Where Do All The Wild Boys Go?

It was the first night of August, 1970. My brother and I shared the same bedroom. At three o’clock in the morning my father came into the darkened room and woke us up. Although the room was pitch black I could tell there were tears streaming down his face.

“Boys”, he said slowly. “Your mother is dead. Prepare for the worst. Nothing will ever be the same again”. And he was right.

In those days if you lost a parent either by death or divorce you were looked upon like there was something wrong with you. Your classmates all looked at you like you were odd. Perhaps they were looking at you for signs of mental decay. It wasn’t something so easily identifiable.

You held the hurt inside you, but it wasn’t really something you could talk about. No one wanted to listen, anyway. My friends had more important concerns, like sports and school. They weren’t even thinking about girls at that point.

Something new was in the air. Even the religious boys in my school couldn’t resist the lure of the new movement called glam rock. I remember hearing a kid or two singing “All The Young Dudes” as they walked to class. It was a long step away from the hippie dream of the past couple years.

Everything sounded differently, and everything looked differently.

Music gave me consolation from the loss of my mother and there was nothing more exciting than the records of T. Rex, David Bowie, Slade, Roxy Music, Sparks and an endless flood of glamour bands all dressed up like spacemen from a kaleidoscopic planet.

The glam club to go to in West Hollywood was Rodney’s English Disco. The club not only played great glam records that drove me crazy but also provided me with a crash course in gender bending. It was one thing to look at pictures of rock stars in eye shadow and lipstick, but to see it in person was something new.

Boys and girls alike dressed in silver and gold lame, bright satin pants with huge elephant flares propped up in sky high leather platform shoes. Every kid looked like a superhero. Not to be left out, I ran out to the Sunset Strip on weekends to get a cheap, affordable outfit to fit in.

Every night there was exciting, even the off nights. You never knew who was going to drop in. On a regular weeknight you could see Iggy pop, Kim Fowley, The Kinks, Rod Stewart or Candy Clark. And the kids dressed like mad peacocks. My hormones were ready to explode.

The next day I made the terrible mistake of telling a friend at school about the new glam club. His name was Artie and he had no capacity for confidentiality, so once I leaked my account of going to this cool pace he very loudly demanded to go, too. Very loudly.

“Let’s go tomorrow night. Field trip!” he practically yelled. Our classmates turned up their noses.
“I heard about that place…Nothing but faggots”.
“You’re going to check out the freaks, Artie? Look no further. There’s Andy”.
I sneered right back.

So friend Artie drove me there the next night. I was duded out in my little glam outfit, but…Artie. He was fairly conservative looking – shirt hair, beard, dressed in faded corduroy, heavy-set, not an emaciated glitter rocker type boy at all. As we hung out in the loud, colorful club all wrapped up in silver, he yelled in my ear.

“Look at that dufus in the make-up! He’s got a dog collar on!”
“Please!” I freaked out. “Not so loud! People can hear you!”
“I don’t care if they can hear me. That guy looks retarded. Ugh! Look at that girl, oh she’s so hot!”
“I’m going to get a drink”, I said, anything to get away from him embarrassing me.

The regret I felt was that my private safe harbor from overbearing religion by bringing in someone who peppered his comments with Yiddish expressions and Borscht Belt humor. Bringing in someone from the Boring World ruined my enjoyment of the Wild World. I wanted to kick myself. What a buzzkill.

I avoided Artie for the next few days at school. In between classes he spotted me and cornered me in the hallway.
“Hey!” he said, diving into a small bag of potato chips, crumbs hanging in his beard. “Where have you been? The kids at the club have been asking about you”.
“What? What club?”
“You know! Rodney’s. They guys from Sparks were there last night. It was great”.

“You went without me?” I was incredulous. “I thought you hated the place”.
“Oh, those guys are okay, They just look funny. I met this really cool girl there last night, and you know, she’s Jewish. We spoke Yiddish for a few minutes”.
“What?”
He continued grabbing chips like it was his lifeline to survival.

“And you know that goofy guy with the carrot topped head? He invited all of us to his hotel room after the club closed. It was pretty cool”.

I couldn’t believe my ears. “They like you making fun of them?”
“Nah, I stopped once I figured they were alright. Hey, let’s go after Shabbos. Josh is coming with us!”
I thought I’d shit. Instead I backed out. The great irony, as I was going to learn soon enough, was that for all my bravado I didn’t change Artie’s life. He was about to change mine.

Rodney’s English Disco closed down a year later. As the rabbis in school taught us, like is mostly about loss. Nothing stays around; everything eventually vanishes. I was still distant friends with Artie, more distant than usual because he kept up his nightclubbing ways. Now he was bragging about a club called the Sugar Shack which played disco.

“It’s just like Rodney’s, Andy”, he cracked open some peanut shells.
“No, it’s not. It’s just a disco. I fuckin’ hate disco!”
“You don’t understand. The Sugar Shack is the coolest club”.

Telling me wasn’t enough. He had to show me.
Picking me up from home one night I asked him, “Hey, what time does Serpico go on?”
“Showtime starts in an hour. I think we can make it a half an hour before it starts”, he promised. I grabbed my coat.

While he drove Artie talked about good times at the Sugar Shack. “In between the disco records they snuck some Suzi Quatro in”
. “Oh”, I was bored. “That’s different. I guess…Hey, I thought we were going to Westwood to see Serpico”.
“What?” he accelerated the car. Suddenly we were speeding.
“This isn’t the way to the Crest Theater. Where are we going?”

Artie’s face broke into a nervous sweat. “Oh, uh, I thought we’d stop off somewhere before the movie. You know, we’re still kind of early”.
“The film’s going to sell out and we won’t get in”.

Artie didn’t say anything. He just turned up the music on his 8-track player and drove even faster. I felt like I was being kidnapped.

Not only were we not headed to Westwood, but we were definitely going east towards West Hollywood, Santa Monica Boulevard in particular. When we reached a club with blackened walls with even blacker windows Artie pulled over and parked.

“Come on, this won’t take long. You’ll really like it. Just like Rodney’s English Disco!” he charged towards the club like a bull. I eyed him suspiciously.

Once I got in I knew I’d been set up. The PA was playing “The Hustle” and “Get Dancin’” at roaring, deafening levels. I looked around and there weren’t platforms to be seen. Just lots of men and more men in denim and open polyester shirts dancing around in the darkness. Not a woman in sight.

I’d seen posters of gay bars whenever I walked around Santa Monica Boulevard so I knew what to expect: a lot of Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen clones walking around displaying tough macho vibes and betraying it with feminine coquettishness.

“Isn’t this great?” Artie gushed. “I’m getting a beer. How about you?”
“No”, I was steamed. I felt shanghaied into going to this club because he knew I’d never want to go here. I was fit to be tied.

“AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE MISTER STUD 1975 CONTEST!!” a voice barked over the sound system. The crowd hooted and hollered. “CONTESTANT NUMBER ONE, PAUL PARKER HE’S LEAN, HE’S MEAN AND HE’S READY FOR ANY SCENE…TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER! PAUUUUL PARRRKER!!!”

An athletic man with sandy blonde hair began dancing to “Boogie Wonderland”. He was barefoot and I thought he was trying to be Tarzan but I was wrong. First he pulled his sports shirt off, displaying his muscular chest. The club roared their approval.

Artie came back with his beer. He was enjoying the show. The dancer then pulled his white denim jeans down. Another big round of approval came up. All he had on left was a microscopic bikini.

The song was almost over so I thought he was done, but he definitely wasn’t. His show-stopper was ripping off the bikini to the screams and swoons of the crowd. Dancing wildly, I saw this tiny dingle swinging up and down furiously to the music.

“Oh my God!” I looked away.
“Ahahahaha!” Artie was choking with laughter.
“Can we go to the movies now?” I whined. Artie ignored me.

Well, we got to see more contestants and more wieners for Mister Stud 1975. There was more frantic stripping to disco records as the night went on, and even Artie got bored after awhile. He took me home and I was fuming with rage.

It was nothing personal, though, I later found out. He pulled the same stunt with my brother and his friends. After awhile I just went to the movies by myself. The gay bar shanghai treatment became his modus operandi every weekend.

I didn’t see Artie for a few months after that. A little Artie goes a long way. Finally he apologized for the subterfuge.
“Could you come with me to this girl’s house? I have to talk to her and I’m kind of nervous”, he worked at a dramatic stammer.
“I don’t know”, I sulked. “I kinda wanted to practice my saxophone”.

“Come on. I’ll buy you a Moby Jack and fries”.
“Well”, I realized it was still daylight so there would be no night club frolics. “Okay. What’s this girl like? You never told me about her before”.
We walked to the car. “It’s weird. I have to deal with her brother before I can talk to her”.

He drove me into West Hollywood, not far from the club. We pulled up to a beat apartment building with an upended plaid sofa on the sidewalk and a bunch of soiled diapers in the gutter. We went up to the third floor and Artie knocked on the door.

“COME ON IN! I’M NOT DECENT!” a voice yelled.
We entered to a messy apartment with an open bed, scratched records all over the floor along with men’s and women’s shoes, pants, bras, fashion magazines, smeared makeup, lipstick containers, and whisky bottles. Lots of whisky bottles. There were about four youngmen in there. Two had clothes on, one only had a pair of pants on, and the last was completely naked. The nude jumped around a lot.

“Hi, what’s happening?” a dressed young man with wavy blonde hair asked. He looked bored and slightly annoyed to see us. “Are you holding?”
“Oh, I know him. You were here the other night”. A brunette with curly hair mumbled.
They didn’t seem to like him much.

“Is Sandra here?” Artie asked nervously.
“Who?”
“Oh, he means Billy. That’s Billy’s drag name”.
“Excuse me, could you not talk while my favorite record in the whole world is playing?”

The nude boy jumped right by us and screeched, “PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“Um, yeah”, Artie stammered. “Sandra Billy”.
“Oh, well she’s at work”, the blonde deadpanned. “She’ll be home soon”.

“What did this guy get me stuck in now?” I thought. It was always some situation. Artie kept telling me he wasn’t gay and I kept getting further and further into the life without even asking for it.

The youngman in only pants had a sad Sal Mineo look about him. He stared at me with his big brown eyes.
“Do you know Billy, too?”
“No”, I said. “My name’s Andy. I just came with Artie”.
“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!” the nude boy ran around the room.

The blonde laughed. “Look how scared he is. Seeing another naked boy. He’s going to go home and tell his mom. AND YOU! PUT SOME FUCKING PANTS ON!!!”

“I’m not going to tell my mom”, I said. “My mother died four years ago”.
The Latino boy in the pants’ eyes welled up. “Your mother’s dead? Is she really?”
“Yeah”, I lowered my voice. “It sucks”.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“YOU! I SAIDDDDD PUT SOME FUCKING PANTS ON!!!”
The boy began tearing up. “Did you love your mother more than anyone in the whole world?”
“Yes, I did”. I was more nervous than sad.

“I’ll bet she loved you more than anything in the whole world”, he almost burst out crying. “She must have been the greatest woman you’ve ever known. Everybody needs a mother’s love. It’s the most important kind of love there is”
“You’re right”, I smiled sadly.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
“GODDAMMIT IF YOU DON’T THROW SOME FUCKIN’ PANTS ON RIGHT NOW YOU NELLY QUEEN I’LL THROW YOUR SCRAWNY ASS OUT!!!! NOW!!!”

The door flew open and a bookish black youngman in glasses came in. Artie spun around.
“Sandra! “Artie gushed. “I thought I’d come by since you haven’t been returning my calls”.
“Oh. Arthur”, Billy scoffed as he walked by us. “I don’t like surprises”.

“PARDON MY NAKEDNESS!”
Billy frowned. “Girl, cover that thing. I’ve seen more of your package than I’ve even seen of mine”.

An hour went by with the five youngmen ignoring Artie and me. They talked as if we were invisible. I was so bored.
I kept whispering to Artie, “Let’s just go. He, I mean she, doesn’t care about you. Forget about…her”.
“No!” Artie was steadfast and proved it by trying to ask Sandra a few things, only to be dismissed.

The dressed brunette jumped up from the crumpled bed and announced, “WELL, I’M HUNGRY! ANYBODY ELSE HUNGRY? LET’S GO TO DANIELLE’S!”
“I’M HUNGRY!”
“I’M NAKED AND HUNGRY!”
“GET DRESSED OR YOU DON’T EAT!”
“LET’S GO!”

Sal Mineo piped up. “Everybody be nice to Artie’s friend because his mother just died”.
“Ohhh, that’s so sad. You’ll get through it, I promise, sweetie”, the naked boy said as he was struggling with a t-shirt that was three sizes too small for him.

We followed the car with the two dressed youngmen, the no-longer nude and Billy. Sal Mineo rode with us. On the way there Artie griped about Sandra to him.
“I’m so nice to her. She seems to like me when she’s Sandra, so I don’t know why she keeps treating me like I don’t exist”.

“Oh, well, she’s the coy type, you know. The coy type! Hard to get. She gets things by playing hard to get!”
“I bought her drinks, I took her to the –“
“Turn here and park!” he practically yelled. He rolled down the window and yelled at his friends. “GET US A GOOD TABLE!”

