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.

Love It To Death

It’s ironic that a group of wholesome Catholic school boys from Arizona would form a band called Alice Cooper and manage to push every religious button possible. With song titles like “Second Coming”, “Hallowed Be My Name”, and “Dead Babies”, to this day they still render efforts from lesser talents like Marilyn Manson as ineffectual.

I caught Alice Cooper at The Hollywood Bowl on the “School’s Out” tour (1972) with the opening act being Flo & Eddie, the “200 Motels”-era Mothers without Frank Zappa. It was a great show and didn’t lack a milligram of drama, not always by the hand of Alice and his amazing friends. As my friend and I ran up the hill to get to the show there were scores of Jesus Freaks hanging around the not-so-pearly-gates of The Hollywood Bowl. Guys brandishing Bibles, grabbing you, “Please, I beg of you, DO NOT GO IN, Alice Cooper is Satan, an agent of evil, pray with me”.
“Gotta go! I wanna hear Under My Wheels!”

Next guy, this one with tears in his eyes, “Beware of false idols like Alice Cooper, you need Jesus Christ, The World’s Greatest Rock Star, as it is written in Corinthians 5:16, BLAHBLAHBLAH!”
“Let go, I wanna see Alice in a guillotine!”
“Jesus died for your sins, Alice Cooper will make you sin and sin again!”
“God bless Alice Cooper!”
“NO! NO! GOD DOESN’T LIKE ALICE COOPER!”

The show was so not evil, in fact it was silly, the band did a goofy “West Side Story” routine on stage pantomiming a knife fight, almost as gay as Russ Tamblyn with his pants pulled down. But it was still priceless rock trash!

One of the highlights of the show was a helicopter flying over The Bowl dropping more of those crazy panties you got with the album (made of the same material as Handi-Wipes). Jesus Christ on a helicopter!

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In the late Eighties/early Nineties all the rock drama took place at Hully Gully Rehearsal Studios in Silver Lake. No night club or rock star hangout could compete with the overall dementia that went down there. My band Trash Can School rehearsed every Sunday night in Room 1 with The Nymphs in Room 2 and The Cramps in Studio B. I remember one night when The Cramps rehearsed “Shortenin’ Bread” over and over again. You’d hear them playing just the intro for half an hour, then the full song for another 30 and then they’d take a much deserved break and back to that cycle again. I think they threw in “Can Your Pussy Do The Dog?” and a fast version of “Heartbreak Hotel” and boom! they were out of there. Lux in sunglasses paced the office snapping his fingers while Ivy, also in sunglasses paid for the room and set up the next rehearsal booking. This was around midnight, of course.

Sam Kinison was a regular there, too, coming in with his entourage, some of them genuine metal guys, some struggling comics, and others just drug flunkies. Since rehearsal time is paid for in blocks of three hours it was safe to say that perhaps thirty minutes of those three hours was spent with music coming out of the room and the other two-and-a-half with partying. Since Hully Gully was an anonymous, unmarked building straight off Interstate 5 it was probably easier to party at than at his home. The struggling comics that would hang out with him were by and large the angriest, most humorless fucks I’ve ever met. And fucking ugly, too.

But it got darker, too. A very famous metal band I can’t mention, here’s a clue, it rhymes with M*gaD*th booked Studio A. The leader of the band was prone to getting into knock-down, drag-out fights with the other band members. You could hear them screaming in the other room and these rooms were pretty sound-proofed. This band leader, we’ll call him MegaPoodle Hair, had a tendency to freebase and hang out in the room after rehearsals. One night a new attendant went in to clean up the room and lock up when MegaPoodle Hair nervously approached him with a gun aimed at his head. “Fuck you man, get out, you ain’t rippin’ us off I’ll blow your fuckin’ head off”. The poor kid freaked out and ran out letting MegaPoodle Hair twitch it out for the rest of the night.

Of course this drama was eclipsed by the even bigger drama that was Jabber Jaw, the little coffee house that became a night club. The second home to Courtney Love, The Dwarves and Kurt (“I’m famous leave me alone”) Cobain, Hully Gully’s drama couldn’t stand a chance.

