Beyond The Veil

‘SPIRIT OF BRIAN JONES’

recorded by

BEYOND THE VEIL

lyrics © Townshend/Kirton

The Rolling Stones was Brian Jones

Biggest band in the world

On a summers night in 69

Lost his life in the bottom of a pool

Or so they say - Or so they say - Or so they say

Long live Brian Jones - The Spirit of the Stones

Stairway to Heaven or Highway to Hell - That’s rock

Those inklined to un-lock the key

Lost his band in a sad sad way

He died with a broken heart

Oh he died with a broken heart

The band still plays today - The band still plays today - The band still plays today

Long live Brian Jones - The Spirit of the Stones

Stairway to Heaven or Highway to Hell - That’s rock

Left this life for a kinder world

His legacy was never told

Let’s roll away the stone

And let the truth be known

Long live Brian Jones - The Spirit of the Stones

Stairway to Heaven or Highway to Hell - That’s rock

In July 2006 I received an e-mail from Pat Townshend; somebody whom I knew nothing of, but who subsequently explained that he’d been following our progress, over the years, in our research into the death of Brian Jones.

In his original e-mail Pat explained how in the winter of 1963 he first became aware of Brian and the Stones when he went to his first ever live gig on Eel Pie Island. At the time Pat was making a name for himself in motorcycle racing and for those of you familiar with the early days of automotive engineering design and Formula 1 motor racing, the name Colin Chapman might mean something – well it was Chapman’s car the Lotus Elite which Pat saw parked in Twickenham that night and he says “in one magic night I received inspiration for my two passions, design/engineering and music, both of which changed the course of my life”.

Although Pat went on to work with the Brabham F1 team in 1968 he had become completely hooked on Brian’s guitar skills and musical genius and made a conscious decision to break into the world of popular music and used his impressive engineering skills to design instruments, initially his unique drum kits and then his revolutionary solid body guitars.

Pat became a close friend to Chris Jagger in the 70’s and later in the early 80’s, when his company Staccato expanded, Bill Wyman came on-board providing finance to develop the organisation into a respected name in the music industry, with many icons from those days paying top dollar for his unique products. Mick Jagger soon showed an interest and joined the board along with father Joe Jagger. The future looked promising and Pat soon found himself a close family friend to the Jagger family often visiting the home of Joe and Eva as well as being a house guest of Bill Wyman. However, things eventually turned sour and the promise of what might have been never materialised.

In 1985 Pat became part of the Rolling Stones ‘inner circle’ during the making of the ‘Dirty Work’ album at the Pathé Marconi studios in Paris. He saw at first hand the Stones creating their music, but he never forgot Brian and the inspiration he gave to him, as a young musician/engineer starting out in life. You can read more of Pat’s career on his website www.staccato-art.co.uk, in particular click on ‘newspaper clips’ where a lot more information can be viewed.

Soon after I met Pat Townshend his regard for Brian became very apparent. His creative skills soon came to the fore and a tribute to Brian in the form of a musical accolade started to materialise. The BBC’s interest in broadcasting a short documentary on our progress was also in the pipeline and, when the decision to combine the two was made Pat gathered a team of musicians together in a studio in Bristol, and the result was aired on the Inside Out West news programme on 6th November 2006. Other local BBC television showed the segment on their own Inside Out news programmes and just recently BBC Midlands re-edited the documentary for screening in my own local area, giving more publicity for our efforts.

Feedback for the song ‘Spirit of Brian Jones’, after the airing of the original Inside Out West programme was extremely positive and Pat decided to look into a professional recording, possibly for distribution and downloading from the Internet. Also by this time a second song was written and on Tuesday 13th February both the ‘Spirit of Brian Jones’ and ‘What Fame Can Do’ tracks were recorded by ‘Beyond The Veil’ at Purple Studios in Norwich, with mixing and final mastering completed for our label Stable Records the following week.

As many of you will know, for the past four years our group of researchers have been investigating the circumstances surrounding the 1969 death of Rolling Stones founder Brian Jones. Starting with material already in the public domain, a number of new witnesses and previously never disclosed documentation have surfaced that prove conclusively that Brian’s passing was not a simple ‘death by misadventure’ – as ruled by the then Chief Coroner for Sussex, Angus Sommerville. After employing the services of a UK cold case and forensic company and many experts in associated fields further discoveries were made that have now resulted in a near 300 page dossier of evidential matter much of which proving that the circumstances surrounding the death of Brian Jones were not as reported at the time.

Mid 2006 and a UK law firm specialising in miscarriage of justices cases reviewed our dossier and agreed to advise and represent us in achieving our aims of having Brian’s death re-examined. Procedurally this is a complicated process but with the evidential matter accumulated, our lawyers set about preparing all of the documentation for presentation to the Attorney General. This we hoped would be completed by February 28th 2007 (coinciding with the release of the single 'Spirit of Brian Jones), on significantly what would have been Brian’s 65th birthday.

However, in December 2006 an extremely significant new lead in our research was discovered and since late last year this crucial part of the investigation has taken precedent. We learnt that important documentation connected with this discovery had been kept secret by the UK Government. Application for this information is currently in progress and delayed our target date of February 28th.

