A NIGHT A THE WHISKEY AND BLONDIE-DEBBIE GRABS A FRENCH FRIES OR TWO

A NIGHT A THE WHISKEY AND BLONDIE-DEBBIE GRABS A FRENCH FRIES OR TWO....




Los Angeles in the years -the midish 70's  about 1977-was a mecca for up and coming rock bands from every corner of the world. And L.A. was showcase city, in terms of people who could get you a record contract with the managers and lawyers that were always part of the deal.
There was the Starwood,  The Troubadour (The Roxy was to come around in a year or two) there were underground showcases for punk and heavy metal bands in around Hollywood, not in the most savory of conditions but you were there for the music the energy the scene, the people so the setting was almost irrelevant, as  long as the bands could plug in and had a stage-like area to play from.
As an aside- a few friends, a couple musicians and another a roadie went to see a punk bands in the Hollywood hideaways just off Hollywood Boulevard where the Heart of Hollywood was truly located.
We arrived, and we were more of the rock scene look compared to the punk scene and various attire which consisted of safety pins and leather but was evolving to tattoos and more outrageous garb, we went for the music and we we outcasts most of our lives, so we may have cracked a few jokes but realized it was another form of music. It was loud and there were some mosh pit activity which we steered clear of, part of the punk scene was being rude, that being said, it is a observation not a judgement, just more obvious than hidden hostiles, and to a degree all in fun. We got some weird look due to our attire, our haircuts and styling and too-being maybe several years older than most, but that being a two-way street we took it in stride.
 
 I had to go to the can and one of the other guys came with me. Glen, we wandered a bit thru the torn apart building, as this was in the basement of a building and had the look of being war-torn, probably from several other punk affairs. The bathrooms were separate from the women, which was a relief (we both could envision a fight ensuing somehow)
The bathroom was made for public use as there were stalls and several urinals, none of which had been the object of any cleaning session, but usable and didn't appear to have the plague oozing about.
We were at the sinks washing our hands, someone had actually put paper towels in the dispenser so as we were drying our hands-a couple of younger punk-rockers came in....
 we assumed to show their massive angst, they kicked one of the urinals for awhile and then broke off a tiny piece and felt their young angst mission was accomplished. Well, needless to say, glenn looked at me and said, they wanna see some damage so without any further ado he, with his own angst pull out the 3 toilets with the water flowing freely from different broken and gnarled water pipes....the water was starting to flood and we headed out....we got to the other two and said time to exit stage left before the water started to reach us......and we went out for some coffee and then to another club but more in west hollywood rock club direction.
Back to to the story...so the main showcase and classic was the Whiskey (a-go go)  a smaller venue, with a balcony and tables and booths downstairs and you could eat or drink or do both while the bands played. Most down time "intermission" was alot of talking to old friends, meeting new friends, for musicians people in the record business too as well as musicians. And time for the lads to meet the ladies and in the age of stereotypes being broken, ladies meeting guys (some were groupies but that was a large percentage), Get a drink or some food, have a smoke (when you could smoke in clubs) and you could get your hand stamped so you could leave and come back that evening at anytime, so you could go between clubs or do whatever came up at the time

Well I had gotten a call from Michael and he asked if i wanted to go to the Whiskey to see Blondie another Michael we knew knew Debbie and the band and would take us with him, he just want to get
our names on the guest list. Sounded like a plan and I was free that evening and thought it would be cool to see Blondie.
The Whiskey as I said was a showcase of many and just going to see the bands that night, you'd see or run into tom petty, Van Halen, the Motels, Missing Persons, ELO, the Babys-Cheap Trick, Joan Jett, Aerosmith, War to name a few, so in a way-it was so ordinary as to be barely noticed as anything earthshaking at all. And it was a fashion revue of the height of rock, a mixture of both English rock and American rock attire -generally for guys with a hint of punk-which was nothing compared to what the ladies put together created-the damaged fishnets or stocking became (one of the many things the fashion world took to make it's own) unique makeup take to cool avenues and hair done to even stun hairdressers. Glitter, satin, chiffon, unique meshes, gauze's,cool dresses seam-stressed by themselves into a unique art form
not to mention the own rock style of catwalk walk, too causal and so choreographed or just so natural and feminine and feline......
We picked up the other Michael and being early enough had a bite to eat and talked about some rehearsal sessions and when the recording was to happen for the first album and who was in town and the usual banter.
We then headed off for the Whiskey which was about 20 minutes away, barring the Sunset Stripe traffic and then the feat of finding a parking space. People were in line already

