In a recent interview, 80's teen icon Debbie Gibson compared herself to current tween faves Taylor Swift and Avril Lavigne, saying "I look at Avril Lavigne or I look at Taylor Swift. You know, they still wear high-tops with their gown to an award show. That was me.”
That's all fine and good, but what Gibson fails to address is that she was miles ahead of those gals because she not only wrote her own material, but performed and produced it as well. Sure, Swift and Lavigne may claim to write their own songs, but not without a lengthy list of co-writers and song doctors.
Gibson wrote all of her hits - tunes like "Only In My Dreams, "Shake Your Love" and "Lost In Your Eyes, among others - all by herself.
While I was never a huge fan, I respected her talent and was a bit miffed to see her basically driven out of the industry after her fifteen minutes came to an end. That she was cast aside just to make room for some bubble-headed kid who didn't have even half the talent is exactly why I have no sadness for the current state of the music industry. They incorrectly thought they could replace artists with airheads who are so much easier to control and continue to thrive. While such artists currently dominate the industry, it is an industry in steep decline, a ship taking on water, and the rats all hoping there will be enough golden parachutes for all of them.
Yep, I wrote a book. It may or may not suck completely, but it certainly wasn't doing any good just sitting on my hard drive. It's doubtful that it will ever see proper release, as very few things I finish ever seem worthy of such legitimacy. I think parts of it are okay, but could re-tool this thing forever...or just set it free, in all of its flawed glory...
CHAPTER ONE: MEET NICK KATES
My name is Nick and I play guitar. My band, the X-Rayz, is playing Madame Wong’s in L.A. to a crowd of 25 of our closest friends. To us, just landing a gig at this legendary club meant that we had truly arrived. Never mind that it was a Wednesday night, or that we knew everyone in the crowd personally, we still played as if our very lives depended on it. Right in the middle of a new song we’d added to the set called “We Run Wild”, I gazed out to the crowd, taking inventory of all the familiar faces, and noticed a guy wearing sunglasses at the back of the room.
I’ve always thought it would be cool to know the story of every stranger who wanders into a rock club to see a band they know nothing about. Let’s face it, most people can barely be bothered to go see bands they actually like, for whatever reason, so it takes a special kind of person to go see a band they know nothing about. Even though we only have five or so gigs under our belt, that’s enough to see our fair share of curious strangers who wander in, take in a song or two, and then disappear back into the night.
I figured this guy was just another one of those types, but he stayed until the very end of our set, although I could barely see him past the constant blue flash of my girlfriend Stephanie’s camera as she snapped away relentlessly for most of our set, taking black & white photos as part of an assignment for her college photography class.
After the show, I went in search of the $75 we’d been promised while the rest of the band loaded our equipment back into the van. It seems that the guy in the sunglasses wandered over to my girlfriend and asked if she’d like to have her photos published. He asked if we had any other gigs coming up, at which point Sheila handed him a flyer advertising next Saturday’s show at the Roxy. He then gave her his card, which she promptly stuffed in her purse and forgot all about until we were back at our rehearsal space dropping off our gear.
“After you guys finished, this guy came over to me and asked if I wanted to have my photos published,” she said excitedly. I figured it was just another case of a guy hitting on a cute girl, but when she handed me the guy’s card, my jaw hit the floor.
“Holy fucking shit,” I exclaimed, getting the attention of the rest of the band. “This is Johnny Bravo’s business card.” She looked at me blankly. “Johnny Bravo, rock writer for the L.A. Times. Holy fucking shit.”
The next day, my girlfriend and I drove down to the L.A. Times building to personally drop off the photos. We stopped at the front desk and asked to see Mr. Bravo, but the secretary told us that he was busy. We told her he’d asked us to drop off some photos and she said she’d be happy to make sure he got them. I left the building not nearly as excited as when I had walked in, but tried not to let it show. My girlfriend was still walking on air, believing that she was about to be a nationally-published photographer.
“It’s just the L.A. Times, not Time magazine,” I joked.
“People from all over the country read the L.A. Times, though.”
Within minutes, we were back in L.A. traffic, jamming KROQ at top volume, and singing along to “We Got The Beat” by the Go-Go’s.
CHAPTER TWO: BRAVO, JOHNNY BRAVO
A week went by with no word from Bravo. I was left wondering if our brief encounter with the legendary rock critic hadn’t just been yet another guy’s attempt at flirting with my girlfriend. Still, he hadn’t called her either. Then, like a tornado in fuzzy slippers, my mom stormed into my bedroom at a quite ungodly hour on the Friday morning before our show at the Roxy. She was yelling at me, which led to a subconscious reaction on my part that I am not proud of, but which stems from childhood and the fact that most times when she stormed into my room, it was because I had done something wrong. On this particular occasion, she didn’t seem to be mad about anything, but she was definitely excited about something. It took me a few seconds to wipe the cobwebs from my eyes and finally make sense of what she was saying.
“You’re in the L.A. Times!” she said somewhat frantically, thrusting the folded Entertainment section of the paper at me. I grabbed it and stared at a photo of myself and Gene, my best friend and bass player, leaning against one another just like we’d seen Page & Plant do when we were kids. The headline said “The X-Rayz: Ready For Their Close-Up”. Still barely half-awake as I read the article, I was both amazed at how cool Johnny Bravo made us sound and how he seemed to know the correct title of all of our songs. Then I remembered that we had introduced every song by name before we played it. Duh.
I immediately called Gene’s house, waking him up, and told him the news. He literally dropped the phone before I finished my sentence and ran over to his next door neighbor’s house to swipe their copy of the paper. He then ran back upstairs, came back on the line, and told me he’d call me right back before hanging up on me. That’s Gene for ya.
As I trudged into the kitchen with my best “just another morning” poker face, trying to pretend like nothing out-of-the-ordinary had happened, my dad sat as stoic as ever reading the business section while my mom looked at me expectantly, a huge smile on her face.
“Did you call Gene?”
“Yes Mom.”
“What did he say?”
“He said he’d call me back.”
“Do you want me to make you some waffles?”
“Do you have to ask?”
I sat down at the table, and began fiddling with the same placemat I’ve been fiddling with every morning since I was five. Dad lowered his paper to look at me, saying nothing. He did manage a wink, which got a smile out of me. I imagine most of my friends had fathers who actually talked to them, but my dad was a man of few words. A wink, though, was worth a thousand of them and just happened to be something that my father reserved for special occasions. Come to think of it, the last wink I’d gotten was the one and only time I pulled straight A’s in junior high. That was just before I discovered rock & roll, of course. After that, I kissed any and all potential A’s goodbye. My parents begrudgingly accepted my desire to be a musician, but I had told my parents that I was dropping out of junior college to devote my full attention to the band only three weeks ago. Up until the article in the L.A. Times showed up on our doorstep, things had been a little tense, to say the least. Needless to say, that wink spoke volumes.
The rest of the day was an absolute blur of activity. First, the entire band met at our rehearsal space. Gene arrived with a stack of L.A. Times, all procured from the yards of every neighbor on his block, I imagined. There we were, the four of us, all hunched over a card table, reading the article over and over. Then we all piled into our drummer Mitch’s Gremlin and sped to the local copy shop to run off copies of the article and some flyers to hype tomorrow’s show. The rest of the day and night was spent peppering our flyers along every major intersection along Sunset, Santa Monica, and Hollywood Boulevards. Just after midnight, we drove by the Roxy, slipping flyers underneath every windshield wiper in the vicinity before finally calling it a night.
By comparison, the next day was a complete blur of inactivity. With load-in and sound check scheduled for 6PM, there was nothing to do until then. Gene came over around noon and we spent a few hours playing records in my room before getting too jittery to sit still much longer. The day was dragging. There was enough time to twiddle our thumbs, but little time to do anything else. It was murder. Mitch and our lead singer Tommy came by around 4PM and it was quickly decided that if we were going to be bored shitless, we may as well be bored shitless at our rehearsal space. Once there, we killed as much time as we could re-stringing and tuning our guitars. Mitch polished his already-spotless drums to a blinding sheen. None of us said a fucking word to each other. I liken it to soldiers preparing for battle. An eternity passed before the cheap digital clock on the wall came to read 5:30.
Needless to say, we arrived early for our scheduled sound check. We were the second of four bands on the bill and I’d never heard of any of them. We performed three songs to an empty room and I wondered if we’d be doing much the same thing later on in the evening. Then I remembered the L.A. Times article and my spirits lifted. Getting covered in the Times was a dream-come-true for me; something I thought would be a life-altering experience, but my life was exactly the same now as it was before the article. Nothing had changed.
Gene and I milled around in the parking lot while Mitch and Tommy ran down to Sunset Music to grab some drum sticks and guitar strings. At each of our previous shows, I always found myself to be almost giddy with excitement at the thought of playing, even though I knew full-well it would be to a mostly empty room. Tonight, facing the same fate, I found myself depressed at the thought of staring out into emptiness yet again. Gene, ever the optimist, just chuckled and put it all in perspective for me.
“This is all part of the journey,” he said, kicking a post that had once held a parking meter. “Hey, it could be worse. We could be going on first instead of second. Those poor, pitiful sons o’ bitches.” Gene and I erupted in maniacal laughter and, once again, all was right with the world.
