KEITH And The Cockroaches

Take me to the airport And put me ona plane I've got no expectations To pass through here again *

Toronto has no Main Street, but for fiveweeks Keith Richard was in exile anyway. It had been a cold, cold winter. When he arrived, the waterfall at the Harbor Castle Hotel was frozen. Lake Ontario was a solid sheet of ice. When Richard finally departed five weeks later, spring had already sprung. He's hoping it's going to be a long, hot summer.

Take me to the airport

Gideon Music

The purpose of his visit was simple enough. The Rolling Stones were planning to record some unpublicized club dates for their impending live album. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had different ideas.

Customs officials seized some hash and one blue Tic-Tac from Anita Pallenberg's purse when she arrived in Toronto with Richard and their sevenyear-old son Marian. Both substances were sent down to the lab to be analyzed.

Only three days later the RCMP visited the hotel, surprising the lead guitarist with the news that he'd been busted for heroin trafficking. Although the band hadn't even played yet, their renegade rock image was making front page headlines. Again.

"It's them that publicize it, not us," Richard said later, bored with drug busts and anxious to play. "Nobody gets up and says 'I'm taking drugs and you should too'. It's only when they come busting into your room and then splash it all over the newspapers that anybody knows about it."

An endless onslaught of 'This could be the last time' stories surrounded the band's two-night residency at the 300seat El Mocambo Club. Every time the

Stones tour the public assume it's their swan song.

What was really weird was having your leg stroked In the middle of'Let's Spend The Night Together Still, It felt perfectly natural.

With a maximum sentence of life imprisonment hanging over Richard, rumors spread like a malignant growth; people were asking who the new guitarist was going to be.

But Keith Richard is the Rolling Stones and he's determined to continue sending personalized Morse Code rhythms around the world. While the club dates were a nostalgic return to theiv roots, so was all the vindictive press.

Any cop could bust any rock band any time. But the Stones get attention as frequently as the Mounties get their man. They bust them 'til they break. That's what happened to Brian. Brownie points and a promotion for the guy who brings in the big one. But Keith Richard is tough.

"They might try to put me away for a bit, but I ain't going to be in there long," he threatened.

"This is like living in an airplane," Anita Pallenberg mused, staring out the window of their 32nd floor suite, surrounded by overstuffed ash trays and empty ice cream containers. "It's like life imprisonment now."

"Right," Keith agreed, bored with his exile accomodations. "Life imprisonment at the Harbor Castle Hotel for a month."

dust to keep things in perspective, the Rolling Stones appeared at the El Mocambo, proving that the real excitement remained in the music, rather than sensational liasons with Margaret Trudeau or brushes with the law.

Although the passes had TENTATIVE stamped all over them, these club dates were for real, as the Stones swayed from the ridiculous to the sublime. Back in August of '76 they played to a festival crowd of 200,000 in Britain. Six months later they played to 300. Only the Rolling Stones could make that kind of transition. That's why they call them the world's greatest rock 'n' roll band.

The selective audience was strictly invitation only, culled from local AM radio station CHUM contest winners, who answered the question "WHY I WANT TO PARTY WITH THE STONES."

Many winning entries, both raunchy and rude, gave Keith Richard and Ron Wood a good laugh. One knowledgeable rock fan wrote, "I would like to go to the Rolling Stones' party because I really like their music, especially 'Stairway to Heaven'."

Less musical letters provided lightweight relief. One female fan wrote, "I truly believe that Mick Jagger is God, and this would certainly beat fondling his pictures in the privacy of my apartment incinerator closet."

SeveraJ entries wore a Performance guise. One memo from someone named Turner said, "I'm the real Mick Jagger and I'd like to meet the sonofabitch who thinks he's me."

And there were the rude ones. One listener confused the station call letters. "Dear CUM, I mean CHUM," this enticing entry began, before asking the million dollar question: "How many of you guys do I have to suck off to get to Toronto?" (This from a male admirer)

Despite the fact that nobody thought it would work, the Rolling Stones actually played two brilliant nights at the small club. Margaret Trudeau attended both performances, bouncing up and down near the mixer when she wasn't taking photographs.

