Death of a Junky: the Rolling Stones

Digging through the archives, we recently realized that we had lost track of one of the finest items posted to GLONO. Back in the day, this was the first post that we pulled aside and showcased as a feature, but it somehow got lost in the shuffle of redesigns and content management system switches. We’re happy to bring it back. —Jake

Death

of a Junky: The Rolling Stones

by

Derek Phillips

Drugs are evil. Make no mistake. Queen

of Darkness Marilyn Manson takes the stage in front of a huge 12-foot tall neon

sign that reads D-R-U-G-S. Drugs turn people crazy, especially the people trying

to outlaw them. Drugs are the evil Lord and the Stones worshipped at its altar

for 20 years and reaped the benefits before they fell from grace and lost their

souls to Billy Blanks.

"Sympathy for the Devil" may

be the most evil song in the world. The Stones forced anyone who dared to listen

beyond the jungle rhythms to face facts–you shit in your bed, now sleep in it.

Everything about that song is great. It is rock and roll. It is everything

parents were afraid of. I’ve seen clips of the recording sessions where Keith

couldn’t get up off the studio floor to listen to playbacks. They stood on the

precipice of depravity and spit over the edge.

The Stones were bar-none the Greatest

Rock Band in the World. They proved it time and again and were untouchable

throughout the seventies and even into the early eighties. Some Girls was

one of the best of their career, and though Tattoo You didn’t

reach the highs (and lows), of earlier records, it still had gems.

Then something happened.

Something wrong… Something ugly…

Something vile…

They got healthy.

I have long had a theory that anyone

who survives on large amounts of drugs should never, under any circumstance, get

clean. If they do, they die. Mark my words. The examples keep coming.

Jerry Garcia lived like a king, taking

every drug he could get his nine fingers on. His music grew, his performance

excelled. People who saw the Dead in their last years saw Jerry at the top of

his game. Like a hopped up, drug-addled line backer ripping through bags of

smack until his eyes bled. This went on for thirty years. He died in a rehab

unit surrounded by doctors trying to rid his body of tainted blood, like

medieval barbers trying to cure him of vapors and spirits.

Kurt Cobain brought us back from the

hairspray death of the 80s with the roar of music long thought dead. He cut his

hands with furious chords motivating a generation of Ritalin zombies to care.

And we cared. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that we didn’t. Suddenly,

everything seemed important because we were told nothing really was. We had no

wars. Our parents made great money. We were at the front door of this

country’s biggest and longest economic boom and we were depressed to the point

of violence. Kurt Cobain didn’t invent the 90′s apathy and angst; he

perfected it. And he was pumped to the gills with heroin the whole time. Some

people blame his suicide on drugs, but it wasn’t until he tried to get clean

that we found him smeared on the walls of his Seattle home. Some people feel the

slight annoyances of life as death by a thousand cuts. Kurt Cobain needed to

numb himself and found it in heroin. Drugs kept him sane.

The Stones, facing massive tax bills,

concert deaths and fame beyond the limits of the human mind, dug deep into the

sticky plastic bag of drugs and found the best music written in modern time.

They wrapped the warm fuzz of heroin around their brains like a wet shaving

towel and let the devil’s music rise out with the steam.

Welcome to the Party

Beggar’s Banquet is the invitation. The

fore mentioned “Sympathy…” sticks its tongue out and licks your lips. You

get so hard you can’t help but push back. "No Expectations" gently

caresses you and puts you at ease. It’s just a set up. "Street Fighting

Man" slaps you hard across the face and tells you you’re a bitch…and you

are. Like a woman with battered wife syndrome, you come back. You get fucked

hard like one of the Hell’s Angels’ mamas. By the time "Salt of the

Earth" is over you’re on your knees draggin’ yourself to the door. This was

the first step into the dark, crowded closet of self-medication.

They say that Mick Jagger was never

really that much into drugs, but that’s a lie. He may not have drenched

himself in the strychnine bitterness of acid or the scratchy throat brightness

of cocaine, but he loved the lifestyle. One hundred percent. Mick Jagger threw

drug references around like they were posh names at a social event. Mick Jagger

lived in the drug world and surrounded himself with junkies. He exploited the

lifestyle for all it was worth. He walked the fine line of pushers by ruthlessly

fronting his shit while never getting high on his own supply.

It’s a delicate balance though and

Brian Jones couldn’t walk it. He stumbled like a clumsy cat and ended up a

pathetic man at the bottom of his pool with a gut full of amphetamines. The band

that was his soul went on without missing a beat throwing a huge free show just

months after his death–Mick Jagger prancing mockingly in front of a huge poster

of Jones’s head.

