
STONED
Director: STEPHEN WOOLLEY 

INTRODUCTION 

Brian Jones was the first martyr of rock and roll. Before Jimi. Before Janis. Before Jim. His life was the first of many rock and roll mini sagas that would replay themselves over and over throughout the latter part of the sixties and well into the seventies; all different, yet all frighteningly and eerily similar in their downfalls.
Brian Jones entered the 60s young, ambitious, energetic and hungry about the future of his new band built around his newest obsession, the blues. He went about it with fervor, leading the band and in the beginning being responsible for much of the Rolling Stones' musical experimentation with different sounds and instruments. In the beginning, it was Brian who used his charm to push the band's name around London when many were unsure of what The Rolling Stones and R&B were all about. The Brian Jones that exited the late 60s however, was a frail, unhealthy and ultimately sad shell of what he used to be.
Brian Jones' legend has, as with all young R&R martyrs, grown and his excesses have been chronicled extensively over the years. In the end, the question remains not so much if he was murdered but what other incredible contributions could or would he have made to music had his life not ended so tragically.

SYNOPSIS 

Artist, popstar, fashion icon, womanizer and counter culture groundbreaker- Brian Jones was all these things and more. During the seven short years of his glittering rise to stardom and fateful plummet between 1962-1969 he became a music legend- creating the greatest rock and roll band ever, which he later treated with ill-disguised disdain.

Having reinvented the Blues, he turned his back on the world of pop and found more pleasure in scoring movies and recording ethnic music in Morocco.

Described as one of the most decadent men of the twentieth century Brian rebelled against everything and when he wasnt hating the world, he adored it- an aesthete who loved to tease, his consumption of drugs and alcohol were legendarily copious and his temper vicious. His paranoia was becalmed by L.S.D, which led to paranoia. He became the boy who cried wolf.

Brians life was a mirror for the swinging sixties- the world was at his feet but he became, like his good friends Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, lost in his own mesmeric stupor. Affecting the attitude of a Greek god, he inspired in equal measure, adoration and apathy, trust and disgust, which led to misplaced emotions, confusion and often betrayal.

This is not the story of the Rolling Stones after Brian died in 1969 the Stones created their own legend- Mick became more flamboyant, Keith indulged his proclivity for drugs, Bill was a heartbreaker and also left the band eventually and Charlie was the Jazzman and musicologist. But Brian was all of these things in 1963. This is a murder mystery about the death of one of the most talented musicians of the 60s who couldnt or wouldnt write pop songs. He died at the hand of someone he barely knew on a friendless summer night having cried wolf for the last time.







Official Site: STONED