Maybe It's not bad Margaret Trudeau was involved,,. Instead of everything Just being centered on me and the Stones it involved the prime minister... ■ ■

On Saturday night she wore Canadian jeans. "These are Canadian," she said, pointing to the identifying tag. "They always yell at me for wearing American jeans."

Even the band dressed down for the occasion. Mick Jagger dropped his Yves Saint Laurent pajama pose for more functional attire. Indeed, it took more than a couple of numbers to adjust to seeing the Stones on such a small stage.

The stage was small and the ceiling low. Ollie Brown had no space between the top of his head and the top of the club ceiling, playing in a somewhat cramped position. Kicking off with "Route 66", the Stones were literally going back to their roots, dipping through the past gloriously, giving vibrant life to their ever-evolving future.

Throughout the week, they rehearsed from midnight 'til dawn in a seedy room next to an all-night Gulf gas station. Everything was loW-profile, including the food, supplied exclusively by a cafe down the road that specialized in soggy ham and cheese sandwiches.

Night after night they ran through songs they hadn't played onstage in years, like "Around and Around" and "Little Red Rooster"; songs they hadn't played onstage before like "Crazy Mama", "Memory Motel" and "Dance Little Sister"; and two new tunes. Even at rehearsals the spontaneous atmosphere was contagious.

The Stones had come full circle, proving that they really could do it all. By morning, people would begin to arrive for daytime sessions, always inquiring about the strange noises emanating from Studio One. "It's a band called the Cockroaches," they were told. "Oh yes," each replied, pretending they were hip and knew all their records, "the Cockroaches."

The Friday night gig was good, suffering only from lack of sleep and energy on the part of the guitar militia. By Saturday night Wood and Richard had caught forty winks and were armed with enough lethal ammunition to fatally wound the entire club. Words of praise become superfluous. Suffice to say it was simply sensational.

The atmosphere in the club was authentic barroom stuff, complete with necking couples, spilled drinks, knocked-over tables and numerous attempts to touch Jagger. Only a kiss away, Keith and Mick signed autographs after "Let's Spend The Night Together".

"What was really weird," Richard said later, "was having your leg stroked in the middle of 'Let's Spend The Night Together'. Still, it felt perfectly natural."

And it sounded even better. Charlie Watts looked like a trad jazzer with loose shirttails and beat-up blue jeans. Keith Richard was rock 'n' roll incarnate; bent knees swaying to the addictive rhythm, fag in mouth, Jack Daniels bottle within reach, and hair standing in just-out-of-bed disarray.

An old Bo Diddley tune, "Cracking Up", was given the reggae treatment, as Wood and Richard pummeled the roof into the ground. "Worried About You", a song recorded during the Black and Blue sessions, was majestically funky. "Crazy Mama" featured a guitar section of three, as Jagger attacked an electric with the same rhythmic inclination that Richard excels in.

Songs like "Rip This Joint" and "All Down The Line" show just how much Ron Wood has improved from his '75 debut American tour, effortlessly filling in Richard's empty spaces: The band played on the same rhythmic pattern, beating like one large heart in perfect synch with Richard's metabolism.

There was no sense of reality in the club, as the band turned in an unorthodox performance with off-thewall humor. "Last orders, please!" Jagger screamed at one point. "The more you drink, the more we get."

"Man, that Mick Jagger is all right," one fan later told the interviewer. "He shook my hand, man—that's OK. Wanna shake my hand? It'll cost you ten dollars."

Jagger had enjoyed the small stage, working the crowd with face-to-face confrontations, giving off lecherous stares at the little girls down front. Wood and Richard shone, creating a euphoric electric rapport, speaking in six-string foreign languages. Longtime Stones associate Allen Dunne enjoyed himself as,much as the kids, sporting a t-shirt that asked the musical question: "Just Who The Fuck Are The Rolling Stones Anyway?"

