Life on Planet Rock Page 11

  Naïve to the power and effect of weed, I took four monster hits of Barney’s Acapulco Gold. Before track one on the record, “Dance on a Volcano,” had finished, I was not only dancing but damn near hallucinating. There was something different about everything. The images in the room took on extreme proportion. Barney got uglier, the lights got brighter, and the music— oh, man, what was going on with the music? It was like I could detect the beats inside the beats. Not only was I hearing the songs, I was really feeling them.

  “You high?” he asked with a glassy-eyed grin.

  “Uh, I don’t know what’s happening, buddy. I think I’m freaking out. But it’s cool. Are you hungry?”

  We melted into the rest of A Trick of the Tail, hypnotized by its progressive majesty, as accentuated by the pot, and then drove to Casa Vega, the Mexican restaurant on Ventura Boulevard frequented by local rockers. Years later I would meet Slash there so he could sign a Gibson guitar we were giving away in RIP. I couldn’t stop laughing long enough to order a burrito, making a complete idiot out of myself with the waitress. The next day, I was remorseful, vowing to never smoke that evil weed again. I had enough trouble with reality. Fall session at UCLA was starting and the punks were waiting for me—with open arms, a catalog of chaotic music, and a satchel full of goodies. It was the perfect environment for a fly about to buzz.

  UCLA was twelve nautical and a million sociocultural miles from Valley College. When I landed on the Westwood campus in September of 1976, I was instantly overwhelmed by its size, age, and aura. I started my junior year as a geography major, inspired by Raskoff, but quickly changed to geology. Both subjects had too much math and science for me, so I struggled through my first quarter. When I told my dad that I was a geology major, he didn’t get it. “Geology? Why are you studying rocks? How are you going to make a living doing that?” Actually, unbeknownst even to me, I’d begun my undergraduate work in the field of “rock.” And this subject would not be a struggle.

  Almost instantly, I fell into a clique of sophisticated music freaks who took little time ripping the prog-rock cape off my back. There was a more urgent sound rattling the brain stems of post-teen America—it was the punk/new wave movement, and like so many musical tides before, the initial swell crashed directly on my beach. The folks getting drenched with me this time, however, were not geeks but avant-garde hipsters. We made the North Campus Student Center—the loud and bustling lunchroom adjacent to the massive Young Research Library—our hang.

  Liz Heller, Claudia Puig, Debbie Kamins, Nancy Gottesman, Jodi Lunine, Perry Watts-Russell, Scott Sigman, Lyn Healy, Dave Burg, Greg Sowders, Janet Grey, and Patti Clark— they were my peeps, the North Campus crew. Lyn was the leader, a sexy, cynical smartass who rode the cutting edge of punk fashion like a Thoroughbred jockey—riding crop and all. A different miniature naked-baby toy earring hung from her sexy lobes each day. The girls envied her cool, and the guys wanted to fuck her, me included. And I almost did the night she invited me over to watch Harold and Maude. I’d scored a couple of quaaludes. The relaxing happy pill had me snoring before Ruth Gordon died.

  As far as controlled substances went, I sampled from the dessert tray and found to my surprise that only pot fit my character. It was organic, not manufactured. Coke made you feel great for twenty minutes until it wore off and your nose and brain needed a refill. And another, and another until your whole face was numb. It’s a seductive lie that I watched several souls fall victim to later on when my career put me in league with the powder brigade. Mushrooms didn’t sit well with me either. They made me feel discombobulated, like a man walking on Mars who couldn’t speak Martian.

  Among the NC clan, only Scott was a Genesis fan, though not to the extent that I was. When Moby Disc’s doors opened for business on February 25, 1977, the day Peter Gabriel—the self-titled solo debut—went on sale, I watched Dana unlock the door. The album, produced by Bob Ezrin, didn’t sound like a Genesis record. It was more personal, more Gabriel, a logical extension of the seeds of introspection planted in The Lamb.

  The ad appeared announcing two shows at the Roxy. My brother and I got to the club twelve hours early! Our commitment was rewarded when we took our seats at the very first table next to the stage, dead center—no easy feat by the way, since this was the return of one of rock’s most revered figures and everyone was dying to witness what wonders the long pause had wrought upon our once noble and proud prog hero.