Unaffected, ‘Spirit of Brian Jones’ by Beyond The Veil continued its progress towards being made available, as a download on I – Tunes and although we thought we could delay the release it has now in fact become available. A major independent radio station contacted Stable Records late last week and asked for details of our ‘unknown’ band as they wanted to add the single to their playlist.

So now we ask for your support. You can download the single from iTunes by clicking this link. I would like to stress that this is NOT a fund raising attempt for the BJFC nor the investigation and research work. This is a commercial venture by Pat Townshend and his band with the primary purpose of promoting and raising the profile of Brian Jones. If you’d like to help further please make your friends, family and workmates aware of the single and, if you can get airplay on your local radio station, then that will further raise the profile of Brian. If any further information is required please don’t hesitate to give my e-mail address editorbjfc@aol.com or the website address to any DJ who wants to know more.

Trevor Hobley

4th April 2007

Beyond The Veil

Lead guitarist Pat Townshend was first inspired to take up the guitar after hearing Brian Jones’ haunting slide guitar echoing around Eel Pie Island in 1963. Originally a graduate in engineering design, Pat combined his skills in race car and motorcycle development with designing and marketing the revolutionary Staccato solid body guitars along with his unique Staccato drum kits, enthusiastically supported by such luminaries as Keith Moon and Bill Wyman. Pat soon excelled in his mastery of the guitar and formed his own band, appropriately named ‘Staccato’ they had some success in South Africa along with many performances in the UK and the USA throughout the sixties and seventies. Today Pat lives in Norwich, continues to write songs, play local gigs and formed ‘Beyond The Veil’ as a tribute to his mentor Brian Jones – who he believes, way back then, WAS the spirit of the Rolling Stones – and the inspiration for an impressionable young man who turned his engineering skills from motor racing to rock music.

Singer and drummer Mick Kirton has had a long and varied career in the music business being sticksman for amongst others, the legendary blues guitarist Tony ‘TS’ McPhee; and when McPhee reformed The Groundhogs Mick was the obvious choice to take the drumming stool. Joined by ex-Chuck Berry bass player Alan Fish the band went from strength to strength and toured continuously. After leaving The Groundhogs Mick joined Dumpy's Rusty Nuts and was playing regular two night sell-out gigs at the world famous Marquee Club in London. In 1989 he joined Hawkwind returning to Dumpy's Rusty Nuts in 1995 playing one of Europe's biggest music festivals in Austria alongside Uriah Heep and Nazareth. The band went on to tour with the likes of Saxon, Dr. Feelgood, Walter Trout Band and Nine Below Zero. Mick now lives in the West Country and has his own recording studio, Satsuma Studios, where he also teaches drums.

Michel Austin aka Byron Jones of The Rollin Stoned, the hugely successful tribute band he formed in 1998. In his period clothes Michel certainly looks the part and his admiration for Brian is most apparent in his attention to detail, not only fashion-wise but also his great guitar and harmonica playing expressively reminiscent of his mentor. Originally trying to break into the music business Michel signed to Chrysalis Records in 1983 but things didn’t go well and, bleeding from the shark infested waters of the oppressive UK ‘pop’ industry he set off to hitch-hike around Europe. Gaining valuable experience Michel returned to London and embarked on a career in music promotions working alongside the likes of Cliff Richard, Blur and the Eurythmics. In 1991 Michel went back to his first love, performing live, and formed one Stones tribute band before establishing Rollin Stoned, the ultimate tribute to Brian Jones and the Rolling Stones.

Bass player Alan Fish started out in the music business in 1960 and throughout that incredible decade played on the same venues that featured all the greats including the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Who, Kinks, Manfred Mann, Chuck Berry, Nazareth and Status Quo. Continuing on through the 70’s and 80’s Alan went on to record with Razors Edge, the Groundhogs and Billy Boy Arnold before forming his own band Egypt in 1987 and, playing alongside guitarist Eric Chipulina and drummer Peter Correas they continue to produce their own dynamic blues rocking sound, very reminiscent of Bad Co and early Led Zeppelin combined with several self styled classic blues tracks from the likes of John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Elmore James. Over the past 25 years Egypt appeared all over Europe and the U.S. releasing several albums including their latest ‘Midnight Sun’ on the Stable Record label. Alan, living locally in Norwich today and a good friend of Pat Townsend was only too pleased to lend his skilled bass playing talents when the call came in.

London based John O’Leary is one of the finest ‘harp’ players in the country. Influenced by Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Walter and Sonny Boy Williamson, and later by Blues Incorporated harmonica player Cyril Davies, John became the founder member of the influential blues/rock outfit Savoy Brown, and by 1966 they were playing alongside the likes of Freddie King, Chicken Shack and Fleetwood Mac. Forty years later John remains at the core of the London blues scene and Savoy Brown still tour Europe and the U.S and his own John O’Leary Band recently cut the well received Sins album. Having met, and being a great admirer of Brian Jones, John’s evocative harp sets the mood for this tribute to the founder of the Rolling Stones.

BJFC members Jo Wood and Jane Hepworth complete the line up with their backing vocals. Initially in the studios along with Brian Jones’ old buddy Dick Hattrell as supporters of the venture, the ‘Essex Girls’ were soon ‘cashiered’ into the sound booth to add their voices to the soundtrack. Great work girls!

More photos from the recording session

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