"Listen man," Ron Wood told Jagger off-mike, in a voice loud enough for the audience to hear, "don't let the crowd know, but what are we doing?"

Yeah, this is the first time I've been caught with my pants down, so to speak.

"I don't know," Jagger replied. "Keith keeps putting guitars on and taking them off."

During "Starfucker" Richard battled Chuck Berry to oblivion as Ron Wood totally obliterated Harvey Mandel's vinyl solo on "Hand of Fate". It was great.

"Around and Around", "Little Red Rooster", "Mannish Boy" (a variation on "I'm A Man") and "Dance Little Sister" supplemented more orthodox stage numbers. Midway through the set the whole floor was vibrating, in perfect synch with Richard's metronome-like pacing. Perhaps it's only rock 'n' roll, but it's better than drugs.

The next day the Stones made all o( the front pages, and local deejays mumbled euphorically about the con-.' cert. They really were that good. Still, Margaret Trudeau received more attention than Mick Jagger, with tacky headlines like "THE FIRST LADY WHO GOT TURNED ON BY THE STONES".

By Monday morning it all seemed like a crazy dream. Both Anita Pallenberg and Keith Richard were due in court, bringing everyone back to depressing reality. Gloom and doom permeated the Harbor Castle. Photographers waited in the lobby, poised for the kill.

Anita was fined $400 for possession of hash. They let her off for the blue Tic-Tac. Richard appeared in court twice. Each day fans slept outside the courtroom door, as if waiting to buy tickets for a concert.

With an additional cocaine charge added to his problems, Richard faced the heaviest charges in his colorful career. Released on bail, his passport was returned, and he departed once again for the prison-like hotel.

As hotels go, the Harbor Castle ain't bad, but spend five weeks at any hotel and it will drive you crazy. Entertainment revolved around the movie box which stubbornly refused to change. Burt Reynolds and Robert DeNiro changed places daily, while more enticing flicks like Flesh Gordon and The Story of O ran regularly at night.

A j week after the historic performances, the party of 48 had dwindled to 10. Richard kept sane by working in a local studio at night, mixing some live tapes and recording some^Merle Haggard and George Jones country & western songs. Flaunting a perfect natural twang, his voice sounded great and his guitar even better. Working on emotions more personal than Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, he easily displayed his all-around versatility.

Which makes it even sadder that the media concentrated on all the other supposedly scandalous events which had surrounded the Stones. Keith Richard embodies everything rock 'n' roll stands for every time he picks up an instrument, walks into a room or speaks in rhythm patterns strong enough to make you dance.

After a British court case in January when Richard was convicted of possession of cocaine, he summed up the frustrating situation of facing a seemingly endless battle with.the law: "Being famous is OK," he drawled laconically, "but in the courtroom it only works against ypu."

Toronto was the same song and dance. The man on the street believed him guilty 'til proven innocent, and indeed, the chances of a fair trial seemed impossible with people asking questions like "When's the sentencing?" They also asked for autographs.

After watching Lolita, Keith Richard sat down to talk in the airplane-like atmosphere of his 32nd floor suite, impatient to leave Toronto. He did not expect to pass this way again.

"They won't start fighting 'til I get out of here, for obvious reason?," Richard said, sporting a hunting vest with. 1001 pockets. "From the kind of bust, it was obvious the way the media would react."

"This really is the first bust," Anita said, almost as familiar with legal procedures as rock 'n' roll lifestyles. "All the other busts don't really count. This is the first real one."

"Yeah,'''Richard drawled, "this is the first time I've been caught with my pants down, so to speak." His face broke into a snicker. "All the same, 'til we get out of here we won't know if they went about it the right way."

Stranger than fiction, the trafficking charge read like a tacky novel. All descriptions of versatility notwithstanding, Richard does not make his living pushing dope.