  The room was not electric, it was atomic. When the curtain rose on the man and his keyboard—the instrument he taught himself to play while on the mountain—the roar could be heard all the way to Jerusalem. He laid his fingers on the ivory keys and a hush fell almost instantly. You could hear a gum wrapper dropping to the asphalt outside. Gabriel was three feet away. When he opened his lips to sing for us, you could feel the building begin to float off its foundation.

  When the night shows, the signals grow, on radios

  All the strange things, they come and go, as early warning.

  His power, his wisdom, and his beauty mesmerized us. “Supper’s Ready” was the New Testament in prog-rock loincloth that featured characters taking part in a multi-act play. The story was told outside the storyteller. Gabriel had come back, and his message was personal, emanating from within, offered with poetic, melodic grace for anyone possessing the awareness to hear the word.

  For the bluesy and prophetic “Waiting for the Big One,” he surfed the audience—a breathtaking gesture of connection that would later be emulated by a generation of fearless rockers that would include Bono, Eddie Vedder, Chris Cornell, and others. The crowd became one. After a seven-minute jam that traversed the five-hundred-seat commune so every single patron could lay their hands on the man, Gabriel floated toward the stage to the waiting arms of two brothers who lovingly hoisted him back up to his spot behind the microphone.

  When it was over, we were ten seconds from being kicked out when Gabriel’s saxophonist, Timmy Cappello, came through the side door that guarded the upstairs dressing rooms.

  “Timmy, you guys rocked tonight,” I said.

  “Thanks, man,” he responded on the fly.

  My instinct told me to go for the jugular. What was there to lose? “Hey, Timmy, can we say hello to Peter?” I chirped nervously.

  He then paused and addressed us directly. “Well, let me go upstairs and check it out. Wait here, fellas.”

  Rick and I stared at each other in momentary shock. The fact that there was a possibility was far more than we’d hoped for. “We need a gift in case we get in!” I said. “I’ll run next door and buy a bottle of champagne. Oh, my God, Gabe!” Five minutes later, I returned from Gil Turner’s with a fifth of Asti Spumanti, a bubbly cider of some kind, cheap stuff. Twenty minutes passed and Timmy finally reappeared. “Let’s go, boys,” he commanded.

  We entered the dressing room as he was removing his eye makeup. There were other individuals in the room, but we never looked at them. His persona was always larger than life. Yet in this moment, in this tiny, dimly lit room—in the wake of a flood of new and magnificent song—he was just a man called Peter about to accept a fifth of cheap champagne from two young fans.

  “Bearing gifts,” he said, taking notice of our humble offering.

  “Yes. It’s an honor, Peter. Thank you for an awesome performance—and welcome back.” He smiled and shook our hands, and we were returned to the real world.

  Prog whisked you away to outer space, where your mind was free to embrace other possibilities. Punk was about attitude, holding your space, your integrity when the Man told you to get straight, vote Republican, abandon your dream, and turn down the stereo. Punk brought you back to earth to confront head on man’s inhumanity to man. I related to both because half of me was always out there, and the other half, down here. The ‘80s were right around the block. Joe Strummer knew it. The kids in school knew it. Society was on course for a narcissistic train wreck. You could almost smell the vapid stench of disco in the distanc
e. In four years, I’d be reviewing porn films for a living.

  “I’m so bored with the U.S.A.!” Lyn shouted that Clash chorus ten times a day. Some of us laughed, some of us sang along. We were all bored: bored with our stupid professors, our shitty part-time jobs, and the sorry state of television. Charlie’s Angels and The Dukes of Hazzard—meet Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious! I was watching Twilight Zone reruns. I will always watch Twilight Zone reruns because those stories stuck. They had a message. Like the music I grew up on, it survives. No, it thrives.

  Three or four times a day, the NC clan would meet and talk about the new albums we were listening to, and there was a lot to chat about. We were munching our burgers and fries while Planet Rock was giving birth to a movement. Between May 1976 and August 1977, debut records were dropped by the Ramones, the Buzzcocks, Blondie, Devo, the Clash, Elvis Costello, the Sex Pistols, and the Jam, just to name a few. We had every record and saw every tour when it passed through L.A.