Dinner at Danielle’s was as good as a dinner can be when the menu is stained and laminated with silverware that looked like it came from a soldier’s rusty mess kit. We got to see two sky-high tall transvestites attack each other in the middle of the restaurant, almost falling over our table.

Sandra/Billy never did hook up with Artie, and feeling crushed he drove me home feeling ejected, dejected and rejected. I was just glad to be home with my saxophone.

Two years later I had my own apartment, where I had a very strange dream. I dreamt I was a baby again and my mother was young, healthy and happy. She was dressed in a Greco-Roman toga in white and bathed me in a small spring. While she bathed me she laughed and sang quietly. It was the most tranquil dream I’ve ever had. I didn’t want it to end. I woke up feeling happier than I had in years.

In the following days after I thought more and more of my dream, and rather than feel happy I was stricken with a terrible melancholy. Life is mostly loss, like the rabbis said.
One night I wearily sat down at the bus stop on the corner of Crescent Heights and Santa Monica. I quietly waited for the bus to arrive.

Two youngmen sat down at the bench by me.
“Oh! That bartender, if he watered those drinks any more than he did you could breed turtles in them!”
“That’s the T, Mary”.
“And that butch door man! Yikes!” They both laughed.

Three more youngmen showed up and just laughed non-stop, probably drunk but harmless.
“I told him to put that thing away!”
“You told him? I think not!! I did. You needed help, bitch!” They all laughed.

A very sullen youngman who looked like Jethro Bodine with a duffle bag walked up to the bus stop sign and slammed his bag down as loudly as possible. He then spread his legs challengingly and folded his arms.

“Ohhhh, my, Miss Butchness”, one boy giggled quietly.
“Yesssss…men at work!” One’s eyes widened.
“Tragedy at work. Too, too tragic!” the other muttered.
“Footlocker daddy, hohohoho!”

My melancholy dissipated as I looked all around me. The bright, colored lights of West Hollywood felt like a carnival that didn’t want to end, ever. By the time the bus pulled up and we hopped on I was smiling.

I was smiling because all the boys on the bus were laughing and some of them had mothers, some of them probably lost theirs, but it didn’t matter because they knew the carnival will never end.

Roxy Music 40 Years Later

The music world has a highly selective way of deciding which bands are worthy of recognition for their achievements and equally adept at neglecting some bands from receiving the credit they deserve. One of the bands most notoriously denied credit for influencing thousands of musicians is Roxy Music. Quickly searching for a reason why this is, it can only be boiled down to one fact: forty years after their enigmatic debut album, and they’re still mysterious and different from all that have preceded and succeeded them.

Roxy Music's first album was indeed released forty years ago (1972) in the United States on Reprise Records. In an era of hippie blues bands and singer-songwriters this album landed like an atomic bomb. The effect they had following their public debut in June of ’72 was absolutely devastating, splitting audiences straight down the middle. While both Melody Maker and the New Musical Express wrote rave reviews for their debut album, Whispering Bob Harris, host of the “Old Gray Whistle Test” TV show introduced them by saying that he wished to be entirely disassociated from their inclusion on the show. But it didn’t matter, really, because by the time their single “Virginia Plain” was released it shot up to Number 4 on the singles charts, with their bizarre first LP following it to Number 6 on the album charts.

Their glam predecessors, David Bowie and Alice Cooper were impressed enough to add Roxy as the opening acts for their shows at The Rainbow and Wembley Stadium, not bad considering you’re opening for the “Ziggy Stardust” and “School’s Out” tours. But enough of that, let’s talk about that album, that weird, creepy album. The front cover depicted a Forties-Fifties era cheesecake cover with an overly made up model who more than slightly resembled the singer, Bryan Ferry.

Opening the gatefold one saw a band where half wore leather and the other half wore weird safari prints, half wearing Fifties greaser hair and the other half looking au courant Black Sabbath metal-friendly hair. The guitarist wore bug fly goggles and one member was simply called “Eno”. But “Gus”, not “Sam”, but “Eno”. The credits were ahead of their time, too: Roxy Music gave hair, makeup and stylist credits. Everything about Roxy Music was weird: their album was produced by Peter Sinfield, King Crimson’s lyricist. Not their guitarist, not their drummer, but their lyricist. Weird!

“Roxy Music” began with “Remake/Remodel”, setting the tone for the rest of the record. The song is a basic two-chord Velvet Underground drone, drenched with a screeching synthesizer, feedback howling guitar and a demented free-jazz saxophone solo in the middle. The band chants either a license plate or robot serial number “CPL593H” all through the song. Bryan Ferry put his best post-modern art lessons from his college instructor Richard Hamilton to use here, by infusing disparate cultural elements on top of each other. The end result is free jazz, garage rock, music concrete (courtesy of Brian Eno), and even science fiction in the lyrics.

The sci-fi vibe continues with “Ladytron” which adds some haunting classical oboe sounds (the only other rocker to toot a mean oboe was Roy Wood from The Move). The reasons for “Virgina Plain”’s success was abundantly clear: it’s a perfect distillation of everything the band represents: referencing Andy Warhol, more simple garage rock chord progressions and that beehive synthesizer buzzing in your face. Just like another genius art school band from England, the Bonzo Dog Band, Roxy Music managed to sonically throw everything but the kitchen sink in their sound, only these guys weren’t joking.

When I heard Roxy Music were headlining the Whisky A Go-Go in December of that year, I couldn’t get there fast enough. Roxy Music came out to a loop of droning synthesizer, much like the one that begins “The Bob (Medley)”, which they opened the show. The band looked striking – Eno in black with peacock feathers sprouting from his shoulder, Phil Manzanera in his fly glasses, Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson in their Johnny Rockets meets Captain Video space outfits, and of course, Bryan Ferry, looking like a drag queen Link Wray and crooning in that gigolo falsetto.

As a harbinger of the division that would eventually split them up, the two Brians stood at opposite poles of the stage, Ferry to the left and Eno to the right. Sonically the band was an embarrassment of riches: you had the loudest synthesizer ever heard (at the time) on stage, Ferry’s creepy Jack The Ripper saloon piano, the rhythm section bashing a monotonous Black Sabbath-style beat and more free-jazz saxophone and barfing guitar feedback. With doo-wop harmonies on ‘Would You Believe?”. I remember an early version of “Grey Lagoons” being performed, too.