CHAPTER THREE: GENE BANGS A GO-GO
As the first band took the stage, I wandered out from the dressing room long enough to take inventory of the five or six people in attendance, all more than likely close personal friends of the poor, pitiful sons of bitches. Not wanting to get depressed all over again, I sauntered back to the dressing room to change into my rock star outfit.
I kept hoping the first band would keep playing one song after the other indefinitely, which would allow for more and more of the headliner’s fans to show up. Eventually, though, they introduced one song by saying “This is our last song”, which drew a smattering of sarcastic applause. A few minutes later, the place was eerily quiet and I could feel our time drawing near. One of the Roxy staffers poked their head into the room and yelled “X-Rayz, you guys are on!”
Without actually looking at one another, we stood in unison and walked toward the stage with all the enthusiasm of prisoners in a chain gang. Sure, enough, right at the front of the stage were the same 5 or 6 people I’d seen when the first band started playing. Behind them, though, were hundreds of expectant, unfamiliar faces staring right back at us. Adding further fuel to my out-of-body experience, a familiar stranger in sunglasses walked up to the microphone.
“Hello, Los Angeles,” said the dashing figure to loud applause, “My name is Johnny Bravo and I write for a little newspaper called the L.A. Times.” More applause. “The reason I am here tonight is to personally introduce you to the best damn rock band in all of Los Angeles. Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to introduce to you to the future of rock & roll, THE X-RAYZ!” The crowd erupted with deafening applause as Bravo slapped me on the shoulder as he walked past. I hit the first note, hoping it was right, and enjoyed the strangest out-of-body experience of my life. I was on auto-pilot.
Thankfully, I’d played those songs so often that my body seemed to take over for me in my own absence. Eventually, I snapped back to reality and began nonchalantly scanning the crowd in hopes of locating my girlfriend Stephanie, who was about midway back, waving at me with the hugest smile on her face. The rest of the set was an awesome blur that seemed to end just as soon as it began. We were called back for two encores, which forced us to play literally every song we knew. Our last tune was a punked-up version of Johnny Rivers’ “Mountain Of Love”. The place was still going bananas as we left the stage.
After the show, I literally felt like a politician at a fund raiser as one person after another wandered backstage to shake my hand. Some I recognized, some I didn’t. Rodney Bingenheimer, the legendary KROQ DJ, fell squarely into the latter category. I chatted with A&R guys from just about every major label in town, a few big-name producers and managers whose names I’d seen on the back of dozens of records over the years. Heck, David Lee Roth came by as well, as did Jane and Kathy from the Go-Go’s and one guy we think might have been a Plimsoul.
Before I had a chance to catch my breath, the other two bands that followed us had finished their sets and the night was winding down. As we packed our gear into the van, I saw Gene making out with one of the Go-Go’s by the dumpster in back of the club.
Holy fucking shit, this was shaping up to be a helluva night.
It was getting better, too. Gene breezed over and told us we’d been invited to a party at Charlie Sheen’s house and handed us a bar napkin with the address written on it. It was obvious he wasn’t going to be helping us unload the gear, but I was too buzzed to care. Tommy, Mitch and I cruised back to the rehearsal space, tossed our instruments into a pile in the corner, and high-tailed it over to Charlie Sheen’s house.
Looking back now, I have tried many times to pinpoint the exact moment when my life changed forever. Maybe it was the L.A. Times article, or the moment Johnny Bravo called us the future of rock & roll in front of a sold-out crowd of people there to see US, or maybe it was when I did my first line of coke by the pool at Charlie Sheen’s house. Hell, I never even saw Charlie Sheen that night, but that didn’t seem to matter. At first, it was unreal. Every face was familiar. I wasn’t in the movies, or on a TV show, but I was in a rock band and I was there, so every person I met seemed to accept me as one of them. It felt cool as hell to be on the inside for once.
CHAPTER FOUR: LIFE IN THE NEW WORLD, SAME AS THE OLD WORLD
Sunday was a day of recovery. Having arrived home just as the sun was coming up, I walked straight upstairs and was asleep before my body hit the bed. It was a joyous sleep; one of those slumbers where you are dead to the world, but still somehow able to enjoy every second. I awoke just in time for dinner, aroused by the smell of burgers being grilled on the back patio. As I padded into the kitchen, I saw my dad through the sliding glass door wearing his trademark “Kiss The Cook” apron, the smile on his face illuminated by the dancing flames.
“Hello, Sleepyhead.”
My mom has said this to me first thing each and every morning for as long as I’ve been alive, I imagine, as well as those times when I happen to wake up late one Sunday afternoon.
“The phone’s been ringing off the hook all day,” she said, handing me a stack of phone messages. The first two were from Stephanie, the rest read like a virtual Who’s Who of movers and shakers in the music industry. I stood there with mouth agape, my head spinning more with each message.
“David fucking Geffen?! Holy shit,” I said, just as my dad swung into the kitchen with a plate of pristine burgers.
“Yes, David fucking Geffen,” he replied, fake punching me on the shoulder. “Judging by how long he spoke to your mother, he’s either really interested in you or in her. You he can have.”
After calling Stephanie and making plans to meet the next day, I rang Gene and told him about the phone messages. It was then quickly decided that a band meeting was in order. I left Gene to wrangle Mitch and Tommy while I had my mother wrap up enough burgers for the band before I jumped into my trusty Econoline.
CHAPTER FIVE: IRVING MOTHER-FUCKING AZOFF
“Well, who the fuck do we call first?”
Tommy had a point. We’d been contacted not just by a few management firms and record companies, but by the main guys at each and every one of those companies. In the span of a single day - a Sunday, no less - my own mother had spoken to Clive Davis, Tommy Mattola, Walter Yetnikoff, Ahmet Ertegun, Miles Copeland, Irving Azoff, Elliot Roberts, and a number of other heavyweights. We had no manager, but figured we should probably have one before we started talking to any record companies so the plan was to call every manager who’d left a message first thing Monday. At the bottom of the message from Azoff, I noticed my mom had written, “Tell your son that it’s okay to call me tonight. This is my personal number.”
It took all of two minutes to scrape together enough change for the pay phone in the hall. I nervously dialed as the rest of the band gathered around me. “This is Irving,” said the voice after the third ring. I paused, once again making a mental note of yet another moment that would signify the changing of our lives forever.
“Hi Mr. Azoff, this is Gene from the X-Rayz returning your call.”
“Thanks for calling me back, Gene. Who’s managing you guys?”
“Uh, we’re currently self-managed.”
“So, in other words, you need a manager.”
“Right.”
“You guys put on a great show last night.”
“Oh, were you there?”
“No, but you can bet your ass I’ll be at the next one. Do you happen to know when that will be?”
“Uh, we’re doing a show at the Starwood in two weeks.”
“No, no, no. I was thinking more like next Friday, at the Hollywood Bowl, opening for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.”
“You can make that happen?”
“You’d be surprised what I can make happen for bands that I manage, Gene.”
“Okay, so what’s the next step?”
“You guys get ready for your show next Friday and we’ll go from there. Someone from my office will call you in a few days and give you the specifics.”
“Great, thanks, see you Friday,”
The line went dead and I turned from the phone to see three of the most expectant faces I’ve ever seen in my life. It was then that I realized that this was probably the first time I’d ever had the complete and undivided attention of the whole band. I could already feel the power going to my head.
“So, what did he say,” asked Mitch, who’d been nervously spinning his drumsticks for the duration of the phone call.
“Well,” I said with as little emotion as possible, “Mr. Azoff wants to meet with us next Friday…at the Hollywood Bowl…opening for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers!”
I must admit that emotion got the better of me after the words “Hollywood Bowl” left my mouth and I ended up literally screaming the part about opening for Tom Petty. The rest of the band soon joined me in my elation and we were soon jumping up and down, hugging each other, as stray members of a handful of other L.A. bands wandered by, giving us a wide berth and staring at us as if we were lunatics.
We tried our best to calm down, to take it in stride, to be cool about it, but it was impossible. Tommy kept saying that if this was my idea of some kind of practical joke, he’d kick my ass, but I kept reassuring him that I was as serious as a heart attack, but then that got me wondering. What if it was just someone pretending to be Irving Azoff? What if it really was Azoff, but it was he who was playing a joke on us? I then realized how stupid that sounded and shook it off mere seconds before “it” happened.
Just like we always do whenever we’re not actually rehearsing, we have the radio turned to KROQ. Right in the middle of a mini-argument about how many people the Hollywood Bowl could hold, we were stopped dead in our tracks by the familiar intro of our own song coming out of the cheap transistor. It was such a surreal experience, each of us making the connection, and then a mad rush to turn it up as loud as it would go. As the song ended, we then heard the inimitable voice of Rodney Bingenheimer.
“That’s a song called ‘We Run Wild’ by a great new band called the X-Rayz, who played a rollicking sold-out show last night at the Roxy. Judging by the number of A&R people I saw in the crowd, and the number of cute girls trying to get backstage, this is a band that’s definitely going places.”
It was then that we decided, right then and there, that the universe itself was playing a sick joke on us and that we were going to enjoy the hell out of it for as long as it lasted. I arrived home to see that my parents had already called it a night. With adrenaline still coursing through my veins, I tried to relax by channel-surfing for the next few hours, afraid that if I fell asleep, I’d awaken to find that none of this had actually happened.
