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Jake Brennan
So I'm watching this new series on television. I'm not going to tell you which one it is, but it's got this super stylish dude from the 90s. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, I gotta, I gotta upgrade my wardrobe. I got, I gotta do something because I'm bored with everything in here. This guy looks so good. And every single scene you're just like, oh man, come on. You know, my problem is I basically have like two looks fashion wise. You know, it's just like I can do like, you know, kind of clean cut, sort of like collegiate, 1950s, 1960s guy or I can do like rock and roll greaser. Those are like my two looks. So I'm kind of limited with what I can do when I'm shopping online. Where I'm looking, however. Quince. Oh my goodness, it's so easy. So many different pieces that are versatile that you can mix and match with. That'll that'll fit many, many, many different styles. The new piece that I got, that's just fantastic. It's this 100% European linen relaxed short sleeve shirt. You can dress it up, you can dress it down, you can do a ton with it. It looks good in a variety of styles. Timeless. Very timeless looking. You put this on, you might be from the 1990s, you might be from the 1950s, you might be from the right now. Also, the organic stretch corduroy utility. This is awesome as well. Great for the spring. Excellent, excellent piece for the spring. Highly recommend. Quince has everyday essentials and I love the quality. Super quality lightweight cashmere sweaters. Sh short sleeve Mongolian cashmere polos which I've talked about their cashmere stuff before. Linen bottoms and shorts. Their tees are 100% Pima cotton in European jersey linen. Their T shirts rule. By the way, I say this all the time. It's worth mentioning again. Quint works directly with top factories and cuts out the middlemen. You're not paying for brand markup or fancy retail stores, just quality clothing right now. Go to quint.com disgraceland for free shipping and 365 day returns. That's a full year to build your wardrobe and love it. And you will now available in Canada too. Don't keep settling for clothes that don't last. Go to Q U I n c e.com Disgraceland for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com Disgraceland the comedy movie event of the year.
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice now streaming only on Hulu and Disney plus.
Jake Brennan
Time to party. That's a great attitude.
Podcast Co-host or Guest
It's a time traveling ass kicking movie event.
Jake Brennan
You sound insane.
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Starring Vince Vaughn, James Marsden and Asa Gonzalez.
Jake Brennan
I thought you were a clone. Well, clones aren't real, dummy. And time machines are super grounded in reality.
Podcast Co-host or Guest
Mike and Nick and Nick and Alice. Rated R. Written and directed by Ben David Grabinski. Only on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers.
Jake Brennan
Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a story about a rock star. It's got sex or a sex symbol anyways. And Kate Moss. And drugs. Lots of drugs. Heroin and crack cocaine and glorious rock and roll. But it's also a story about brotherhood and a suspicious death. It's a story about Pete Daugherty from the Libertines, a rock star and a rock and roll band that made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop for my melotron called shambolic Shasha MK1. I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to I want to love you by Akon. And why would I play you that specific slice of winding and grinding cheese? Could I afford it? Because that was the number one song in America on December 2, 2006. And that was the day that an unknown London actor named Marc Blanco fell to his death under mysterious circumstances after an altercation with Pete Doherty in his entourage on this episode. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, a suspicious death, and Pete Daugherty of the Libertines. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgrace. December 2, 2006. It was a late Saturday night in London's East End. In fact, it was just minutes away from Sunday morning. Outside on the sidewalk, everything was dead silent. Fourteen feet up, an apartment on the second floor was a different story altogether. Screams cried out from inside so loud that they echoed throughout the building. And they weren't the joyful, boisterous sounds of a Saturday night rave up. These screams were tense. They were menacing. They had the ring of a schoolyard fight. When the kids start circling up and the insults start cutting a little bit deeper, when the pushing and shoving gets a little bit more intense, when it feels like violence could break out at any moment. The sounds kept building. Louder and louder, darker, more frenetic, agitated, angry. Until it felt like something was going to explode. Suddenly, the front door of the apartment building swung open. A tall man was pushed out onto the sidewalk. He was so tall that his head nearly hit the doorway as he was forcibly shoved back backwards. He staggered back a few steps from the force of the blow and then the door slammed shut in his face. Down the street, a security camera caught the tall man as he started walking a few steps away from the building. Suddenly he paused, frozen in place for a few seconds. His mind made up, he wheeled around and started walking back towards the building. It was an impulse, a split second decision. Less than a