If I could pitch one complaint about the show, though, it was the actual coldness and detachment they had in their performance, and while Ferry smiled at the end of “Virginia Plain”, you knew these guys were not going to hold your hand. The cold, remote detachment indeed established itself without apologies on their next album, “For Your Pleasure”, an album so dark and cold icicles could form from the grooves on the disc. From the icy transsexual model strutting in the darkness on the cover to the glacial echoes of “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” and “Beauty Queen”, there’s a dark, detached feeling all through the record. Eno’s album, “Here Come The Warm Jets”, sounds positively tropical compared to this masterwork. Not surprisingly, Eno spoofs Ferry’s vocals on “Dead Finks Don’t Talk” and sounds off him in “Blank Frank” (“…has a memory that’s as cold as an iceberg”.)

The rest is never-ending history: Ferry dates supermodel Jerry Hall only to lose her to Mick Jagger, but gets a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) from the Queen, gets to sing the theme to the BBC-TV show “Manchild” but then behaves like the lead character by marrying his son’s ex-girlfriend. Still creepy after all these years!

The bottom line is that Roxy Music have influenced every major band that followed them for the past forty years, from The Sex Pistols to The Cars to Blondie to Marilyn Manson, and have had their songs covered by Siouxsie and The Banshees, Grace Jones, The Laughing Hyenas (!) and many more. A true collection of musical mavericks, they’ve captivated the imagination of countless musicians by applying conceptual art theories rather than corny 12-bar blues scales, but somehow eventually managed to get that in there, too. And after forty years they still look and sound as creepy and demented as they did from the day they emerged, no small accomplishment in a world hungry for outrage.

Comme des Garcons Fall/Winter 2012 Paris Fashion Week

Even before it takes time to have the post-Christmas blues it’s time for fashion’s major designers to present their latest collections at Milan and Paris Fashion Week, which both showed last month. All the poop on Milan Fashion Week zoomed right by, but it’s never too late to give you the full skinny on Paris Fashion Week.

Before I go any further, I need to give credit to The Fashionisto, a great mens fashion website, for reporting all the amazing highlights at Paris Fashion Week. If you’d like to see more from them, here’s their URL: http://thefashionisto.com/

While many designers showed their collections at Paris Fashion Week, I personally enjoyed six designers in particular that I thought were the most outstanding. I liked the collections from Hermes, Agnes B (who knew?), Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent, Dries Van Noten, and Kris Van Assche. My favorite one and the most idiosyncratically rock & roll was Japan’s own Comme des Garcons.

The Comme des Garcons Fall/Winter 2012 collection was resplendent in bizarre punk Edwardian waistcoats of clashing plaids, polka dots, occasionally draped in waist coats, capes and pleated skirts. Designer Rei Kawakubo forsakes the dandyism of a Galliano or Westwood by investing a more hard-boiled glam/punk appearance to her models, all the way down to Keith Richards/Ron Wood/Jeff Beck wigs.

While the other designers showed sartorial elegance with printed fabrics from Dries Van Noten, brilliant tailoring as usual from Saint Laurent and soft leather outerwear (Hermes doing what they do best), CDG knocked me out the most this season. Wouldn't it be great to see a band dressed like this for a change?

Rock & Roll Confidential Part 6

As far as I'm concerned punk rock started with this Craig Godlis photograph published in Andy Warhol's Interview in 1975 depicting Television collaborators Tom Verlaine and Richard Hell in their most raggedly ragged ramshackle glory. Their music fell short of their wild looks but this photo pretty much lit the fuse to what was to be The Sex Pistols look and what eventually would become "punk fashion".

Here's an ad for The Mercer Arts Center from The Village Voice during the summer of 1972. If you look down at The Oscar Wilde Room you'll notice a bill for "The Dolls of N.Y." (!). It doesn't mention the other acts performing like Suicide, KISS, Queen Elizabeth featuring Wayne County or The Stilettos (Deborah Harry), among others.
I didn't catch the blurb for the Dolls so I missed them (sorry), but I did catch the Off-Broadway production of "One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest" (predating the movie, BTW) which was very good featuring Lane Smith in the role of Randall McMurphy. Lane Smith later played Perry White on the ABC-TV show "Lois and Clark".

In the late 1960's Frank Zappa extensively advertised Mothers of Invention albums in Marvel Comics. This great ad designed by Cal Schenkel was on the inner cover of a giant-sized Spider Man Special comic.

Here's an ad for Led Zeppelin playing The Rose Palace in Pasadena, California with Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity opening. The cost of a ticket was only $4 back then. Those were the days.


Pictured below is a press photograph of Sparks seen performing on "American Bandstand" around the era of "A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing" (1973). While I'm not the world's most foremost authority on all things Sparks-related they're probably doing "Wonder Girl" or "Girl From Germany". Notice the cartoon sledgehammer Russell Mael is sporting.

Christopher Milk

If there was ever a footnote in music history that was as large as an elephant it would probably be Christopher Milk. A band that never really attained stardom, much less major attention, they were still deep in the pocket of the glam scene in Los Angeles in the early Seventies.

Christopher Milk was largely the invention of John Mendelssohn, notorious critic for Rolling Stone Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and Creem Magazine. He gained a good deal of his notoriety by panning bad hippie bands like Led Zeppelin at a time these bombastic, over-indulgent monsters were at the peak of their popularity. Regardless of whether these bands sold out arenas or not, Mendelssohn, representing L.A.’s largest newspaper, would tell us these bands were bunk. You could call it punk journalism before there was a name for it. It was debatable as to who garnered more hate mail, him or Lester Bangs.

John Mendelssohn’s love of all things mod and freakbeat wasn’t a solitary passion. If anything, there was a quiet explosion of people and bands from the West Los Angeles area at the time who were rabid followers. In 1971-1972 there was the Mael Brothers, who formed Halfnelson, eventually Sparks, rock critic Harold Bronson, co-founder of Rhino Records located down the street from the UCLA campus and other mod misfits in addition to the Christopher Milk project.

All these maniacs embraced bands like The Move, The Yardbirds, pre-“Tommy” era The Who, The Kinks, Bonzo Dog Band, Small Faces, Hollies, Procol Harum, pre-Ziggy David Bowie, solo Syd Barrett and a host of others. It was an exciting antidote to the Jethro Tull-Blood Sweat & Tears mind rot that was happening at the time.

Mendelssohn often wrote in Phonograph Record Magazine about his band Christopher Milk, announcing a 7” EP release on United Artists Records, with a gatefold cover and lyric sheet, no less. It was available only through mail order. I think the whole thing cost $1.00, so I jumped at the opportunity to score this puppy.

When I got the record I was pleasantly surprised. The songs were cool and the band played pretty well, especially on songs like “Basket Case”, “Just A Cop”, a sort of gay “X-Offender” (“…to you he’s just a cop but to me he’s Mister Right”), the sublime “Hey Heavyweight”, and one of my favorite titles ever, “There’s A Broken Heart For Every Rock & Roll Star On Laurel Canyon Boulevard”.