  Being there was the rush. Seeing it live. Watching the angry, bespectacled Elvis Costello flail about the Hollywood High School gymnasium was not just entertaining, it was cathartic. Seeing Joe Jackson tear up a copy of the Sunday L.A. Times on stage at the Santa Monica Civic was invigorating. When Blondie played the Starwood, I was pressed right up against the stage. Debbie Harry’s skirt was so short you could see her pubic hair. Underpants weren’t punk. Again, I managed to talk my way into the tiny dressing room area behind the stage and exchange a word with the divine Mrs. H. Perry was there, too. He worshiped Debbie, had photos of her all over his apartment. She dug his British accent.

  In the winter of 1978, during my endless senior year, a quartet of New York art-school rockers known as Talking Heads came through town in support of their second LP, More Songs About Buildings and Food, released the previous July. It had scored massive points with the entire NC contingent. Everyone loved the band’s debut LP, Talking Heads: 77. “Psycho Killer” had become a quirky standard thanks to the support of local radio station KROQ. We had waited patiently for the band to hit L.A., and so they did. I went with Lyn and Patti.

  In the same room that Gabriel had elevated the year before, the Heads delivered a stunning performance. We sat in the VIP balcony and stared straight down on the band. “I saw Tina’s tit,” chortled Greg Sowders. The real encore didn’t take place onstage but in the dressing room afterward, where David Byrne fell head over high heels for Patti. Five feet tall with a massive head of kinky red hair and a smile as wide as the Brooklyn Bridge, Patti had mastered the art of being aloof. Like her best mate, Lyn, she radiated an alternative savoir faire. To put it simply, she was adorable, and evidently she had pierced the heart of one of modern rock’s most enigmatic new stars.

  Over the next couple weeks as the band gigged up the coast of California, Patti was closer to David than his road case. And that access got us access. We were invited out to see the shows and hang out with David, keyboardist Jerry Harrison, drummer Chris Franz, and his wife, bassist Tina Weymouth. Scott loaded up the car and the four of us drove to Santa Barbara and then onward to Sacramento and San Francisco. I came up with the moniker Headhunters for our caravan. Scott had a dozen T-shirts made with the logo.

  Sitting in the dressing room at one gig while the band was onstage, Patti told me how odd and wonderful David was. “He considers the intersection of the San Diego and Santa Monica freeways a work of art,” she giggled. “I wish I had a tape recorder rolling for all the bizarre and beautiful things that constantly float off his tongue.” The California trek was magical, but the best was yet to come.

  Greg did a daily shift on the campus radio station, KLA. He and Patti helped lobby David and the band into performing a free show for the students on the massive Janss Steps on the west end of the campus. Ten thousand new-wave Bruins turned out that day. Greg interviewed Chris and Tina on his radio show an hour before the set began and happily helped the rockers empty a vial of coke on air, which ratcheted up the conversation to near psychobabble levels. I gave Chris my UCLA ‘75 T-shirt, which he wore onstage. And Tina, Greg, and I took the very first “Lonn Friend hanging out with rock star” photo.

  When I finally got my diploma in March of 1979, I still had no clue where I was going in my career. But I wasn’t worried. Something would arise, and sure enough, two months later, a wild opportunity came my way, because I was where I was supposed to be: watching a rock show—several shows, as a matter of fact.

  Todd Rundgren was doing a weeklong stint at the Roxy— seven nights, two shows a night between April 17 and April 25. I’d gone through a serious Todd phase at Valley and was into the new solo LP, Hermit of Mink Hollow, which featured the single “Can We Still Be Friends.” Todd was a visionary artist who’d been making records under his own name and with the prog quartet Utopia since the turn of the decade. He always charted his own path, experimenting with new sounds and technologies. Initiation was released in May 1975 and delved deep into synthetic audio textures and lyrics based on Eastern philosophy and transcendental meditation. The opening track, “Real Man,” was aimed right at my solar plexus. “Way down inside me, there’s a real man,” he sang.

  Todd never listened to anyone but himself. He was a McGuire kind of artist, independent, who had flashes of mainstream success, but like his iconoclastic contemporary Frank Zappa, he turned away from the marketplace and guided his creative gaze inward.

