* (restored)
BRIAN JONES
by Jack Skelley
MISTER SHAMPOO
“It’s going to happen, I tell you,” Brian lisped insistently. “It’s going to happen soon.” Then he turned away from Mick and Keith. Brian slipped a shilling into the meter which turned on the gas fire — a few precious minutes of heat — and shook his wet hair over it.
Mick was in another of his this-isn’t-working-out-and-I-should-return-to-accounting-school moods. Yes, since Brian got the group together last year he had booked a trickle of gigs around London. But the only attention the Rolling Stones were getting was from the “jazz snobs,” as Brian called them, or from the mods, rockers and art students whose bloody rows usually got the shows closed anyway. And now it was winter, the worst winter in 100 years. And Brian and Mick and Keith were crowded in a piss-cold, two-room flat with a single light bulb that hung Bohemian-style from the ceiling.
Mick was standing under it now, in a periwinkle ladies’ housecoat.
“I mean we’ve only played one show this month, Brian,” he said. “And we still haven’t got paid for that. It just doesn’t add up, does it?”
But Brian wasn’t worried. Keith’s guitar parts were starting to kick in. And they had a great new version of “Not Fade Away” that didn’t so much toughen Buddy Holly’s hit as demoralize it. Keith imposed a Bo Diddley stomp over it, while Mick snarled his commands and Brian slurped mocking asides on harp. What’s more, Brian was on the verge of closing a management deal with Andrew Loog Oldham. Brian hated Loog; he was just a cheeky publicist looking to get rich off the blues. But as the Stones’ manager he could get them more gigs. And he could get Brian an extra five pounds a month salary. Five pounds his flatmates didn’t have to know about.
A shilling’s worth of gas spent, Brian began his brushing. One hundred strokes will catch the blokes, he remembers his mother once said. And Brian’s blond mop was glazed to a sheen.
Mick was still bitching.
“I mean what do you think?” he turned to Keith.
Keith was in a cross-legged pose, plunking on Brian’s Gibson, his fingers stiff with cold. Brian finished brushing, then smoothed his new tab-collar shirt in the loo mirror.
“I’d like to know who filched my piece of chicken,” said Keith.
Too late. Brian was already out the door.
Mick crossed his arms and glared, first at Keith, who shrugged and returned to riffing, then at the door as it slammed shut. He heard Brian bound down the stairs.
“Mister Shampoo!” Mick sneered. “And where did he get that shilling?”
*
THE BLACK BEETLES, THE BLOND MEDUSA
It was in Munich that Brian met Anita. It had been a rough show — there’s always some crazy Kraut who throws a beer stein at the stage. Brian barely dodged one and it got him a bit twitchy. And afterwards Mick and Keith were baiting Brian again as he hunched in a corner of the dressing room.
“What’s the matter, Brian? Did you see the black beetles again?” Mick laughed. Then Keith laughed, and so Loog laughed. And they all laughed.
“The black beetles, ha ha ha.”
Huge swarms of black beetles were what Brian had hallucinated coming out of the wall at Keith’s house back in London. And Mick and Keith always seemed to bring up Brian’s bad trip just when he felt the most vulnerable to their taunts.
But now someone stopped them in their tracks.
“Hello. Who’s this rare bird?” said Mick.
There she was. Anita Pallenberg. An aristocratic beauty, with hair the exact color of Brian’s. She even wore a floppy hat and French jacket similar to his. Able to slink past roadies and promoters with the stony gaze of a model, Anita arrived backstage and homed-in not on Mick or Keith, but on Brian.
“I said, who’s this?’ Mick repeated. But Anita cut him off with a scowl. She sidled next to Brian and, between her fishnets, flashed him a glimpse of her hash and amyl nitrite.
That night, Anita took Brian to her bed. She put on Aftermath.
“It’s my favorite. I’ve completely worn out the grooves,” she said.
