558. The Rolling Stones: Sex, Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll (Part 1)

28:19They've got no money. Keith Richards' mum has to send them food parcels. And they are all very close to their mums, aren't they? They are very close, yeah, absolutely. It's very sweet. So they're absolutely freezing and really miserable and nobody likes their music. But somehow, over the winter, they acquire two new members. One of them, they get a bassist. He's called Bill Wyman. He's also a grammar school boy, but he's a fair bit older. This is really important, actually, in Stone's internal dynamics. Bill Wyman was six years older. Well, he likes hanging out with people who are younger than him.

28:49He does indeed. he likes enjoys the company of young people I think it's fair to say he'd done his national service in Germany so he's been in the army he was married he had a baby son and he has a steady job he lives in Penge but he's happy he likes the music and he thinks yeah fair enough although that said he is always more conservative than they are and he's always suspicious of what he sees as their bohemian arty side which he doesn't trust so he's the Dominic Sandbrook of the Stones well is he or is the next person Charlie Watts. So Charlie Watts is a lorry driver's son. Yeah, maybe you're more Charlie Watts.

29:25And also the Bill Wyman comparison is one I want to encourage. Charlie Watts is a lorry driver's son from Wembley. He's a trained graphic artist. His passion is jazz. He's a brilliant jazz drummer. He does not like rock and roll. And he doesn't even like R &B. That's the amazing thing about Charlie Watts. I know. They have to persuade him to join the band. And he only does it because he can see that blues is becoming more popular than jazz. And actually throughout the whole career, Charlie Watts is basically playing music he doesn't really like. Just bonkers. And he's, again, a very different character.

29:58He was married to his wife Shirley for 57 years. He's not interested in the groupies. He doesn't go out going on tour. He collects model soldiers and memorabilia from the American Civil War. And cricket memorabilia as well. Yeah, he's a great memorabilia man, generally. He loves cricket, as actually Mick Jagger does. Mick Jagger's a big cricket fan, isn't he? And also Charlie Watts, very well-dressed man. Loves his tailoring. He is very well-dressed. I think actually the Stones generally are very well-dressed. Yeah, they are. I think they're very well turned out. So 1963 comes and they get their big break on the 24th of February when Brian Jones, who basically spends all his time writing to, you know, blues promoters and jazz people and stuff like this, he gets them a gig at the Station Hotel in Richmond.

30:42So near the railway station in Richmond. On Sunday nights, they have a club night called the Craw Daddy run by an emigre from Georgia in the Caucasus called Giorgio Gomelski. The Stones come on and they play in this station hotel. And there's a rival promoter called Vic Jones who was there who said of that night, I honestly didn't know whether to laugh at the Stones or call for an animal trainer. I had never seen anything like them because they're just so sort of loud. There's a lot of shouting. Obviously, Mick Jagger's style is very... He's kind of Leonine, isn't it? Yeah, Leonine. Later on, Andrew Lugo Oldham compared him with a puma.

31:18Actually, yeah, puma. Puma's better. But he has this kind of mane, I guess. Yes, exactly. And Gamelski, the promoter who's doing this, he thinks they're very loud and raucous and disorganised. But, you know, they've got something. And his adverts for this night, which is every Sunday, start to play on the fact that Stones will be there and their reputation. And he writes this incredible kind of bullion copy, the inexhaustible purveyors of spontaneous combustion, the unmitigating ebullient perturbing rolling stones or warning R &B sound barrier to be broken by rolling stones. Do you think this is why the Sex Pistols hated the stones so much that they kind of looked at the stones and thought that might be what we end up becoming?

32:01Yeah, I think so. I think that's the similarity, isn't it, that the Sex Pistols find alarming? Yeah, there's a really strong similarity. So by the spring of 1963, they're getting a reputation among blues fans in West London, and that's not a big group. Right. All six of them. Yeah, exactly. Well, I mean, we get the first press cutting ever about the Rolling Stones in April 1963 in the Richmond and Twickenham Times. And this newspaper says there's a thing going on at this station hotel. 300 people they're getting now every Sunday with long hair, suede jackets, gaucho trousers and Chelsea boots.