minute later, it was a decision that would cost Marc Blanco his life. Back inside the apartment on the second floor, Pete Doherty, the pop star of libertine's fame, was waiting for the ketamine to take hold. It held the promise of total annihilation. Annihilation of all of his thoughts and worries. Soon it would leave a warm black void that he could float in for a few hours. Because despite his current status as an A list rock star, Pete Dougherty had a lot of worries on his mind. And despite the scuffle he just witnessed, Marc Blanco was far from the top of the list. Pete had court in the morning, which meant, inevitably, another drug test. Hence the ketamine in place of his preferred fix, a mixture of heroin and crack cocaine. Over the past three years, he had racked up dozens of arrests for possession. He'd been in and out of rehab and probation, and he quickly learned that unlike heroin and cocaine, ketamine didn't show up on the drug tests. There was his girlfriend. No, not the 19 year old girl sitting next to him. Pete wasn't sure if he could even remember her name. He'd only met her a few hours ago at a party at the hotel where he was staying. Instead, Pete was thinking about his fiance, the supermodel Kate Moss. The pair had just gotten engaged two months ago, but their on again, off again relationship was already hanging by a thread. The last thing Pete needed was Kate finding out about another dalliance with another young girl. Then there was his friend. It wasn't the stout and muscular man standing across the room from him. Johnny Hedlock was a live wire, especially when he'd been using cocaine. Earlier at dinner, Johnny stabbed Pete's guitarist in the hand with a fork when the musician made a comment that he didn't like. It's true, Johnny Hedlock was completely unhinged, but with the number of scrapes Pete got into, it was good to have a man around with Johnny's particular talent for violence. However, as the ketamine began to overtake him, Pete's thoughts weren't on Johnny. Tonight, like almost every night, Pete's thoughts were on the only man he'd ever loved, his former best friend, roommate and co founder of the Libertines, Carl Barrett. Only a few years ago, they'd been inseparable. They dropped out of school together to form the band. They moved into a dingy squat they called the Albion Rooms and started writing songs, spinning out a detailed mythology for themselves as marauding pirates sailing on the good ship ship Albion heading for an imaginary rock and roll utopia they called Arcadia. It was a mythology the British music press was only too happy to run with. They saw Pete and Carl as the next in a long line of competitive co leads of British bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Kinks and Oasis. When the Strokes and other American bands kicked off the early 2000s garage rock revival, British critics quickly found their answer in the Libertines. The band appeared on the COVID of British music magazine NME the week they dropped their very first single. It didn't matter that the song what a Waster was laced with so many profanities that it could never make it onto the radio. When their debut album, up the Bracket, came out a few months later, the magazine gave them its Best New band award for 2003. But success bred competition between Pete and Carl. Pete was furious when a song featuring Carl on lead vocals was selected for the band's performance on the Late show with David Letterman. Carl raged when the Pete written single Time For Heroes went higher on the charts than his songs add into the mix copious amounts of drugs, alcohol and every other rock and roll excess and soon their brotherhood was curdling into bitterness. By 2006, Pete and Carl were mortal enemies. Pete's new band, Baby Shambles, was in constant competition with the group Carl was leading Dirty Pretty Things. They competed for airplay, for tour dates, for chart position, and in 2006 it looked like Carl was winning. Dirty Pretty Things hit the top three of the UK album charts and put three singles into the top 40, while Pete's band had only managed a brief stint at number 10. So between tour dates, court dates, women troubles and a frantic attempt to outdo Carl with his next Baby Shambles album, Pete had a lot on his mind that night. After the party at his hotel started getting out of hand, Pete went looking for a place to get stoned and chill out for a few hours to try to get his head on straight before he had to head back to court in the morning. That's what he hoped to find at his friend Paul Roundhill's apartment that night. Paul was an artist and his apartment was a hangout for a for a certain group of the in the know London bohemians. It was a place where Pete could sit for a few hours or for a few days and write songs or match wits with the painters, the poets and musicians constantly circling through the apartment that Paul liked to refer to as a literary salon. Of course, the neighbors referred to it differently. They called it a crack den. Copious amounts of drugs were bought, sold, traded and consumed in the flat, and the police were called more than once to break up a gathering. Just a few years earlier, another British singer songwriter named Paul Cunafee wandered out onto Paul's balcony after taking drugs and plummeted to his death. The police ruled it was a freak accident and no one was charged. Still, the neighbors whispered to each other about the drugs and the wild behavior. They all knew it was just a matter of time before something like that happened again.
