Perth Voice Interactive

HE’S probably best known for shoving a boom mic in people’s faces.

During the 1980s and 1990s, Nick Broomfield made a series of innovative, gonzo-style documentaries like Chicken Ranch, Fetishes and Kurt & Courtney.

 Breaking with tradition, he would often appear on-screen, wielding his trademark boom mic and asking folk confronting questions.

The docos were self-reflective with Broomfield describing the topsy-turvy process of making the film, including failed attempts to interview people and dead-end leads.

Now in his mid 70s, the Englishman has ditched the trademark mic and no longer appears on-screen, but he’s still making documentaries.

His latest, about Brian Jones, the founding member of The Rolling Stones, is a slightly personal affair.

Broomfield met Jones on a train in London when he was a teenager and had a pleasant chat with the soft-spoken, fresh-faced musician.

A few years later, Jones was found dead in his swimming pool, aged 27, with an enlarged heart and liver because of drug and alcohol abuse.

The doco is a traditional, chronological affair, blending archive footage with new interviews and never-before-seen footage, including a new chat with Bill Wyman and excerpts from letters between Jones and his estranged parents.

Rebellious from the off, Jones was expelled from two schools, had a string of girlfriends, was only really interested in jazz and blues, and was kicked out his family home aged 17.

Growing up in post-war Britain, his conventional middle-class parents believed in discipline, manners and hard work, which made Jones rebel even more.

The good-looking blonde youth was popular with the opposite sex, but had a nasty habit of getting girls pregnant and then moving on to the next one.

This selfish side to Jones extended to his bandmates, who described him as being musically gifted but prone to mood swings, jealousy and bouts of cruelty.

There’s some excellent footage of the early Stones, which under the leadership of Jones was a hard-rockin’ rhythm and blues outfit, aping the sounds of Elmore James, Muddy Waters and Bo Diddley.

With his classic teardrop guitar and iconic hair style, an energetic Jones leads The Stones through early classics like Not Fade Away. 

But then Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began writing songs and the power dynamic shifted, sparking jealousy, insecurity and ultimately paranoia from Jones.

The rest of the documentary details how Jones’ musical prowess waned as he was consumed by drugs and alcohol and became a libertine dandy in the Swinging Sixties, thanks to the influence of then-girlfriend Anita Pallenberg.

It’s a sad tale and as Charlie Watts noted, Jones wasn’t robust enough mentally or physically to cope with vast amounts of alcohol and drugs.  

Towards the end of his tenure with The Stones, he was almost a zombie and incapable of doing anything at sessions, with the band unplugging his amp so it wouldn’t be recorded.

But amidst the decline, there’s some great cameos from the multi-instrumentalist – Jones contributed the sitar part to Paint it Black and the flute on Ruby Tuesday.

These little flourishes gave the music an exotic twist outside the confines of blues and rock, and there is whole raft of fans who think The Jones-era of The Stones was the best, his fey sensitive adding an extra dimension.

The film is well structured and entertaining, but it doesn’t really answer why Jones was so insecure?

There’s a brief mention of his short height (1.68m) and his strict parents who didn’t show him much outwardly love (but wasn’t that the norm in post-war England?) so at times it’s hard to feel sympathy for someone who was so self-destructive, despite having the world at his feet.

Jones died three weeks after being chucked out The Rolling Stones on July 3, 1969.

Over the years some of The Stones have admitted to feeling guilty about it, while others have said his behaviour was so out there they had no choice, and they were young at the time and didn’t know what to do (drug rehabilitation programmes were not commonplace back then).

Ultimately, maybe Brian Jones was destined to burn brightly and not fade away.

The Stones and Brian Jones is showing as part of The British Film Festival at Luna Leederville on November 21/26/30. 

by STEPHEN POLLOCK