Jake Brennan - Disgraceland: Musicians Getting Away with Murder and Behaving Very Badly

Rock stars arent like you and me. They act insane and have insane things happen to them. They are more like feral, narcissistic animals than functioning members of society, and this is in part what makes them so damn entertaining.

Journalists have dug deep into their pasts, their personal lives, and into the details surrounding not only their music but also their insane behavior, including the various crimes theyve committed. Friends, lovers, and enemies have sold inside stories to the highest bidders, and some musicians have even penned their own autobiographies in order to ensure the telling of their own history. The stories told in this book rely on all these types of different accounts to piece together a read that is hopefully as wild as the musicians covered within. This book is a stylized interpretation of these stories, melding true crime and transgressive fiction and aligning the musicians, the music they made, and the crimes they committed with the mythology that surrounds them.

I am indebted to the journalists, authors, and filmmakers who captured these stories first and got them down onto the record. I am also indebted to a small cast of co-conspirators who were more than generous with their time and offered me firsthand insight into some of the subjects covered herein. And I am indebted to the musicians who lived larger than life, proving themselves to be endlessly entertaining both on and off record.

To all of these folks, I say thank you.

Finally, a note about the victims: Each chapter of this book explores real people, not just human collateral damage strewn to the pay-no-mind list of history, products of the wild living done by the musicians; within these pages are dead spouses, relatives, bandmates, friends, and others who bear scars the likes of which well hopefully never have to carry. It would be irresponsible if I did not acknowledge them and include a legitimate note of sympathy for both the victims and for those who survived them. It is impossible to research these stories without feeling, at times, intense dread and astonishment at what the worst among us are capable of. I can only imagine that this darkness is but a small portion of the real-life pain felt by those affected by the rock n roll animalism described herein.

The beast in me

Is caged by frail and fragile bars

Restless by day

And by night rants and rages at the stars

God help the beast in me

Nick Lowe by way of Johnny Cash

Elvis couldnt get the bullets into the chamber: His fingersswollen along with the rest of his body from a steady diet of greasy, fried Southern food and shaking from his daily narcotics cocktail of antidepressants and pain relievers, morphine, codeine, diazepam, and several other barbituratesmade it near impossible to concentrate, never mind possess the physical dexterity required to properly thread the barrel of his small snub-nosed revolver with the tiny .38 Special bullets.

Elvis could feel his temperature rising. He needed to get the gun loaded and get the shot off quick. Who knew how long it would be before the TV gods would deliver that handsome pricks two-faced mug to his television screen again. The sweat on his forehead puddled above his brow and dripped down the side of his bloated face. The Valium wasnt working and he needed another kind of release. Hed be up for hours unless he blew off some steam. Blasting Robert Goulets shit-eating grin off his face with his .38-caliber Smith & Wessonthe one with the TCB logo and lightning bolt on the pistol gripwas likely the only chance left to lower his blood pressure tonight.

Goulet. Elvis hated him. Ever since Elvis shipped off to Germany and Goulet, back home, moved in on his girl. The bullet slid into the chamber just in time. THERE! Elviss heart practically burst through his sternum at the sight of Goulet onscreen, appearing in an oft-run commercial for the 1977 television show Police Story. Elvis took aim. He held his fire as the commercial moved through B-plot characters before returning to Goulet.

Elvis didnt want to blow it. The shot had to be perfect. He needed to blast Goulets face the very instant it filled the screen, otherwise his anxiety would remain pitched until morning. Sleep would never come, and hed need to double down on amphetamines the next day to keep going. And besides, at this range, seated six feet away from the big RCA, there should only be one result: the kill shot.

THERE!!!!

Just then, Robert Goulets impossibly tan skin and sapphire eyes covered the twenty-five-inch screen. Elvis squeezed his fat sausage finger against the trigger.

BOOM!

The sound of the .38s blast within the confines of Elviss Graceland den was deafening but definitely worth it. Smoke rose out of the hole in his television where the smug face of Robert Goulet had been just one second earlier. Elvis sunk into himself with satisfaction. The feeling was almost postcoital, but despite the gratification, Elvis Presley, arguably the most popular entertainer in the world, had never felt more alone.

And alone Elvis kept the wolves at bay. Beasts that roamed freely throughout his drug-addled psyche, but one beast raged loudest: the thought of his twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley. Dead at birth. And Elviss survivors guilt was strong. As was his grief. The twin emotions gnawed away, creating a hole in him that no amount of drugs, women, food, money, fame or Robert Gouletkill shots would fill.