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Silent movies mean couples, and lots of them. When I attended the Silent Movie Theatre in 1981 I was always greeted by The Hamptons, an elderly couple that ran the theatre. Mrs. Hampton took tickets and sold candy, while Mr. Hampton ran the films in the projection booth and occasionally checked the facility while the movie was playing. Another couple I always ran into was John Doe and Exene of X, fresh from the popularity of their album “Wild Gift”. We attended the movies every Monday night and sometimes they would drag Billy Zoom or D.J. Bonebrake with them. It was cool.

The Silent Theatre was one of the most primitive theater-going experiences ever: A crudely painted sign on paint-peeling wood –black on white, natch with a panel missing – spelled THE SILENT THE- and that was it. The front didn’t have lobby cards but a simple ink drawing of Charlie Chaplin with a few quaint stills of The Keystone Cops, Laurel and Hardy and Tom Mix. The front door had a little booth, you walked through and a tiny wet bar served as a snack bar. The staircase leading upstairs had a locked door because the Hamptons lived upstairs. On a clear day you could see their apartment window from Fairfax High across the street. The theatre itself was fairly Spartan: hard wooden seats, minimal lighting, and canned hot Twenties jazz playing during the movies unless it was a class picture, then they’d pipe in some Tchaikovsky. The bathroom in the “lobby” was a tiny water closet, only big enough to fit one ass at a time.

The Silent Theatre played the same program all week long except Sundays (closed) and admission was only $2, a steal even back then. It didn’t help much to bolster business, though, because the theatre was pretty dead on Mondays. The Hamptons’ film library was healthy so there wasn’t much in the way of repetition: a few silent cartoons (Felix The Cat – he didn’t talk and had no magic bag), some comedy shorts and then the main feature, Chaplin, Keaton, Gish, Barrymore, not a lot of oaters (cowboy movies) and not a lot of foreign shit. They might have played “The Golem” a week before Rosh Hashanah, but that’s it. Right before Christmas they played “King of Kings” and come Halloween you could count on Lon Chaney ruling the roost.

A few years later a new guy, Laurence Austin, showed up at the theatre helping out and running things because Mr. Hampton was in the hospital, and I remember him as a pretty friendly guy. He was also instrumental in getting investors for the theatre for some way overdue upgrades and had the admission price raised ($5 – sacrilege!). Nobody minded paying more because the theatre was much loved. I stopped going there after awhile because better prints were being shown at LACMA, The New Beverly Theatre, etc. VHS and DVD made the scene, too. In 1996 Mr. Austin was shot to death inside the theatre by a hitman hired by Austin’s projectionist/lover who was allegedly promised a $1 million inheritance.

Nowadays if I want to see an awesome silent film I’ll catch it on Turner Classic Movies. The last one I saw was a film adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham’s “The Magician”, brilliant stuff and not available on DVD.

The Rolling Stone Groupie Issue

In 1969 Rolling Stone Magazine did a cover feature on a heretofore unreported phenomenon in the world of rock, the emergence of the groupie (one of the first mentions was in The Mothers of Invention’s “Motherly Love” in 1966). Here are a few scans from that issue for your entertainment. Sorry about the yellowed paper, Photoshop and I can only do so much.

Miss Mercy

I met Miss Mercy from The GTO’s in 1978 when we were both extras for the filming of The Ramones’ “Rock and Roll High School”. She had a baby by guitar whiz Shuggie Otis named “Lucky”, and Lucky’s governess at the time was Linda Jones, eventually Texacala Jones of Tex & The Horseheads fame. If you hang around long enough you get to meet everybody.

Pamela Miller (Des Barres)

Miss Pamela, the future Ms. Des Barres, a very nice lady and one of the few surviving members of The GTO’s (Girls Together Outrageously), also known as The Laurel Canyon Ballet Company. She had the best song on The GTO's album, "Permanent Damage" titled "Circular Circulation, or Do Me In Once And I'll Be Sad, Do Me In Twice And I'll Know Better".

