I Dream of Keith
How James Brown and Chuck Berry made my Rolling Stones fantasy a reality. Almost.

BY MIKE EDISON

The last time I had drinks with Keith Richards was at the Apollo Theater, 20 years ago. James Brown was playing, uncharacteristically slogging through his set. It was not a good time for the Godfather of Soul. He was coming off of an angel dust binge, an interstate car chase, and assault and weapons charges. He was facing a six-year stretch, and already he was dragging the mic stand around like an inmate with a mop. I decided to go out to the lobby to have a smoke. Keith, apparently, had the same idea. He was by himself, back against the wall, communing with a cigarette and a glass of whiskey.

Meeting Keith was not without kismet: I had just seen him on the big screen, celebrating Chuck Berry in Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll, the concert film he’d helped produce and played a principal role in. But I didn’t dig it: The band was overpopulated with bloated Stones sidemen, too slick by half, and pockmarked with cameos by somnambulant classic-rock dinosaurs. The toughest numbers exhibited the ferocity of fabric softener. It was a flabby affair all around, and pretty obvious that Chuck didn’t even want to be there.

In the lobby of the Apollo, Keith looked good. Maybe a little drunk. I certainly was. He was very relaxed. His eyeliner was applied flawlessly. Later someone told me that he had it tattooed on so it wouldn’t smear.

Unfortunately, my earnest desire to know exactly what precipitated the disaster of a film came out more like, “Dude, what the fuck were you thinking? The whole movie sounded horrible.”

Keith leaned forward. Suddenly
he looked a lot like the Ancient
Mariner must have to Coleridge in
his most vivid opium dream.
“Chuck is a motherfucker,” he told
me, eyes glittering. “I love the guy, but he is impossible to work with. You
want a drink?”
I walked over to the bar with Keith. I gave him a Marlboro, and we talked
some more about Chuck Berry and James Brown, agreeing that this was not
James’ best night. Keith shrugged, as if to say he loved James but he was a
motherfucker, too.
We smoked and drank Jack Daniel’s for a while before a handful of people
drifted out into the lobby and recognized him. It did not help that the guy
selling crappy James Brown souvenir T-shirts started yelling, “It’s the Rolling
Stones! It’s him! The Rolling Stones!”
Keith told me he had to get going, and we shook hands. What a gentleman.
There I went and insulted him, and his reaction was to buy me a drink. Which
reinforced the recurring Rolling Stones dream I have had since high school, in
which Keith is always perfect, and Mick is invariably a dick.

In the Dream, it is never cool Mick, circa 1972. It is never the Mick who loved Little Walter so much that he decided to quit business school to learn to blow harp like him, or the Satan-sympathizing Mick who was born in a cross-fire hurricane and likes his blues sloppy and dirty, or who wants to stay up all night talking about French existentialism and dabbling in newfangled designer drugs. No, it is always the Mick who thinks he looks dashing in pastel track suits and that it is somehow important to do duets with Christina Aguilera and Axl Rose, and he dismisses me like a spoiled princess. Keith ignores him and motions me over to a set of drums.

I feel guilty because Charlie isn’t around. I love Charlie and don’t want to sit in without his permission. Keith tells me it’s okay, just have fun, but somehow I always wake up before we start to play.

None of the other Stones are ever in the Dream, although in real life I once stood next to Ron Wood at the taping of a Jerry Lee Lewis television special, which was plenty weird enough. Ronnie is about five feet tall and looks like a cross between a cartoon magpie and my Grandma Florence. When it was his turn to get onstage, he promptly forgot the words to the song he was supposed to sing and opted instead to mug ineffectively with a borrowed Stratocaster. It makes sense that if he can’t even get it up to sing with Jerry Lee Lewis, then he certainly has no business percolating in my subconscious.

But my friend Keith is a man of the
people; he is pure of spirit and still
believes that in old-time rock’n’roll,

there is salvation, and he would never take his fans or, God forbid, the Killer, for granted. In the Dream he is nice as pie and gives me his phone number and tells me to call him, and I know he is being sincere. I always wake up confident that Keith and I are real pals, and someday I am going to go over to his house and am finally going to get to jam with him on “Starfucker.”

Mike Edison has played drums with GG Allin, Jon Spencer, and the Raunch Hands, but never the Rolling Stones. He is the author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Pornography, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Dirty Blues, Evil Bosses and the World’s Most Notorious Magazines (Faber & Faber).