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Jake Brennan
Pete Doherty heard the sound of metal grinding on metal as a prison guard slid open the heavy iron door of his cell. He and his three cellmates looked up in confusion as the guards stepped aside and the prison chaplain walked in. Pete had only been in lockup for a few days, but he recognized the older man's salt and pepper hair and his kind smile a rarity in the grim atmosphere of Sheppey prison. He was surprised as the chaplain stepped toward him, but Pete was intrigued by what he carried in his hand. Not the hand with the Bible. Sure, Pete had grown up going to church with his parents and sister. His father was a major in the British army, so church was a familiar comfort as the family bounced from one base to another. But it had been years since he stepped foot inside of one. It was what the chaplain carried in his other hand that caught Pete's attention. A battered acoustic guitar. The instrument was scratched and scuffed and it was missing two strings. But after a month without touching a guitar, Pete was jonesing when he reported for lockup. Pete was terrified about going through heroin withdrawal in prison, but he didn't need to worry. It turned out scoring drugs in jail was even easier than on the street. But what he hadn't counted on was how hard it would be to withdraw from music. Now the chaplain was holding the guitar as he bent down to look back Pete in the eye. Pete's mom had written him a letter begging him to check in on her son. His explanation had Pete's cellmate snickering with laughter, but Pete pretended not to hear. Was 2003, and Pete was only a few days into his first stint in jail. But he was quickly learning to keep his head down. There were some people in this prison eager to make a name for themselves by thrashing a quasi famous musician. Like the guy who came after him with a sock full of nuts and bolts on his first night in lockup. Fame put a target on his back. So did his well publicized heroin problem. On his second day at Sheppey, three prisoners burst into his cell while he was alone. They backed him into a corner and then strongly implied that they could score him heroin as long as Pete was willing to, shall we say, return the favor. So Pete ignored the laughter from his cellmates and accepted the the chaplain's invitation to take a walk. He knew a sermon was coming his way, but it was worth it if he got a few minutes with the guitar. As they walked across the prison grounds, the chaplain launched into a speech about Pete's drug use. Pete pretended to listen, but his eyes were locked on the guitar until finally the chaplain handed it over. He told Pete he could play for 20 minutes before he had to go. Back in his cell, Pete grabbed the worn down instrument and sat on a sunny patch of grass outside the prison's ugly stone chapel. He tuned up the four strings as best he could and started Strumming through the first song that came into his head. It was a song still bouncing around the UK Top 100 singles chart, a Velvet Underground Oasis mashup that he wrote with Carl that they called Don't Look Back into the Sun. Tears welled up in his eyes as he remembered the last time he heard it. A few weeks ago, he was crashing at a friend's apartment, waiting to be sentenced. He flipped on the television one night and saw Carl and the rest of the Libertines with another guitarist in Pete's place bashing through the song on BBC's Top of the Pops. Seeing the band on television without him was painful. But now, strumming the song alone in the prison yard, the reality of what he had done finally began to sink in. Pete was in jail for a crime so bizarre, so shocking, so utterly stupid, that he wondered if he would ever play with the Libertines again. Back in July, the rest of the Libertines were out playing the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan, but Carl had insisted Pete stay home until he could clean up. Rather than taking Carl's advice, Pete took the opportunity to go on a bender, all the while getting angrier and angrier at the demand from his friend. Finally, he convinced someone to drive him over to the central London flat that