Her muslin fabrics were just like the ones Brian draped around his bedposts. He boffed her, burying himself in her limbs, her hair. Then he cried in her arms… partly in joy, partly in relief, because now he sensed a way out. He pictured her wicked mane gleaming through the window of his Silver Cloud Rolls as it swooped through London. They would be magazine demigods, and Mick would envy every glossy spread, and every journalist’s rave for how Brian’s sitar fired up “Paint It Black,” or how his flute forged a magical Elizabethan blues on “Ruby Tuesday.” Best of all, Mick would be stuck with Chrissie Shrimpton — that stupid girl, the mere sister of a model — while Brian would have this empress of decadence, this Teutonic Medusa.
Anita drifted into sleep.
Brian whispered, “I need you.”
On the turntable the needle clicked, clicked, clicked.
*
THE BENTLEY
Keith’s Bentley purred as it swerved around a herd of goats. An old Frenchman made a rude gesture, but inside all you could hear was Tom, their Cockney chauffeur, yapping about his paratroop days. Brian and Anita were on holiday with Keith, motoring from Paris to Tangier, which had become the Stones’ sanctuary ever since London’s police were hounding them.
Though Anita nestled with him in the back seat, and his asthma medication was never out of reach, Brian’s anxiety was rising with each kilometer.
By now the Stones’ social life was a game of superstar chess. Outclassed by Anita, Mick had dumped Chrissie Shrimpton with a vengeance, swooping up Marianne Faithful, whose pale hair and pedigree rivaled Anita’s. This made Keith, still lacking a socialite girlfriend, the odd Stone out. So he renewed his bond with Brian who was relieved to have Keith back in his camp. But what were Keith’s real intentions? And why were Keith and Anita glancing at each other?
By the time they reached Toulon, Brian was wheezing severely. Anita felt his forehead.
“Brian, you’re burning up! Tom, find a hospital!”
Brian was admitted, and though she offered to stay with him, something made Brian urge Anita to continue south with the others. That night, while Brian writhed in a French clinic, Keith and Anita were screwing in a Spanish hotel.
For three days Brian fired off message after panicked message, all of which went ignored until the Bentley arrived in Tangier. By the time he rejoined the Stones’ party, which now included Mick, Marianne, and a whole entourage, Brian was certain something was up between Anita and Keith.
The others could sense it too. Tension was thick on the 10th floor of Tangier’s Hotel El Minzah, and the all-night acid parties only made things weirder. Brian balled himself into a corner, a Scotch and Coke glued to his fist, and watched. By the time the party got rowdy — Tom the chauffeur tobogganing down the hallway on room-service carts — Brian had crept into town by himself. He returned to his and Anita’s suite with a local prostitute — ornate tattoos were burned into her neck and cheeks — and he insisted on a ménage à trois. But Anita was not in the mood.
Then came the barrage.
“You fucking bitch!” he screamed. He picked up a platter of couscous and Frisbee’d it at Anita’s head.
The beatings and the cries went on into the night and were heard down the hall, clearly bumming everyone’s trip.
In the afternoon, Anita appeared on the patio, her face caked with foundation and concealer. Keith bobbed in the pool before Anita and she stared back, a mixture of passion and pleading.
A few tables over, Mick whispered to Marianne, “Things are getting fuckin’ heavy around here. Somebody’s got to do something about Brian.
And so Brian was escorted to the central square to record Moroccan music, and when he returned to the hotel the desk clerk gave him the news: Keith had thrown Anita into his Bentley and driven off hours ago. The entire Stones entourage had flown back to London without even telling him.
Brian raced up to his room.
“Judas !” he screamed, and flung a potted plant out the window.
*
FRINGE
The children flocked around Brian who was seated on a donkey as he entered the ancient village of Jajouka.
“See the man with the big hair ! See the man with the big hair !” They trailed him, showering him with fig leaves.
The artist Brion Gysin was taking Brian and Brian’s new girlfriend Suki — the latest stand-in for Anita Pallenberg — into the remote Rif mountains of Morocco to document the pre-Islamic rites of Pan.