"It's not uncommon when it's those amounts, although in a way, it isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it might make things easier," he said optimistically. "I can stand up and say 'not guilty' because it's so ludicrous."

Just as absurd was the media coverage.

"The whole thing is out of proportion because it's me and they know who you are. The best thing you can do-about it," he said without bitterness, resigned to his role of the bad boy of rock. "It's always been like that."

An editorial in the Toronto Sun, "Toronto's other voice," lent credence to his words. It was hard to believe the piece was written in '77. The editorial made sure Richard would never receive a fair trial. It was entitled "Rolling Stoned" and carried a cartoon that featured Pierre Trudeau climbing up a mountain passing a sign that read BEWARE OF ROLLING STONES, making his way towards the POPULARITY PEAK as Margaret fell down the tumbling rocks. Welcome to 1964.

TURN TO PAGE 66.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 43.

"That's on6 of the reasons it's very difficult to get what they call a fair trial. With things like that written in the paper they're prejudiced because you're so well known. You're prejudged before you enter the courtroom. I'll have to fight more than an ordinary person."

The media complained that he is not being treated as a so-called "ordinary" person. Yet an ordinary person is supposedly innocent until proven guilty. .

"It's them that are doing the treating, not me. It's up to them. There are so many unknown factors involved that it's almost impossible to talk about. The fact that such things are written in the newspapers means that the whole thing might get thrown out of court."

Among his other crimes, the papers resented the guitarist's millionaire status.

"That's just straight jealousy," he drawled. "There's nothing to say that I haven't said about the other busts big or '"small because ybu're just up against the same forces and attitudes every time."

Despite surface calmness, this charge was frightening. The morning Richard was due in court enough people mumbled things about immediate imprisonment to make everyone edgy. Forget about Nils Lofgren, but Keith don't go.

I don't know if it's more frightening," he said slowly, staring into space, "it's...it's just a drag. It's depressing to think you've got to go through all that again, the whole procedure.

"The moment of apprehension comes when the jury goes out. Up until that moment it's just a bore. It doesn't matter if it was a big or small bust because what they're going to do is sew it up and end it.,

"On one hand, they say the Rolling Stones and rock musicians in general are corrupting the kids, but if they just left us alone and didn't come looking for drugs then nobody would know if we had a drug problem or not," he rationalized.

''It's all just a camouflage," Richard said, determined to battle the opposition. "It's like the Interpol thing. Until they decided to have a war on drugs in the '50s the drug problem was very, very small. It's only when they got up on their hind legs and started to declare war on narcotics that the drug problem grew 200 and 300 percent.

"What's really ridiculous,"he mused, "is they're not really busting the people they should be getting." *

As Anita popped a legal blue Tic-Tac into her mouth Keith read some sympathetic fan mail, some of ft written on Exile On Main Street post cards. Even at the El Mocambo the audience screamed "Good luck, Keith!".

It's the same thing with this or any other bust because people have already made their minds up with the Stones and /drugs. "Nothing new," Richard said of his ancient "Don't let your mother marry one" image. "It's not like we've never been busted before."

Yet this Canadian coup brings everything back home. It stopped being the Rolling Stones years ago. Right now Keith Richard is taking the rap for the whole rock biz. As he said before, it's time they picked on someone else and let him carry on and be elegantly wasted.

"You can only differentiate up to a point. The Stones are involved, and I am the central figure as much as Mick is the central figure on stage. But still the Stones are involved. It's just a shift in emphasis."

Long overdue, the onstage perspective seems-lo be shifting as from stage center to stage right as Keith Richard is finally gaining recognition, stepping out from behind Jagger's well-lit spotlight.

"Well, I don't know about that," he said with an almost humble lack of confidence. "As far as I'm concerned, the Stones don't work enough for that to be noticeable."

Yet even some of the press gave Richard his just on stage musical deserts.The New York Times declared that without Richard there wouldn't be a Rolling Stones while Canada's leading news magazine, Macleans, admitted the only way Margaret Trudeau couldhaye received more "press would have been to arrive at the club with Richard. Now that's star quality.