CHAPTER SIX: MEET MITCH BENTLEY
Hi, my name’s Mitch and I play drums in the X-Rayz. I’m a few years older than the rest of the guys in the band, but, when I heard their tunes, I immediately told two of the bands I’d been playing in that I was no longer available. Sure,the X-Rayz (they already had the name, which I thought was cool) hadn’t even booked their first gig, but I wanted in bad enough to essentially take myself off the market, so to speak. I wanted to make sure that when they did start gigging, I was available.
My friends, of course, told me I was crazy to throw my lot in with a band of younger guys all still green behind the ears, but this was the first band I’d been this excited about since I was in The Kingpins back in ’77. The band was put together by Kim Fowley (the guy who also managed The Runaways), with the intent of recording an album for Mercury Records because Fowley had an arrangement with the label to give them first-look on any band he managed. The thing was, just days before we were to sign the contract with Mercury at the Rainbow Club, with the rock press there to witness the event, we got a better offer from Clive Davis at Columbia Records.
The Columbia deal was impossible to refuse, but Fowley had already taken out full page ads in every local newspaper and music magazine announcing the band’s deal with Mercury. By then, I knew enough about Mercury to know that they couldn’t promote their way out of a wet paper bag when it came to rock bands, but a part of me wondered if Fowley wouldn’t go through with the Mercury signing just to make sure the money he’d paid for the ads didn’t go to waste.
Something tells me that he would simply pay himself back from money that should have gone to us – those ads weren’t our idea, after all. He wasn’t promoting us as much as he was promoting himself and his superior managerial skills.
We signed to Columbia two weeks later, recorded an album in London with Roy Thomas Baker, and toured with Aerosmith and KISS. What was so infuriating was that, even though we had our pictures in 16 Magazine, CREEM, and Rolling Stone, we couldn’t find our own albums in most of the cities we played and, believe me, we looked.
Within months of our album coming out, we were more miserable than ever, living off of $15 a day and sharing a single hotel room. Fowley, of course, had stayed back in L.A., but he did manage to fly into New York for our show at Radio City Music Hall. From our flea bag hotel in the Bowery, we found out that Fowley had booked his own room at the Four Seasons.
That was the last straw. After the show, we took all of our frustration and pointed it in the general direction of Fowley. He, of course, lashed out like a cornered cat with rabies, going so far as to take a swing at me. That was the final straw for all of us.
We returned to L.A., parted ways with Fowley, cut new demos for Columbia with, of all people, Flo & Eddie from The Turtles producing. The demos were actually pretty damn good, but Columbia didn’t think we sounded enough like us and dropped us like a bad habit.
Long story short, the X-Rayz were the best band I’d heard in years and I wanted in on that action.
When things started to happen for the band, it was like a million different pieces had fallen into place and all of the planets had aligned.
Having toured with major acts before, opening for Tom Petty was still a big deal for me because I was a huge fan of his music. He wasn’t yet at the same level as a KISS or an Aerosmith, but he was just beginning to break big, with L.A. having already fallen under his spell. For me, an even bigger thrill was getting the chance to play the Hollywood Bowl.
For as much of an out-of-body experience as the Roxy gig had been for the rest of the band, the Hollywood Bowl was that for me. I remember everything that happened because it all seemed to happen in slow motion, allowing me to soak up every nuance. My favorite moment, though, had to be when the sold-out crowd responded so enthusiastically when we played “We Run Wild”. I almost started looking around to see if somebody famous had walked onstage or something, but the truth of the matter was that KROQ had been playing the song on an almost hourly basis all week and, as a result, we got to see thousands of complete strangers singing along to every word.
CHAPTER SEVEN: MEET GENE TEMPLE
Hi, I’m Gene. I play bass in the X-Rayz. Without me, they’d be nothing. Ha ha. Nick and I have known each other since kindergarten. We’ve been best friends from the moment we met and have been through a ton of stuff together. I think it was around ’76 when we decided that we wanted to form a band. It happened right after we saw KISS on TV. At first, we toyed with the idea of wearing make-up, too, but we quickly realized that it was a pain in the ass to have to put make-up on every night, much less take it off. Plus, not long after that, we discovered The Ramones and the Sex Pistols. That pretty much changed everything. We immediately pissed off our parents by sticking safety pins through our good pants. Needless to say, this immediately tested out commitment to the punk ethic and we failed miserably.
That’s fine by me, knowing that the Pistols had kicked Glen Matlock out of the band for liking The Beatles. They were a joke after that, with a bass player whose guitar wasn’t even plugged in. No thanks, I’ll stick with my Slade, T. Rex and Aerosmith records, thank you.
Nick and I started writing songs a few years ago, but it wasn’t until we decided to put an ad in the back of BAM! Magazine that things finally started to happen. We figured we might find one cool guy to play with if we were lucky, but we really outdid ourselves when Mitch called us up. We’d had a few calls before his, but none that were serious. We told Mitch that it was the last day of auditions so if he was interested, he needed to be here in an hour. We gave him the address and he knocked on the door forty-five minutes later, which is a real accomplishment when you consider the fact that he had to find someone to take him over to his last band’s rehearsal space in Hollywood, grab his drums, then drive him up and over the hill into the San Fernando Valley.
The three of us – me on bass, Nick on guitar and vocals, and Mitch – ran through about ten of our original tunes. From the first one, though, Nick and I knew Mitch was the guy. Shit, it was like playing along to a record. Mitch was that good. It was all Nick and I could do to not smile from ear-to-ear for the entire audition. Once Mitch left, though, we laughed ourselves silly, to the point that Nick’s mom later asked him what was so damned funny. “I’m in a band,” he told her. “And we’re going to be HUGE!”
CHAPTER EIGHT: MEET TOMMY GUNN
I saw Gene, Nick and Mitch play a gig on the Santa Monica Pier. It was this Battle Of The Bands thing and my band, The Lexicons Of Love, played right after they did. We’d been playing steady gigs for two years so our show was ten times tighter than any other band on the bill. While we went on to win the competition, I was blown away by their songs and I told them so.
As they were packing up Nick’s mom’s station wagon at the end of the night, I walked up to them, holding the 1st Place trophy and a check for $200 in my hand. I introduced myself and said, point blank, “This could be yours, guys, if you let me sing for you.” They either thought I was joking or rubbing my band’s victory in their faces. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mitch slam the car door and make a bee-line straight for me. He didn’t take a swing or anything, but he was definitely ready to let me have it. “Easy, guys, I’m serious,” I said, my arms raised in the universal sign of surrender. I gave them my number and walked away, figuring I’d never hear from them.
Two days later, they called me and told me they rehearsed four times a week and that if I couldn’t handle that, there was no way this was going to work out. “Make it five and we have a deal,” I said, not realizing they’d take me up on that offer, much less hold me to it.
The next day, we met for our first rehearsal. For about half an hour, we sat on this raggedy couch listening to their five-song demo so that I could familiarize with their songs. Knowing that this was getting us nowhere, I finally just stood up and said, “Guys, what’s the point of playing me songs from your old band?”
“Old band?” They replied. “We just recorded these songs two weeks ago.”
“That was then, this is now,” I remarked, turning my back on any further conversation on the topic.
We ended up writing two kick-ass new songs that day. I ended up taking their demo tape home and writing completely new lyrics to the songs, then coming back the next day and showing them what I’d done. I could tell that they were skeptical of me messing with their songs because, let’s face it, a songwriter’s songs are all his babies and he’s not going to let someone come along and mess with his babies.
Considering that we still perform those songs with my lyrics and melodies intact, my guess is that they dug my work. We’ve since written all of our songs as a unit.
My biggest contribution to the band, though, has been to whip them into shape from a performing standpoint. Showmanship has always been my thing, especially since I don’t technically play an instrument. I can play piano, of course, thanks to six years of childhood piano lessons. At the age of 14, though, I finally told my parents that enough was enough and that was the end of that. Okay, that’s not actually 100% accurate. My dad lost his that summer, so the truth was that my parents could no longer afford to pay for lessons. He ended up getting a job a few months later that paid almost twice what he’d been making and I was fearful that they’d make me continue taking lessons, but, for some reason, the issue was never brought up. I ended up going into theatre in high school because I realized that all the cute girls gravitated toward drama club. I ended up becoming very interested in all aspects of theatre and learned that I had a flair for it.
Nick, Gene and Mitch have been completely receptive to my input as far as designing the stage show and, in the end, I think that’s what separates us from most other bands on the scene. Of course, our songs are better, too, but I honestly believe it takes more than just great songs. You’ve got to be able to put them across in a way that draws people in. Even if you’re playing to just ten people, which we’ve done, you’ve got to show each and every last one of them that what they’re seeing is a first-class, top-of-the-line performance. That’s why Johnny Bravo from the LA Times wandered in and then couldn’t leave after just one or two songs like he does when he goes to see most other bands.
That’s why the crowd that came to see Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers was going bananas during our set, and why Irving Azoff set the whole thing up in the first place. It’ll be why whatever label signs us decides to put their money where their mouth is and why, at the end of the day, people will be talking about us and not someone else if I can help it.
This might surprise you to hear me say, but The X-Rayz are Nick and Gene’s band. I’ve known this from the moment that I saw them perform at the Battle of The Bands gig and I’ve never thought any different. I don’t know if they’re even aware of the magnetism that they give off as musicians and songwriters, but that and that alone is the reason that Mitch and I are here. We both recognize that this is their rocket and that there’s room for us on this thing. We get to play a part in something that would have ultimately happened with or without us. I like to think that it’ll be just a little bit cooler with us involved instead of someone else.