32:34I don't actually know what gaucho trousers are. No, but you've been to Argentina, surely you. Yeah. You're not sporting a pair of gaucho trousers as you strutted. I actually went horse riding in Argentina. Did you? But I don't remember any special trousers. There might have been some chaps or something like that. God, I don't want to imagine you in chaps. Brilliant. The other thing is that this point, the first appearance in the press, is also the first point where people comment on their appearance. Their hair, worn Piltdown style, brushed forward from the crown, like the Beatles pop group. And Piltdown style.

33:06Piltdown Man. Yeah, Piltdown Man, friend of the show. Do you want to explain Piltdown Man very quickly, Tom, to people who didn't hear that episode? Yeah, fake prehistoric man, the missing link, discovered in Sussex. Exactly. So the comparison with Stone Age Man, which you hear a lot in the 60s, but also obviously the comparison with The Beatles. So right from the beginning, they're being held to that standard. And as it happens, the very next day, who should come to see them play but The Beatles? The Beatles have been filming for TV nearby in Teddington, and they've heard that there's this band, and they come to see them at this hotel.

33:40It's a sign, actually, of how relatively unfamous the Beatles are at this point. They're famous enough to have been filming for TV, but not so famous that they can't go to a hotel to watch a little local band. And they go there, and the Stones are very excited that the Beatles, who are, what, a year or so older, maybe? You know, a little more than that. roughly the same age but far more famous the Stones are very excited they actually try to impress the Beatles afterwards by saying listen to this and they'll play random blues numbers that the Beatles have never heard of and are not interested in so the Stones are desperately trying to sort of suck up to them but the Beatles are very nice to them the Beatles say look we're playing at the Royal Albert Hall in a couple of weeks would you like free tickets the Stones don't find that condescending they're delighted they're very excited I mean but it is a brilliant thing to play at the Albert Hall isn't it Dominic it is We should do that to other history podcasters.

34:32Actually, I don't want to because I don't want to set up a Rolling Stones to our Beatles. That would be terrible. Bill Wyman in his memoir says, Jagger and Richards idolized the Beatles and were starstruck by them. And I think this, you can argue, this is a key moment for them. Because this is a point when they, for the first time, meet people who have had the success of which they dream. and it's a point at which they glimpse perhaps for the first time what it would be like to become stars and then just two weeks later comes the moment and the meeting that really changes their lives so if the richmond station hotel is the rolling stones cavern who will be their brian epstein find out after the break

35:23I'd never seen anything like it. They came on to me. The music reached out and went inside me. Totally. It satisfied me. I was in love. I heard what I'd always wanted to hear. I wanted it. It already belonged to me. Everything I'd done up until now was a preparation for this moment i saw and heard what my life thus far had been for so that was andrew luke oldham the running stones first real manager dominic remembering the moment on the 28th of april 1963 when he heard them play for the first time the kind of equivalent in the stone story of brian epstein walking down into the cavern seeing the beatles for the first time and um the amazing thing about him he's dutch well was that what that was yeah it was kind of my approximation to a dutch I'd never I'd never seen anything How does a Dutch person To a speech Says for sure A lot And does that Such a strange They do that Don't they That's what I was Trying to convey Maybe it didn't work Well he was the son Of a Dutch American air officer He didn't actually Talk with a Dutch accent He went to Private school He definitely Didn't come out Of a British Private school Speaking like a Dutchman That would have been Beaten out of him He'd have been Beaten with his own Clogs surely So Andrew Lou Goldham Who's their first manager He goes to see them Play on the 28th of April 1963.