"The national press usually stay away. But obviously when there is a bust and Margaret Trudeau, not just the music trades, we're simply stuck on the show biz page. The whole media get invojved so you pick up all the shit, all the trash," he said, glancing at a pile of black and white garbage that lay on the floor.

"She used you," Anita declared.

"I don't know," he says, partially agreeing. "I'll probably end up Using it as much as she used it. The press is just as guilty as anybody. After all, they chose to blow it up in the first place.

"Obviously, it catches the public eye, otherwise it wouldn't be on fucking page one the first day. The fact that People Magazine ran out of copies means that's what everyone wants to know."

Still, it's more than slightly ironic that the prime minister's wife would be hanging out with the Stones while the country wants to send Keith down."'

"Exactly," Richard said emphatically. "She's bigger than Jackie Onassis now."

"Even Bianca Jagger," I suggested.

"That's not difficult," Richard said, laughing.

What with "STONES SCANDAL WITH THE FIRST LADY" exploding In the press, all the exposure could have had an adverse effect on the eventual outcome of the case.

"I don't know if it's bad or not," Keith reflected, "it's impossible to know until the whole thing is closed. Maybe it's not bad Margaret Trudeau was involved because it took it out to a completely different level. Instead of everything just being centered on me and the Stones, it involved the prime minister of the fucking country.

"Actually,". Anita put forth, "she prefers the Beatles."

"That's just the dumbest thing," Keith said, laughing, as dawn begins to break outside the airplane suite. "The things they were fishing for: was Margaret Trudeau fed up? Was she going to leave her husband to run off with a rock 'n' roll band? That's what they were really trying to get 'round, but the way Pierre handled it made more out of less, unfortunately.

"Obviously he didn't know what was going on, because if he did he would have tried to cool things out."

What with all the legal commotion, Richard arriving late for rehearsals, and Jagger dashing off to New York because his daughter Jade had appendicitis, rehearsal time was cut short. Consequently the Stones' five-night stint at the El Mocambo was shortened to two.

"You were ready to go onstage," Anita said with authority.

"Yeah, but the band needs rehearsal, not to learn or remember, but to shake off the rust. Just as a unit," he stressed. "Individually everybody is ready for the stage in a minute, but not collectively after such a long period of not playing."

Addicted to touring, Richard has been complaining for years that the Stones don't play enough. Ideally he'd like to restructure the big business rock hierarchy, making it possible to play every weekend, balancing out arena concerts with more intimate club dates.

"Sure we played a club but it's still just a one-off," he said, anxious to do more. "Things have got to change. It's great we did it—anybody could have done it, but they didn't. .That's why bands break up. Especially the bigger they get. .

"Every band should be able to play a place like that no matter how big they are. The actual way to run a rock 'n' roll band is to play 8-10 gigs a month. Then you wouldn't have hassles from not playing for six months.

"It shouldn't necessarily be a hassle to do a club, because it's to everyone's advantage," he enthused as a rough mix of the club dates spun an energetic "Route 66" around and around the room. "The band gets an awful lot from staying in touch and playing a place like that. It's such a turn-on and it does the band a world of good."

Considering that the last time the Stones played onsfage they played to a huge outdoor festival crowd, stepping onto a club stage for the first time in ten years must have felt more than strange.

"Actually it didn't feel strange at all, it felt perfectly natural," Richard replied, as the tape supplied ample proof. "That's how it should be. That's how it started off. It felt dead right.

"It feels much stranger every time you go out on one of those huge stages, because that's an unnatural environment.

"It's much easiet to have audience contact in the club-," he said, laughing about the leg stroker. "When thousands of people want to see you you've got to do those big places. But there's no reason why you can't do clubs, too."

What with tables and chairs being knocked over and the ceremonial end-of-show buckets of drenching most of the crowd instead of the usual first few rows, playing in a club seemed more exciting. It certainly felt good.

