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Sunday, October 13, 2002
Stones' first manager looks back
By JANE STEVENSON
Toronto Sun
When Andrew Loog Oldham first set eyes on the Rolling Stones at an early 1963 gig, he described it as seeing "rock 'n' roll in 3-D and Cinerama for the first time."
More specifically, he was referring to frontman Mick Jagger and guitarists Brian Jones and Keith Richards. The quote was from his 2000 book, Stoned: A Memoir Of London In the 1960s, spanning the years 1960-64.
"When I was promoting Stoned in England, I did this BBC show and they got some old clips," the former Stones manager/producer said when he was here in June as a guest speaker at the North By Northeast music conference.
"And they had a black-and-white BBC thing -- I think it was Top Of The Pops -- of the Stones doing It's All Over Now, I think, or The Last Time."
"Sexy. I mean, this boy, Mick Jagger, was like a snake on camomile tea."
The topic comes up because Oldham is asked about what he thinks of his former charges playing stadiums now. After all, it was Oldham who, after being hired by Brian Epstein at age 19 to be a press agent for the Beatles, discovered the Stones at Station Hotel just outside London.
"When we last saw the Stones at Madison Square Garden, in '98, it didn't particularly move me. On a level of, 'When did the hairs stand up on my hand and when did I get a lump in my throat?' -- I can tell you it was seven songs out of 29. But the public is a totally different matter."
Oldham and co-manager Eric Easton got the group a record deal with Decca. But it was Oldham alone who fashioned the group's bad-boy image, in contrast to the Beatles' clean-cut, innocent one. "Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?" was Oldham's brilliant PR line that all the Brit media picked up on. A similar line today might be, "Would you let your daughter marry Eminem?"
In addition to his press manipulations, it was Oldham who demanded that Jagger and Richards start writing their own songs, thereby alienating Jones. When Oldham met the band, it was playing nothing but pure blues and R&B covers. Oldham knew the band had to start writing its own hits, or soon it'd be all over.
As the story goes, Oldham locked Jagger and Richards in their apartment kitchen and wouldn't let them out until they'd written a song. By early 1964, it was clear that the duo had talent in that area.
"The Rolling Stones made me have to take life seriously," Oldham says. "Up until then, I was a press agent without a care in the world, had no responsibilities, as long as I was getting the people in the press. I wasn't having anybody calling me up at 3 o'clock in the morning."
Oldham had a famous and acrimonious falling out with the Stones a mere four years later early on during the recording sessions for 1967's Their Satanic Majesties Request. The band -- especially Mick and Keith -- felt it had outgrown Oldham. The PR schtick wasn't working anymore, and he knew little about producing records. One day in the studio, the Stones deliberately played the blues so badly that Oldham got the hint and walked out for good.
But he doesn't seem bitter about being absent just as the band approached its zenith, starting with 1968's Beggars Banquet.
"I had my period. We were our first marriage. Their next one was a combination of themselves, (manager) Allen Klein, and (record producer) Jimmy Miller," Oldham says. "I mean, I don't think I would find Truman Capote on a plane in 1973 being ga-ga about the Rolling Stones that funny. But it was part of the circus that the Rolling Stones could handle. It was just part of, 'Oh this is the new workload. Okay, another bunch of idiots,' and get on with it. You don't invite yourself to what you can't survive."
Oldham -- who has lived in Bogota, Columbia, since 1982 -- will deal with the time leading up to that period in his next book, 2Stoned. It will cover the years 1964-67 and was scheduled to hit book stores in North America next spring.
Oldham currently doesn't have a relationship with any of the Stones, although he still has enormous respect for them.
"The three of them who are still the Rolling Stones -- Mick, Keith and Charlie (Watts). I don't really know Ronnie Wood. I have tremendous respect for (former bassist) Bill Wyman. I saw him playing this casino in Connecticut and then he was backstage at The Who concert (at Albert Hall in February). We did something we never had done in 40 years: We had dinner together. That went very well. It was a valuable time. It was good. I'm glad we did it."
Not that they need to do it again.
"We might have just crossed all the knots that we had to and we're both the better off for it, and there's no need for a rematch."
And, if he were still managing the Stones today? He says if they can't make albums that sell anymore, why not continue to tour?
"Actually, I kind of breathed a sigh of relief," Oldham says of his reaction to news last spring the Stones would hit the road again.
"They've had their time off. What does a musician do? He plays. So now they're doing it. It's actually pretty simple."
He doesn't have a lot of time for people who say the Stones should pack it in now that the members are all in their late 50s and early 60s.
"It doesn't matter whether it's the Stones or The Who or The Eagles," Oldham says. "When they're not working, that's when they should pack it in. I mean, apart from when they put out solo records.
"You can't deny the audience. I mean, people are buying tickets at pretty expensive prices -- $200-$300. I was in Connecticut three weeks ago, coming out of this restaurant ... and these two guys come up in the parking lot, 'Loog!' They showed me the tickets they'd just got for Philadelphia to see the Stones. Empowered, impassioned, it's the most exciting thing that happened to them -- you know, they've got their tickets, they're set. So that's the answer to the cynicism that goes around about (the Stones)."
Oldham also approved of the way the Stones announced their tour, via a blimp ride in a Bronx park back in May. After all, it was vintage Oldham PR.
"I thought it was great because it's a Barnum & Bailey world, and I talked to people from New York and they were going to me, 'Oh, what are they going to next?' These are people who are on the periphery of the game but they're not really soldiers. Whereas the Rolling Stones are soldiers."
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