A few months later I was watching my favorite teen beat cable access show (KDOC-TV Anaheim) and who should be lip-syncing to their new record but Christopher Milk! Surly Ralph Oswald the guitarist played piano and sang “There’s A Broken Heart” and John handled vocals on “Hey Heavyweight”. I was thrilled to see them on TV right after The Little Rascals (hosted by Stymie Beard!).

John kept writing reviews and not much was heard from the band for awhile until the Fall of 1972, when a new album was released on Reprise Records titled “Some People Will Drink Anything”. The cover looked cheaper than the UA release and the songs were more eclectic, including a Bonzo Dog-influenced cover of “The Locomotion”, a Procol Harum sounding tune called “In Search of R. Crumb” among others.

The album wasn’t really bad but it was so derivative it was almost a game of “Play The Influences”. It seemed kind of disappointing especially since bands like Halfnelson, Roxy Music and Lou Reed’s “Transformer” were all coming out at the same time. It sounded aimless pitted against everyone else. Too bad.

The album, like the band, faded into the ozone. My next run-in with the band in some form was 4 years later when I bought a microphone advertised in The Recycler and the man selling it was C. Milk drummer G. Whiz. He was living in some communal hippie house right by The Hollywood Bowl. When I mentioned Christopher Milk he seemed polite but uncomfortable. The impresssion I got was that the band just sort of fizzled out. But John sure as hell didn't.

A year later (1977) my friend Rich D'Andrea told me he was playing bass in a band called The Pits fronted by John Mendelssohn. I said, "WHAT???? He's got a new band? When are you guys playing?"
Well, they were doing a show at The Starwood and I got on the guest list and John was back to crooning great songs, no Christopher Milk stuff but new tunes like "Hollywood Can Be Cruel" and "You're The Pits".

The Pits maintained a C. Milk-type mod sound but with an aggressive metallic approach, very much like another new band that had just played The Starwood, Cheap Trick. They even opened with the ultra-heavy "Hello Susie" by The Move. I thought The Pits were terrific.

The Pits didn't really last long after a handful of shows - Rich left to play with Gary Valentine & The Know, etc. Wherever John may be I hope he knows that he produced some fun records and bands that may not have been genius but were at the very most solid entertainment. That counts for a lot in my book, and it would be great to see the complete Christopher Milk recordings re-released on CD sometime soon.

Pretties For You

In late 1971 Creem Magazine sent Lester Bangs out to write an article on the raging new rock force that was Alice Cooper, from which these pictures appeared.  It didn't hurt that the band spent a short tenure in the Detroit rock scene - where Creem Magazine was located - sharing bills with The MC5, Stooges, SRC, and The Frost (whose guitarists Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter later joined the band).

Before Alice became a trailer park rock god he earned a lot of bonus airline points playing the drag queen card, wearing falsies, Dolly Parton wigs and just queening out.  On the right is a still from the legendary "Ballad of Dwight Frye" song where's he's institutionalized in a strait jacket. In the next picture he's doing a bizarre Salvador Dali "Persistence of Memory" routine.  He later met Dali who adored Cooper to the point of creating a hologram of him.

Here's Alice in body stocking and heels to the left, and tearing the poster to the "Love It To Death" album on stage to the right.  Early footage of Alice Cooper performing live can be seen in Frank & Eleanor Perry's movie "Diary of a Mad Housewife" where chickens aren't killed, but pillows are ripped open instead and goose feathers are tossed around in a hail of pflug. 

When my band used to tour the driver got to choose which cassette tape we had to listen to while they drove. I had three guitar players; when one drove we had to listen to Neil Young & Crazy Horse, when the other drove we had to listen to the third Velvet Underground album, the real terrible one with songs like “I’m Set Free”, “Jesus”, and “I’m Beginning To See The Light”, yuck, and the third one played a tape that had Alice Cooper’s “Love It To Death” on one side and “Killer” on the other side. Guess who played the best guitar?

Here's Alice consolidating his queeny image by having his hair done at the beauty parlor.  He also had The Cockettes perform and appear at several events and shows around this time. I think Alice and Frank Zappa tried pretty hard to downplay any drug involvement because they were creepy guys from Laurel Canyon and at the time (1970-1971) every straight in LA thought if you had long hair and came from the Canyon you were Charles Manson, so eventually they went out of their way to brag about how average they were. Too bad. By the time "School's Out" was released (1972) our private party was over.

All photos by Ric Siegel, 1971

The 1974 Creem Glam Rock Issue

The groupie phenomenon was still going strong in the 1970's, still colorful because the glitter rock scene gave it a strong fashion base to work with. No offense to the girls pictured above but I only recognize the first girl (Lori Mattix) and the third girl (don't know her name) from the Rodney's English Disco days. The other two don't look familiar at all. Maybe the other two spent more time at The Continental Hyatt House on Sunset Blvd. where all the big budget hyped bands (Led Zeppelin/Roxy Music/The Kinks) stayed. The bands that didn't get a big promo push (The Stooges/Suzi Quatro) stayed at The Tropicana on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood.

Johnny Thunders' #1 girlfriend from Hollywood was Sable Starr. She was very cool and seemed pretty loyal to him at the time (1974). They got a lot of publicity together. David Johansen's girlfriend was Cyrinda Foxe, another colorful blonde. Leee (three e's) Black Childers used to photograph them quite a bit for Rock Scene Magazine and Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine.

Here's the glam spread for Creem Magazine: click on the image to see it closer. This was a four page report, but on this page you'll see Sparks, Roxy Music, Little Richard, Michael Des Barres, Bette Midler, Gary Glitter, David Bowie, The GTO's (last month's blog!), The Wackers, The Harlots of 42nd Street, William S. Burroughs, and four guys from England who look like Ted Koppel.

I remember seeing Silverhead at The Starwood in 1974. The singer was Michael Des Barres, a very attractive Nordic looking model-type. His band got a lot of flack for their album cover, "16 and Savaged". They were okay, nothing special. Mr. Des Barres married Miss Pamela from The GTO's, later joined Power Station, and then embarked on a great acting career, starring as a villain on "Melrose Place" and appearing in cool movies like "Sugar Town" and "Mulholland Drive".

Alice Cooper did a fabulous photo spread in Creem Magazine touring all the hot spots of Hollywood. Here he is pictured in front of The Classic Cat on the Sunset Strip, which was formerly Jerry Lewis' club which he opened to compete with his former partner Dean Martin who had the more successful Dino's Lodge. The Classic Cat later became a Tower Records Video Store. Not much to say about Alice Cooper, other than his best work was about to be behind him, just like this marquee.