and we just went ahead, we all knew the bouncers and told them we were on the guest list, Blondies and sure enough,
we were let in then. There was the one booth that was in the center that looked straight at the stage, and we got that one, not sure if it had been reserved, but it did seem odd not one was sitting there.
a booth for four or pushing it six (although you may have to propose to someone in those tight quarters)  so we sat comfortably...at first we ordered something to drink when the waitress came by who was the wife of a  mutual friend of ours (someone in the motels i think) and i think i got an anisette in a snifter, as i didn't like beer or hard booze, and could sip on the sweet concoction without getting cross-eyed not sure what the others got. As we sat different people came by some i knew some new,one guy i think was from the Ramones- some guys in a band from England, whom i ran into at a later date, while taking a walk and we ended up having coffee together and were curious about America and Americans and we had a good chat, turns out they were in a group called the Babys, the singer was sleeping or he would have been on the walk too.
The lights started to dim and people either took or shambled to their seats or those who wanted to be seen being casually a minute or two standing around their table as the lights dimmed. It varied sometimes there would be several bands and the headliner. I believe Blondie was there alone and in New York-CBGBS had helped establish Blondie was was to play soon with another new York band-the Ramones.
 
Blondie came on and did a whole routine, coming on with some outer wear, talking about cold weather (a joke for l.a.) then taking it off to show a small  black mini dress and with tall black boots to drive some males insane.
 
Deborah Harry on stage for the Whisky crowd in 1977
The set was great and some tunes became standards to a degree in both the rock world and world in general. Stunning stage presence and Debbie knew how to work it well, the band was tight and had a great presence too.
Their set ended to a landslide of applause and another waitress came by and we ordered some french fries to snack upon. We were talking and this girl sat at our table out of nowhere and as we looked up it was Debbie, Micheal introduced us and she grabbed some fries to much on....she asked how was the set....and we all gave our answers....these were the days just before bodyguards seems to be everywhere....some band came over the whiskey's  break music and she said she loved the band...who it was escaped me...said she had to get upstairs to the band room and thanked us for the fries...as she left we saw some guys just gawking at  her, with no doubt in our mind what was probably floating thru them.  A friend came over and sat with us and we ordered more to drink talked about the bands that played and on to other banter

A ROCK GUITARIST INTRODUCED ME TO HERBIE HANCOCK'S MUSIC

A ROCK GUITARIST INTRODUCED ME TO HERBIE HANCOCK'S MUSIC

Music is always a cool escape in a world that can try its best to squeeze the joy out of you into my teens and forever after.
 Always a part if my life, my older sister was into music to the point where she won dance contests for the hully gully and the Watusi. the was Motown, r&b, blues and rock and roll basically in that order,and became a cool part of my being fiber.
Coming into my teens with music like r&b was a part and slowly i listened to the Beatles, Yardbirds, Stones, the Temptations, Smokey Robinson and others captured my ear. That was when garage bands started and in the tradition of all of the great, you gotta start somewhere. I myself have always played a mean  stereo -vinyl at the time (the height of audio technology in that day) my musical tastes covered a large spectrum. And as fate would have it, many friends had started bands and i had met some in the Haight playing locally, such as the Grateful Dead, Santana, a Beautiful Day, Janis, Big Brother and the Holding company and many other local San Francisco bands. Before working at the Avalon puppet show, I usually went to concerts with my road dog Bart and some other friends or just run into some at the concert, the Fillmore, the Matrix, Longshoremans hall, The Avalon Ballroom, Golden Gate Park, Speedway Meadows, Mount Tamilpias and there was a few at the beach. So it wasn't just rock, blue too had taken hold as many knew this to be the root of rock and roll. Steve Miller blues band for example, Muddy Waters, Big Momma Thorton, Buddy Guy too. So garage bands like all varied, but those who went to concerts and listened to music tended to start a style of their own, all a process. So going to rehearsals, they was always one member if not more or all who wanted an opinion. Since we tended to enjoy like music and I was honest, without fangs and usually pretty close to an accurate assessment. If they sounded like a band and if they were off, but really didn't care to go to rehearsals, not being in the music world quite as literally, but did enjoy concert going and that was as I have written, a rite of sorts and one aspect of many's social interactions, add in not the just the concerts both paid and free I had gone to, but the time at the Avalon ballroom and the puppet show, my musical tastes had added in rock and roll and blues, listened to some jazz but it didn't really catch my ear until later. It was a different era where most bands who played the Fillmore and were local you could bump into on the street or in a store or cafe and many times knew where the house they lived in, the bodyguards and the limos (usually the roadies were considered a bodyguard of sorts) were more so a thing of the large venues and the likes of the stones or Beatles.
So now to Los Angeles from the 70's to the mid 60's-its not just an actors mecca, it is truly an artists mecca of all kinds and types. Lofts, studios, rehearsal halls, sound studios, theater and more. A melting pot of various art forms like many big cities but on a much larger scale.There was a cool energy cool creatives meeting or in competition with ..All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption L.A.. truly seemed to have much more square mileage.