Plastercasters of Chicago

Cynthia Plaster Caster still makes casts of rock star’s pudenda: The Muffs, Demolition Doll Rods, etc. To date she hasn’t done Justin Bieber, Thurston Moore or Henry Rollins so she has a lot of catching up to do.

Spider Eyes

The spider eye make-up was a big deal at the time, and it has been reported that Alice Cooper copped that look from the groupies that were lurking around the scene. Frankly I think it’s a great look, especially given how gruesome Alice looks without his makeup.

Trixie Merkin

I haven’t got the foggiest idea who she is, but if she rates a great Baron Wolman photo shoot then she has my blessing. Baron Wolman was Rolling Stone Magazine’s original photographer (along with Jim Marshall) and I still prefer his work to the Annie Liebowitz Seventies smarm photography that ruined the magazine.

Miss Christine

Legend has it that Russell Mael from Sparks stole her away from Todd Rundgren while he produced their album. In all fairness Christine really got around, may she rest in peace (she passed in 1972).

Miss Sandra

The late Miss Sandra. The “Miss” title preceding The GTOs member's names was invented by Tiny Tim, who christened every woman with a “Miss” title, and even referred to his wife at the time as “Miss Vicky”. God bless Tiny Tim, and God bless groupies everywhere.

Rhinocratic Oaths

It was sometime around 1978-1979 when my friends The Alleycats were playing the Whiskey-A-Go-Go opening for a new band that was touted as The Next Big Thing from Australia, AC/DC. I entered the club during a highly shrill guitar solo that sounded constricted like tight underwear, reflecting neither joy nor freedom. I walked up the balcony to sit down when a fat, beefy guy yanked me by the arm, tearing the sleeve of my jacket.

“Hey, asshole!”
“Piss orf, mate”, Stupid Oz belched.

Directly behind me was a skinny guy who looked like a circus geek bobbing his head up and down wildly playing a guitar, spazzing like a bulleted wolverine. He had his ass up in the air like Jeff Stryker taking a big one and twitched down the aisle with Oz Fuckface Roadie shoving nightclubbers out of the way.

Twitchy the Circus Geek finally got back on stage and the band finished their rhythmically uptight set. As soon as they left the stage some guy on the dance floor yelled, “Fuck Australia!”
He turned around and some bruiser punched him in the face, cold-cocking him with a nauseating crack you could hear all the way to West Covina. It was the first time I’ve ever seen anyone knocked out cold. That motherfucker sank right to the floor.

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Rebecca’s played “ Grey Gardens ” about 100 times, so I figured if she enjoyed Little Edie Beale’s ravings and mad dance skills the time was right to pull out “Andy Warhol’s Heat”, which she’s never seen. “Andy Warhol’s Heat” gives more Beale for your buck: just about everybody in it’s as scary as The Beales: Pat Ast, Eric Emerson, but the Grand Prix winner is Andrea Feldman. Rebecca is now obsessed with the insanity that is Andrea Feldman and her bizarre vocal inflections. “I wannnnnna be ahhhh lezzzbyahhhhhnnnn”.
“Maaahhhhthahhhh give me suhmmm muhhhnnnny”.
For the next three days she marched around the house imitating Feldman like some demented parrot. A suicidal speed freak parrot. “Jooooeeee, fuchhhck meee!”
The next thing you know my arm got twisted into renting “Andy Warhol’s Trash” so more Feldman hijinx can be enjoyed, even better in “Trash”, possibly the only low-budget movie Rex Reed has ever lauded as a masterpiece.

Andrea’s at her acting apex here, bugging Little Joe, “You got any ahhhhcid?” For the next sumpteen minutes she nags obsessively about him holding acid.
“Let’s shoot up together”, establishing for the first time in the history of drugs that acid can even be shot. She starts stripping for him, offering her body in the bargain for some possible windowpane.
“Can I waaaaatch youuu shoot uhhp?” He complies passively, tying, fixing, blah blah blah.
“Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid Is it acid?” she asks rhythmically. Alas, she cops not a whit.

Poor Little Edie, in our household she has been dethroned by the magic that is Andrea Feldman. (Holly Woodlawn’s no slouch either!)