I remember when The Dolls played a top-secret show at Rodney's English Disco: first Jerry Nolan came in and was very down-to-earth, no rock star attitude at all. Great guy. A half-hour later Arthur "Killer" Kane came in with his people and damn, he was tall. Sylvain Sylvain (Isaac Mizrahi's cousin!) came in a little bit later and giggled a lot. BUT - BUT - When *** Johnny *** came in all the groupies standing around the club dropped everything, stopped talking among themselves and primped like crazy as soon as they saw him. You could have heard a pin drop. He was clearly the star of the band.

Rock & Roll Confidential, Part 4

The Troubadour (9081 Santa Monica Blvd.) = What better band to play The Troubadour on Santa Monica Blvd. than Turbonegro , the Norwegian Tom of Finland tribute band playing songs like "Rock Against Ass", "I Got Erection", "Rendezvous With Anus", and the sublime "Sell Your Body".
I thought the bartenders were pretty friendly for such a big club, so I always tip them well. Unfortunately later (15 mins) I have to pee out my cocktail and find out the men's room is as small as a cat bed. Noooo!
So then you walk around the club, walk, walk, walk, and then you realize that the sound and visibility in the club varies from corner to corner, so keep rambling because there is no "sweet spot" there. Just keep rambling around.
I finally let it go in the alley, but the great thing about a Turbonegro show at a WeHo club like the Troub is location, location, location.

El Rey Theatre (5515 Wilshire Blvd.) = Standing proud in the sleepiest part of Miracle Mile where no one ever sleeps is The El Rey Theatre. The El Rey is a nice concert hall because it's smaller than the Hollywood Palladium but bigger than your average nightclub.
When I think of The El Rey two stories come to mind: seeing Morphine on their last tour before Mark Sandman passed away, his sleepy, grumpy slide bass guitar rumbling and shaking the old theatre silly and Dana Colley's baritone saxophone bitch slapping my ear drums around...and making me love it. It was bodacious, it was foxy, it was Morphinous.
The second time was when I modeled for the Retail Slut fashion show - my prop was a gigantic magnum of champagne which I spat across the room while dressed in Melrose goth sloth finery. The LA Weekly gave me a special item in their gossip column, "The Low Life", and I quote:
"The models worked that runway with attitude to spare: one swaggering male mannequin took a swig of bubbly and lobbed a big spurt that splashed our poor photog". I don't know if Janice Dickinson would approve, but she's been a bad girl lately, too.

Amoeba Music (6400 W. Sunset Blvd.) = There's a scene in every children's film where the lil' urchins are about to be banished to an evil factory to toil for the rest of their lives and it's cold and gray and unfriendly. Well, I think I've been there. It's called Amoeba Music.
Your tot will surely get the chills when you take them there, for they won't see heart-warming Oompa Loompas but guys with pockmarks, zits, dandruff and other hygienic violations sullenly elbowing you out of the way for that valuable copy of "Radiohead Live In Poland". Out of my way, I'm looking for entertainment!
The true collector (usually a guy whose high standards in girls makes him celibate until he's 43 years old) flips through the records at lightning speed as you can be impressed by this one (1) dexterous skill they possess.
After waling in with a laundry list of 10 records and maybe finding one you kinda-sorta want, you get in line, the one that winds towards the back of the store. You feel like little Olaf Nilsson at Ellis Island come to the big country to become American like Mr. Thomas Jefferson. Scheiss!
You spend the next 20 minutes staring at every tattooed arm and leg in line, and then it's your turn, i.e. the cashier's waving their arms frantically at you and looking pissed because you can't see them from 5 miles away. Ka-ching! Finally you escape the cattle call and feel like a million bucks because just like in the movies you escaped the evil factory for wayward children.

Anaheim Convention Center (800 W. Katella Ave.) = Weel, shit, I finally made it to the NAMM (aka North American Music Manufacturers) show at the beautiful Anaheim Convention Center. What did I see there? Well...
THE USEFUL:
-Parking was very easy if you show up early. If you show up late don't despair, there's only 500 hotels all over the area with gigantic parking lots. Your ass is covered.
-The staff and even the security guys were very friendly and helpful. I was waiting to get "Punk'd", it was too copacetic for comfort.
-The phone signal inside the Convention Center was very low. My wife and I tried sending texts to each other across the hall and didn't get them until ten minutes after we sent them. This is pretty frustrating if you're lost in a big clusterfuck like the NAMM show.
THE FUNNY:
-I was in the world's biggest Guitar Center. All I could hear was either bad metal guitar or geriatric blues-dude guitar (think "Ghost World" bar scene). Every old creep thought he was Stevie Ray Vaughn. Well, he's dead, just like Buddy Hackett.
-Ten years after quitting the music biz and sound men are still the most arrogant assholes on the planet. They all walked around with a big Peavey-sized cabinet up their ass.
-Celebrities galore graced the NAMM show: Paul Stanley, Mick Mars, my wife said, "What the fuck am I doing here? I might as well be back at work". (She makes clothes for metal bands).
THE COOL:
-Every instrument was represented there, they even had see-through ocarinas (WTF?). Is there a more lesbian instrument than a see-through ocarina?
-I'm not a big violin lover but the electric violins were insane, some of them were shaped like jet fighters and some were cast in cubist Picasso-styled shapes. Wild!
-The best guitar maker was Johnson Guitars, showcasing axes shaped like shotguns, AK-47's, Gumby, King Tut hieroglyphics, you name it, these crackers were off the hook!
-There were multicolored saxophones, multicolored music stands, it was every bit a feast for the eyes as it was to the ears.
I finally made it to the NAMM show, and I had fun. I hope I never go back there again!

Capitol Records Tower (1750 Vine Street) = If there's a sight prettier than the Leaning Tower of Pisa it's a building shaped like a stack of records on a spindle. I always thought the Capitol Records Tower was the coolest sight in Hollywood, but what a tore-up structure.
A musician I played with worked there and said the building hasn't seen much change since it was built, and I suppose that includes asbestos issues (yikes), structural funk and other antique building problems.
I was inside twice. Once, when they had their record collector swap meets in the parking lot (a long time ago), and : twice, when I attended a recording engineer training course and we had a class in the enormous recording studio in the Capitol Records basement. They told me Nat King Cole pinched a loaf down there. I was in the presence of greatness.
Check out the gigantor wall mural of Miles Davis, Tito Puente and Billie Holiday. Ironic how Ringo Starr and Brian Wilson aren't on the mural and they brought more money to those bastards at Capitol than the artists chosen.