Carl shared with his sister to see if his bandmate really was off in Japan. The apartment was empty when Pete arrived, but after three days of smoking crack, he was convinced he could see shadows moving inside of the room. He banged on the door and demanded that Carl come out and face him. And when there was no answer, he kicked in the door, leaving a size 11 Reebok print clearly visible. He wandered through Carl's living room in between paintings and pictures of the band, where there was a large framed poster from a Libertines gig Carl had played without him. Rage boiled up. Pete wanted to burn the poster. He wanted to ransack the apartment instead. He quickly grabbed one of Carl's vintage guitars, a harmonica, a laptop and some cash from Carl's sister's room and he threw the items in the back of his friend's red Ford Fiesta and they headed home, where Pete promptly passed out. When he woke up the next day, he barely remembered the break in until the police showed up. Thanks to a tip from Pete's girlfriend who thought he needed a wake up call as well as the shoe print from Carl's front door, cops had all they needed to book Pete for burglary and the memory came roaring back as Pete finished playing the song on the battered Acoustic guitar. He felt fat tears rolling down his face. But he also felt the wood of the instrument reverberate against his skin and the steel strings against his fingertips. Pure, uncut music. After what seemed like an eternity without it, for just a moment, he could imagine a world where music was all he needed. He could repair his relationship with Carl. He could reunite the band. He could leave the drugs behind. And for the rest of his time in prison, that's more or less what Pete Daugherty did. On October 8, 2003, when he was released after serving two months, he was as clean as he had been in years. And when he walked out of the prison gates, paparazzi were waiting to snap his picture. There was someone else waiting for him as well. Carl Barrett. Carl hugged Pete in an embrace and tossed him into the passenger seat and the pair tore ass toward Kent. And they weren't going to take it easy on Pete's first night on the outside. Not by a long shot. They were headed for a small pub and music club called the Tappin Tin. A young booking agent who worked there had been writing letters to Pete while he was locked up. Together they planned a small acoustic show informally billed as the Pete Doherty Freedom Gig. But now the buzz was building that this was going to be much more than a solo acoustic performance from Pete. Tonight would be a full blown Libertines reunion. When the pub opened, more than 300 people squeezed into a space designed for half that number. And by the time the band hit the stage, it was pure pandemonium. Kids were everywhere, pogoing up and down, climbing onto the stage and working themselves into a frenzy while the band ripped through a dozen cathartic songs. It was freewheeling rock and roll chaos at its best. NME would eventually declare the Freedom show the gig of the decade. They sent a photographer to document the night. He snapped a backstage picture of Carl with his arm around a bleary looking Pete Doherty, both showing off their matching libertine tattoos. It was an iconic indie rock image that would eventually adorn the COVID of the second Libertines album. Not everything ended on a high note, though. Someone in the crowd passed Pete some heroin and he shot up in the bathroom despite promising that he wouldn't later. The party spilled out into the street in an improvised conga line and Carl tried to jump a parking meter and missed. He landed on his chin and skidded a solid 10ft across the sidewalk. When he stood up, blood was soaking his white T shirt and there was a hole in his chin so big that you could see his teeth through it. A few dozen stitches and a small scar seemed a worthy price for a memorable night. Pete and Carl both found Pete felt hopeful about their renewed partnership and a second Libertines album. For a moment, things seemed bright, but darkness was looming for Pete. More drugs, more chaos, and more bloodshed. We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word.