36:44He is a tremendously amusing character. His autobiography, like Bill Wyman's, is a cracking read. He's a very wily man. He's very driven and ruthless. His own autobiography approvingly quotes one of his critics, calling him calculatedly vicious and nasty, but as pretty as a stoat. Is a stoat that? Is a stoat the look that you strive for? I don't know. Maybe it is. If it's a hot stoat. yeah i guess so after private school he'd left early he'd worked as an odd job boy for mary quant the fashion designer we talked about in our 60s fashion episodes and then he'd worked as a sort of gopher for various pop promoters people who are promoting bob dylan working for people who are promoting the beatles he really wants to be phil specter right that's going to prison that's an odd ambition wear a weird wig look I mean I'm not approving of it I'm just saying that's what that's where he was at that was his dream I'm just reporting history Tom that's how it is people make bad choices what can I say he wants his own band to rival the Beatles he's heard from a sort of music industry insider going down to this station hotel in Richmond And Dominic, I think there's a real kind of sliding doors moment there, isn't there?

38:02Because this club, he goes there because it's on the same line as Frognaw where he lived. Yeah, so it's easy to get to. Exactly. So if that hadn't been on the same line, he wouldn't have gone and history would have been different. History would have been different. Never heard of Mick Jagger. What would he be doing now? Who knows? He'd be an English teacher, wouldn't he? He would. He'd be a PE teacher, maybe, like his father. Not at the LSE, no. He wouldn't go to the LSE in there. No, he'd be teaching economics. Yeah, he would. He'd be a top economist. He goes down to this hotel On the way in He bumps into a young man Who's having an argument With his girlfriend He describes the young man He was thin Waistless Giving him the human form Of a puma With a gender of its own That is a brilliant sentence And this Is Mick Jagger You see And it's a very good Description of Mick Jagger You can really write If you read that sentence Someone said Who's this That's clearly Mick Jagger Anyway He goes in Half an hour later The band start playing Now Andrew Lou Goldham Knows nothing at all About music He's only interested in this as a vehicle to make money.

38:58I like that in the music promoter. Yeah. I mean, he's got his eyes on the prize and he goes in and then he says, oh, this is absolutely amazing. That quotation that you read in your lovely Dutch accent. He persuades them to sign a three-year contract. Now I should say he's only 19 years old. I mean, it's bonkers that they have signed a three-year contract with this man who knows nothing about anything, but he talks the talk and he finds a partner an old school partner called eric easton who's from lancashire like our own beloved executive producer tony pastor so he knows all the nuts and bolts of the music industry he's the kind of person that all bands had but that doesn't fit into the sort of oh the 60s was an age of revolution account so he's not groovy no but he's you know he's the kind of person who says hey and by the way you know i know how this works you sign this deal you do this you know that's what you need tom do we not have that with the rest is history we absolutely do so eric easton andrew lew goldham arrange a meeting with dick rowe at decker and you mentioned him in the first half he's the man who turned down the beatles and dick rowe is looking for groups he wants as many groups as he can get and as it happens dick rowe has recently been judging a talent show in liverpool with George Harrison.

40:23And George Harrison had said to him, I went to see this band at the Station Hotel in Richmond the other day. They were quite good, the Rolling Stones. And so when the Rolling Stones come to him, he says, great, right, brilliant. You know, what's not to like? And he signs them. Now, at this point, Andrew Lou Golder makes two changes. First of all, he says, the name is rubbish. The Rolling Stones. Yeah, you see, he's worrying about that as well. Yeah, like you. Yeah. Well, he said, and I quote, how can you expect people to take you seriously when you can't even spell your name properly i mean he's not wrong so the second thing is so they don't become the rolling stones now the next thing is that um he says six people in the band is far too many like someone's got to go and he says uh ian stewart like you tom again very similar people you and angela goldham he says um ian stewart he's ugly he's too ugly and he's got to go get rid i don't think he's ugly I mean I think if you like massive square jaws Yeah He'd chew on a girder or something like that And have no problem with that But I mean I can see it doesn't blend in With the kind of androgynous look of the stones Exactly Now they say to Stuart Oh I'm so sorry you've got to go And he says well fine I'll stay on And I'll drive you about And I'll be your road manager Which is so sweet He's such a noble guy isn't he He does end up in a band I think With Charlie Watts doesn't he And Alexis Corner Yeah they did indeed So that's good And he drove around and did stuff for them and helped look after them for 20 years.