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The times are a changin’ at Rock & Roll Ralphs. Once earning that name for being located on the Sunset Strip within close proximity to the Guitar Center and other Heavy Metal havens, it was also within spitting distance of many strip clubs like the Seventh Veil where Metal dude girlfriends earn their keep stripping for their boyfriend’s beer money. Many was the day when Metal dudes would shoplift steaks by sticking it in their rotting leather pants. Those days seem to be long gone, as evidenced by the last few visits I made shopping for groceries.

The Quiet Riot types have been replaced by angry models, that’s right, angry models. I’ve never seen so many beautiful couples in my life, the type that model for underwear adverts to pay for their Brie. It’s amazing, picture yourself leaning over to grab a bottle of water, when a Guess Jeans couple cut in front of you burning stink eye as they grab the bottle you were reaching for. You would think with their astounding good looks they would be a little happier or mellower, but no, they’re irritable as fuck.

Note to mannequins: attitude’s a major part of beauty, not your chiseled features. Douchebags.

The Pot of Sh*t At The End of the Rainbow

Once you reach a certain age it doesn’t matter how hot or fresh you look, your eyesight’s gonna fail, your hearing’s gonna be shot and remembering stuff is, well, a thing of the past. You end up losing a lot of shit in the process, misplacing it here and there, and don’t get me started about all the stuff you’ll break no matter how careful you are. It’s not that bad in your personal life, but when it happens in the office/workplace, you’re fucked. People give you all sorts of grief, laugh at you and you can’t say, “Listen you snot-nosed fuck, I’m over fifty cut me a fuckin’ break my brains are falling apart”.
I’ll be 54 this October, which means that under my retirement plan at work I can retire next year at age 55. So, just to prepare myself to what I’ve got to look forward to, I attended a Pre-Retirement Workshop held by the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA). Basically, this is what happened:

The majority of the attendees were told that retiring early would be foolish, because if they retire at age 55 they will only get 12% of their highest pay rate for their monthly retirement allowance, but if they hang in there for another 15 years (age 70) they’ll get a whopping 30% instead. Does that sound like a large enough increase to justify putting up with people’s shit – if you can survive that long - for another 15 years? Of course not. And no mention of inflation either, you’re getting more in the future but you’ll probably be paying more, too.

The great bullshit Pie In The Sky dream they hand you at the workshop is that once you retire you’ll be covered for the rest of your life and you’ll never have to work again. “So if you retire too early” (glaring at the boyish 54 year old in the room) “you’ll be stuck flipping burgers or greeting folks at Wal-Mart”. Everyone’s retirement fantasy revolved around sitting around a rocking chair watching the sun set with their grandchildren beaming up at them, or worse, sipping martinis on a fucking cruise ship. The truth of the matter is that if you stop working you’ll more than likely be sitting on a park bench by yourself while your relatives wait for you to die so they can collect your meager nest egg.

Let’s be honest: the coolest old guys you know are the ones that fix your shoes, tailor your clothes, repair your car, etc. One of the last things my Uncle told me before he died was, “If you want to work forever, learn a trade”. This came from a 71-year old guy from Hungary who fixed motorcycles for bikers in Rhode Island. He was in demand until the day he died. Once I retire from County service I’ll be working for Rebecca making clothes, exactly what I did before I started with the County 15 years ago. Will I retire from tailoring? Fuck no.

Another bizarre concept people have is that once they die their record collection, toy collection, comics collection, etc. will be inherited by their children. “I’m leaving Spider Man #100 for my kids, and my children’s children”. As if their children have the same interests, right? I know a toy hoarder who died last year, and do you think her kids are enjoying her vast collection of dolls? Even as I speak, they’re all on sale at eBay. Her kids are having the last laugh. Her tombstone should read, “Buy it now!”

I guess my message is that advancing old age needs to be planned in a more realistic basis, because so much of it is shrouded in fantasy, and fantasy can be a form of senility in itself. If you dream too hard the pot at the end of the rainbow won’t have gold in it, but something much worse.