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Jake Brennan
March 2004 Mick Jones of the Clash was feeling it. He had his hands up in the air and his hips were swinging in that little dance that he always did during a great studio take. In the tracking room, the Libertines were slamming their way through a new song called Can't Stand Me now, their first of the day. Mick signed on to produce the album was listening in the control room, and he liked what he heard. The song was written by Pete as a duet. It was a song about a love gone wrong. It wasn't about Kate Moss, who Pete wouldn't meet for another year. Instead, it was about the love between him and Carl. It was structured like an English indie rock version of Johnny Cash and June Carter's Jackson. Only instead of a married couple bickering about the flame going out, it was two brothers calling each other out for controlling behavior and rampant smack addictions. Mick was nervous about starting with this one. The lyrics were so raw and direct, but it quickly became clear he didn't have any choice. Although the band booked a week of rehearsals before the session, this was the only song they had ready. Watching Pete and Carl leaning into their lines, shouting back and forth, he knew it was worth the risk. The electricity of their performance was impossible to miss. Standing practically nose to nose, the two front men conjured up years of frustration. In three and a half minutes, Mick knew the song was a winner. That's why he was working with Pete and Carl again, despite all the hassles, because they make great music. Mick had also produced the band's debut album, up the Bracket. Back then, Pete and Carl had been a handful, but Mick had been through his share of tense studio sessions with Joe Strummer, and they still managed to make plenty of great albums. He could handle the tension and his steady hand and impeccable rock credentials kept Pete and Carl relatively restrained during sessions for the first album, which snuck onto the top 40 of the UK album charts a year later. The follow up album was hotly anticipated by fans in the music press. No one had any doubt that it would hit number one if they could actually get it made, that is. MC knew that the last time Pete and Carl spent more than 48 hours together, they were supposed to work on new songs for the album at the home of their manager, Alan McGee. Instead, they got into a fight and Carl got so drunk that he bashed his face into a bathroom sink until his eye was literally hanging out of the socket and he needed 70 stitches to repair the damage. So Mick was more than a little concerned about the prospect of Pete and Carl spending a week recording together in the same room. The bodyguards would help, though. Alan McGee, who had dealt with his share of combustible brotherhoods as the manager of Oasis and the Jesus in the Mary chain, decided to hire bodyguards for Pete and Carl to make sure they didn't try to kill each other during the recording sessions. The presence of the two burly men unnerved Mick, but fortunately the vibes have been great so far and the bodyguards had spent most of the morning shooting pool in the tracking room. The band brought the song to a thundering climax. The ending was so good that Mick made a mental note to try cutting it and using it as the song's intro. It seemed like the right move for a song that was about an ending. Mick motioned for the band to join him in the control room. He lit a spliff and inhaled as he sat back in a chair. The band, a pair of studio engineers and the bodyguards all filed into the room into stood around a long glass coffee table. Hearing the song again through the speakers, it was clear to Mick that they had just captured Lightning in a bottle. The song practically jumped out of the speakers. It felt like a number one song. Not wanting to lose momentum, Mick quickly asked Pete and Carl what song they wanted to do next. Carl threw out a suggestion and Pete shot it down. Pete suggested another, but Carl spat back that that song didn't seem finished. Mick felt the tension rising in the room. Pete suggested they set up a small digital recorder at Carl's apartment so the two of them could flesh out a few of the songs between sessions. Carl's eyes narrowed into slits. You mean the apartment that you broke into? He asked. Everyone was silent as the question hung in the air and Carl continued. My sister won't even let you step foot in the apartment. Mick stubbed out the spliff in an ashtray and jumped up from his seat. Time to jump in before things got worse. So he walked across the control room and saw Pete staring speechless at Carl from across the glass table. He looked like he might break into tears or possibly rip Carl's head off. Better to start off with a gentle approach, Mick thought to himself. He reached an arm toward Pete and Carl. Boys, boys, what's all this about? He asked softly. Carl looked at Pete with a sneer. His eyes were still burning with anger. It's nothing, Mick, he said. Pete just can't handle his brown. Before Mick could react, Pete launched himself across the glass table at Carl. As he tackled Carl, they both went down in a heat and Pete started punching him wildly in his face and stomach. Mick was shocked. In the past, Carl Carl had been the more aggressive one. Pete would rather