Apathy for the Devil Read Online Free Page A
would take only two or three months for this to end all too dramatically. From then on, he was a lost boy, a dead fop walking.
In later years, I would talk at length to many of Brian Jones’s closest acquaintances and they would almost always depict him as a ruinously flawed specimen of humanity. Some called him ‘sadistic’, others ‘pathetic’. In his defence though I have to say - he was incredibly nice to me. He was the only member of the Stones that night who bothered to engage me in conversation. He wasn’t condescending in the least; he told me he thought it was ‘fantastic’ that someone so young was coming to their shows. He said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ repeatedly. He took his self-appointed role as the Stones’ good-will ambassador so seriously it was almost quaint to behold. He was so clean, courteous and daintily expressive it seemed unthinkable that he might be harbouring dark intentions under all that golden hair. He had me smitten anyway. Suddenly I had my future adult agenda mapped out before me. This was exactly the kind of person I was determined to grow up and become.
It was providential indeed then that my parents hadn’t actually heard of the Rolling Stones when they reluctantly agreed to let me attend the concert I’ve just described. If they had, I would never have been allowed near the venue. In the following months, however, they became aware of the group’s existence and began loudly regretting the fact that I’d been exposed to their worrisome influence.
Things reached a head in early ’65 when three group members were brought to court in order to answer charges that they’d urinated all over the forecourt of a garage somewhere out in the
provinces. ‘These people you seem to idolise - they’re nothing but degenerates,’ my mother scolded. My father went even further, invoking a word I’d never heard before. ‘There’s something decadent about that bunch of animals,’ he said one evening as images of the group exiting their trial were broadcast on a TV news report. He was ahead of his time with that evaluation: the Stones’ decadent phase wouldn’t kick off for another four years.
There was one incident where my dad truly freaked out. We were both watching the television one evening in 1965 when Ready, Steady, Go! , the London-based weekly pop show, came on. That week, James Brown was the special guest: he and the Famous Flames performed live throughout its entire half-hour-long duration. It was Brown’s first-ever TV exposure in the British Isles and he rose to the occasion with a performance that gave new meaning to the word ‘torrid’. The cameras couldn’t help but linger on the predominantly female audience, who were experiencing the same kind of shared sexual psychosis that I’d witnessed first-hand with the Stones. After about twenty minutes, steam started spouting from out of my father’s ears. He bolted out of his chair, turned the TV off and told me in no uncertain terms that I was henceforth forbidden from watching Ready, Steady, Go! ever again. I still watched it though because it was usually broadcast at 6 p.m. on a Friday-a time when he was returning from work and I was alone in the house. Sometimes he’d arrive back just a minute or two after its conclusion and he’d always feel to see if the valves at the back of the TV were still warm. If they were, there was hell to pay.
In 1966, I saw Bob Dylan live backed by what became the Band on his seminal electric tour of Britain that spring. They played a single show at Cardiff’s Capitol Cinema. A friend at public
school bought me the ticket so that I could tell him what transpired by phone the next day. It was the first time I’d ever seen another human being under the influence of drugs. Dylan rambled a lot between songs and his speech was seriously impaired. And the music was so loud that it was impossible to take in on any kind of aesthetic level. It was like standing in a relatively small
In later years, I would talk at length to many of Brian Jones’s closest acquaintances and they would almost always depict him as a ruinously flawed specimen of humanity. Some called him ‘sadistic’, others ‘pathetic’. In his defence though I have to say - he was incredibly nice to me. He was the only member of the Stones that night who bothered to engage me in conversation. He wasn’t condescending in the least; he told me he thought it was ‘fantastic’ that someone so young was coming to their shows. He said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ repeatedly. He took his self-appointed role as the Stones’ good-will ambassador so seriously it was almost quaint to behold. He was so clean, courteous and daintily expressive it seemed unthinkable that he might be harbouring dark intentions under all that golden hair. He had me smitten anyway. Suddenly I had my future adult agenda mapped out before me. This was exactly the kind of person I was determined to grow up and become.
It was providential indeed then that my parents hadn’t actually heard of the Rolling Stones when they reluctantly agreed to let me attend the concert I’ve just described. If they had, I would never have been allowed near the venue. In the following months, however, they became aware of the group’s existence and began loudly regretting the fact that I’d been exposed to their worrisome influence.
Things reached a head in early ’65 when three group members were brought to court in order to answer charges that they’d urinated all over the forecourt of a garage somewhere out in the
provinces. ‘These people you seem to idolise - they’re nothing but degenerates,’ my mother scolded. My father went even further, invoking a word I’d never heard before. ‘There’s something decadent about that bunch of animals,’ he said one evening as images of the group exiting their trial were broadcast on a TV news report. He was ahead of his time with that evaluation: the Stones’ decadent phase wouldn’t kick off for another four years.
There was one incident where my dad truly freaked out. We were both watching the television one evening in 1965 when Ready, Steady, Go! , the London-based weekly pop show, came on. That week, James Brown was the special guest: he and the Famous Flames performed live throughout its entire half-hour-long duration. It was Brown’s first-ever TV exposure in the British Isles and he rose to the occasion with a performance that gave new meaning to the word ‘torrid’. The cameras couldn’t help but linger on the predominantly female audience, who were experiencing the same kind of shared sexual psychosis that I’d witnessed first-hand with the Stones. After about twenty minutes, steam started spouting from out of my father’s ears. He bolted out of his chair, turned the TV off and told me in no uncertain terms that I was henceforth forbidden from watching Ready, Steady, Go! ever again. I still watched it though because it was usually broadcast at 6 p.m. on a Friday-a time when he was returning from work and I was alone in the house. Sometimes he’d arrive back just a minute or two after its conclusion and he’d always feel to see if the valves at the back of the TV were still warm. If they were, there was hell to pay.
In 1966, I saw Bob Dylan live backed by what became the Band on his seminal electric tour of Britain that spring. They played a single show at Cardiff’s Capitol Cinema. A friend at public
school bought me the ticket so that I could tell him what transpired by phone the next day. It was the first time I’d ever seen another human being under the influence of drugs. Dylan rambled a lot between songs and his speech was seriously impaired. And the music was so loud that it was impossible to take in on any kind of aesthetic level. It was like standing in a relatively small
Readers choose
Lacey Thorn
Joseph Finder
Lynne Silver
Patricia Veryan
Julie Bozza
Kimmie Easley
Angelina Fayrene
Barbara Bradley Hagerty