"People think I'm immortal, an Highlander. There are photos that already portray me in the Middle Ages and others that date back to the Stone Age. I'm not that old, after all."
Thankfully a camera crew, filming the Rolling Stones’ unreleased documentary C–ksucker Blues, caught the master at work in 1972. Watch the grace and skill as he releases a set from the 11th floor balcony at LA’s notorious party hotel, the Continental Hyatt .
When all these problems combined, the result was chaos.
“It’s 30 years since I gave up the dope! Image is like a long shadow. Even when the sun goes down, you can see it.” So writes Keef in the opening of his long-awaited 2010 memoir Life, a truly incredible document from a man who crammed so much living into his ’60s and ’70s heyday that he should probably be dead at least a dozen times over.
-When cops raided a party at his country estate in 1967, Richards’ was apparently tripping so hard on LSD that he mistook them for uniformed dwarfs and welcomed them in with hugs for all. The resulting bust very nearly put him behind bars.
-The Playboy Mansion has clearly seen its share of debauchery (and Dave Navarros), but Keith went above and beyond when he almost burnt it to the ground during a party in the mid ’70s! He and sax player Bobby Keys had retired to the restroom to “play smörgåsbord” with some drugs, and somehow managed to start a fire. When staff broke down the door to put out the blaze, a totally oblivious Richards was enraged, fuming, “How dare you burst in on our private affair?”
Lingerie is particularly nice to look at. It’s even nicer to take off. I can’t say the same for my own lingerie. But a chick’s stuff – that’s made to be taken off. It’s part of the courting dance. A wonderful dance it is too. There’s nothing more beautiful than a great-looking chick removing her clothes. In fact, the only thing better is a great looking chick removing mine
-I purchased a S3 Continental Flying Spur, one of only 86 ever made, specially outfitted with secret panels to conceal my stash. I used the vehicle to go on a multi-day acid-tinged road trip with John Lennon, a journey which is “almost a total blank”.
Back in 1990, Keith Richards pulled no punches while recalling his final attempt at kicking heroin: “Cold turkey’s hard, but it’s only three days of climbing walls and then the fourth day you start to feel better. After that, you’re on your own, y’know? And it’s a matter of what it is you wanna do. I got off after that by. . . y’know, after 10 years on that stuff, you live in this other world, where everybody you know’s one. So the cats would come around and try to sell you stuff, so I started to get off — my high for a while was watching their faces when I said ‘no.’ ‘Hey man, just a taste, man.’ And just when they couldn’t make a sale just to watch their face, that would be my high.”
The Toronto mess. On February 27th, 1977 that Keith Richards was arrested in Toronto for possession of heroin. Richards, who was in town to perform with the Rolling Stones at the El Mocambo Club for their upcoming concert album, Love You Live, was awakened by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police who found five grams of cocaine and 22 grams of heroin in his room, among other substances. Richards was charged with “possession of cocaine and heroin with intent to traffic.”