run than fight, but maybe prison had changed him. Fortunately, the two bodyguards rushed in. One easily lifted Pete in the air by the waistband of his jeans and the other held Carl back as he screamed about wanting to finish things outside. After struggling for a few minutes, eventually both Pete and Carl calmed down. Mick shared a few choice anecdotes about scrapes he and Joe Strummer got into while recording Combat Rock, and they even managed to lay down a few more songs that day. But after the fight and the emotional drain of recording Can't Stand Me Now, Pete's heart wasn't in it. Something about hearing the words he had written for Carl being sung back at him. He'd always imagined that Carl hated him on some level. After recording the song, he knew it was true, and thanks to the tenacity of his bodyguard, Pete showed up for the next few sessions. But his partnership with Carl had fractured beyond repair. Besides, Pete was looking forward to new bands, new experiences, new friends like the ones who were hanging around his apartment every morning when his bodyguard showed up. The crack dealers and groupies and other so called artists that inhabited his world. Now. While the rest of the Libertines were mixing the album, Pete was in rehab and when the band was playing festivals, Pete was in court on a series of drug possession charges. And by the time the second album hit number one on the charts, Pete was out of the band indefinitely. Without Carl trying to reign him in, Pete's drug use spiraled even further out of control. Chaos followed him everywhere, violent Altercations with paparazzi, trashed hotel rooms, canceled gigs. And on one fateful December night, for an unknown actor with dreams of stardom, a brush with Pete Doherty would mark his last night on earth among the living. Mark Blanco started off his Saturday evening on December 2, 2006, like he did most Saturdays at the George Tavern. Mark was intelligent, Cambridge educated. He was a trained actor, and his friends said he had real talent. But he struggled to land roles. He also struggled to connect with people offstage. He had a hard time finding his place in the vast London art scene. At the George Tavern, though, he finally felt like he'd found a community here. He made friends with artists like Paul Roundhill, whose so called literary salon was just around the corner. The George Tavern was where Marc Blanco decided to put on a Play. He was 30 years old and tired of feeling like life was slipping by. He was tired of waiting for some director to cast him. Instead, with the help of some friends, he would put on his own production right there at the tavern. For his debut, he chose Accidental Death of an Anarchist, an Italian play based on the real life death of Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist who fell to his death under suspicious circumstances while in police custody. Mark threw himself into the production. He acted in the lead role. He directed, he did the marketing. Which is why, as he put away a few pints at the George that Saturday night, he had a stack of flyers for the show tucked into his jacket pocket. As he ordered another round, a friend popped into the pub with an excited look and he said that the rock star Pete Doherty had just turned up at Paul Roundhill's apartment. When Mark heard the name, his ears perked up. He knew from the tabloids about Pete's reputation as a druggie and as half of a celebrity couple with Kate Moss. But he also read that Pete was a true artist, someone with deep knowledge of poetry, books and plays. Hell, he'd named his band after a Marquis de Sade novel. In short, Pete Doherty was the kind of man who might be interested in a new do it Yourself theater production. If you could get Pete to attend the play, then he had no doubt that attendance would go through the roof and the play would be a success. And Mark was determined to make it a success. So Mark set off for Paul Roundhill's apartment, arriving just around midnight. And whether it was the excitement, the pints, or his all consuming desire to make the play a success, witnesses say he was drunk and aggressive, or at least overly enthusiastic. When he began talking to Pete about the play, he cornered Pete badgered him about attending. And then when Paul and Pete's bodyguard, Johnny Headlock, tried to back him away from Pete, he refused to leave. Pushing and shoving broke out. Witnesses from the apartment building heard screams. And then Johnny Headlock and Paul forcibly pushed him out of the building. After taking a few steps away, Marc Blanco decided to return. Why? Maybe he left something behind. Maybe he wanted to get the final word. Maybe, as Pete suggested, he wanted to make a dark artistic statement with a brutal final act. What we do know is that just 57 seconds later, the same security camera that captured him leaving the building showed his body plummeting to the ground and hitting the sidewalk. What happened to Marc Blanco? The police were quick to rule the death a suicide and later an accident. But there's no evidence that Marc Blanco was suicidal. Toxicology reports didn't show any drugs in his system, although his blood alcohol level was elevated. A forensic analyst claimed that reverse projection techniques indicate a second person was on the balcony with Mark Blanco before he