  I’d bought tickets to three shows, the opening set of the first two nights and the late set of the third. That’s all I could afford. Exiting the lobby on the third night, Mario Maglieri, the co-owner of the Roxy, Rainbow, and Whisky since the Doors days, grabs me by the arm. “Hey, kid!” I thought I’d done something wrong. Mario was an ex-Chicago cop with an old-school, harmless yet intimidating style. Until he got to know you. Then you were like his adopted godchild.

  Mario lived for the rock fans on Sunset. His clubs were like home to us because in the ‘70s, no one in town was booking cooler or more important acts on a regular basis than the Roxy The Boss of the Boulevard said he’d seen me all three nights and asked if I planned on going to every show. I told him I didn’t have any more tickets. “Come down tomorrow night,” he smiled. “I’ll let ya in.” So I did. And the night after that, and the night after that. In fact, thanks to Mario and “Steady,” the Roxy doorman, I didn’t miss another performance of Todd’s entire run.

  As the Runts (hardcore Todd fans—they loved my handmade “Todd Is Godd” T-shirt) poured out onto the street post the final encore of the historic residency, a guy with laminates around his neck who could’ve passed for Todd’s younger brother stopped me on the sidewalk. “Hey, you, what’s your name?” he asked. I gave him the handle. “Friend, huh? Cool name.” His was Danny O’Connor, the official merchandiser for all things Todd Rundgren. He’d also caught my recurring face, and after meeting and talking to me for fifteen minutes, he offered me a job!

  “How’d you like to go on the road this summer and sell T-shirts? Utopia’s going out in June.” The pitch blindsided me. “I live in Livonia, Michigan. We’ve got two club dates left in San Francisco this week, and then I’m heading home for a break before the big outdoor tour starts. Come up to the Bay Area and try it out.”

  Welcome to my first big career decision. Was my job in the campus registrar’s office enough to keep me from accepting Danny’s offer? The more I thought about it, the more it felt like a dream. This is what I’d been waiting for.

  The dream turned into a nightmare in early July 1979 because I wasn’t mentally, emotionally, or physically ready for life out of a road case—not this way, at least. My thin Southern California skin started to peel one torrid afternoon in Legend Valley, Ohio, a massive hole carved out of a forest forty miles from the nearest indoor plumbing that twenty thousand dedicated rock fans poured into. We’d spent sixteen hours in hundred-degree heat and humidity in the midst of moonshine-toting maniacs, half of whom were probably delinquents with weapons stuck in their belts—the other half
reefer-smoking, incense-burning Runts who would go anywhere, even here, to see their hero rock.

  We had the shirt concession for the entire festival bill, including Cheap Trick, the Cars, and Eddie Money, who was riding on a hit song called “Two Tickets to Paradise.” I’d have happily taken one because this place sucked. Danny and one of his muscular assistants spent much of the day running off bootleggers with a baseball bat, which left me manning the booth alone. These shady characters that peddled cheaply made, unlicensed shirts for half the price cut into Danny’s take. This was a business, not fun and games. I had a far more romantic picture of life on the road with a rock band, and this wasn’t it.

  When we finally got back to the roach-infested Holiday Inn, I stunk like a pig, my allergies were bothering me, and I was dead tired. All I wanted to do was sleep. Here’s where I learned the distinction between crew hotel and band hotel. The band was in town at some sweet, upscale inn, ordering room service and entertaining city girls in the bar. We were sprawled out in our rooms with a case of Coors from the 7-Eleven entertaining two hillbilly groupies with low-cut tops and buckteeth. All I wanted to do was shut my eyes, stop sneezing, and drift away.

  The road crew, however, had other ideas. It was time to party! They’d worked nonstop for twenty hours and needed to blow off some steam. I finally lost it when just as I was about to nod off—having found a sofa in the corner of the chaos to lay my weary brow—Eddie Money slammed through the door and threw up all over the bathroom.

  “I thought he was at the band hotel!” I cried.

  “Eddie likes to party with the crew,” someone laughed. I didn’t see the humor. All I could see was the United terminal at LAX. It was time for the Runt to crawl back home.

  I rode with Danny to Toledo the following morning, where the next gig was at a motor speedway. We checked into our hotel and while he was out scouting the location for where to set up the merch stand, I wrote him a heartfelt “thanks but no thanks” note, placed it inside his Halliburton briefcase, and grabbed a cab for the airport.