CHAPTER NINE: ZERO TO SIXTY IN A HEARTBEAT
The meeting took place in a board room with a view of Hollywood. Gene, Nick and Tommy sat on one side, and Mitch on the other, next to a cute female assistant for Azoff’s management team. They’d been waiting a good thirty minutes for Azoff to arrive and were all out of small talk, so the past ten had been spent in silence.
Suddenly, the double doors swung open and in walked a diminutive figure with the self-righteous presence of a sadistic Third World dictator.
“Okay, boys, let’s cut to the chase,” Irving said as he thrust himself into a chair at the head of the lengthy conference table. Before he could finish his sentence, an intercom buzzed and a woman began to speak, but Irving immediately cut her off with a terse, profanity-laced request that he not be disturbed.
“Where was I?” he asked, eyeing us with the silent ferocity of a lion creeping up on cornered prey.
“I have no doubt that you’re taking meetings with other managers in town. You’d be crazy not to do so but, while they may take you to some fancy restaurant and ply you with expensive dinner and drink, very few can or will do what I’ve done for you out of the goodness of my heart, no strings attached. Believe me, if we collectively choose to work together, to embark on this journey, I can tell you that playing at the Hollywood Bowl is just the tip of the iceberg.”
As if on cue, the cute assistant reached into her briefcase and removed a stack of papers, handing each member of the band a copy before setting a final copy in front of Irving, who flipped it to the last sheet.
“What I want you boys to do is look this contract over and, if you agree that we should work together, I want you to feel free to put your John Hancock on the last page.”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Gene, his hand half-raised. “I was thinking that it might be a good idea for our attorney to look this over before we sign anything.”
Irving paused, an angry smile stapled upon his face.
“I see, so you’re going to pay some lawyer whose name you probably got off the side of a bus to read the same contract that I gave to the fucking Eagles before I made them fucking stars. Yeah, let’s do that.”
Pausing for emphasis, no doubt, Irving seemed to have another thought. “Better yet, why don’t I just bring in one of the three lawyers who are sitting right outside that door, who, once you sign the fucking contract will begin kicking ass and taking names on your behalf? What’s it gonna be, boys?”
“I think you need to buy us dinner first, Irving,” said Tommy, getting up from his chair. “Do you want to order in and or have the limo meet us downstairs?”
Silence enveloped the room, Nick, Mitch and Gene eyeing Tommy with a mix of bewilderment and confusion, not knowing if their career was sunk or merely sinking. Just then, Irving jumped up from his chair, instructed his assistant to have a car ready, and said, “I’m gonna love working with you motherfuckers, I can tell that already.” While the rest of the band fake punched Tommy once outside the conference room, Irving disappeared into his office. He reappeared a few moments later with Don Henley from the Eagles behind him. “I hope you don’t mind if a friend of mine joins us for dinner,” irving said matter-of-factly. Henley nodded to the band, before speaking in a quiet, studied voice. “Irving’s told me a lot about you guys.”
If Henley felt the four pairs of eyes upon him in the elevator, he certainly didn’t let on. Once at the fancy sushi restaurant in Bel Air, he and Irving ordered items that weren’t even on the menu and, to the band’s surprise, the waiters responded as if their very lives depended upon it. The band’s attempts to order on their own were shot down by Henley, then by Irving, who insisted upon ordering on their behalf.
Saki, Japanese beer, and $125 bottles of wine were ordered throughout the night and conversation at the table was fast and furiously jovial; Irving and Henley seemingly trying to out-do each other with one tall tale after the next. What made these tales different, Nick thought, was that most of them were absolutely, 100% true. In fact, he’d heard many of these stories through the grapevine, but hearing them from the horse’s mouth, so to speak, was something else entirely.
Near the end of the evening, the table grew quiet and Henley told the band that they’d be crazy not to sign with Azoff and that he was the sole reason he and the Eagles were where they were at. “In the end, it isn’t about the songs, or how great the band looks, it’s about how much dirt your manager has on those who have the ability to propel you forward.” Playing to the room, Henley put his arm around Irving in a touchingly choreographed embrace, and said, “Irving has dirt on everybody.”
The table erupted in laughter and Henley stood up to excuse himself, as if on cue.
His assistant, also seemingly on-cue, presented the band with the very same contracts they’d seen in the conference room. This time, Nick, Gene, Tommy and Mitch flipped to the last page of the contract and scribbled their names, then handed them back to the assistant.
After scribbling his name on the last page of the contract, Nick momentarily wondered if he and the band had signed a deal with the devil and if doing so was the only way to truly leave their amateur days behind. Signed contracts in-hand, Azoff immediately signaled the waiters to bring more wine. From there, to the best of his memory, the night had turned into a blur of alcohol, tiki lights, loud music, and women.
He distinctly remembered that they’d stayed at the restaurant past closing time, and was surprised that the staff didn’t seem at all put out by this. They had, in fact, continued serving their party whatever it wanted. At some point, though, he did remember standing outside, piling into a limo and realizing that wherever they were going, it was up a large and winding hill.
When he looked out the window, he saw all of Hollywood lit below him. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Seconds later, alcohol and fatigue finally overpowering his system, he passed out. All his life, he’d always been surprised that he never remembered his dreams. He knew he dreamed at night, but was never able to recall the details. Others seemed to have the ability to keep the specifics of even the most illogical dream intact, why couldn't he? On this night, though, his subconscious mind opened before him, unleashing a dream so vivid, so all-consuming, that there was no possible way he'd forget any of it.
MTV STOOD FOR "MUSIC TELEVISION"
Yeah, that's right, kids, before MTV taught you to worship a bunch of Guidos, they actually played music videos. In fact, within a year of debuting on cable providers across the country in 1981, the network succeeded in completely turning the music industry on its collective ear. Before long, every major label was bending over backwards, spending upwards of $1 million on a single music video, and then providing this content to MTV absolutely free-of-charge. MTV, of course, quickly got filthy rich. How could they not? I mean, set up a single camera, hire some dorky VJ to work for scale, and show videos around the clock. Sell tons of advertising and VOILA! I mean, do the math.
Of course, that wasn't good enough for MTV, though. At some point, they got greedy and decided that it would be better to open their wallet and start creating their own reality-based content. Next thing you know, ol' Jed's a millionaire. Snooki too. Blechhh.
MUSIC FESTIVALS DIDN'T SUCK
If you were alive in the 80's, you know about "Live Aid" and how cool an event that was. Here you had everyone that was anyone on the music scene at the time playing to a worldwide audience of over a billion people. Fast forward to modern times and you have disrespectful MTV chowder-heads talking during Pink Floyd's set at Live 8. The difference was that in the ensuing time between Live Aid and Live 8, music festivals gained a rep for totally sucking, whether it was Lollapalooza, Woodstock 94 or Lilith Fair. They all amounted to a whole lot of standing around in the sun, paying $5 for a flat cup of soda, and seeing a bunch of shitty bands totally mangle their own songs onstage. Sure, a lot of people think Led Zep's set at Live Aid was a trainwreck, but, compared to Green Day at Woodstock 94 (long considered the highlight of that particular festival), Zep were on fire! Another great festival that took place during the 80's was the US Festival, which was hip enough to feature new wave bands one night, metal bands the next, straight-up rock bands on the third night, and then a fourth day devoted to country. The brainchild of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, what I remember most about the festival was that up-and-coming bands like Wall Of Voodoo, Missing Persons and the Clash all got paid HUGE bucks to perform. While the entire festival, which took place in both 1982 and 1983, was filmed, precious little of it has ever seen the light of day since. I think Triumph is the only band to have officially released their US Festival performance, but YouTube is chock-full of footage featuring great sets by Van Halen, INXS, Ozzy and many others who performed.
VIDEO ARCADES
I know this may be hard to believe, but, back in the 80's, most of us went to video arcades to pump quarters into machines and play the latest and greatest video games. It was a social experience that many who were there still remember fondly. Sure, the graphics weren't all that great, but that wasn't the point. We were all trying to beat the high score, put our initials on the list of top scores, all the while interacting with our fellow man. Seriously, there was no better way to impress a young lady than to demolish the high score on Frogger.
Nowadays, video games have become something kids of all ages play in the privacy of their own home, often for hours at a time, never once communicating with another human being or leaving the house. Oh sure, kids can play games online and communicate with fellow gamers, but the last time my nephew did that, he got propositioned by some pervert. Nice going, modern world!
DISPOSABLE POP STARS HAD THE DECENCY TO DISAPPEAR
Let's face it, there's no difference between Tiffany and Debbie Gibson in the 80's and Avril Lavigne and Britney Spears today. Of course, these days, disposable pop idols don't go away after their fifteen minutes are up. They just keep right on hogging the spotlight and finding new ways to worm their way back into the national spotlight. Seriously, if he'd been around in the 80's, Justin Timberlake would be a trivia question. As it stands, these days he's heralded as a legendary "artiste". Fuck, he even produced the last Duran Duran album That's some sick-ass shit right there.
NEW WAVE
There have been many killings in the music world. Video killed the radio star, Nirvana slayed the hair metal bands, and so on. What a lot of people seem to forget is that New Wave came along and finally, mercifully put disco out of our collective misery. Bands like Blondie, the B-52's and others made it possible to go to a dance club and not have to listen to the fucking Bee Gees and Gloria Gaynor anymore.