died. The security camera shows Pete Daugherty, a young woman and his bodyguard all running from the scene moments after Mark's body was discovered. They step right by the prone body, pause to yell something up at the balcony, and then sprint away. Was this because Pete Dougherty wanted to avoid another arrest for drug possession and another negative tabloid headline? Or was it because they knew something more about what happened to Marc Blanco? There's also this. Two weeks after the death, Johnny Hedlock walked into a police station and confessed to murdering Mark Blanco. You heard that, right. He confessed to the crime, but an hour later, he recanted. During his interrogation, he was so high on cocaine that the police questioned the validity of his confession from the start. Meanwhile, just a few weeks after Mark Blanco's death, Pete made the extraordinary, some might say extraordinarily tasteless decision to make a video of himself singing a brand new song in the same same flat where Blanco died. And the name of the song? The Lost Art of Murder. The Libertines reunited in 2010. Since 2014, they've put out two new albums and toured with more regularity than in their early 2000s heyday. Pete Daugherty, for his part, says he's clean. He says French cheese has replaced heroin as his drug of choice. He also says he knows nothing about what happened to Marc Blanco during the latter's final 57 seconds in that apartment. And maybe there's nothing to know. Maybe it was just a freak accident. Just another in a series of horrific events that accompany Pete Doherty's slide into darkness. To the surprise of many, somehow Pete managed to make it out the other side alive to repair his fractured relationship with Carl Barrett to continue making great music. But not everyone who followed him into the darkness would would be that lucky. And that's a disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Disgraceland. All right guys, thanks for listening to this episode of Disgraceland. Pete Daugherty Listen, and I want to know Question of the week this week. What do you think happened? Do you think Pete Daugherty had anything to do with the Death of Mark Blanco? 617-906-6638 voicemail and text. Let me know what you think. You can also email me disgracelandpodgmail.com hit me up on the socials@graceland pod or in the Patreon chat. Go to disgraceandpod.com to sign up to become an All Access member today to unlock exclusive and ad free content, guys. Appreciate y'. All. Here comes some credits. Disgraceland was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page@gracelandpod.com if you're listening as a Disgraceland All Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to Disgracelandpod.com membership. Members can listen to every episode of Disgraceland ad free, rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and Facebook Disgracelandpod and on YouTube@YouTube.com Disgracelandpod Rocka Rolla He's a bad, bad man.
Episode Date: March 24, 2026
Host: Jake Brennan
This episode dives into the wild, chaotic life and times of Pete Doherty, frontman of the Libertines and Babyshambles. Beyond the familiar tabloids—drugs, high-profile relationships (notably with Kate Moss), epic band rivalries, and run-ins with the law—Jake Brennan tells the darker story of a suspicious death: that of Marc Blanco, an aspiring actor who met his end after a contentious night involving Doherty and his entourage. The episode weaves together Pete’s rise, his creative partnership (and rivalries) with Carl Barât, tumultuous relationships, infamous incidents, and the deep costs of rock and roll excess.
“It’s got sex—or a sex symbol, anyway. And Kate Moss. And drugs. Lots of drugs. Heroin and crack cocaine and glorious rock and roll.”
—Jake Brennan [02:41]
“Ketamine didn’t show up on the drug tests... Hence the ketamine in place of his preferred fix: a mixture of heroin and crack cocaine.”
—Jake Brennan [06:26]
“Tonight, like almost every night, Pete’s thoughts were on the only man he’d ever loved, his former best friend and co-founder of the Libertines, Carl Barât.”
—Jake Brennan [07:54]
“Carl looked at Pete with a sneer. His eyes were still burning with anger. ‘It’s nothing, Mick,’ he said. ‘Pete just can’t handle his brown.’”
—Jake Brennan [25:40]
“Two weeks after the death, Johnny Headlock walked into a police station and confessed to murdering Mark Blanco... but an hour later, he recanted.”
—Jake Brennan [33:13]
Jake Brennan’s narration is edgy, dramatic, and immersive—a mix of sardonic humor (“He says French cheese has replaced heroin as his drug of choice”), streetwise detail, and noir-style storytelling. The episode combines rock mythology with gritty, true-crime tension, maintaining reverence for the music and skepticism of official narratives.
This episode peels back the mythos and mayhem surrounding Pete Doherty, centering on not just his destructively charismatic ways and the at-all-costs chaos of British indie rock, but the tragic collateral casualties of that world—especially that of Marc Blanco. Listeners are left to question: When lives swirl in the orbit of fame and self-destruction, where does the line between accident and crime blur?
Listener Question:
“What do you think happened? Do you think Pete Doherty had anything to do with the death of Marc Blanco?”
—Jake Brennan [End of Episode]