41:48I have to say, Brian Jones promised him that he would get a sixth of everything. And did he? No, he didn't. That's bad. Anyway, we've now got to about May 1963. Now, this is the point where Beatlemania is taking off in Britain. And obviously, Andrew Lou Golden does the obvious thing. He decides to make them just like the Beatles. So he takes them to Carnaby Street. He gets them velvet jackets and little ties and Cuban heels. and they absolutely hate it, matching uniforms. He gets Keith Richards to change his surname to Keith Richard so he will sound more like Cliff Richard. I mean, that's mad, isn't it?

42:25It has a more pop sound. They're often confused. And he starts placing articles in the music press. So a very good example, Record Mirror, May 1963. Their style, it says, is, quote, the new jungle music. They sing and play in a way that one would have expected more from a coloured US group than a bunch of wild, exciting white boys. I think this is actually important. I said we would explain why the Stones are so controversial. I think this is actually really important, that people say from the very beginning they are playing black music. This is unprecedented. Well, that's the great quote in the rock and roll swindle about Mick Jagger.

43:04Exactly. Unquotable, I think, on this podcast, Tom. Very much unquotable, yes. But it's a very slow start. They spend the summer of 63. They're doing this long provincial tour. and this is how rock worked in those days they're supporting people like the everly brothers touring britain and they are playing the maddest tiniest venues so my favorite one i'll always love this story they played the co-op ballroom nun eaten and they were playing they were booked to play at an afternoon tea for the town's primary school children and when they came on stage and they start playing this music these children who are literally eight years old or threw cream cakes at them.

43:45Oh, dear. It's only rock and roll. Bill Wyman mentions this in his memoir. He said, you know, it was terrible. I ate it. We're standing there. Pastries raining down from these eight-year-olds. Yeah, people go on about Altamont, but this non-eaten is the real dark moment. Anyway, this actually works because this is how you build a national reputation. So their very first single, which was Come On, a Chetberry cover, had only peaked at number 21 in June. But by December, their second single, which is I Want To Be Your Man, which was given them by Paul McCartney, gets to number 12. And people are starting to notice them at this point.

44:27So the Daily Sketch, National Newspaper, January 1964, says to its readers, watch out for this new band with heads like hairy pudding basins. Got to say, the standard of music journalism in the 60s was superb. Well, it's brilliant. There's more of it, I think, and it's more... It's wittier. Yeah, it's fun because it's all new, you see. It's all new. It's gear. Yeah. Now, there's one really big development at this point, hugely important for the Rolling Stones, which is the rise of Mick Jagger and the decline of Brian Jones. So Mick Jagger has all this time been at the LSE. He's been a registered student at the LSE, and he doesn't drop out until the end of September 1963 when he writes a letter to his tutors.

45:08i've been offered i can't do his voice i've been offered a really excellent opportunity in the entertainment world he says now up to this point they had very obviously been brian jones's band a blues band jones had put them together jones had booked the gigs jones had collected the money and doled it out keeping the lion's share i have to say for himself but at exactly this point he starts to lose his position he starts to be pushed out a little bit basically because he's a complete flake he doesn't have the temperament or the stamina to tour and play full-time he keeps collapsing with nervous exhaustion the other stones say he's a hypochondriac they're always making jokes about oh has he got a doctor's letter has he got a letter from his mum to let himself off rehearsing or whatever but crucially andrew luke oldham says to them playing old blues classics will not cut it we're in a new age and a new audience expects people to write their own songs as the Beatles do.