Brian squatted with the the master musicians of Jajouka, smoked from their pipes, picked up their instruments and began wailing, just as he did back in ’62 when he learned to play the blues harp in one day. He played along with them a bit more, then supervised the recording. Headphones pressed to his ears, he stalked around the musicians, whirling the microphone in arcs and figure-eights, swaying with the twining of the pipes. Brian knew that one day the rest of the world, too, would purify itself in these waves of sound.
Then, towards dawn, the Jajoukans prepared the sacrifice. An elder in a white kaftan carried a goat the color of desert sand to a flat rock. Brian fixated on this goat. The animal stared back through its shaggy fringe.
The blade swooped down and the scream ripped through the air.
“That’s me,” choked Brian. “That’s me.”
*
INHALER
It has only been a month since Mick, Keith and Charlie drove out to Brian’s farm, offering him 100,000 pounds to leave the Rolling Stones.
After the meeting, Brian laid his head on the table and wept. But now, on the night of July 2, Brian is relaxing, watching Doctor in the House on the BBC with three friends.
It’s been a warm week, the pollen count is high and Brian hits his asthma inhaler between shots of brandy. After the program, Brian takes his guests outside for a swim. He staggers on the diving board, but Brian is a good swimmer and slices through the deep end. After 11 p.m., one by one, all three of Brian’s guests remove themselves to the house.
Brian swims alone.
It’s a watery blues that Brian hears now. A frantic alto sax gurgles bop from a muddy delta. There it yoo-hoos on sitar, soars above the hills of Wales, then plunges to the mountains of Jajouka, where African reed instruments, the texture of raised tattoos, bleat like goats with circular breathing, gasp infinity, then smudge away in the smoke.
Twin Renaissance recorders harmonize bitterly but resolve to a plunked marimba.
Deep down in the mix, a blues harp heaves, trailing clouds of echo.
And a metal tube slithers on steel strings, falling down frets to the bottom of the scale, where — bump, by bump, by bony bump — at last it settles, with a perfect twang.
‘Jack Skelley is an amazing poet, musician, writer of fiction and essays, and much more. I’ve been a friend and literary comrade of his since the late 70s when we were two of the gang of young poets (incl. Amy Gerstler, Bob Flanagan, David Trinidad, Ed Smith, and many others) who clustered around the Los Angeles literary center Beyond Baroque where I ran and hosted the reading series, and Jack curated and hosted the music and performance series. I published a book of Jack’s poems called Monsters through my Little Caesar Press, and his other books include the legendary, tiny novella Fear of Kathy Acker (Illiterati Press). In the early 80s, he edited the great Barney: A Modern Stone Age Magazine. He has been a founding member of a number of bands, mostly famously SST recording artists Lawndale. His writings on music, literature, and architecture have appeared in Harper’s, the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Form, and many other magazines and websites. He lives in Los Angeles, where he writes, plays music, and heads up special projects for Paolucci Communication Arats.’ — D.C.