Plus, New Wave was such a large genre, but, even so, it was cool. Seriously, you had to love a genre that included Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, the Go-Go's, Talking Heads, A Flock of Seagulls, Elvis Costello, Gary Numan, Joe Jackson, and Billy Idol, just to name a few.
DAVID LETTERMAN WAS STILL DAMN FUNNY
It's a shame that the only thing to remind us of how funny David Letterman used to be are a few skits from "Late Night With David Letterman" that have managed to make it to YouTube. Back in the day, though, Dave was a guy who brought a special brand of comedy into our living rooms five nights a week. He was respectful of those heroes who had defined the talk-show genre, such as Johnny Carson and Jack Parr, but also completely willing to push the envelope of what a late-night talk show could be, often going to hilariously ridiculous lengths. These days, the Top 10 List is the only reason to tune in, if any, but, back then, you literally had no idea what you would see when you tuned in. You might see Brother Theodore or Harvey Pekar going off on any number of subjects, Larry "Bud" Melman in a bear suit trying to get change for a ten-dollar bill, or the national television debuts of R.E.M. and Sam Kinison, to name just two.
YOU COULD TELL WHO THE BAD GUYS WERE
Back in the 80's, terrorism was something that took place on foreign lands. America was a supreme power that instilled fear into the hearts of those who did not agree with us, but they did not dare venture onto our turf to commit their acts of cowardice. We knew who the bad guys were because they hid behind masks, burned U.S. flags, and made constant idle threats from thousands of miles away. These days, the U.S. is a joke, yet we continue to financially support and do the dirty work of countries that now openly mock us. We waste billions on these spineless dirt merchants even as millions in our own country lose their homes, jobs, and livelihoods. We are left to wonder if those who are supposed to be looking out for us are the ones systematically knocking our feet out from under us by choosing to look the other way as big business gets away with murder, or did you forget that this whole BP debacle began with the senseless deaths of eleven men?
ONLY SCUM BAGS WORE TATTOOS
Back in the 80's, if you had a tattoo, chances were you were a truck driver, in the military, or just plain ol' white trash. Now we live in a world where millions of sheep aspire to associate themselves with the absolute lowest common denominator. The other day, I encountered a beautiful woman, struck up a conversation with said lady, and then noticed the word "Willie" scribbled across the top of her cleavage. She noticed me spot the "tit-tat" and immediately chalked it up to a careless reminder of her misspent youth. "Oh really?" I remarked. "When did you get it?" "Six months ago," she said. End of conversation.
TV NEWS JOURNALISM STILL EXISTED
Just think, back in the 80's, TV news consisted of an hour of national coverage each night on three networks. These days, we're surrounded by 24-hour news networks, yet very little of what they broadcast would qualify as news, much less journalism. Instead, we are treated to hours and hours of commentary dressed up as fact, and only those stories that suit each network's respective agenda are given air time. Makes me really miss Walter Cronkite, who may have had some very liberal personal views, but he kept them to himself and just reported the bleeping facts. Blowhards like Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and others should be ashamed, but so should the people who have so willingly allowed such low-lifes to dismantle the foundation of credible news journalism in this country.
KIDS STILL PLAYED OUTSIDE
Back when I was a kid, we spent every possible moment outside, riding bikes, playing whatever sport was in-season, or whatever else we could think of. Nowadays, the world is so full of perverts patrolling the neighborhoods for their lastest victim that we grown-up's go out of our way to keep our kids inside. These days, when I see two or three kids outside, interacting socially, my first instinct is to look around and see if something's wrong. Did their house catch fire?
There was a time I really dug INXS. Granted, the very unexpected death of singer/front man Michael Hutchence knocked the remaining, what, thirty (okay, five) members of this Australian band for a loop, but, come on, this is starting to get ridiculous.
First, the band spent what seemed like forever trying to figure out who their next singer was going to be. Then they signed on to participate in the NBC reality series, "Rock Star: INXS", which saw an assembly line of also-ran's compete for the gig as INXS' new singer, only to be won by trivia-question-in-the-making J.D. Fortune, who would leave the band after one poorly-selling album and tour.
Now the band have come up with the questionable idea of having numerous singers assist them in re-recording some of their best-known material. The lead-off single from their upcoming album is "Never Tear Us Apart" (my fave INXS tune, btw) sung by Ben Harper. The new version doesn't outright suck, but it does beg the question "Why?"
The members of INXS have said on numerous occasions that they wanted to start a new project from scratch, but that certain members were reluctant to do so, having spent so much time establishing INXS. Considering all of the damage their latest antics threaten to do to the legacy and value of the INXS brand, a part of me thinks they'd have been much better off to just start a new band and not lose themselves in the endless search for a replacement for a guy who died thirteen years ago.
It was August 2004 when the former Mr. Lisa Bonet now known as Lenny Kravitz took what can best be described as a massive burrito dump in his $7.1 million Manhattan penthouse, leading to the death and destruction of a small Third World nation - okay, actually, the toilet overflowed and, in doing so, resulted in "catastrophic water damage" to a downstairs neighbor's apartment.
Imagine living in an $850/month studio apartment and having the toilet of the noisy guy above you spill into your living space. You'd be pretty pissed, right? I mean, nobody wants their own fecal floaters in their apartment, much less somebody else's turds of terror.
Now, imagine if you had paid a cool $2 million for a ritzy flat in Soho. I mean, people with that kind of cash just don't expect to have to deal with that kinda crap...heh heh.
Thus, as a result of his porcelain-pounding poop session, Kravitz soon found himself on the receiving end of a hefty lawsuit from the insurance company that had initially paid out over $300,000 in damages to the owners of the home his egomaniacal excrement had entered. Deeming Kravitz' crapper skills "careless and negligent", the company chose to seek restitution from the rectally-challenged rocker.
Kravitz would end facing three separate lawsuits as a result of his diabolical dookie drop and unconfirmed sources say that all three were eventually settled out-of-court for a cool $1 million.
Of course, anyone thinking Kravitz came out on the short end of this shit brick is dead wrong. Kravitz eventually sold the Soho space for a very respectable profit of $7 million...in a freakin' recession, after the place had languished on the market for literally years.
Anyone interested in feasting their eyes upon Kravitz craptastic crib should click HERE.
Oh, to go back to 1988 and truly soak up every joyful second of those halcyon days, knowing what I do about the screaming downward spiral the music biz (and humanity) has taken in the ensuing years. For a brief shining moment that year, every time I turned around, there was a new guitar-driven pop band charging out of Britain with a delightfully cheeky blonde gal on vocals.
The first band to make me stand up and pay attention had been the Primitives with their fast and furious blast of hard rock candy called "Crash". Then, before I could even digest the entirety of their splendid debut RCA platter, Lovely, a new band called The Darling Buds swung into town and spun my head around.
Lead by bottle blonde vixen Andrea Lewis, the band's brand of Ramones-ian guitar and bubblegum hooks was just what the rock doctor ordered. Videos for "Burst" and "Hit The Ground" became staples of MTV's "120 Minutes" and I waited for the rest of the world to take notice of the band.
After all, their debut album, Pop Said, was just about as perfect a pop record as you could ask for those days. Plus, you had a cute woman standing out front, singing song after song about having her heart stomped on by some careless boy, or of a love she has for another that has thus far fallen on deaf ears and eyes.
At the time, I chalked such songs up as works of fiction, but, after the band played a splendid Chicago gig only a few weeks after the album came out, I saw Lewis texting furiously backstage, apparently in the middle of an argument with an ex-boyfriend who'd dumped her on the eve of the tour.
"Where did you get access to that kind of technology?" I asked.
Okay, maybe that last part didn't actually happen. My mind does tend to modernize my memories for me, hence the reason so many people at that show had tattoos and body piercings.
The Darling Buds, for all of their obvious marketability, would release two more albums that would fall like trees in some proverbial forest of should-have-been hits before calling it a day in 1992.
The band's delightful debut, however, lives on in expanded form thanks to UK label Cherry Red (BUY ALBUM), who re-issued the album, along with another album's worth of non-LP tracks in 2006. Unlike most expanded editions, this new version of the album actually manages to build upon the momentum of the original, rather than tear it down, thereby creating a glorious salute to late 80's UK guitar pop via this 21-song hook grenade.
I admit that I'm not the hugest Springsteen fan in the world, but I dig the dude enough to have been totally enthralled by the recent 30th Anniversary re-issue of Born To Run a few years back, mostly for the extensive documentary on the making of the album. I mean, they just don't make records like this anymore. This footage not only captures a legendary artist just as he's preparing to take flight, but also a moment in the history of America, and the music business when things may not have been perfect, but they were a helluva lot better than they are now.
Hence, I will be looking forward to the release of this collection of remastered tracks and special features, which will no doubt include a lot of footage of Jimmy Iovine talking about having been involved in yet another absolutely mind-blowingly classic recording session. How this guy could be the same guy behind crap like Pussycat Dolls is beyond me, but I digress.
Here's the low-down on the tasty Deluxe Edition of The Promise:
CD 1: REMASTERED 'DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN'
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy's Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
"'Darkness' was my 'samurai' record," Springsteen writes, "stripped to the frame and ready to rumble...But the music that got left behind was substantial." For the first time, fans will have access to two discs containing a total of 21 previously-unreleased songs from the 'Darkness' recording sessions, songs that, as Springsteen writes, "perhaps could have/should have been released after 'Born To Run' and before the collection of songs that 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' became."