46:07So, you know, Jagger and Richards say, oh, brilliant. We'd love to try writing our own songs. And Brian Jones doesn't want to do that. In fact, Mick Jagger, slightly ungallantly, I think it's fair to say, said later, Brian couldn't do that. To be honest, Brian had no talent for writing songs, said Mrs. Mick. None. I've never known a guy with less talent for songwriting, which is harsh, right? He now can't answer back. Anyway, Jagger and Richards move into a flat with Andrew and Lou Goldham. Brian Jones is left on his own, so he's even more marginalised. And as Bill Wyman says in his autobiography, Brian would try to ingratiate himself by crawling first to Mick and then to Andrew, which didn't do any good.

46:52He should simply have been strong in himself. They're terrible, aren't they? Honestly, they're such a bunch of bullies. Poor old Brian Jones. You see, I think Brian Jones is terrible and they behave. They were remarkably patient given his poor behavior. But anyway, there you go. Yeah, well. Now, from the start, I said we'd get into why they're so controversial. They had been controversial from the moment they stepped onto the national stage. So they'd made their television debut at the very bottom of the bill on a kind of variety show called Thank Your Lucky Stars in July 1963. They were still in their matching outfits.

47:28They were in checked jackets and slacks, like lecturers at a Midwestern university, history lecturers at an American university, nice chinos or something, ironed with creases down the middle. And even though they were wearing these outfits, ATV, who made the show, were deluged with letters, people saying, absolute disgrace. And I quote, It is disgusting that long-haired louts such as these should be allowed to appear on television. Their appearance was absolutely disgusting. The whole lot of you should be given a good bath and all that hair should be cut off. Your filthy appearance is likely to corrupt teenagers all over the country.

48:05Do you know, the sense that Britain was a much more fun place. I know. The weird thing is when you watch the, if you look at them, the hair really isn't that long. Very slightly long hair. But everyone wins, don't they? Because outraged people can be outraged. Yeah. The stones get to be dangerous. Yeah. And they're not really. And everyone's a winner. No, absolutely, Tom. Everyone's having a great time, I think. They've got so much money, I think, by comparison with what they had before. So they're all excited. Now, this is, of course, the summer of the Beatles. And I think the context of this really matters.

48:41But the Beatles are mainstream. The Beatles, thanks to Brian Epstein's marketing, their huge popularity. And then, of course, especially when they do things like the Royal Variety Performance or when they go to America and conquer the American charts, they become kind of national heroes. You were laughing earlier about Sir Alec Douglas Hume. Sir Alec Douglas Hume goes out of his way to praise the Beatles. He says, if anyone asks why the Beatles are successful, I can tell you. It is because they are a band of very natural, very funny young men. That thing about them being funny, by the way, that is one massive difference between the Beatles and the Stones.

49:15The Stones are never, they're unintentionally funny, but they but they're never really funny are they in the same way the beatles are yeah i mean they are funny i guess in private yeah but in their interviews they're not kind of bantering and joshing and all that kind of ring going away how did you find america turned left at greenland hilarious amazing banter so i think what's happened is because the beatles have occupied the center ground there is clearly a gap in the market for a group that is more unsettling more rebellious and this is where the hair comes in almost every single article about the stones in their first 18 months or so mentioned the hair in mid-century britain i think in large part as a legacy of the second world war and the mass conscription involved in national service in the 1950s long hair is viewed as dissident dirty licentious subversive bohemian all of these kinds of things what's not to like and people really are offended by the stones hair so in spring 1964 this is an amazing fact the national federation of hairdressers held its annual conference and they're staring down the barrel aren't they with this the president of the national federation of hairdressers devoted his speech to an assault on the rolling stones slovenly dirty and downright ragged appearance theo's very keen that we make the joke that basically the story of this episode is the stones versus big hair so it's basically big hair versus big hair the kind of big or big hair dressing i should say anyway the puzzle actually is that the beetles also have long hair but that's clean it's fun yes it's clean and wacky and fun here's i think the difference the beetles because they present themselves as funny and cuddly and child friendly their long hair is eccentric and quirky and entertaining whereas the stones long hair is dangerous and threatening.