It Was A Pleasure Then

Life is fraught with decisions, and the decisions I had to face was whether to go to the Suzi Quatro party at The Tropicana, which was invitation only, or the Zolar X party at Rodney's English Disco, which wasn't. As long as you had five dollars you could get in, but I didn't have five dollars to swing around on a weeknight. There was the third option, of course. Rumor had it that Roxy Music were staying at The Continental Hyatt House to do promotional stuff and we could always just hang out there. It didn't cost anything and maybe I can meet Bryan Ferry in the lobby. Wouldn't that be great? Well, it wasn't. Fifty other kids had the exact same idea as me. Advancing closer and closer to the enormous lobby of the Continental Hyatt House on the Sunset Strip with its gigantic windows I could see tons of glitter kids hoping to run into my hero.

My ankles were aching from supporting my tall teenage body on three inch brass platform heels and sparkly copper vinyl shoes. They made my back ache too, but as they said, style before comfort. I walked through the automatic doors to the entrance and saw my friend Randy from the English Disco. "Hey!"

"Hay is for whores", I quipped.
"Hey, whore, are you here to see Alex Harvey?" Randy asked in his striped satin thunderbolt suit. He thought it made him look like Marc Bolan.
"The Sensational Alex Harvey Band are here, too?"
"Yeah, who are you here to see?"
"Roxy Music. I wanna see Bryan Ferry. Maybe I can get his autograph".
"Well, good luck. He hasn't left his hotel suite all day. He's probably giving a million interviews. Hey, nice threads. When did you get these?" he rubbed my jacket between his fingers. I was wearing a brand new green velvet jacket with extra-wide lapels with matching elephant flares.
"Last week. I bought it from a boutique on Third that just closed down".
"I got mine from Granny's".
"Granny's is nice if you can afford it. Hey, is that?"

A very thin girl with huge black pigtails led a very stoned, emaciated platinum blonde boy wearing a black leather jacket with a leopard on the back, just like the one on the back cover of Iggy & The Stooges' "Raw Power". Under his jacket was a t-shirt of Iggy Pop's face. "Jimmy, gimme a smoke. Is Steve Marriott staying here? Ah, fuck it", whined the girl.
"Yeah, it's him", Randy whispered. "And he's got his favorite shirt on in case he forgets who he is".
"Jesus", I gurgled. At the sound of that the platinum blonde boy stopped, stared at me, and then craned his head around the lobby making sure everybody recognized him.

"Well, I guess this beats the Suzi Quatro party, anyway", I turned away from Iggy.
"Suzi Quatro? That dyke?"
"She's not a dyke. I think she's doing her guitar player".
"That fat guy? Bullshit, she's a dyke. She wears leather pants and sneakers. Dyke!"
I wasn't going to let anybody tell me my favorite girl singer was a dyke, so I changed the subject. "So what's so great about The Sensation Alex Harvey Band?"
"Dude, didn't you hear? They opened for Styx at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. They did they whole 'Vambo Rools OK' number on stage with the brick wall and it was far-out. And then Styx goes on and half the audience walked out of the place. Styx couldn't follow Alex Harvey".
"Well, I don't know, I can't follow a band with a mime who plays guitar. I'd rather rock out to a dyke".

A tall skinny kid walked by with a David Bowie haircut and a traumatically chewed up, pocked mark face with a feathered boa around his neck. It was Chuckie Starr, who Randy knew well.
"Hey, Chuckie, what are you doing here? I figured you'd be at the Suzi Quatro party at The Tropicana", Randy asked.
"Security's too tight to get in. Bryan Ferry's here tonight. I'm going to see Lori later at the Zolar X party. Are you going?" Chuckie said as he craned his head around the room looking for someone more fabulous than us.
"Oh, sure, Darling", Randy lied. Chuckie didn't even hear him; he recognized someone and ran towards them, shrieking.

"Are you going to get Sweet tickets at the Civic on Saturday?"
"Yeah, what time does the box office open?"
"Twelve thirty", Randy's face brightened as he saw a distant figure walk quickly towards the hotel coffee shop. "Alex Harvey! I gotta get his autograph!" Randy ran towards the coffee shop with Chuckie Star following and even Iggy and his date following from the rear. Ah, this is a waste of my time, I thought.
I trudged out to the sidewalk into the Sunset Blvd night, looking up at the lit-up palm trees reaching for the sky. A man who resembled a tall palm tree looked at me. It was Kim Fowley.

"What's happening?" he asked with his clear blue eyes burning into me.
"Iggy Pop's chasing after Alex Harvey in the coffee shop".
"Oh, is that all? Well, Arthur Lee's walking around Filthy McNasty's with a gun in his jacket. Can you beat that?"
"No, I guess I can't. Good night", I said. I didn't have wheels and the 91-S bus took forever to show up, so I walked from Sunset & La Cienega to my house on Pico & Robertson. Goodnight Hollywood, until next time.

Glitter By The Sea

One of the great turning points in my life was when I spent the summer of 1974 going to University High School (Westwood, California) by day and going to Rodney's English Disco at night. I was surrounding by trashy teenage kids morning, noon and night. It was teenage heaven! The big sound at the time wasn't that mopey punk rock shit, it was glitter (retroactively labeled “glam”) rock. Short, compact pop numbers with heavy metal guitar and drum mixes and blindingly metallic clothes and make-up with androgynous lyrics, glitter rock was exciting in ways punk could never be. While punk was fatalistic (“No future”, “I want a riot of my own”) glitter was about being young and feeling the wonder in everything, no matter how mundane.

The rush of glitter rock was like having my central nervous system hot-wired by Peter Pan. Of all the concert halls to showcase my glitter rock heroes my fondest memories were from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, a medium sized Art Deco building that once hosted the Academy Awards. I remember wearing my green crushed velvet elephant flares and fire-engine red platform shoes. There was T. Rex with Marc Bolan wearing a cape and a big silver streak down his black cork-screw curls playing "Chariot Choogle" and "Buick Mackane" girl I'm just a Jeepster for your love. He'd strut up and down the stage playing his Gibson Flying V guitar, all 4'10'' of him, and finished his "concert" pulling out a bullwhip and beating his guitar with it!
After the show I'd stand out in front of the Civic and the glam Dollybirds would run up to me with glitter on their cheeks. "Hey, do you need a ride home, tee hee?"
I'd reply with my terrified young man face, "No thanks".
"Nice platforms, giggle".

Then there was Queen starring Freddie Mercury resplendent in crisp white gown and long flowing black hair, shaking his shoulders like a chorus girl and wailing, "Hey Big Spender" from "Sweet Charity". He seemed very gentle on stage, very genteel - "Do you wish to hear another tune?" and sang "Keep Yourself Alive". What made all the SM Civic shows so special was that they seemed like huge parties of varying androgyny, a true precursor to the gay influence that would ultimately lay down the foundation to Hollywood punk rock. And nobody got hurt, imagine that. Not with Freddie Mercury delicately singing the heart-breaking "Nevermore" in his immaculate soprano.

