What if Brian Jones Survived?

In his new short story collection The Music Never Died (Verse Chorus Press), author Mark Swartz envisions alternate fates for artists who died young.

Here, Brian Jones marks time in a Vegas hotel in the company of another rock legend. Illustration by Jeb Loy Nichols.

 

The First Stone

 

From the Desk of Dr. Eugene Landy

 

[10 July 1994] After having my hands full with one paranoid genius named Brian for the past couple of decades, I wasn’t particularly thrilled to meet, let alone treat, another. However, a close friend (who also happens to be a powerful friend) prevailed upon me to have a conversation with him. Besides, I have always admired this Brian’s style as well as his recordings. When he came to see me in the suite I keep at the Sands, his appearance was notably less spectacular than it had been in his prime, but rhinestones on his chemise and jeans hinted at past glamour.

—Nice place you’ve got here.

—The Sands is great. This used to be Peter Lawford’s suite. Would you like me to get you a room?

—Thanks, but El Morocco is where I belong right now.

—Didn’t you spend time in the actual Morocco? 

—There’s something far more important to me at the motel than anything in North Africa. I’ll show you some time.

—I’m glad you’re happy where you are.

—Working on something big.

—A second act?

—How do you mean?

—Well, you founded one of the greatest bands of all time.

—Oh, we’re just hitting our stride, trust me.

—They’ve had a lot of success without you.

—I’m still very much in the band. I’m the leader.

—A lot of people probably think otherwise. That it’s Mick’s band now.

—Mick is the singer. Keith is the guitarist. I’m the Holy Ghost. They’re nothing without me.

—You haunt their sound, or something like that?

—It’s still my band, literally and figuratively. The lips and tongue logo that they started using shortly after I went away? C’est moi.

—Looks like Mick’s mouth to me.

—Don’t be naïve. Kali, the Hindi goddess of death, inspired the design. The logo is my stand-in, watching over the band all these years. And it’s all been leading up to this moment.

–So this has been in the works a long time.

—Ever since they played Hyde Park on July 5, 1969, two days after I had supposedly died.

—That was a bit cold, I admit.

—Not at all. Mick left clues so obvious that any idiot could see what was going on. The poem he recited: Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep, he hath awaken’d from the dream of life…

—People should have realized you were still alive.

—He was laying it on a bit thick, I thought. But my wife always tells me the audience is half morons, half idiots.

 

[15 July 1994] The subject’s airtight version of events almost confuses me about the actual sequence of events. I find myself wondering where the band’s well-known skill at manipulating the media and controlling their image ends and reality begins.

 

—Do you ever hear from Mick and Keith?

—All the time, man. Just think about all those songs they dedicated to me. “Waiting on a Friend,” “Miss You,” “Emotional Rescue.” Can you believe they went all the way back to Morocco to record with the Master Musicians of Jajouka? And now they’ve released an entire album practically begging me to come back in time for the silver anniversary of my supposed demise.

—Do you have to play it backwards to get the message?

—No, man. Every track is an engraved invitation. Wasn’t I the one always trying to get the band to use something besides bloody guitars? This album has it all: fiddle, penny whistle, bajo sexto, accordion, trumpet, all manner of percussion. Who did they recruit for guest artists? Two of my heroes, Bobby Womack and Bo Diddley. They even named it Voodoo Lounge.

—And?

—Voodoo, the Haitian science of re-animation.

—And what does Lou Navarro have to do with all of this?

—It was his idea: A rock star dies, but later makes a triumphant return from the dead. He first proposed it to Bob Dylan, who turned him down flat. Then he tried John Lennon. Lou thought Yoko would love it. It’s the ultimate conceptual art project. But she flipped her wig.

—So you were the first great rock star sacrifice.

—You might say that. Dylan tried to talk me out of it, but he had to admit it had panache. Did you know he paid for my coffin? How many people get to personally thank the man who bought their coffin? Bobby can keep a secret, I’ll say that for him. He still finds a way to visit every few years. The man’s always touring.

—What was the original plan for your return?

—I expected the gag to go on for a year. After five years, I started to wonder, but by then my work at the Lib’ary and a succession of new projects were taking up all my time. And now I’m a married man, which changes everything.

[20 July 1994] I had feared I was facing an ethical dilemma, since a chief object of Brian’s delusions, Cuckoo’s Nest publisher Lou Navarro, also happens to be the friend who engaged my services. But this disclosure was greeted enthusiastically.

 

—Are you kidding? This is perfect. You’ll have to let him know I’m finally ready. We’re going to make history. Not just music history. My wife is going to love this.

—Lou’s going to sell a lot of magazines.