51:13But I think it's also because of the nature of the music. The Beatles' music is already familiar. It's a familiar style. It's not an alarming style of music because it's the beat music that has been around for a couple of years. The Stones' music is rhythm and blues, which has no chart history before 1964. And when people do talk about it, they say, what is it? Oh, it's the music of poor black Americans. And so people talk about it as kind of scruffy music, rebellious music and so i think even before the stones have conquered the charts before they've actually done anything wrong the press are talking about them as bad boys rebellious outlaws and so on and for me andrew lou goldham's genius as a manager is having started out thinking i will make them like the beatles he ditches that quite quickly and realizes we cannot possibly compete with them because they have such a massive head start the gap in the market is for the anti-beatles is for a group teenagers can have for themselves that will shock their parents.

52:14In his memoir, he says, at the end of 1963, he consciously decided to turn the Stones into, quote, the group parents love to hate, dangerous, dirty, and degenerate. And he said to them, be as nasty as you can be in your interviews and your public performances. And he is the guy who kind of spoon-feeds titles like, you know, would you let your daughter go out with a Rolling Stone, things like that, to the press. So it's very, very calculated, isn't it? Exactly. And that's the interesting thing, right? People always at the time and afterwards have said, well, the Beatles were very commercialized.

52:46They were manicured. The Stones are more authentic because they're more rebellious. Actually, that is totally wrong. The Stones' rebelliousness is completely contrived and manufactured. Can I just read you something that, because I didn't have time to dust down all my Rolling Stones books, so I turned to Bob Stanley's Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, which is the kind of Plutarch's Lives of popular music. Brilliant pen portraits of all the acts, including the Stones. He said, the youthful authority the Stones perceptively had, which even the Beatles lacked, resulted not from their knowledge of Muddy Waters' B-sides, but from their complete control of their image, sound and media angle from the start.

53:22Oldham produced the records and designed the sleeves, while Jagger and Richards made sure there would be no pantos, no synchronised head shaking on stage, nothing predictable. Yeah. So it's the lack of predictability that enables their rise to become predictable. The contrivance, the manufacture, is the lack of contrivance, if you know what I mean. There's a story, Oldham gets a guy called Gerard Mankiewicz, a very well-known photographer, to photograph them. And he says, you know, snarl more, make it more, more piltdown, more piltdown, more moody, you know, look more angry and difficult. Whereas in fact, actually, they're not especially angry and difficult offstage.

53:57But the media love this. Everyone's happy. It works for everybody. So by an early 1964, the media are playing along. The Daily Express, February 64. they look like boys whom any self-respecting mum would lock in the bathroom but the rolling stones five tough young london-based music makers with doorstep mouths pallid cheeks and unkempt hair are not worried what mums think god so mick must be thrilled at being called a tough young londoner right but a weird thing is of course as we will see they do worry about what mums think meaning their own mothers because they're very filial and the contrast of the beatles becomes so explicit it becomes a cliche here's the news of the world november 1964 the beatles bubble with laughter They make jokes.

54:36They wear neat clothes. They get along with royalty. But it's different with the Stones. They leer rather than smile. They don't wear natty clothes. And at the end of the piece, the journalist notes correctly, the extraordinary thing is that more and more youngsters are turning towards the Stones. The Beatles have become too respectable. And it's that very respectability that the Beatles clearly do have in 1963, 64, that gives the Stones their opportunity to cast themselves as the antithesis of it. Had the Beatles been less respectable, actually, there would have been much less room, I think, for the Rolling Stones to make a name for themselves.

55:11And of course the irony is the Beatles are authentically working class and that their apprenticeship had involved any number of pills and hanging out with prostitutes in brothels and all kinds of stuff. But all that has been buried. That has been buried, as has the Stones' respectability. The LSE and all of that. The Mick jacket going to the LSE. The fact that Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts had held steady, serious jobs. the fact that Bill Wyman was married with a child, the fact that when journalists interview them, they say offstage they are quiet and modest, and Mick Jagger, their leader, Brian Jones would not have been happy with that, Mick Jagger, their leader, is unusually friendly and intelligent.

