Excerpt of the Day: "The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll" by Christopher Knowles

Sex.  Drugs.  Loud music.  Wild costumes.  Pyrotechnics.  Sounds like a wild rock concert, right?  But these words also describe the ancient cultural phenomenon known as the “Mystery religions,” whose rites often made Lollapalooza look like a church picnic.  In The Secret History of Rock 'n' Roll, author Christopher Knowles shows how, 2,000 years later, the mystery religions got a secular makeover when the new musical form called rock 'n' roll burst on the scene.  Don’t you want to find out how your favorite rock bands fit into the same archetypal roles as the ancient gods?

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Party Animals

The New Dionysians

The Dionysian archetype trades in sex ’n’ drugs ’n’ drink ’n’ mayhem—straight up, no chaser. These are the sex-crazed madmen of rock ’n’ roll, the bands that caused thousands of parents to lock up their daughters (and sometimes their sons) when they rolled into town. The parallels to the ancient Dionysian cults are many, and the effect was usually the same. The touchstone for the Dionysian rockers was the blues, but many of them have wandered far afield into more exotic musical genres. In their prime, these bands drove teenage girls out of their minds, creating newly converted bands of Maenads wherever they traveled.

The Rolling Stones

Storming out of London’s rock underground, the Rolling Stones played the bad-boys role in the British Invasion. The young blues fanatics were able to channel the spirit of heroes like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf largely because lead guitarist Brian Jones knew all those old licks by heart. Drummer Charlie Watts and bassist Bill Wyman were also well seasoned in the genres for which band leaders Mick Jagger (vocals) and Keith Richards (guitar) had more enthusiasm than proficiency.

The Stones were swept over to America in the Beatles’ wake, but they didn’t hit the jackpot until 1965, when “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” rocketed to No. 1. From then on, the Stones cranked out one dark, sarcastic hit after another. The band’s sexy, druggy aura also earned them scrutiny and scorn from the Establishment; one famous tabloid headline screamed “Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?” They became a cause célèbre after a notorious 1967 drug bust that threatened the band with serious jail time.

Things were going worse for Brian Jones. Marginalized by Jagger and Richards (later dubbed “the Glimmer Twins”), Jones became increasingly obsessed not only with drugs but with exotic foreign music, particularly the Pan Pipers of Morocco. He finally left the Stones in 1969, only to be murdered by a disgruntled handyman in July of that year.

Around the same time, the Stones fell under the spell of Kenneth Anger, who introduced them to the works of Aleister Crowley and Church of Satan founder Anton LaVey. Jagger reportedly wrote “Sympathy for the Devil” under Anger’s influence and recorded a startlingly avant-garde soundtrack for his 1969 film Invocation of My Demon Brother, using cutting-edge synthesizer equipment. But the Devil would catch up with the Stones by year’s end.

Having missed out on Woodstock, the band held its own free festival at the dusty Altamont Raceway on the edge of California’s Central Valley. The Stones hired the Hell’s Angels to provide security, and the Angels proceeded to pummel with pool cues anyone who got too close to the low-rise stage. The entire concert was a disaster, and the bikers killed a disgruntled fan who rushed the stage with a gun. The Stones survived the ensuing uproar, but they seemed to lose something vital after Altamont.

Still, their 1970 opus Exile on Main Street is considered a milestone, and they enjoyed a string of hit singles like “Angie” and “Heartbreaker” throughout the Seventies. Some Girls (1978) was a smash hit, giving the band a second wind. Their most satanic innovation came long after “Sympathy for the Devil,” when the Stones pioneered the concept of corporate sponsorship of rock ’n’ roll for their 1981 world tour. The band continued to score hits throughout the Eighties, but for many diehards the glory days were long over. Many saw their Eighties and Nineties albums as perfunctory, simply excuses to wrest funds from their record company for their mammoth stadium tours. But whatever one thinks of their later records, the Stones’ stamina certainly can’t be faulted. And their influence is incalculable, even on younger bands who’ve never heard much of their music. The Stones’ lascivious DNA is firmly implanted in rock’s genome.