Official bio: Jack Skelley is writer and musician. He is currently finishing a book of poems, Product Placement, about the intersection of advertising and poetry. He recently wrote and recorded the song and video, “Ha Ha Ha Ha Happy New Year” with The Dark Bob and D.J. Bonebrake from the L.A. punk band, X. He is a member of the Los Angeles-based psychedelic surf band Lawndale (SST Records) which is re-uniting this year. A selection of his writing — including journalism and advertising writing — can be found on //jackskelley.wordpress.com
Lawndale – Take 5 (1987)
Lawndale – The Grotto (1986)
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p.s. Hey. Jack Skelley has been a favorite writer of mine since the early 80s when we were both young turks in the kind of legendary poetry scene around Beyond Baroque in Los Angeles. He went fairly quiet for some years but has recently come back gangbusters style and has also popped into the blog’s commenting arena a number of times of late. Anyway, I thought I would celebrate his return to the literary wars by restoring this post featuring some stories of his about Brian Jones that I uploaded onto the murdered version of my blog about 11 years ago. I hope you enjoy them, and if you can spare any comments of any sort for Jack, that would be cool. ** Shane Christmass, Hi, Shane. Cool, thanks. And, yes, I have seen ‘Baba Yaga’. Totally nuts, no? ** h (now j), Hi. I’m doing galleries galore this afternoon, and if I see anything remarkable, I’m happy to share. Very best of luck with your work, if you need it. Consider me a silent cheerleader. ** David S. Estornell, Fabulous. Rockin’ day to you too, man. ** David Ehrenstein, Thanks for the witchy side trips. ** Dominik, Hi, Dominik! Ha ha, no prob. Yes, I’m sort of trying to give the escort world its own avant-garde. And the avant-garde is never very popular, sadly. I’m happy you’re still enjoying the job and maybe even more so? Video game scripts! Wow, that’s exciting. Well, hm, on second thought I’m not sure the scripts of most video games are their best aspect, but still. I think that’s really fucking cool. Not to mention working on that SCAB-related writer’s book. I guess I shouldn’t ask you if you like the book. Happy you = happy me. I’m all right. I’m working on a fiction thing and scheming with my friends Zac and Sabina about a talk/presentation we’re going to give about haunted house attractions at an art museum here and other things. Zac is almost completely better now, thankfully. And he has the antibodies now so he’s safe for the next nine moths or so. Love that looks like a witch but is actually a warlock except when it’s naked whereupon it looks like a witch, G. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yep, ‘Suspiria’. Could’a been in there. New Mark Fisher book, wow, didn’t know about that. My to-read pile is reaching Babylonian heights. ** Thomas Moronic, Hi, T! Yeah, isn’t it? You good? You doing far more than hanging in there? ** T, Hi, T. Thank you for fancying me up. Alerts, yes, please. And I’ll do the same if … Strange that ‘Suicide Manual’ is his only translated work. Well, not strange, I guess, actually, given the state of publishing and its current goals. But you would think one of he many adventurous smaller presses would be on that. Thanks, I’ll check his blog and use my decoder. I don’t think I ever found witches or the idea of them scary. I did used to know this guy who was a warlock and claimed that he was astral projecting himself into my bedroom at night and spying on me, and he scared me. Thanks for the heady energy boost. I need it. The cafes are closed here, so I can’t rely on repeated double espressos to do that work sadly. But have one on me if you’re in a realm where such things can be imbibed at small, round tables. ** Steve Erickson, Hi. I haven’t hunted the video yet, no. Tonight, I hope. Yep, it’s bye bye to the world’s worst human being today. Or rather I guess it’s not bye bye since I’m sure he’ll keep spewing evil from wherever he lands. But the disempowering is a start. ** Brian O’Connell, Hi Brian. Cool, happy it hit home. Curious about that witch novel you started, obviously. It does seem like lit. could use a good witch novel. Glad Wharton is pleasing you so far too. I think I’m going to have to dip into her again. Yes, fare thee not well to the big shithead today. Vollman is an excellent writer. Very singular. Very prolific. Very ambitious, sometimes maybe a bit overly so. I would start with ‘The Rainbow Stories’. You get what he does in that book without the huge concepts that he often saddles his novels with. Not to say they’re not fascinating concepts because they can be, but the stories are a good way in, I think. Have a day you’re proud of. I’m going to angle for prideful on my end. ** Right. Read Jack Skelley please. Thanks. See you tomorrow.
Now available in North America 
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I always liked that they called Brian Jones – Mr Shampoo.
Yeah I love Baba Yaga, one of the better Italian horror films from that era.
This is another good one: https://youtu.be/tnqiCNY8Q6k
I been watching that Night Stalker doco series on Netflix.. You’d gone to NY by then? Trying to remember from reading ‘Wrong’.
I’ll have to sling toy a copy of this AS book when it comes out. Or maybe Philip can do it.
I got a chapbook coming out on Self Fuck shortly as well. So I’ll shoot that thru in the post or something.
Speak soon. – anyone ever contacted you from any writer’s festival here in Australia and invited you? Seems remiss of them.
