ALO, ALO,

Looking for a good book about rock and roll written by somebody who knows what he’s talking about? No? Piss off then. But if you are, ‘2stoned’ is the one for you. It’s the second part of Andrew Loog Oldham’s biography and it covers the years when he was managing the Rolling Stones from Austin-powered Mary Quant to pre-Bogota and beyond…

Now it turns out he can write too. He’s still hip and he obviously enjoys a bit of wordplay a la Anthony Burgess, so much so that some sentences need reading more than once. He paints some nice little vignettes of life in the sixties and he’s very, very, candid. As if he wants to set a few records straight. This isn’t idle self-promotion. He admits the first Rolling Stones ‘tour’ of the US was a fuck-up but he made some useful contacts, including Bob Crewe, Phil Spector, Sonny Bono, and Jack Nitsche. Not only that but he found Muddy Waters up a ladder at Chess Studios, which kind of took the gloss off the blues a bit but helped to move the Stones image up a rung or two back home.

ALO, not to be confused with ALO, was no musician, and he couldn’t sing. But the bloke could hustle. He knew how to produce hit records and he seemed to have a natural instinct for promotion. While the bigwigs at EMI were adjusting to the influx of whizz-kids and trying to figure out what the fuck was going on ALO had already decided that the future for British Pop, the big money, was in America. He had a tiger by the tail and he knew it. Did he know what a huge animal it would turn out to be? Hard to tell but he held on for a few thrill-packed years until Jagger/Richards and Allen Klein threw him away like a worn out chelsea boot depending on who's version you believe. He saw it coming anyway and didn't do badly out of it.

Like me ALO was the result of a wartime liaison. His dad, the Loog part, got shot down in the Channel. Like me young Andrew didn’t listen to his mum. Unlike me he knew then what I know now. Pop music was the place to be. When ex-beatniks and proto-hippies were grazing the depths of Westbourne Grove hoping to score some mediocre grass, 19 year-old ALO was working the phones. It’s quite remarkable what he achieved as a young man about town. He had style and a flare/flair for the latest clobber. A very dapper dude. He also had Reggie King for a minder and the lad was handy with a cosh.

‘2stoned’is a darn good read, long in length (especially combined with ‘stoned’, his first effort), and full of interesting quotes from Sheila Klein (ALO’s first wife), Jagger (his real first wife), Allen Klein who moved Donovan from Pye to Epic. ALO takes us on a pop Odyssey. There are lots of insights into the music business from people like Tim Rice, Chris Stamp, Mickie Most, Tito Burns et al Kooper. It was a time of many rapid ch,ch,ch,changes to coin a phrase. While some were cleaning up others were just having fun. Some were doing both. Kim Fowley puts it succinctly...

“Every night of the week there was pussy, there was touring, there were records, there was money. It was a wonderful time.”

Unlike so many pop biographies this isn't just a collection of quotes and far out incidents. There's introspection here, even a dash of metaphysics. But don't let that put you off. There’s lots of juicy gossipy stuff here too...Phil Spector’s secret hit recipes, Robert Fraser’s connections, Lionel Bart’s sexual preferences, Marianne Faithful’s domestic problems, the unplugging of Brian Jones. There are cameo appearances from the likes of Joe Cocker, P.J.Proby’s cock, Frank Sinatra, Denny Cordell, Ian Stewart, Brian Wilson, the Baroness Erisso old uncle Tom Petty and all. It never stops, and of course hovering above it all is old Big Lips, the Great Jagged Jumping Jagger.

ALO is surprisingly generous about Sir Mick. It’s obvious he thinks Jagger is a bit of a supercilious cunt but ALO can be a bit of a supercilious cunt himself so he can’t throw Stones. To his credit he gives credit where it’s due...

The Stones are...no longer "the bad boys of rock", they are even beyond the tag of being the "greatest rock 'n' roll band", they are pure "materialanza".'



So here we are folks. 2006. The sixties aren’t quite over yet according to ALO but time is ticking away. ALO joins Little Steven and gets Sirius, Their Satanic Majesties are now proudly presenting censored concerts to aging expats in China, Buddy Holly’s watch just went for $155,350 to an anonymous lady in San Francisco, James Blunt’s CD is selling well, there is much talk of a nuclear Armageddon. Is everything going off the rails at ever-increasing speed? Or is it just me? Buggered if I know frankly. But at this rate we may get to find out.