"It's different, but I don't know about more exciting. From a sound point of veiw it's a turn-on," Keith smiled, pleased he could hear Charlie hitting that all-important back beat. "Rock 'n' roll has to keep in touch with the back room. That keeps the band better.

"Big concerts are more of a celebration; by the time you hear a band it's so far removed from the music we hear. It's similar to the difference between the master tape and having the record in your hand. It's already two or three generations removed. By the time the sound gets to you at the concert it's already gone from the band to the P. A. to the mixer, and echoed round this enormous space, before it gets to you," he said, rhythmically inhaling the sentence. "In a club you hear the drums just as they are, not through the speakers. That's the difference."

The newspapers reported that the last time the Stones played a club date was back in '63—the band can't quite remember when. Regardless, electric deja uu currents ignited the audience with high voltage energy. As the show gained momentum, it almost seemed possible to be electrocuted by simply reaching out to touch.

"The biggest change in any band's life is when they're taken out qf the, small gigs they've been playing, making a record that's been selling for God knows why, and suddenly finding themselves in a concert auditorium.

"That's the biggest thing a band ever has to cope with, the change from small clubs and ballrooms to a concert date, " Richard recalled, as if those days weren't so far away.

Having successfully conquered . mammoth arenas and triple delay sound systems with theatrical panache and plain old rock 'n' roll, going back to the beginning seemed a logical if slightly horizontal Stones progression. 300 people can yell "Yeah yeah YEAH" on "Brown Sugar", just as loud as 15,000.

"You get so used to having that distance between you and the audience that suddenly being face-to-face with them makes you wonder how it used to be," Richard said, recalling the collective burst of El Mocambo stage fright. "It makes you wonder if you can still handle it. It's like going back.

"Whereas it used to be really frightening to come out from the clubs to find yourself on this huge stage with this huge gap between you and the audience. Scared to death we were* back then," he laughed. "Then suddenly you get it in reverse.

"What's strange is that you realize that you've become used to it, and the thought of it not being there is like some protective barrier being taken away. What's great," he said, flashing a satisfied grin, "is that it feels perfectly natural. A band that sounds good is always going to sound better in a club.

"Wheri you're playing large halls, every concert is a battle, to some extent, to get the sound across. Most of the time it's acceptable," said this sound fanatic. "But on a few occasions, it's downright terrible. In a club you can control it; then it's just as natural as rehearsals."

Although Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue tried to present small-scale shows, it's hard to believe that the Rolling Stones succeeded where others have failed. With a minimum amount of fuss they pulled off the coup of the year.

"There's no other way to go," Richard predicted. "The future has to be in smaller places, otherwise they'll have to build bigger auditoriums to beat the attendance records. It's not even so much going back. It's just not staying out of touch. The band can do itself musically so much more good doing a few gigs like that."

Most likely the live album will be a double, three sides culled from their American '75 tour and the European '76 jaunt, and onq glorious El Mocambo tribute-to-yesterday side, offering a sneak preview of tomorrow.

This live album will surprise a lot of people who dismiss the band as relics. It's a lethal guitar album, pushing Keith Richard to the front with undeniably brilliant playing, more his own than Chuck Berry's. The Rolling Stones might be the biggest thing in rock 'n' roll. Again.

"At,least we get to do what we want to do, although as far as I'm concerned we just don't get to do it enough," this touring junkie complained, already restless for more conqerts. "We can't seriously line up any gigs until this thing is over and done with. It would be really nice if the case doesn't come up to trial, if it's thrown out for one reason or another. That is a possibility."

The trial is set for June 27, and though it might be Keith Richard's last appearance in Toronto, it certainly isn't the end of anything else. The Rolling Stones might prove to be indestructible. Whether or aot Margaret Trudeau will cover the next live Stones date for People Magazine is a mystery, but one thing is definite: Keith Richard can't wait.

"All I wish," he said, laughing, "is that everybody who bought People Magazine would buy the fucking records."