Buddy, Brian and Me - A Spooky Rock-n-Roll Story

PREFACE

It was a dark and stormy night… or so I’ve been told. Having spent time with the United States Marine Corp and US Navy SEALs when I was in Combat Camera Group back in the day, I don’t scare easy. I have been traveling the backroads of upper Michigan since I was a teenager. I had left Detroit earlier in the day but even after 4 hours I was only on the top of the thumb of the Michigan mitten and the snow was coming down. It was getting darker by the minute. The two lane highway was slick and it was hard to stay on the road. If you have ever traveled long distances you know that you can sometimes zone out and sort of 'wake up' with no recognition of what has just occurred. This was like that. One minute I was hurling down the road to Rave On and the next minute I was sitting in bar. For some reason I had a massive headache and my neck hurt. I looked out the snowy window and the car was nowhere to be seen. In fact there seemed to be only one member of the staff on duty. It’s truly unbelievable the things that happen in life if one stays open to the cosmic forces of the Rock-n-Roll universe. I will let you, dear reader, draw your own conclusions as to reality. All I knew for sure was that—the snow was cold and the beer was warm…

Tom

INTRODUCTION

WANDERING IN THE MITTEN

I had seen Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox in Ossineke, Michigan and they were the size of a building… I thought that maybe someone had put LSD25 in my beer! As I explored the great white north of the Michigan mitten…I had the strangest experience of my life. Only my desire not to go insane calls for me to share it with you here. Now before you get that look in your eyes please bear with me and open your mind to the weird possibilities that what I share is true and genuine.

I was drivin down road and it was almost a white out. Snow coming down like I had never seen. So much snow was coming down that it actually started to accumulate in significant amounts on the hood and roof of the car! Blasting out of my speakers its one of my favorites… Buddy Holly and the Crickets, "Rave on, it's a crazy feelin' and I know it's got me reelin…' Next up on the hit parade its early Stones and, how appropriate for a blizzard, 'Paint it Black' pounds out a beat through the 6x9 speakers. The next thing I know I’m sitting warm in a roadhouse.

At the time I didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Still don’t. Only hindsight provides that I must have skidded off the road as I swerved to avoid hitting a deer or something and I guess my car was wrapped around a tree on side of the road. But that was several miles away from where I was found… in a snow bank outside a bar and had supposedly been there for several hours. Folks who were there said it was amazing that I wasn’t frozen to death or at least did not even seem to have any frostbite. Weird. Just a bump on the head.

People said I was seen talking with two men and had been for 3-4 hours both inside and smoking outside. They said that I stood up at my booth in the bar, looked straight ahead with a blank stare, then walked out the door across the street and passed out falling face first into a large snow bank. Then both men had casually disappeared when everyone’s head was turned… poof! They could not be found. Looking back now it’s like it’s all a dream sequence in a movie where everything is in slow motion with a white haze.

In Lubbock, Texas on KDAV 1310 AM every Friday and Saturday night at the local Roller Rink it’s the live broadcast of the 'Holly Hayride' featuring the kid with the funny glasses. Buddy was a llllllong way from the Hay Ride and west Texas only 18 months before he, the Big Bopper Richardson and Richie 'La Bamba' Valens died in a snowy Iowa cornfield in February 1959. Some say it’s the day the music died.

Brain Jones was a pain in the ass to everyone, even himself. As the Rolling Stones, a group he created, reached the pinnacle of success it was clear the band wanted Brian out. The hints were not subtle… they would forget to invite him to recording sessions or turn down his amp, his invitation to press interviews or other important events became nonexistent. It was very clear.

Now it was true that Brian had a bad temper and he also defiantly had a vision for the band keeping it blues based and a smaller UK concern rather than the greatest rock-n-roll band on the planet. He was not that ambitious, that was Jagger. Their plans were a lot larger than a little UK blues band.

And there’s no doubt that Brian was a Ladies Man siring 5 kids… possibly 9! He and Richards had a problem when Keith was found to be having an affair with Mrs. Jones. So there was a lot of motivation to have things change. Drugs? Sure. For Mr Jones smack (60s nickname for heroin) was it but when you dance with the lady called Heroin it’s sorta hard to go back to the Waltz. The bottomline is that it was his band simply 'wrote him out' of the script. They did not want to hang with him nor have a future with him musically or in business. Simple, Brian would not conform so I believe they killed him. Fired from the band and 3 weeks later he was found dead in his swimming pool on July 3rd 1969? Give me a break! It was rumored that Brain was starting a super group with Hendrix and John Lennon. To the powers that be if that was to come to pass it would present difficulties that they would just as soon not deal with. It was just easier this way. But there were no real answers and so many questions…

Some of the more immediate questions are; How did I make it from the accident to the roadhouse miles away? And how is it that in a town so small it only has one traffic light… how is it that nobody saw