Hi Dennis, I’ve been well, thank you- working in public (grocery jobs) has been unnerving for both me and my partner. Trying to decompress as best as we can with going through ubuweb video archives and reading / writing. I spent most of last night helping them with organizing mailorder for a new erotic art zine of theirs. Otherwise just focusing on my own writing (poetry and political / music cultural crit stuff) and zoom bookclub. The “I Want To Be A Suicide Bomber” book is available still from the publisher Little Black Cart – https://littleblackcart.com/index.php?dispatch=products.view&product_id=357 – it’s a DIY job (the paper is a bit thin / lo res) but the text is really cool and in the schizoculture / situationist cut up style. Its much less mystifying than the blurb which is taken more from the manifesto than portraying the text itself. The author makes experimental music under the name SIFIR as well, i need to reach out to him.
Also great that this Brian Jones post resurfaces just after Brion Gysin’s birthday! need to finally attempt to build a dream machine. Sorry for the second comment – ill keep it more organized.
Gea work Mr. Skelley. it really was bran Jones’ band until The Glimmer Twins took over.
In “Monterey op” there are shots of Brian in the audience with Nico.
In making “Performance” Donald Cammell’s primary direction to Mick was “Act like brian.”
Thank you, David!
Yes, those images of Brian at Monterrey Pop are peak 60s. Iconic.
Very sad the dynamic of the band turned against him.
-Jack
Jack, a great Brian Jones narrative! As a child, I knew Brian through my parents (of course). I’m looking forward to seeing, hearing, and reading more work from you. Excellent! Today is a good day for the obvious reasons. I will never mention the name of the one who left town. I don’t even plan to read his obituary! I need to get my four years back.
Thanks, Tosh. That means a million bucks to me!
Especially as I know your fam’s authentic connection to rock/art royalty.
And as I know your love for writing about music.
Let’s catch up one of these daze !!
love, Jack
Hi!!
Yeah, haha, I don’t think the video game scripts could be called particularly “quality” dialogues, but it’s really fun working on them. A lot more fun than working on CVs or personal statements, for sure. But the SCAB-related writer’s book wins the fun crown.
Oh! You’re working on a piece of fiction! Please let me know if there’s anything you can or want to share about it; I’m really curious! Do you get to give the presentation in person, or is it going to be a digital event? I don’t know how things are over there right now. (How are they??) And I’m so glad to hear Zac is almost back to perfect health! Maybe you’ll be able to meet a bit more frequently like this?
Haha, some tricky love! Love sleeping with an egg every night since kindergarten, Od.
P.S. Thank you for this post, Jack! I could continue reading it for hours and hours.
Thank you, Dominik! Means a lot to me!!
Some fine Brian Jones stories today, Dennis. Skelley’s writing is elegant. (And some of these guys were quite dishy back in the day…)
I’m swamped with work, will be for awhile, so I’ll probably just drop in here occasionally. Loved the witches yesterday of course. And I am tempted to visit the suicide forest sometime.
Bill
Thanks a mil, Bill !!
Ta-Nehisi Coates Kickin Ass and Takin Names!
Dennis, Nice to see Jack Skelley getting props here.
Or more props.
I’m off today. All feds in the DMV have the day off for the inauguration. (DMV = the District, MD, and VA)
Looks like David’s calmed his tits for a bit. Says he’s starting to work again. We’ll see.
But yeah, the whole opioids thing. We know what they do to people. And what people do to themselves with them. It’s no mystery anymore.
One of my brother’s friends—and mine too, I’ve known him since we were kids—just had his 26-year-old daughter OD and die on heroin. She’d had a baby a few months earlier. Over the last three or so years, that’s well over a dozen people I’ve known who’ve OD’d on heroin or some other form of opioid.
I don’t know, after a while, I’m just like, let’s stop the drug shit. I just can’t anymore.