55:50That's from a book called The Teenage Revolution by Peter Lorre, 1965. Their parents, their family, are really surprised at the criticism of them. Charlie Watts' mother, he's always been a good boy. We've never had police knocking on the door. He's always been terribly kind to old people, which is good preparation for going on tour with the Rolling Stones. Bill Wyman's mum says, what's going on here? And Bill Wyman says, she asked about his hair. And Bill Wyman says, I love this quote because it expresses, it basically expresses my worldview, like how I approach everything. Bill Wyman says to his mum, mum, it's only for about three years off his hair and I'll get a nice car and a nice house fully furnished out of it.

56:34You've put fully furnished in the tallet. Well, I think they're fully furnished. It's like there's the banal practicality. Uterish quality. Exactly. Keith Richards always kept in touch with his mum when he went on tour and used to send her presents from the countries that he visited. Charlie Watts arranged to have his mum receive her favourite chocolate cake every Friday night. Isn't that nice? Yeah. John Lennon never behaved like that, Tom. He bought Aunt Mimi a house in Bournemouth. He did. That's true. He did. The media, of course, aren't interested in any of that. It doesn't fit the personas and Oldham downplays it.

57:06And all that happens is their rebellious image becomes greater and greater. Every little incident, and of course there are bound to be lots of incidents because these are young men, you know, surrounded by adoring girls that drink, they're having fun. Later on, of course, there'll be drugs. So it's not like there aren't any incidents. It's not like there isn't any bad behavior, but it's massively magnified. And it's a strategy that works. In April 64, their album, The Rolling Stones, knocks with the Beatles off the top of the album charts in july it's all over now becomes their first british hit single in december 64 little red rooster becomes the only blues song ever to top the british singles charts but dominic just to say that in turn then gets knocked off the top by i feel fine by the beatles which has that kind of amazing feedback yeah at its start which is no one's ever done before so the idea that the beatles are conventional and the stones are rebellious in musical terms it's the beatles who are, I mean, way, way ahead.

58:03I would agree with that. That said, theirs is not the musical journey of the Beatles, but in the next 18 months or so, they do have a pretty amazing run of singles. Heart of Stone, Play With Fire, Satisfaction, Get Off My Cloud, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Paint It Black, and so on and so forth. But these are all their own, I mean, they're kind of their own songs, right? Yeah. And so that is taking them away from Brian Jones's vision. Exactly. Brian Jones is more and more unhappy with this because actually what they're no longer doing is playing Chicago blues. They are evolving into a rock band, into something new, something that hasn't actually really existed before.

58:38I mean, imagine being unhappy that you've released Satisfaction as a single. So Satisfaction was their first US number one in 1965. Then they have their first US number one album out of our heads a month later. In October 1965, when they released in America December's Children Everybody's, which was their next album, the US title, It was advertised by a huge David Bailey poster in Times Square. So this is two years after they had been on the stage in Nuneaton. Having bums thrown at them. Having bums thrown at them. By eight-year-olds. By eight-year-olds. I mean, that is bonkers. Because we now take their rise, and that's at the Beatles and groups that for granted, we underestimate, I think, what an extraordinary thing that was.

59:22Not least because stuff like this had never happened before, and certainly never happened to a British group. it might happen now all the time so we're used to the trajectory and there's a sort of formula yeah but at the time people like the rodding stones had never even been to america on holiday yeah so to go and have your poster in times square at the age of what 22 23 i mean it's it's a mind boggling experience for them and the interesting thing is when the beatles did this the beatles came home and they were national champions, patriotic heroes, hurrah, you know, banner headlines. But the Stones never enjoy that reputation because they appear more cynical, more confrontational.