All cities have areas of conspicuous consumption. Los Angeles seemed to have a more blatant display of big money and the both cool and frivolous things that were available for a big price tag.
I digress....so music was always a part of my life. I have had musician friends since jr. high in San Fransisco and when I moved to L.A. the story was no different. One musician had met had played since he was young and had been the guitarist in Steppenwolf, prior to that it was The Sparrow and the irony was i had seen them play as The Sparrow back in S.F. in the mid-sixties. Michael was the youngest band member and to get in some clubs (he was15-16, I believe) he painted on or put on a fake mustache. As an aside, he had a choice in the beginning, he could have gone with The Sparrow or Iron Butterfly, either way he would have made him part of Rock History.
At that time I was a bachelor again and sometime would visit Michael and go out and eat or just have conversations that ranged from music to gossip to the odd meaning of life.
This day I had come over because he wanted to show me a new contraption he had gotten and wanted to try it out, it was called an octave divider for guitars and this was about in 1973 or 4. He had a small Marshall Amp, the mainstay of many who practiced away from a rehearsal stage or studio- (if I recall Michael usually had a wall of Marshall amps behind him when he played on stage. Anyway, i made my way over after i had visited a girlfriend whom i knew from the club scene and other friends and had had dropped off a satin shirt i has needed the armpit threading sewed, as the older materials (which usually had the cool and most unique designs) we not treated for the salt that we sweat and these were probably for some satin curtains or dresses. It was a dark green but had these little birds as part a design and was one of several different shirts that one store carried from a local seamstress, they were tailored to fit and the sleeves were long enough, a rarity and were cut so you could tuck the shirt tails in easily and they wouldn't untuck, but then too, cut so you could wear them outside, moreso at home. So the salt had taken the threading out and i would never find this patter or material again so i wanted to save it as best i could.
Got over to Michaels, which was off the strip (Sunset) and actually at the bottom of the hill, as Sunset from the club strip part was either uphill and downhill, if you walked it was an exercised in itself, but as the song says, "nobody walks in L.A."

As another aside, I was with some friends,husband and wife, he was a roadie and i was with a girl well we were heading up the hill to get to Sunset and maybe eat anyway, the car they had we lovingly called the "shitbox" as we always wondered when the threadbare front tires would blow. As we headed up and we chatting as to where to eat, someone honked, actually laid his hand on the horn behind us, we where waiting as the light always favored the traffic on Sunset and to try and make a right was a suicide dance against traffic that gave you no quarter. So it always took a while to get up the Sunset hills. Well this couple must have felt too important to wait, as they were in a Rolls Royce, so in this case the elitist came out. Well knowing Glen, this would not sit too well., and in his Boston manner said "O.K. mister, you want me to move, then I'll move". Well. lo and behold he put the car in neutral, foot on the brake because of the hill's incline and with the other foot hit the gas. As the car revved up..i believe i said "oh shit" and his wife Debbie said Glen!!!! He the let slammed it into reverse, let his foot off the brake and we bolted backwards into the front of the Rolls. They sat in the Rolls with their mouths open and we drove up and luckily we able to turn right and off to eat. Now Glen had brought this car from some English musicians who only wanted it for the time they were in town, in those days many of the acts from abroad came here to showcase and either play, get a record contract or stay until either happened, you could run into the Baby's (telephone line-isn't it about time) band members, to name one walking around the strip or West Hollywood area. Well that being said, the car was not registered, the prior owner had gone back to England for the time being, so the plate on the car, even though it appeared current, actually had no owned, at least registered, so taking down the license plate was an act in futility.
So I get to Michael's which was an older classic apartment building that had housed stars and starlets-to whatever degree over the years and this was the Art Deco style with a bit of an ancient  Egyptian touches like stairs that had at the start of the handrails, Anubis Dog statues and all the intricate wall designs and hidden lighting. The elevator had a glass door, but you still closed a scissored iron  gate and then pushed your floor. Once in a while I'd see one of the other residents, once an older woman dressed in classic 50's outfit with that calm air of knowing she was dressed to kill, even though it was in the daytime. Knocked at the door Michael opened and i went in, he had a girl over we both knew who was making a health drink of carrots and some sweet fruit, for us. We went over what was going on in the music scene and within our circle of friends.

