 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
 |
 |
| |
Today's Section |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Classifieds Find a home, car,
rental, job, pet, merchandise, auction, boat, plane or
RV Place an
Ad
|
|
|
|
|
| |
L.A. Times Subscription
Services Subscribe,
Change
of Address, Vacation
Stops, Suspend
Delivery, College
Discount, Gift
Subscriptions, Mail
Subscriptions, FAQ
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Print Edition
Advertisements See this
week's ads
|
|
| |
OTHER EDITIONS
Print
Edition, Orange County, Valley, Ventura County, National, Community Papers |
|
| |
 |
|
| |
|
|
| |
SHOP 'TIL YOUR LAPTOP DROPS |
|
|
|
|
| |
  |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
The Impresario in the Throne Room of Their
Satanic Majesties
 STONED by Andrew Loog Oldham; St. Martin's Press $23.95,
400 pages
By PAULA FRIEDMAN, Special to The
Times
At the age of 16,
rock 'n' roll impresario Andrew Loog Oldham worked days at the stylish
Knightsbridge Bazaar and put in late nights at Ronnie Scott's, the
world-famous music club in London. The two jobs allowed Oldham to become
involved with his great loves, fashion and music, but left him little time
to pursue his personal life. Between jobs one evening, Oldham went to
visit his girlfriend Sheila and was told by her father, a respected London
psychoanalyst, that his daughter could not leave the house until she had
"finished the washing up," a response that simply enraged Andrew:
"I got furious, pulled out a starting
pistol I carried, shoved it in the good doctor's forehead and instructed
him to 'Analyse this!' I was losing it somewhat. . . ."
How seriously threatening Andrew
intended to be with the pistol remains a mystery to all but the author of
"Stoned." In his personal history and evocation of the '60s, Oldham
describes his flagrant bad-boy image, one passed on to the Rolling Stones,
who remain (arguably) the greatest British rock group of all time. When
Oldham discovered the Stones in a dingy pub outside of London, he felt as
if his whole crazed and creative life had found its purpose. Oldham
rightly perceived that the rock world was ready for a British band with a
ruder, grubbier image and sound than that of the sweetly melodic,
nattier-looking Beatles.
Born in London
on Jan. 29, 1944, to Celia Oldham, Andrew never met his American-born
father. Andrew Loog (to whom Celia was not married) was a member of the
332nd Bombardier Squadron in the U.S. Army and was shot down over the
Channel before his son's birth. Celia Oldham was a fairly aloof but strict
mother, sending the boy to boarding school from his earliest years. To
Celia, image was everything, a value Andrew would promptly turn on its
head. At school, Andrew found compatible company and the opportunity to
take boyish high jinks to the limit. Most important, the French New Wave
films that he and his buddies skipped school for helped develop his
passion for stylish clothes and tough-guy manners. Oldham's first musical
love was jazz, and he himself took up playing drums. In Oldham's case,
being on the business end of music was not a fallback position for a
frustrated musician; he found this end of the industry most thrilling.
* * * Oldham organizes
"Stoned" into a series of discussions on music and life in the '60s, which
he interrupts with reflections by a range of other key figures--from his
girlfriend Sheila Klein to a slew of musicians and record producers,
including Mickie Most (musician and record producer), John Paul Jones (Led
Zepplin bassist), Charlie Watts (Rolling Stones drummer) and others.
Occasionally, Oldham's format can become confusing, as when he introduces
a new speaker by name without identifying his or her role in the music
industry. For the most part, however, Oldham does use clear introductions,
structuring the book so that the content of previous speakers clarifies
the roles of newcomers, a method that makes for a bit of back-and-forth
reading.
"Stoned" begins with a preface
written by Oldham in which he describes his state of mind and health in
May of 1995. Staying in a Manhattan hotel, in what he terms the "James
Dean Suite [one of Oldham's heroes], better known as two shoe boxes at the
back of the Hotel Iroquois on west 44th Street," Oldham feels he has
neared the end. Cocaine and alcohol have taken their toll:
* * * "Your circulation is
shot, you have a permanent drip. . . . At five in the morning there are
definitely animals in the soup, the hall and your mind, and the thought of
them provides the only color in this bioflick. . . . You eventually open
the door, the hall is empty, and silent and as lifeless, grey and
oh-so-off-white as the lifelessness inside."
But with little explanation of how he
managed it, Oldham announces his comeback, insisting--by the preface's
end--that he will be with us for some time. Readers who are expecting a
lot of details on Oldham's life with the Rolling Stones may be somewhat
disappointed in "Stoned," which concludes not too long after he became the
group's manager. After all, this is Oldham's story, and its most dramatic
culmination occurs with his discovery of the Rolling Stones at the
Crawdaddy Club one spring night in 1963. Musician and entrepreneur Adrian
Miller tells us that Andrew once commented--in a tone of bemused
wonder--that if there hadn't been a direct train to Richmond that night,
he might not have bothered going to see the band at all.
 Search the
archives of the Los Angeles Times for similar stories.
You will not
be charged to look for stories, only to retrieve one. |
Print this story