London, England, February 28, 2004 (API) – Following a rousing and uneven performance at the Vortex Jazz Barr, cult performer Dusty Carr discussed plans to release the oft-rumored but never heard ‘Swimming Pools Tapes’, featuring performances by Carr and Brian Jones, the late, founding member of the Rolling Stones who died in 1969.

“Frankly, I’d forgotten about that stuff,” said Carr, referring to the musical collaboration. “Some kids found the tapes, just outside of Waco, Texas, in a house trailer that I used to own - I mean rent - back in the early 1970s.”

Carr says the songs were recorded beside Jones’ swimming pool, at Hartford, Sussex, during the evening of July 2 and the morning of July 3, 1969, just hours before Jones drowned ‘under mysterious circumstances’.

“Brian and I had been together for most of that week,” said Carr, wistfully recalling events of more than thirty years ago. “There was this small construction crew working on his house and the grounds. One day some worker woke me up at noon, hammering something. So I threw an empty bottle of Bols gin at him and cut the side of his neck open. From then on, it was a war! And I think that attitude is reflected in the music – somehow.”

Though the two musicians were pursuing different musical styles, Carr says that their friendship overcame dissension. “Brian was really into African beat music, which frankly gives me the creeps,” Carr explained. “I get lost without a melody. But we liked each other and compromised by sitting around his pool and cutting jumped-up versions of stuff like ‘Come Fly With Me’, ‘Misty’, and my song ‘You Are My Angel’. We also sang some Stones’ stuff that he’d written, like ‘Ruby Tuesday’.”

Carr said that when he left Jones for the last time, during the afternoon of July 3, the rock star seemed at peace. “You’d be at peace too,” Carr added, “with those kinds of drugs kicking down your veins.” Carr refused to speculate on the circumstances of Jones’ death, saying, “some of the same guys who drowned him – those builder guys that were working on his estate – if they ever found out I ratted they might come after me.”

Drake Collingwood, managing editor of NABS music magazine, was given the opportunity to hear the tapes before they underwent substantial editing and remixing. “What we have here is a true rock artifact, but it’s a pretty unsettling experience,” said Collingwood. “It begins with an enormous amount of screaming, and then the sound of someone getting punched, repeatedly, then a low sobbing. I believe I even heard an electric drill. At one point I distinctly heard a firearm discharged followed by the shriek of a cat. The music is interesting, but it’s the background sound that is truly captivating. Some of that will remain.”

Carr believes the tapes could be of value to people who are “interested in the meeting of two musical talents, one on drugs and sloppy, the other drunk but coherent.”

‘The Swimming Pool Tapes’ will be released mid-2004 on the EMI Collector Series.

The Animals, Jones and Carr, 1966

###