2Stoned
Andrew Loog Oldham
Seeker & Warburg, London-2002

I've never met Andrew Oldham. There was one time I came close but I was out of the country when he was in it… Summer 1994. I had a friend at the time-she slept with Andrew-which I thought was fine enough. If you're going to get fucked you might as well get fucked by Andrew Oldham as anyone. At least the lady had taste. Andrew got to hang out with Primal Scream, or rather, they got to hang out with him-but I'd been hanging out with the Scream for some years already. It all made sense somewhere. If I'd met Andrew I'd have got him to manage my band the Jacobites. Maybe he'd have done it. Maybe not. Now I'll never know…

2Stoned, like Stoned from two years previous is everything you'd want Andrew Oldham to be. Vivacious, at times vicious, cutting, mean, glorious, vainglorious, gorgeous, effervescent, ethereal, real and unreal. If you want the truth here you'll get Andrew's truth and what better pair of eyes to see the truth through. They may be clouded over from time to time but that just clocks the reality even truer. The truth keeps galloping from decade to decade-painting the picture with the years. The details come shining through. Much of this book is interviews with friends and others of Andrew's acquaintance-the book orchestrated by Mr. Oldham himself.
Though not born to money, like his band, the Rolling Stones, Andrew quickly acquired it and like luck it's never really left him.

Andrew chose the interviewees, and despite this-the truth is one phone call away-no one has anything bad to say of him. Which is a sign of being matched for glory. He made the Stones, he lost the Stones and spent the next thirty years recovering. But he has recovered and walks the road of gold… Which is as it should be-for if anything in this world is cool Andrew Oldham is cool!

My favourite line in this book of many lines runs: "As a result of my fear that books would disappear in the form we hold them I bought doubles of all my favourites. Now my walls feel like Graham Greene in need of 3-D glasses." You know where he's coming from, and many times you get to know where he's been. This is an essential book. If I was overly worried I'd buy two copies. One to get signed, one to read…

Summer 1994 and Andrew Oldham-overweight but not over the hill-was in London town. He got all the papers, or rather all the papers got him. He and Tony Calder were relaunching Immediate. He did blitzkrieg on the press for a week-got the headlines-then split back to Bogota. No Immediate relaunch. Just an Andrew coming and going. I think he just did it because he could. Because he's Andrew Fucking Loog Oldham. Sir Fucking Andrew. And because he's so fine. If he had of started Immediate III I'd have got him to sign me… Then I'd be in the book… Which would be a fair shuffle of the cards. But he didn't and I didn't and so far I'm not. But there's always another day…


Nikki Sudden-Berlin-November 10 2002.
(Spelling mistake-it's Alan McGee not McGhee)