Highlights include the extraordinary rock version of "Racing in the Street," the never-before-released original recordings of "Because the Night," "Fire," and "Rendezvous," the supreme pop opus "Someday (We'll Be Together)," the hilarious "Ain't Good Enough for You," the superb soul-based vocal performance on "The Brokenhearted," the utterly haunting "Breakaway," and the fully orchestrated masterpiece and title song "The Promise." All 21 songs have been mixed by Springsteen's long-time collaborator Bob Clearmountain. According to long-time manager/producer Jon Landau, "There isn't a weak card in this deck. 'The Promise' is simply a great listening experience."
CD 2: THE PROMISE (DISC 1)
1. Racing In The Street ('78)
2. Gotta Get That Feeling
3. Outside Looking In
4. Someday (We'll Be Together)
5. One Way Street
6. Because The Night
7. Wrong Side Of The Street
8. The Brokenhearted
9. Rendezvous
10. Candy's Boy
CD 3: THE PROMISE (DISC 2)
1. Save My Love
2. Ain't Good Enough For You
3. Fire
4. Spanish Eyes
5. It's A Shame
6. Come On (Let's Go Tonight)
7. Talk To Me
8. The Little Things (My Baby Does)
9. Breakaway
10. The Promise
11. City Of Night
The Deluxe Package also features "The Promise: The Making of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town,'" a documentary directed by Grammy- and Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Thom Zimny. The ninety-minute film combines never-before-seen footage of Springsteen and the E Street Band shot between 1976 and 1978--including home rehearsals and studio sessions--with new interviews with Springsteen, E Street Band members, manager Jon Landau, former-manager Mike Appel, and others closely involved in the making of the record. Advanced word on the documentary is so strong that it was invited to debut at the prestigious Toronto Film Festival on September 14 and will make its television debut on HBO on October 7.
DVD 1: "THE PROMISE: THE MAKING OF 'DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN'"
In addition, the set features more than four hours of live concert film from the Thrill Hill Vault, including the bootleg house cut (the footage that appeared on-screen at the concert) from a 1978 Houston show, and a 2009 performance of 'Darkness on the Edge of Town' in its entirety from Asbury Park. The special performance in Asbury Park was shot in HD without an audience and successfully recreates the stark atmosphere of the original album.
DVD 2: DARKNESS ON THE EDGE OF TOWN (PARAMOUNT THEATER, ASBURY PARK, NJ, 2009)
1. Badlands
2. Adam Raised A Cain
3. Something In The Night
4. Candy's Room
5. Racing In The Street
6. The Promised Land
7. Factory
8. Streets Of Fire
9. Prove It All Night
10. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
THRILL HILL VAULT (1976-1978)
1. Save My Love (Holmdel, NJ 76)
2. Candy's Boy (Holmdel, NJ 76)
3. Something In The Night (Red Bank, NJ 76)
4. Don't Look Back (NYC 78)
5. Ain't Good Enough For You (NYC 78)
6. The Promise (NYC 78)
7. Candy's Room Demo (NYC 78)
8. Badlands (Phoenix 78)
9. The Promised Land (Phoenix 78)
10. Prove It All Night (Phoenix 78)
11. Born To Run (Phoenix 78)
12. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight) (Phoenix 78)
DVD 3: HOUSTON '78 BOOTLEG: HOUSE CUT
1. Badlands
2. Streets Of Fire
3. It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City
4. Darkness On The Edge Of Town
5. Spirit In The Night
6. Independence Day
7. The Promised Land
8. Prove It All Night
9. Racing In The Street
10. Thunder Road
11. Jungleland
12. The Ties That Bind
13. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town
14. The Fever
15. Fire
16. Candy's Room
17. Because The Night
18. Point Blank
19. She's The One
20. Backstreets
21. Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
22. Born To Run
23. Detroit Medley
24. Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
25. You Can't Sit Down
26. Quarter To Three
Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you that I am an absolute sucker for odd cover tunes. There is just something intriguingly irresistible about an artist that tackles a song in an interesting way, or decides to cover a song that you wouldn't normally think they'd tackle.
I figured I'd take this opportunity to share a few recent favorites of mine with you, along with a little chit-chat about what makes the tune special to me.
This is from the heavy metal record No More Mr. Nice Guy, which was definitely done with tongue planted firmly in cheek. All things considered, though, I really dig this version of the Judas Priest classic. Truth be told, when I heard it for the first time, it was merely in-passing, but it definitely got my attention. If you haven't heard it, check it out. Better yet, play it for your friends and watch their reaction...definitely worth the price of admission which, last time I checked was FREE, so do it already!
I'm a huge Waite fan, but I'm kinda over Beatles covers, especially those that decide to tackle early Beatles tunes (I always favored the psychedelic stuff). Having said that, I never really dug "Drive My Car", but I do dig Waite's ambitious revamping of the tune, performed during the tour for his first solo album. Part of me thinks he should have cut this for the album! Heck, he should put it on his next album, for that matter.
I remember getting this album home, reading the song titles, and saying to myself, "No way, it couldn't possibly be a cover of a freakin' Monkees tune." Even after I put it on and started listening, I wasn't sure if it was the tune or not, then the vocals came in and, yep, sure enough, it was the Monkees tune. You gotta give it to the boys for trying valiantly to reinvent a tune that most bands wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
Okay, you're probably asking yourself, "Who the hell are the Deserters?" If not, then you're probably wondering who the heck Chris Spedding is, or why a band you've never heard of would bother covering an artist you've also never heard of. Call me crazy, but, thanks to this band I went on to become a pretty big Chris Spedding fan. The singer of this band, Kenny Maclean, would go on to play bass in Platinum Blonde (whom I also adore). Sadly, he has since passed away.
This indie band sent me their cover of the Pixies classic and, despite some initial hesitation on my part, I gave it a listen and LOVED it. I hope you do too.
Can an artist cover themselves? Good question. Iris, of course, was a member of The Jaggerz, who scored a huge mega-hit with this tune in the late sixties...or was it early 70's? When Iris made a comeback in the 80's as a solo artist, he performed this tune in-concert for a teenage fanbase that probably just sat their with a blank look on their face. I prefer this version to the original, which sounds like it was recorded over the telephone or something, as do most one-hit smashes from the late 60's, it seems.
I dig L7. They are easily one of the best all-girl bands on the planet and damn if they never quite got their due, despite having a moderate hit with "Pretend We're Dead" in the post-Nirvana gold rush of the early '90s. They do a damn fine job tackling this DK tune, making it a kick-ass jam that even non-DK fans can dig.
I was never that into Spacehog, although many of my friends swear by them, but I can totally respect a band that chooses to cover my favorite XTC tune of all time. I still prefer the original, but this version is easily the best Spacehog tune I have ever heard. :)
There's nothing worse than getting pigeon-holed as a one-or-two-hit '60s sensation, but that was the fate awarded one Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits. At one point, he got so fed up trying to launch a solo career in the very early '80s that he formed a band in L.A. called The Tremblers and actually managed to land a deal with Columbia. They released one album that is absolutely chock-full of top-shelf, guitar-heavy West Coast pop (a la Tom Petty, Plimsouls, etc.). On that album, of course is this very respectful and respectable version of Costello's "Green Shirt". If you dig this and wanna hear more, you're in luck, as the Tremblers' album has recently been re-issued.
I am a HUGE School Of Fish fan. I am also a gigantic fan of Prince's early output (of which I consider 1999 to be part). Hence, there is no better tune to end this list with than School of Fish's rollicking version of The Purple One's "Let's Pretend We're Married". Enjoy!
Legendary Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook and band The Light are coming to the US to perform Joy Division's seminal album Unknown Pleasures in its entirety. Initially a DJ/Q&A show wherein Hook simply played recorded tracks from the album and told numerous anecdotes from the making of the album and of the times, he has now recruited a full band to help him actually perform the album live. NOTE: A Los Angeles show has just been added, click here for PRE-SALE info (password: unknown - no, seriously, that's the password).
December 1 Washington, DC 9:30 Club
December 2 Philadelphia, PA Voyeur
December 3 New York, NY Webster Hall
December 4 Boston, MA Royale Nightclub
December 6 Chicago, IL Double Door
December 7 Seattle, WA Showbox At The Market
December 9 Portland, OR Doug Fir
December 10 San Francisco, CA Mezzanine
December 11 Los Angeles, CA The Music Box
If you and I were friends in real-life, getting together occasionally for coffee and whatnot, I get the feeling you'd be the kind of gal who'd always insist upon meeting at Starbucks. I mean, let's face it, those crappuccinos and asspressos they serve all taste like "ass in a glass", hence the reason Starbucks has unknowingly become a shrine for people with more money than taste. In a nutshell, a woman who willingly drinks Starbucks coffee but refuses to blow the man she confesses to love fresh from a workout, sweat dripping from his pubes, is a hypocrite.
You, Jennifer, have also, perhaps unknowingly, come to represent those types of women.
Of course, your taste in film roles serves only to set this image in concrete, with you going out of your way to cast yourself as the one semi-hot woman any man can live without. It began in "The Break-Up" where even a decent shot of your backside couldn't make your character likable and continued to "Marley & Me" where you played a woman whose biological clock had become so annoying to her hubby that he bought her a dog. From there, you attached yourself to the cinematic Hindenberg that was "He's Just Not That Into You" as the eternally single and clueless Beth Murphy.
