nick Dominguez, so that makes sense. Any further details about his post-Stones life and death?

A great read, mind you I was 15 when I read it. Two scenes I recall immediately...the claim that Brian in a drug stupor attacked Mick with a knife, and that Tony slept with Marianne and said something stupid like, "Tony, you're harder than arithmetic" or something like that.

Hilarious. Makes you doubt a lot of be book was true, but who the hell knows?

Quote
Rocktiludrop
I remember an article in a British tabloid promoting his book on Keith where he mentions Keith threatening him with a gun and asking him not to released the book.

It was a great book if you haven't read it but very unflattering towards Keith, but i kind of loved all that, just makes it more incredible that Keith is still with us today.

Yes and very correct . I read this book so long ago and it really painted one heck of a canvas of the scene back then .

Although drugs have long been considered an indispensable part of the “rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle,” too much of a good thing can be detrimental, even to rock musicians. The Rolling Stones have been a top concert draw for thirty-five years and owe much of their popularity (not to mention their income) to their live shows. But the Rolling Stones are not the Rolling Stones without a functioning Keith Richards, and at times his overindulgences have put concert tours in jeopardy due to his inability to weather rigorous and demanding tour schedules. Such was the situation during the Stones’ 1973 European tour, when Richards needed to kick a heroin addiction quickly and underwent a treatment in Switzerland that lead to rumors he had undergone the human equivalent of an automotive oil change and beat his drug habit by having all his blood replaced. As Stones intimate Spanish Tony Sanchez later described the process in his tell-all book about the band:




In the midst of this chaos it was time for the Stones to finalize plans for their seven-week tour of Britain and Europe. Keith knew that he was in no condition to go on the road, but there was no time for a cure. Withdrawing would have meant being laid up for weeks — and that was out of the question.
Marshall Chess, however, had a solution. “There’s a doctor from Florida who can get you off dope in a few days by changing your blood,” he told Keith. “He did it for me in Mexico a while back, and it worked perfectly.”

The Florida doctor would carry out the blood change for Keith in a villa called Le Pec Varp, in Villars-sur-Ollon, Switzerland. Keith would fly directly to Switzerland after the Stones’ concert in Birmingham on September 19. He would then be cured in time to play with the Stones again in Berne, Switzerland, on September 26. Marshall was going to Switzerland with Keith to have his blood changed at the same time.

Sanchez went on to describe exactly how much Richards paid the Florida doctor, where he stayed during the treatment process, and what his hotel room cost. Sanchez’s accuracy leaves something to be desired, however — although Richards admitted the bare facts of Sanchez’s book were true, of the details he said, “I couldn’t plow through it all because my eyes were watering from laughter.” And the truth in this case follows that pattern: the basic facts are true, but the details have been embellished just a bit.

Richards biographer Victor Bockris described the actual treatment process:




The treatment involved a hemodialysis process in which the patient’s blood was passed through a pump, where it was separated from sterile dialysis fluid by a semipermeable membrane. This allowed any toxic substances that had built up in the bloodstream, which would normally have been secreted by the kidneys, to diffuse out of the blood into the dialysis fluid.

(According to Bockris, this treatment took place between the Rolling Stones’ 23 September 1973 concert in Innsbruck, Austria, and their show in Berne, Switzerland three days later.

This coincides with his statement that “Richards was frightened by the process because it required being put to sleep for three days,” but according to a Rolling Stones tour chronology, the group also performed in Berne on 25 September, which wouldn’t have allowed for alleged “three days” of sleep the cure required. Another passage in Sanchez’s book, probably inaccurate, quotes Richards as saying the process took only forty-eight hours, but also mentions that he “spent the rest of the week just resting and building up” his strength. Obviously Richards couldn’t have taken off “the rest of the week” to recuperate and still have performed in a show that took place two days after the treatment began.)

Bockris also claims that when Richards was having trouble obtaining a visa for the Rolling Stones’ 1975 tour of the United States, Walter Annenberg, the U.S. ambassador to Britain, “helped arrange for Keith to get a visa so long as the U.S. embassy doctor in London could certify that there were no drugs in his bloodstream.” So, once again Richards supposedly made the trip to Switzerland to have his blood purified in order to pass the requisite medical certification.


Source: Snopes.com

<The Rolling Stones have been a top concert draw for thirty-five years and owe much of their popularity (not to mention their income) to their live shows>

35 years?

That most likely means we are reading something written in 1998 or so

The content is timeless.

That’s an early interview with Jeanne Beker, on CityTV, Toronto. Likely mid-80s. Wow - flashbacks!

Quote
JamesBond
The content is timeless.

Some content was omitted from the snopes.com copy and paste above.

[www.snopes.com]

Quote
TheGreek

Quote
Rocktiludrop
I remember an article in a British tabloid promoting his book on Keith where he mentions Keith threatening him with a gun and asking him not to released the book.

It was a great book if you haven't read it but very unflattering towards Keith, but i kind of loved all that, just makes it more incredible that Keith is still with us today.

Yes and very correct . I read this book so long ago and it really painted one heck of a canvas of the scene back then .

There were many moments that were kind of Spinal Tap haha.

Stone the Crows, remember that, literally Stoned Crows.

Tony gets a lot of flack on here but I enjoyed his book. It wasn’t boring. His descriptions about his heroin addiction ring true.

The book is also interesting to people like me who are fans of the 1971 Stones and their time recording Exile.

Quote
Rocktiludrop
I remember an article in a British tabloid promoting his book on Keith where he mentions Keith threatening him with a gun and asking him not to released the book.

It was a great book if you haven't read it but very unflattering towards Keith, but I kind of loved all that, just makes it more incredible that Keith is still with us today.

When I first got into the Stones (in the early 1970's), I spent several years voraciously reading and collecting anything Stones related (that was my rabid Stones fan period LOL), and during that time, Tony's book was probably in my top five of what I considered to be great reads regarding an insider's account of what it was like to be hanging with the Stones. Even though I admired Keith's outlaw image (which is just one of the things that attracted me to the Stones in the first place), at the same time, it was that one book (if Tony's account is indeed accurate), that left me with mixed impressions of Keith- the book presenting an unflattering account of the man- a person I wouldn't want to get close to and/or associate with for long periods of time...

And yes, it is quite remarkable (given the artists over the years who have succumbed to the rock and roll lifestyle) that Keith moved beyond that and survived that passage in his life, and fortunately is still with us today!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2022-02-06 15:30 by Sighunt.

Stash say's it was written and any accuracy ruined by the ghost writer.

Marianne Faithfull at the time commented on the book: "The truth and nothing but the truth". She said it in Latin.

Keith and Tony were both heroin addicts. Keith could afford to feed his habit, but he couldn't obtain it without a middle man. Tony relied on Keith to pay for his supply and Keith relied on Tony to source and obtain the drugs. So they had a tight bond of co-dependency, on each other as well as their drugs.

I'd like to know about Tony's life after he left Keith and the circumstances of his death. Keith has led a charmed life; wealthy beyond expectations, his place in history assured, and surrounded by a large loving family.

Quote
TheflyingDutchman
He wasn't entirely stupid I believe.

Which means he either was very lucky not getting caught or he was a (part-time) police informer?

Quote
dcba

Quote
TheflyingDutchman
He wasn't entirely stupid I believe.

Which means he either was very lucky not getting caught or he was a (part-time) police informer?

He got involved with famous junkies. He even came in Taylor's house in search for valuables.