The Hooks Are Set

Sticky Fingers gets you hooked

on the shit. They feed it to you. Your eyes swell and your stomach tightens.

"Sister Morphine" gives you the shakes. By the time "Wild

Flowers" comes around you’re so drunk you don’t even know what order

you’re hearing things. Finally you sweat out the night with the soft caress of

"Moonlight Mile." The Stones helped you through another binge. What

you forget is that they brought it on in the first place.

If the last few albums were crazy

nights you can’t remember but regret none-the-less, then Exile on Main

Street is a five-day bender from which you awaken and find that your parents

hate you. You take it in the tail pipe for four sides’ worth of abuse. The

Stones hate you too and you can’t turn away. Why? Because they tell you time and

again that no one else will have you. They’re the only ones who care. You’re

worthless but they love you. But now you’re a junky with them. You can’t get a

job because no boss in the world can understand how important this album is.

That hatred turns to bile and you puke it all over the gray carpet of that

condescending fuck’s cubicle.

Things do get better–In a way.

Death Before Disco

Your dirty lover switches drugs and

takes you along. At least on coke you’re motivated. You move. "Miss

You" actually makes you dance. The Stones make disco sound rough, though

you can’t admit that’s what you’re listening to. Latin rhythms force you

out on to the front stoop where you smoke weed and snort coke with Latino

neighbors who moved into the neighborhood while you were zonked. They offer you

grass and inexplicably you accept replying, "El gusto es mio."

The early eighties kind of blend

together like a smeared pencil drawing. You love "Waiting on a

Friend," though you don’t even remember what album it’s on. The

neighborhood is alive and jumping. Things are happening.

Then it happens.

After years of backstabbing that would

have turned the Osmonds into alcoholics, the Stones fall apart. Mick discovers

clean living. He takes karate for Christ’s sake. He records She’s the Boss.

This isn’t a hangover; this is a hemorrhage. You’re facing serious damage.

Dear God, you actually see Her Majesty in a video called "Let’s Work"

that must be some kind of community service message, but it’s not. Mick is

serious and that sends you into a furious depression that’s needs medication.

Surely Keith is still holding. Can’t he

hook you up for old times’ sake? Shit, where is Keith? Rumors of an o.d. are

rampant. People say that he’s gone through rapid detox and had all of his blood

drained, cleaned and replaced. One new rumor alleges he is a follower of Tae Bo

and his new dark lord is Billy Blanks himself.

Charlie’s gone back to jazz. No

surprise there.

Bill Wyman is a pedophile. OK. That’s

good. There’s still some evil lurking in the bushes, even if it is in the form

of an aging child raper. Never trust the ones who just watch from the side. They

are the most deviant. But Wyman’s lechery can not stop the withdrawal and the

spiders are really crawling.

There’s talk of a reunion. It’s a flop.

They sold you a little baggie of Crystal Lite! You snort the shit and your nose

bleeds for an hour. Now you’re strung out and confused. You got a little off the

Black Crows, but it’s really just cut extra thin with a dash of the Faces

thrown in. It burns your throat. Things are getting desperate.

Steel Wheels flattens you. Your

guts are on the road. They backed over you again and again. You see them on tour

with the hopes of hearing the old stuff and they give it to you. But it’s laced

with Drain-O and you shit for weeks afterward.

Withdrawal is hell. You give up on it

cold, puking and shaking but in the end you’re clean. You’re tempted in the

late 90s by Stripped. Everyone tells you it’s like the old days. The

Stones playing a small bar, just kickin’ it out. No production, no tricks.

"C’mon baby, it’s me," they whisper. You’re fooled for a minute until

you read "Like a Rolling Stone" in the set list. Nice try, prick. You

have had it. And just in time. Bridges to Babylon is a buzz kill. Not as

bad, but compared to the old stuff it is straight shwag.

Still the Stones are the best. The fact

that they are no longer the dirty demons of rock does not change the past or

fade their legend. Just as I know two girls who claim they’d still nail Brando

because of what he USED to look like, I still let the stones nail me. I listen

to Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street and Goats Head Soup like

a middle aged woman pining over the faded photo of an old boyfriend long since

wrinkled and fat. You can too.

Our days are numbered though, my

friend. We’ve survived so long on the pure heroin the Stones have been feeding

us that going clean may just send our bodies into shock. Thank God we can go

back to the old records and lick the mirror for a little something. But that

won’t last forever. Mark my words.

Glorious Noise recently celebrated its eighth anniversary. Be sure to check out Stephen Macaulay and Derek Phillips’ reminiscences on eight years of GLONO: Eight Years After, and It started with emails…, respectively.