—He deserves it. He’s been there from the start. The man has always had a hard-on for the band, and for me above all. He used to say the Stones were rock music, and I was the Stones. At first I would say, No, Lou, not li’l ol’ me, but he would insist, and that’s what led to this routine about God and Jesus and all that. One night in the Waldorf-Astoria, he and I got bloody higher than ever before; one of us would proclaim something serious, and the other would burst out laughing, and vice-versa. Keith and Mick came by, and we let them in on the gag, or the plan, whichever it was.

—That was when?

—It must have been the night before we recorded “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” Those three little words from the last hit I played on, they were a magic spell that imbued Mick with the power to speak in my voice. They became my voodoo doll from that moment on.

—The three words were “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”?

—No, “I was drowned.”

—You talk about Mick and Keith. What about the other guys?

—Bill and Charlie never cottoned on. They were rhythmically skilled, but they had absolutely no imagination. “But we’re musicians,” they moaned.” “Sure,” Lou replied, “but these three are gods.” I thought he was Saint Peter. The loyal disciple who designed the church. Not the church-as-building but the church-as-business. Christianity had had its run, and it was up to us to orga- nize the new church. We were the deities; and Cuckoo’s Nest would be the Bible. But it isn’t a bible at all.

—What is it?

—A Book of the Dead. You need to read every issue to see the pattern. I have the entire run at the lib’ary. Starting with my “drowning” and the Hell’s Angels stabbing a fan at Altamont and continuing for 25 years.

—There were some bright moments in all that time, too.

—Not compared to the Manson Family, the Zodiac Killer, the Dating Game Killer, the My Lai Massacre, the Jonestown Massacre—(and don’t think I haven’t heard of the Brian Jonestown Massacre, not too shabby) — Sid stabbing Nancy, the shooting of John Lennon and Dimebag Darrell. Eleven trampled Who fans, the matricidal drummer of Derek and the Dominos, the ir- radiated Karen Silkwood, the KKK, the American Nazi Party and on and on.

—Maybe it’s just me, but I still hear a little bit of sex in the music.

—Rock music, according to Cuckoo’s Nest, provides the soundtrack to a vision of an irretrievably fucked-up America that is always on the eve of destruction. This is no country for laughter, orgasms, dancing, or any kind of celebration. Every party is apocalyptic. Every concert has the makings of tragedy. Every drumbeat is a bludgeon.

—Some people hear it and all they want to do is dance.

—If they do, they’re missing the point, which is what my wife is always saying.

—You want me to ask him to send a message to the band?

—Tell them I’m ready. Tell Lou Cuckoo’s Nest can have the exclusive.

 

[26 July 1994] Brian had been missing since our last session. I reached out to Lou, but his people said he was dealing with urgent personal matters, so I decided to conduct some investigating on my own. The place he calls the Lib’ary was tightly shuttered, so I went over to El Morocco. There was no answer when I knocked on the door of his room, but looking down I saw the corner of a white envelope sticking out from under the door. Inside was a telegram.

 

ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT OF REQUEST AND REGRET MUST ONCE AGAIN DECLINE STOP MAYBE NEXT YEAR MATE STOP MJ

 

A slight vibration in the building’s foundation drew me down the stairs from the hotel lobby. It was too rhythmic for an earthquake, and it continued steadily. An unmarked door in the basement led me down another flight of steps, and then another. Luckily, the rack of antique tools at the bottom included a working carbide light.

On the other side of a tarp curtain, I followed the sound along steel rails running through a tunnel that must have been part of an abandoned mine. I became more certain of my di- rection when the path began to be littered with plastic Baby Alive dolls. Some had their heads bashed in, some had one eye gouged out, others had been defaced with red marker, but they all retained their innocent, hopeful expressions.

The blooming, buzzing noise led me onward. The dolls almost seemed to dance to the pounding rhythm.

Around a bend plastered with posters for appearances by a band called Abortiodontist, the tunnel opened into a glistening cavern, at the center of which an emaciated figure hunched behind a stack of amplifiers. Seated on a wooden stool, she wore a gown of yellowing tulle and a drab cardigan and brandished what appeared to be an electric lute with three necks. Strands of bleached and unkempt hair partly concealed a stubbled face and eye sockets housing a pair of gleaming baby blues that had graced the cover of Cuckoo’s Nest more than a few times in the preceding years. Barely intelligible vocalizations dripped onto a microphone from her chapped and lacquered lips.

In that vast subterranean chamber, notes became chords and harmonics became symphonic. Then an even louder crash shook the walls. I turned and saw Brian swinging a massive mallet toward a gong that stood a good three feet taller than him. A devilish grin contorted his still-handsome face.

“Dr. Landy!” he exulted. “Did you bring Mick?”