Kayla tested positive for the ro, btw. She’s been in MS with her mom and sisters and that side of her family since last Monday. Almost all of them have it. Nobody’s really sick or anything. A little loss of taste and smell for some, some sniffles for the others. She’s gonna stay there another couple weeks before coming home…and after a negative test.
@ Jack, thank you for this post! To me Brian always was the best Stone.
Tomorrow is the return of the Writing Short Sories class via Zoom meeting, and I’m looking forward to that a great deal. Also, in a few minutes’ time the Mindfulness sessions restart as well. Feels as though some structure is returning to my days again.
thank you for this comment!
Yes, with Brian’s instrumental skills and imagination, much of the color left the Stones along with him.
Jack Skelley’s post is a very sweet post! I love his poems, too – the ones I’ve had the privilege of reading. Hope ‘Fear of Kathy Acker’ will be republished soon; it sounds like essential reading.
Speaking of poetry, I just reread the very first poem in The Dream Police and felt so overwhelmed by it it was like I had read it for the first time. I just had to share it on my DC’s Twitter account, and then got so obsessed with it that I had to retweet it with my own account with the caption ‘Back when DC invented narrative poetry and transgressive lit at the same time [handshake emoji]’ … It’s the opening poem in The Dream Police, titled ‘After School, Street Football, Eighth Grade’. Do you recall what year you wrote it? According to the date in the book, it was written some time between 1969 and 1978. It’s such a perfect poem. I’ve never seen so much characterisation in a poem: ‘books of poems/ lost in our laps, eyes wide as/ tropical fish behind our glasses.’ I wish I had asked you to read it for Queer Lit…’and we dreamed of his long/ teeth in our necks.’
Anyway, sorry about a DC rant under a Jack Skelley post; I think I got too excited, but can you blame me ‘he sprawled/ fifty feet away, sexy, but he was/ dead, blood like lipstick,’
Jack Skelley certainly rocks.
Thank you, Golnoosh. You’re the best. You actually turned me on to that “Dream Police” volume ! And that football poem is a gem!
Let’s lobby to get Dennis to write a poem again one of these days !!
Hey D – just caught your Witch post – glad people liked them, especially the gay ones! In case you didn’t know, yours truly is one. (a good witch, of course!) (sorry to disappoint, not a Satanic one, which by definition is an oxymoron – because Witch really refers to Wicca – the wise ones, ie healers and wisdom seekers.)
Had my first Covid vaccine yesterday – 4 weeks till the next one – supposedly, 94% immunity is not till 2 weeks after the 2nd dose. Still being extremely careful until then at least. A great day today in the USA! Good magick!!
Hey, Dennis,
What an excellent slab of prose you’ve shared with us today. Hats off to Jack Skelley for his admirable literary skill. I will have to read more of his work.
The witch novel really wasn’t worth anything. I never even finished it—I kept taking stabs at it but never produced anything really cohesive. It was about a sixteen year old girl getting raised in a cult, and it aimed for (I cringe as I revisit it) a kind of surreal blending of mundanity with occult horror scenes. It was utter trash—full of lurid violence and sex, neither of which I really understood or took seriously at the time, let alone know how to tackle through literature—and, reflecting on it now, was probably more of an outlet for the ugly emotions young me was feeling post-my first “break-up” and coming out to my family. In brief, it was middle school. Eugh. If I were to try again I would approach the whole thing completely differently, but, as I may have said to you before, I don’t write anymore.
Big news today was—what else—the eviction of the garbage heap, which feels good. I marked the occasion by foolishly getting into another argument on Twitter, this time with the same pack of blackpilled leftists who think constantly demoralizing and mocking people is an effective path to creating positive change…I really need to get off Twitter, lol. Pointless distraction. But today was otherwise positive, for obvious reasons. We went out to dinner, a rare excursion nowadays, to sort-of celebrate. Anything to mark it in France?
Vollman has been added to my ever-growing to-read list which, like yours, is attaining Babel-like proportions. I’ll do some digging on him tomorrow. Talk to you then. Cheers.
Brian: Thank you for your generous and much valued appreciation !!!
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