The girl had come over to let us try her new health drink concoction which i have no bad memories of, and was off to let other try her new drink of the day.
Now, Michael was a rock guitarist but also played piano, classic guitar (had a Martin 12 string) and Flamenco guitar too. He had wanted to try an octave divider and had brought out his wah wah pedal too. He set up his small Marshall amp and hooked up the octave divider and the wah wah pedal too. We were both interested in the sounds he could create, so at first with the octave divider some cool and some strange sounds, he was truthfully a master with the vibrato (whammy ) bar, very much in the vein of Jeff Beck and was bending and stretch sounds with the addition of the octave divider, now he said that he had learned new riffs thru many jazz artists (which i hadn't known) and r&b artists -i recalled another musician who had tried playing some Stevie Wonder songs and said, that was no as easy as it appeared, there was unique counterpoint and syncopation like he'd never scene and that it was fun but a challenge.

Well, in those days a phonograph was the thing, and so a Herbie Hancock LP was put on, the arm alighted and then Chameleon came on, and now i understood why he had the wah wah pedal, and commenced with playing along with the song but adding variations with the wah wah-or the octive divider and the slick use of the vibrato bar. We went through several jazz albums throughout the after noon and then put on Jeff Beck Truth album and it was interesting to see his guitar versions of  the Beck songs.
So, i had listened to jazz, but in L.A. got in a Rock groove and now found myself later listening to more R&B and jazz.
It was later afternoon and with a afternoon of new and experimental music, i headed out to see if my shirt was done and Michael said he was going to keep playing around with the octave divider.
This was a year or so prior to being signed by Swan Song Records (Led Zepplins label) the only other band besides Bad company, the band "Detective".

 From the left Tony Kaye-keyboards (YES)-Bobby Pickett-bass (Sugarloaf, Etta James) Michael DesBarres-vocals(Silverhead) Michael Monarch lead guitar(Steppenwolf) Jon Hyde (Hocus Pocus)-
vocals-drums 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mGRXHbn_M



Steppenwolf days Michael on the Left


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2Q4Y









https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dAwI_jqcFQ

 







here's a poster of the sparrow (before being called steppenwolf) and the doors, may have worked the puppet show at the time, but did go to the dance floor to see them play



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbLof-GKWOo







https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XqyGoE2

HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE INDIE FILMS BACK IN THE HAIGHT

 

 

HOW I LEARNED TO LOVE INDIE FILMS BACK IN THE HAIGHT

 

how i learned to love indies,foreign & mainstream film as a teenage in San Francisco...
as a kid, i guess we went to alot of movies, as t.v. was not a favorite or a mainstay in our house probably in the 1960 started seeing movies, i remember the big screens and "it's a mad,mad,mad world-the big CinemaScope screen. ..when the original pink panther came out-they was a promotion where the was pink champagne,pink popcorn,candy or promo items i wish i still had oddly enough it was really early in the morning as i recall...horror,western,Hercules abounded...and cartoons...and coming attractions for days....if you could hear the film, that wad considered state of the art...so alot of movies in s.f. about 50cents to get in ..a buck for fancy theaters....a quarter would get you stuff to eat, unless you snuck some in...my mom would bring a back of stuff...as a kid ya wanted to get something at the snack bar...it doesn't scar ya...just relish the few times you did. now fast forward about 6 years
now my best friend bart and i during high school were offered a job running a theater in the haight ashbury...how this came about i can not recall but we were shown the place and given keys to the cinemateque (sp) bart had run projectors in school and said he'd show me how to run the projector and splice film...we didn't realize we ran the whole deal from opening to selling goodies, stash the cash (credit cards weren't even a concept) clean up, close run a slide show/light show at intermission and passed out flyers. the odd thing, we never saw the people who ran it after the first day we opened...it was an "art house" film theater, not sure if bart was as esoteric, as pragmatic and saw nude women there. one of the films "el topo" alejandro judorowsky-shirley clarke-and foreign films this was about 35 years ago....but it did put the seed of interest in non-traditional films in me...then with Angela i saw kwaidan and was blown away-there was another Japanese films also and that and the work at that theatre started my love for film, not only mainstream, but independent, not widely released, art house and foreign.....but the way...after being paid weekly..it stopped suddenly, can't remember but i think we deposited the till everyday at the bank.....and we had about a month go by.....and we decided that the slide projectors and a few other things, after being unable to contact anyone and still depositing the money daily- were close to a trade off as we were informed the rent wasn't paid on the theater and the doors were closing in a few days...so there was the catalyst that made films a world as deep as books, emotional if that was to be conveyed, a look to see i wanted as mad as i thought or in the scope of things did it really matter......you get a piece of life from films as you do books, except with books the film is in your head as the director, with films there's a directors who leads you there..but let's you take it the rest of the way smiles