Andrew Loog Oldham - Rolling Stoned

Andrew LoogOldham

Published by Gegensatz Press atSmashwords

ISBN 978-1-933237-33-6

Copyright 2011 by Old Pro Ltd.

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PREFACE

I wrote Stoned and 2Stoned between 1996 and1999. Or more accurately, that's when I rewrote them. I had beenwriting them most of my life, if only in my mind - and is notwriting thinking on paper?

As a tween growing up inpostwar London I enjoyed a fantasy life that Walter Mitty mighthave envied. Saturday mornings at the "pictures" somewhatcompensated for the rather thin gruel served up on TV at the time.This weekly ritual at the Odeon Swiss Cottage N.W.3 was moreinspiring than educational. Flash Gordon and Superman made surewe'd be back the following week, because no sooner was one crisisbravely confronted than another arose in the last five minutes ofevery episode. Within a year I'd found a way to slip in the backdoor of this same and various other local cinemas as my tastesmoved toward the not altogether wholesome, brought on by ambitionof both mind and groin. My first female crushes were Jean Sebergand Dolores Hart; for lust I settled upon Rhonda Fleming and ArleneDahl. Their 1956 U.S. attempt at film noir , Slightly Scarlet , with John Payne,showed me the side of town I wished to walk on. I found role modelsin the surliness of Tony Curtis, the assertiveness of LaurenceHarvey, and the teenage angst of James Dean. For me these actorswere not portraying fictional characters, but rather demonstratinglife as it was meant to be lived.

A year or so later, thesame cinemas would risk destruction at the hands of crazedteenagers who adopted The Girl Can't HelpIt as their own Ten Commandments , a rock 'n' rollepic in which Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent, and Little Richard ledthe downtrodden youth of Britain out of the desert into a land ofmusic, the mob, jukeboxes, and Jayne Mansfield.

The schools that I'dattended failed to appreciate my higher calling, and bothschoolmasters and my mother kept impatiently urging me to settledown and get on with the business of "real life." However, theRolling Stones and quite a few other artists benefited from mycommitment to life in another dimension. I have always thought webecome more interesting than we really are by pretending to besomebody who might interest us a little more than we doourselves.

In 2006 I was invited backto my old public school, Wellingborough - the one that had asked meto leave - to open a new music wing. I realize more than ever howmy mother had schemed and plotted the improvement of our lives,including my having been able to go to the school in the firstplace, and how she should be added to the list of divine hustlers Ihave known. She passed in 2002. Of course I wish she were stillhere but am glad at the same time that she is not. These severalyears later, in addition to my writing, I am a deejay on Americansatellite radio. I work from my Bogot home for my pal, Steven VanZandt, part-time Bruce Springsteen E Street Band guitarist andHBO Sopranos moband cast member, and all-time rock 'n' roll maven. It's awonderfully safe and productive way of staying in touch with musicand its business. My mum would have been proud; it's almost aregular job.

The specific inspirationfor Stoned and 2Stoned was a biography of Warhol "superstar" Edie Sedgwick, writtenby Jean Stein and brilliantly edited by George Plimpton in the formof an oral history. Despite the fact that Edie and her scene heldno particular appeal for me, I found the voices describing them tobe arranged in something like a literary wall of sound. Theinterweaving of so many points of view raised a to-the-manor-borntrailer-trashy B-list version of Jean Seberg to Joan of Archeights. The heroine on heroin of Edie reminded me of a New Yorkdollish version of Brian Jones and the way the book was puttogether made Edie/Brian more fascinating than they really were. Ialso saw it as a true forum, allowing others to tell theirtruth.

In my world, there are noaccidents. A young man from England who was unsure if he was amusician or a journalist, but aspired to both, managed to track meto my adopted home in Bogot, Colombia, claiming that he wanted toinclude me in a story about managers that he was writing for thetrendy pop culture magazine, TheFace .

When he turned upunannounced on my doorstep (which was not exactly a tube stop ortwo away from his home) I was a little put out. But my wife Estherand I opened the door and welcomed the young visitor, then known asSimon Dudfield, from England into my life. He published themagazine piece and hustled me to let him write my biography. I wasflattered and intrigued, given that the subject of the proposedbiography would be a different Andrew Oldham than the one currentlyliving a day for night existence in an unmaterial world.

I put him off and hit theroad, ending up in Seattle at a horrendously haughty bed andbreakfast on Capitol Hill. I took myself to bed with a dozen plainwhite leather-bound folders and began to write. And write. Andwrite. Sometime later, when the more drug soaked passages had beenwrung out of the manuscript, what remained became the foundationof Stoned and 2Stoned .

Once again my favoritelittle criminal, now calling himself Simon Spence, trailed me, thistime to Buenos Aires, where I was producing an Argentine rock band,Los Ratones Paranoicos. Give him credit for finding anothermagazine to pay his way. He wouldn't let up about the fuckin' bookthat he wanted to write about me and, after I finally agreed, itdawned on me why he had been so insistent: He'd already receivedquite a handsome advance to deliver an authorized biography, which ofcourse he was in no position to guarantee.

If anyone is going to playfast and loose with my reputation, it had better be me, and mywould-be biographer's ethics or lack thereof pissed me off. Butwhen I reached the publishers in London to discuss the situationwith them and perhaps splash some cold water on their parade, I wastold, "Look, Mr, Oldham, we operate on a much more good faith basisthan your music business."

I was astonished to hearthat in polite literary circles wide boys were welcomed asgentlemen.

"So, if I came in and saidI'd been authorized by Mick Jagger or Henry Kissinger to writetheir autobiographies you'd just take me at my word?" I askedsarcastically. "No letter of consent from Mick or Henry needed?You'd just hand over the money?"

"Well, it is a question ofdegree. If it were Mr. Jagger or Mr. Kissinger ..."

I got it. They did not mindbeing taken for a quiet amount, one that could only yell soloud.

I attempted to negotiate abetter deal on my own behalf, but the publisher whom my youngfriend had conned decided they'd rather eat the advance they'dgiven him than continue under the circumstances.