Then, of course, you appeared opposite Aaron Eckhart in "Love Happens" - only problem was that Eckhart is not a romantic lead, no how, no way. I didn't buy it, neither did the rest of the planet.
Ditto for "The Bounty Hunter", which paired you up with Gerard Butler, who, near as I can tell, can't quite figure out how to work a freakin' shaving razor. Note to Hollywood, Butler may make a fine gladiator or grease monkey, but please spare us the attempts to turn him into a romantic lead. Ain't. Gonna. Happen.
Okay, back to you, Jen.
Your next, and current film is "The Switch", where you play a woman who has become so jaded about love and the prospect of ever finding that special someone to share the rest of her life with that she not only decides to undergo artificial insemination, but also feels the need to throw a freakin' party to celebrate that fact, filled with tons of annoying friends who *GASP* are also single.
Jen, babe, you're better than this. I realize that you could never pull off a break-out role like Sandra Bullock did in "Speed", but enough with the needy, yet distant ice queen act. It's not working.
Babe, what you need to do is grab the first role that portrays you as someone everybody wants, but that the funny little nerdy guy ultimately gets. You need to stop willingly portraying yourself as "little girl lost with the above-average rack" and stake your claim as Jennifer *BLEEPING* Aniston, the woman Brad Pitt chucked to the curb but who he fantasizes about every time St. Angelina brings home another Cambodian orphan.
It's not too late, Jen. You're still damn attractive and you might even be able to act. I can't imagine that its all that fun playing yourself in every film role you accept, though. See, the thing about acting is that you get to do what most people never get to do and play other people. Seriously, you should try it sometime.
I will admit to initially dragging my feet on the Katy Perry front, as I felt her tune "I Kissed A Girl" was a little too reminiscent of a certain Jill Sobule song of the same name. Upon giving her debut secular album, One Of The Boys, a listen, I had to hand it to Katy...well, to be more accurate, I had to hand it to the army of producers and programmers responsible for creating one of the more delectable pop gems of 2008.
On Teenage Dream, Perry again enlists just about every A-list producer (from Benny Blanco to Dr. Luke to Ammo to Max Martin), ensuring that there are as many bells and whistles packed into this album as humanly possible.
Of course, with Dr. Luke and Max Martin handling a lion's share of the songwriting, there are also hooks aplenty. Truth be told, the album is a buoyantly joyous pop party from start to finish and I truly believe you'd have to be lacking a pulse already to not get off on this record.
Having said that, the "rock critic" part of me can't help but think this very same album could very well have the name "Britney Spears" on it if the pop starlet hadn't gone bonkers, thereby taking herself out of the game. Both One Of The Boys and this new Perry joint seem to be albums that would have taken place with or without her. Perry, of course, was savvy enough to jump on-board and essentially take credit for the work of literally hundreds of the best studio pro's in the business.
Of course, nobody's gonna buy a straight-up Max Martin or Dr. Luke record, no matter how great it is. Katy, of course, has been only too happy to disrobe for greater career advancement. Still, she and main competitor Lady Gaga are women of modest physical gifts, but you and I both know most guys will gravitate towards a naked semi-hot chick than a half-dressed stunner.
As long as Katy has no qualms about that, she'll do just fine. It doesn't earn her any bonus points in my book, though. Of course, neither does her horrific taste in men. I swear the only thing keeping Russell Brand from being put on display in some zoo is that damn British accent. Why is it such women seem to find inexplicable solace in the arms of such neanderthals?
What this has to do with the new Katy Perry record, of course, is that Katy has willingly allowed her career to be built more upon spectacle than on the music. She'll never go broke by doing this, of course, but I can't help but think that it might be nice for a good Christian girl such as the former Katy Hudson to not be quite so willing to sell herself out like every other tween pop singer on the planet. Call me crazy, but Debbie Harry was sexy as hell, kept her clothes on, and she did just fine. Same goes for Pat Benatar, Joan Jett, and, so far, Gwen Stefani.
If you haven't heard this tune yet, check it out. It hit YouTube on Aug 19 and has already had over 1,400,000 views. I'll let this little ditty speak for itself.
In 1980, not only was Shaun Cassidy's acting career on life support, his music career was also toast. Warner Brothers Records tried valiantly to re-invent his career by enlisting Todd Rundgren (?!) to write and produce Shaun's next album.
Rundgren, of course, didn't stop there. He also hand-picked a few cover tunes and recruited his own band Utopia to play on the songs that would ultimately see release as The Wasp.
Back then, teen idols had a very limited shelf life - unlike modern-day heartthrobs who seem to stick around FOREVER (I'm looking at you Justin and Britney). Thus, the odds that Shaun would be able to successfully make the jump from pin-up fodder to legitimate artist were slim.
Quite predictably, the album sunk without a trace and Shaun never made another album. Some may consider this good news, but I was actually surprised by Cassidy's strong, albeit somewhat unidentifiable performance on the album. "So Sad About Us" ranks as a pretty cool little track and is definitely worth a listen.
Like any great rock list, this one is hopefully going to take you down memory lane and maybe even force you re-think exactly what punk is. I mean, if punk was truly only those albums that came out in late '76/early '77, or that were sung by bands with spiky hair and a bad attitude, then someone might wanna break this news to the thousands of bands that have made great punk records over the last thirty odd years...such as most of the bands that made this list. Of course, the first two albums on this list will come as no surprise to anyone.
RAMONES/ROCKET TO RUSSIA
Let's face it, anyone wearing a Ramones t-shirt today is, more than likely, a huge poseur. Ask them to name three members of the band and, more than likely, they have to try reading the names off of their t-shirt upside down without looking too obvious. Sadly, three members of this great band are no longer with us, not living long enough to see their music immortalized in movies, commercials, and video games.
When listening to Rocket To Russia today, I am struck by the energy and immediacy of songs such as "Cretin Hop" and "Rockaway Beach". Sure, there was a hard punk exterior, but underneath it was a chewy bubblegum center. How were these songs not hits?!
SEX PISTOLS/NEVER MIND THE BULLOCKS
Yeah, it's an obvious choice, but it's an obvious choice for a very good reason: Bullocks a fantastic album from start to finish. Like the Ramones' Rocket To Russia, it is a pop album at its very core, but, again, the energy and the in-your-face immediacy of the tunes is distinctly punk.
Veteran producer Bill Price was smart enough to not try to push the band to be anything that it wasn't, choosing instead to multi-track Steve Jones' hard driving guitars and to place Paul Cook's pummeling drum work prominently in the mix.
What ultimately gave the Pistols their legendary punk edge, though, was Johnny Rotten's vitriolic vocal style, which served only to heighten the impact of his incendiary lyrics that challenged all cows, sacred and otherwise.
IGGY & THE STOOGES/RAW POWER
I honestly wish I'd been old enough to truly relish how crazy Iggy Pop must have been in 1973, when this album was released. Near as I can tell, the minute he hit a stage or recording studio, he ceased being human and turned into a rabid, cornered dog that saw the stage as his only sanctuary from injustice. I don't much get the Iggy that would later find himself rolling around in broken glass, but on Raw Power, this is 100% unbridled, uh, raw power. Of course, Iggy's great, but what makes this album snap, crackle and pop are the fookin' Stooges, man. To a man, these guys attacked each song with a vigor heretofore unheard.
Of course, the album was so far ahead of its time that, even today, it's considered a bit of an oddity to all but the most discerning rock fans. Admittedly, even those who dig the album seem to have a problem with Bowie's final mix. As a result, a bootleg version of the album featuring Iggy's original mixes was so legendary in bootleg circles that Sony paid Iggy to remix the album for re-release in 1997.
Regardless of which mix you may prefer, this is an album that more than lives up to its title.
MINISTRY/TWITCH
Sure, many regard this as the blueprint for industrial music, upon which the likes of Trent Reznor have built an entire career, but this is also an album that proves quite convincingly that you don't need guitars to create a righteous punk racket.
Jourgenson, of course, paid his dues on the Chicago punk scene, so this wasn't disingenuous at all. In fact, only someone with a punk pedigree could have abused synthesizers to such an extent as to create a noise so wonderfully subversive.
CHEAP TRICK/CHEAP TRICK
Sure, there are few UK punk bands with members as hunky as Robin Zander or Tom Petersson circa 1977, but, thanks to Rick Nielsen's goofball nihilism, Cheap Trick's first album is an absolute punk masterpiece disguised as a mildly subversive pop record. It joined every other classic punk album by selling poorly in the US despite universally positive reviews from critics.
The genius of Rick Nielsen was to juxtapose songs about murder, suicide, and male prostitution with the pin-up good looks of Zander and Petersson. If everyone else in the band looked like Nielsen or certified public accountant, er, drummer Bun E. Carlos, there'd have been no mistake about this band's twisted intent.
LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH/LORDS OF THE NEW CHURCH
Take Dead Boys singer Stiv Bator(s), ex-Damned guitarist Brian James, and the righteous rhythm section of Nicky Turner and Dave Tregunna and you have punk's first (and perhaps only) supergroup. Whereas the sum of most other supergroups never quite adds up to their individual parts, the Lords' first album is an absolutely inspired first effort. Sure, punk was supposed to be dead, with new wave was becoming all the rage, but that didn't stop the Lords from stirring up as much controversy as possible. Stiv, of course, has always worn his adoration for Iggy Pop on his sleeve and teaming up with James was a stroke of genius. Punk finally had its own Mick and Keef and the result was an album that out-shined anything they'd done prior.
JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS/BAD REPUTATION
Don't think this is a punk album? Jett had been left penniless by the breakup of the Runaways and was sleeping on the floor of manager Kenny Laguna's house while recording this album. Upon completion, Jett and Laguna shopped the record to major labels and were turned down repeatedly by every label they approached. They eventually caught a break in the form of Boardwalk Records' executive Neil Bogart, who took a shine to Jett and signed on to release the album. Jett & Laguna, of course, made sure to retain rights to their masters, which, in hindsight, was a stroke of genius. Otherwise, this album (and Jett's career) would have no doubt been tied up in tons of red tape when the label began to falter following Bogart's death in 1982.
All business aside, this is an album that the Ramones would have been proud to have made, showing a supreme love for sixties pop performed at top volume and with more energy than a "runaway" freight train.
JESUS & MARY CHAIN/PSYCHOCANDY
Following the template set by bands like the Pistols and Joan Jett, the brothers Reid took their love for bubblegum hooks and meshed them with a sound that others have tried, but ultimately failed to replicate over the years. On first listen to Psychocandy on that fateful rainy day (how apropos) in the fall of 1986, I literally thought there was something wrong with either the record, or my stereo. The quality of songs like "Just Like Honey" and "Never Understand", though, drew me in and I couldn't stop listening. Before long, I came to adore the irreverent anti-production of the record and, when I caught the band live later that year, they proved their punk-ness by playing for a whopping twenty minutes before leaving the stage in a haze of distortion and spilled beer.
WIRE/PINK FLAG
The thing that bugs me the most about the original UK punk phenom is that the scene was soon littered with bands that all sounded alike. It was as if they got the energy of the Ramones and the Pistols, but hadn't been paying attention to how truly original those bands were. They thought all they had to do was spike their hair and be pissed off about who-knows-what.
Wire, on the other hand, unleashed their debut album upon a nation that had embraced punk, but was still challenged by what these four lads from London had to offer.
Containing 21 songs, with six under a minute in length, the album adheres to an ultra-punk aesthetic while, at the same time, using these concise blasts of fury to create a cohesive statement akin to that of a concept album. This isn't merely an album, though, this is a manifesto.
GANG OF FOUR/ENTERTAINMENT
The debut album from England's Gang Of Four was a cold, calculated car-crash of detachment that flipped conventional song structure and melody on its ear. Additionally, the band's themes aren't so much personal as global in nature, giving their songs an energy of being sung not by just one person, but an army. This is an essential album that will alter your reality even some thirty years later.
SIOUXSIE & THE BANSHEES/THE SCREAM
How can a post-punk album be more punk than most so-called UK punk albums? It can't. That's why I refuse to classify this album as a post-punk record. Siouxsie Sioux had been such an integral cheerleader of the original punk movement that her first foray into the music world could not escape such classification. And thus, The Scream more than lives up to its name by delivering an onslaught of buzz-saw guitars, throbbing bass lines and hypnotic drumming, all combining to create a musical sound that was as much fury and rage as grace and poetry. The band gets bonus points for stealing "Helter Skelter" back from Manson a full decade before U2 claimed to do the same thing.
R.E.M./CHRONIC TOWN
For a moment, forget the fact that the members of this band have completely lost touch with their roots and not made a truly great record in almost twenty years. Forget that Michael Stipe himself has turned into someone almost unrecognizable from the man who beautifully mumbled his way through this, R.E.M.s, first EP.
What made this and other early R.E.M. records punk was their complete disregard for the unwritten rules that so many other band choose to play by, resulting in a record that lacks any originality whatsoever. The result was a sound comprised of deceptively simple elements that was entirely their own. As a result, the rock world had no other choice but to stand up and take notice. Sure, the masses couldn't be bothered, but discerning rock fans and critics knew that what they were listening to was history in the making.
GO-GO's/BEAUTY AND THE BEAT
I reserve a fully extended middle finger for anyone who doubts the punk pedigree of this all-female L.A. band. That they were teamed with sixties bubblegum producer Richard Gottehrer was an absolute stroke of genius, as he was able to work with the band's musical limitations to create an album that played so perfectly upon their strengths.
Signing to Miles Copeland's IRS Records label was as punk a move as any band could make circa 1981. Up to that point, IRS had been unsuccessful at breaking any band in the US. That Beauty & The Beat would become their first #1 record was a feat nobody on earth could have seen coming. Of course, the band would quickly adopt a more clean-cut, wholesome image in order to maintain their popularity, forever leaving behind the band that created this American punk masterpiece.
TSOL/CHANGE TODAY?
So-called punk purists consider original singer Jack Grisham to be the punk heart of this Orange County band, but, to my ears, TSOL only became a contender after his departure. The proof, of course, is in the pudding and, in the case of Flowers, this is some tasty, albeit jagged pudding.
While Grisham certainly had the nihilistic punk act down pat, the songs themselves never seemed to be anything more than a mere afterthought. By contrast, Change Today? is the work of an entirely new - and focused - band that creates tale upon tale of teenage rage and alienation.
MINUTEMEN/DOUBLE NICKELS ON THE DIME
While I personally found this band unlistenable and hard to look at, it would be selfish of me to deny just how influential the Minutemen were. Truth be told, there are many whose idea of punk begins and ends with the Minutemen, whereas I have always seen them as a flannel-sporting jam band, albeit one who plays most tunes at breakneck speed as if eager for the song to end.
BLACK FLAG/LOOSE NUT
While the drumming of Bill Stephenson keeps this album from being an all-out stunner, this was Black Flag at their absolute creative peak. The band had so much material from these sessions that another album, In My Head, was released a mere six months later. With songs like "Now She's Black", "Annihilate This Week" and the anthemic title track, Black Flag seemed poised to jump to the next level, which would have no doubt caused many of their fans to cry "Sell out!". Sadly, a mere year after this album's release, the band would cease to exist.
THREE O'CLOCK/BAROQUE HOEDOWN
While spawned as a reaction to the bloated excess of rock in the early-to-mid 70's, the best punk records have always drawn from sixties pop, In the case of L.A.'s Three O'Clock and their debut EP, Baroque Hoedown, the source wasn't so much bubblegum as psychedelia, giving the band their own private corner of the punk rock pie. Of course, this wouldn't last long, as their sound would inspire an entire L.A. movement that Three O'Clock singer Michael Quercio would later dub the Paisley Underground.
They'd later go on to cut two record for IRS and one for Prince's Paisley Park label, but none were as furiously inspired as this supersonic storybook of a debut.
THE CLASH/LONDON CALLING
I'm gonna be completely honest with you, readers, I initially spaced on The Clash. I have adored this band for so long. Heck, I even got to spend a couple hours in an airport lounge with Joe Strummer, during which time he turned me from someone who merely respected the man to someone who would have donated my doggone heart to save the guy. London Calling is one solid mother of an album, so full of ace songs that you almost forget that the band pounding out the jams is one of the defining bands of the entire punk movement. One of the things Joe told me was that they distanced themselves from the word "punk" as fast as they could because they knew they had to do so if they wanted to make it in America. They, of course, went on to make it in America and the rest as they say is history.
BIG BLACK/ATOMIZER
Many so-called punk purists seem to severely underestimate Chicago's contribution to the punk pantheon. In the mid-80's, though, there was no place on earth doing it better than the Windy City. To this day, bands such as Naked Raygun, Jesus Lizard, the Effigies, and Big Black remain some of the most sorely overlooked punk acts of all time.
Atomizer, Big Black's first full-length (which, quite sadly, is now available only as part of The Rich Man's Eight-Track Tape compilation, dropping one song), is as abrasive and confrontational as punk gets. Steve Albini, all 85 pounds of him, is a railing presence who gets off on challenging your preconceptions. Song subjects range from molestation ("Jordan, Minnesota") to pyromania ("Kerosene"), presented in such a manner that even the most brazen listener is left shuddering in their shell if they dwell on the lyrics too long. The pile-driver assault of the band's music finishes you off like a fist through concrete.
THE CRAMPS/SONGS THE LORD TAUGHT US
There are few bands more uniquely familiar yet altogether original than The Cramps. Blending high-octane rockabilly with songs about werewolves, zombies and outerspace, they were an integral part of the mid-70s CBGB punk scene and created a gem of a punk statement on their debut effort, produced by the legendary Alex Chilton.
In the letter Chilton's widow wrote to be read at the Chilton tribute/Big Star show at 2010's SXSW Music Festival, she stated that, for all of his musical accomplishments, he remained truly proud of his work with the Cramps. Just as Gottehrer had done for the Go-Go's, Chilton embraces the band's many idiosyncrasies and somehow finds a way for them to congeal into one wonderfully gloppy mess of rockabilly, psychedelia and just plain madness.
Sadly, singer Lux Interior passed away in early 2009, thereby bringing to an end one of the more delightfully raunchy punk bands of all time.
), who re-issued the album, along with another album's worth of non-LP tracks in 2006. Unlike most expanded editions, this new version of the album actually manages to build upon the momentum of the original, rather than tear it down, thereby creating a glorious salute to late 80's UK guitar pop via this 21-song hook grenade. 