Lou Reed had chopped off all his hair and dyed it platinum blonde and wore thick sunglasses, lizard heroin chic to kill. When he sang "heroin" he simulated shooting up. He was doing heavy metal covers of old Velvet underground songs. It was cold!
The morning after I saw him floating around the newsstand on Las Palmas Avenue, the big gay street in Hollywood (pre-WeHo) wearing the exact same clothes he performed in the night before. I carefully approached him.
"Hey, Lou, uh, great show last night - thanks for the great music", I quietly said.
"oh, hey, uh, gee thanks", he quietly replied, still looking at the magazines at the stand without looking at me.

The Kinks were glam at the time, playing their big drag queen anthem "Lola" while one of The Cockettes was jigging on stage to them. The Cockettes were the ugliest drag queens I've ever seen, combining hippie chic with feminine make-up. They were gash-tly! I didn't care, though - I had my silver satin flares on and my thunderbolt platform shoes on.

I also saw Sparks, Peter Frampton's Camel (before he became a trailer park pin-up), but The Sweet were something else! I've never seen so many beautiful girls at a rock show, ever.

The Sweet had rugged old man faces but the prettiest hair, almost like wigs, but real, coiffed the way only the British can. First song, "Ballroom Blitz", then "Blockbuster", and then of course the amazing "Hellraiser". What a show. "Desolation Boulevard" had just come out with all those great songs like "Sweet F.A." and "No You Don't". Before they played you could hear David Bowie crooning "Young girl they call them the Diamond Dogs" and it was all about us, we were the Diamond Dogs and somehow it was more important, more fun, more shiny and more wondrous than anything that would come after that. I never felt so young and never did again.

Have A Merry Scary Christmas

If there's one thing glitter rock loved it's Xmas. Good songs, scary visuals. Enjoy!

P.S. The band on top is Roy Wood's Wizzard, and the band below is Slade. Enjoy!

"Iggy, We Hardly Knew Ye"

When I was eighteen years old I frequented a club called Rodney’s English Disco, which was on the Sunset Strip. It was hosted by a man named Rodney Bingenheimer, who was apparently the world’s biggest rock fanboy and official welcome wagon to visiting bands in L.A. I went there on weeknights because the admission was free, on a dead night the drinks were sometimes free as well, and things were low-key enough to catch people at their least pretentious, posey and unguarded selves. And some nights were more unguarded than others.
There was the night a Congressman from a Midwestern state came by (with bodyguard). He asked Rodney what’s the deal, and within minutes a groupie named Lori Mattix came by and disappeared in the back room with the Congressman and Rodney. Nothing much was thought of it then, however, a few months later, there was posted on the wall of the club a letter with the official Congressional Seal on it. It was from the same Congressman thanking Rodney for showing him such an entertaining evening. I had a nice chortle over that. The most unguarded nights, however, were the Iggy Pop experiences.
On a slow Tuesday night Iggy came in, but I didn’t believe it was him. I couldn’t believe Iggy was so short and stocky. I was used to seeing him as he appeared on the cover of “Raw Power”, platinum-haired and silver jeaned. Tonight he showed up in blue denim dungarees and his hair was dyed black. Worst of all, he wore a T-shirt with his face on it (old Stooges photo circa 1970). Now, you have to bear in mind the Stooges had broken up, Iggy didn’t have a band or a solo career yet, and frankly, he was a drunken, stoned mess. I sat by the bar and he leaped onto the stool next to mine, craning his head towards me and staring right at me, hoping I’d make the association between his face and the image on the shirt. I was tired, in a bad mood, and didn’t care.

There were four other patrons in the club besides myself, all at the bar. No one would indulge Iggy by acknowledging him. In fact, everyone there seemed to think he was a washed-up, useless loser. Rodney was playing records in the DJ booth, which was an elevated platform above the dance floor. Iggy went up to the DJ booth and talked to Rodney.
Rodney picked up the club mike and announced to all five of us, “Okay! Tonight we have a special guest star, live at Rodney’s English Disco, it’s Iggy Pop!” Side 2 of “Raw Power” started playing over the PA and Iggy sang along to it on the club mike, or at least attempted to. He was on downers and seemed to have trouble spitting out the words when he wasn’t having problems remembering them. Here’s a partial transcription:
“Dance to the b-b-b-beat of the...uh....lose sleep...uh....Raw Power is...uh....s-s-s-sure to come...uh....” Two girls at the bar laughed derisively at this pathetic display. They were with an Englishman who found the whole affair, well, “Disgusting!” he spat bitterly. “Fucking failure! What a disgraceful bastard!”
The next tune on Side 2 was “I Need Somebody”. Iggy struggled with the words once more. “I need...uh....just l-l-l-like, uh, y-y-y-you....”, he stammered statically.
“Oh, this is just awful”, the girls at the bar moaned, in between shrieks of laughter.
“What a bloody egomaniac, he is”, the horrified Englishman grunted angrily. “Wearing a T-shirt with his bleedin’ face on it!”
Next song: “Shake Appeal”. Iggy fared just as badly on the vocals, loud and distorted, the record playing over the PA too quietly to hide how incredibly bad he was. He lasted another two songs (with more running commentary from the Brit and his two clubmates), and then he called it a night. I felt sorry for him, but I found the whole scene fascinating. This was the same guy I’d see on the bus sitting in front with all the old ladies. He’d always get off at the Strip, walking down the street with the saddest, most dejected look I’ve ever seen.
One month later, an awful biker bar hippie blues band played Rodney’s. They were set up on the dance floor. Iggy pushed up through the crowd, back in platinum blonde hair, and bum-rushed the bandstand in dress, high heels (three sizes too big), and wearing full women’s make-up. He didn’t look very feminine, if anything the drag merely exaggerated how masculine he really looked. While the band blasted through another inept hippie blues workout, Iggy would stand in front of the bandstand contorting his body, doing handstands and cartwheels in front of the band and posing like a Vogue Magazine model, predating “Voguing” by a good 15 years!
Bravo, Iggy! While the singer was perfecting his worst Jim Morrison blues-man delivery, Iggy grabbed the mike from him and hooted a hog-calling yell.
“WOOH AWWRIGGGHT! WELLIFEELAWRIGGHT!” Iggy bellowed. “GOOOBLOOZMAYUNNN!” Iggy roared.
The fat hippie blues singer was terrified by this insane drag queen crashing his set. The audience loved it because Iggy woke everybody up from their deep slumber the blues band was inducing, I went home shortly after this but found out several days later that at the end of that night Iggy was grabbed up by the police and jailed for female impersonation and being under the influence of drugs. Needless to say, life got better for Iggy Pop and we’re all the better for it.