Jones for Brian

As some of you may know, I happen to like the Stones. To make a comparison, the Stones to me are like air to others – I need them to live. I heard about a movie being made on the live and controversial death of Brian Jones about a year ago. If you don’t know Brian, let me give you a little background on this tortured soul.

To start off, if there never was a Brian, there probably would’ve never been a Rolling Stones band … yeah, a pretty important person. Jones was the catalyst behind the World’s Greatest Rock and Roll Band, at least in the early years. He was the guy who formed this often combustible, but always exciting band.

He was the leader of the band, even though traditionally, the lead singer was the face of the band. This would eventually cause a riff in the band – the first of endless. But first, the band would focus on good ol’ fashion American blues music, something the British kids were eating up like tea and krimpets. The Stones hit a chord with the masses, and rapidly gained popularity rivaling that of the Beatles.

For a while, the thrill of being “3-chord-wonders” and the financial and sexual returns associated with that was enough for young Brian. However, Mr. Jones never wanted to stop creating – as evidenced by the numerous instruments he played. When Mick and Keith started to become the main songwriters, Brian, who probably was already too into the experimentalization of psychedelic drugs to even bother to write music, felt pushed into the background of the Stones, a place he was never comfortable in.

Brian overmedicated himself in order to “deal” with his lesser role in the band. This, and his relationship with Anna Pallenberg (sp) got him through. However, Keith made sure that Pallenberg would no longer be an outlet for Brian, as he ended up taking her away from him. This helped Brian get to the point where he was really no longer functional as a musician, and the Stones had to ultimately make the difficult decision to cut ties with their “creator.”

The movie hopefully will cover this, and go into great detail with the circumstances around his death. Was it murder, suicide, natural causes, or accidental overdose? There are many theories and legends to what happened to Brian, and I have my own. From what I have read, the research that went into this movie lasted more than ten years and was excruciatingly extensive to the point that the British government is considering reexamining the death of Brian Jones because of the new information that was provided by these detail-oriented directors. I, for one, can’t wait to see it – hopefully, it will make it to Philly.