1:00:05What they've done is they've established something that I think is new, which is the image of the rock group as insolent, as representing aggression, sensuality, confrontation, generational discord. Well, that's a key thing, isn't it? And this is a recurring theme right the way up to the present, is that if you're a rebellious teenager, you don't want your parents digging what you're into. Yeah. But nobody had had that conversation before this point. No. So they invent that. They infectively invent that. I mean, the generation gap, I think, is massively inflated in the 60s. But there clearly is a market for a group that will annoy your dad.

1:00:45Yeah. And the stones fill that gap perfectly. And actually, at the point when they're conquering America, something happens in Britain that I think if you'd ask most adults in Britain in 1965, what's the one thing you know about the Rolling Stones? It is this story. So we'll end with this. Does it involve micturation? It does. Micturation. Oh, that's what they pay you the big bucks for, isn't it, Tom? That kind of wordplay, witty wordplay. Yeah, yeah. So in March 1965, they've been giving a concert at the Romford Odeon. That's the other great thing about the 60s, right? Yeah, you come back from Times Square and you're in the Romford Odeon.

1:01:21That one minute you do something brilliant, and the next thing you're in that ballroom in Luneaton again. And their daimler, their chauffeur-driven daimler, is bringing them back from Romford. And they, late at night, and they stop at a service station, a garage, a gas station, as our overseas listeners would call it, in Stratford, East London. And the garage manager, who's a man called Charles Keeley, later told a court that a shaggy-haired monster got out of the car and asked, quote, in disgusting language, if he could use the toilet. And Keely said, no. This person was Bill Wyman, by the way, married with a child living in Penge.

1:02:02And then the other members of the band got out of the car too and started to argue with Charles Keely and said, come on, can you let him use the toilet? We piss anywhere, man. Yeah, Jagger comes out with this terrible line, we piss anywhere, man. But still, they're not insisting, they're bargaining with the petrol station staff. And Charles Keely lost his temper and shouted, get off my forecourt! At which Brian Jones started dancing around the forecourt station, shouting and singing, get off my foreskin at the station, ma 'am. Not get off my cloud. No, not get off my cloud. Anyway, this episode, inglorious as it may sound, ended with Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger and Brian Jones urinating on the wall of the forecourt and then driving off in triumph in their Daimler.

1:02:47Charles Keighley brought a private prosecution against them. They were dragged into an East London courtroom and convicted of insulting behaviour liable to cause a breach of the peace and handed a very small fine. And was this all arranged by Oldham? Well, this is a brilliant, this is an amazingly trivial and pathetic story, but it was like front page headlines, stones, shame. But massive for their reputation. Massive, massive for their reputation. So a magistrate, a Scottish magistrate in a totally unrelated trial, about a week later, went off on a massive rant about the stones. Some incidents happened in Scotland.

1:03:28He said it's basically all the fault of people like the stones. He said they are, quote, complete morons who wear their hair down to their shoulders, wear filthy clothes and act like clowns. And the news of the world came out with a wonderful verdict. They wallow in a swill tub of their own repulsiveness. Does that make you nostalgic for the good old days when you were writing to the Daily Mail? You could coin phrases like that. Yeah, that's exactly the kind of stuff I would come out with. Right. That's not the end of the story with the news of the world and the Rolling Stones, though, Tom. Because next time we will be moving forward to the end of the 60s.

1:04:01We will talk about the great scandal of their arrest at Redlands, Keith Richards' house, and their trial on drugs offences. We'll talk about the fate of Brian Jones, who's being pushed out of his own band. And we'll come to the moment that for many people marks the very end of the 60s, the death and darkness at the Altamont Raceway. Brilliant stuff, Dominic. Thanks so much. Members of the Rested History Club can hear that right away. And if you are not a member and you would like to be and get to hear all about breaking butterflies on wheels, swimming pools and Hells Angels, then head to the rest is history dot com and sign up there.

1:04:39We will be back on Thursday. Goodbye. Bye bye.