Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Jaan Uhelszki

Transcript

Jaan Uhelszki · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Set podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: My guest today his music Writers, who was senior editor
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: at Crew Magazine in addition to her other accomplishments. Jan, Hi,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good. So there's a new documentary
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: on Queen Magazine. Are you happy with it? I am
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: happy with it. I mean, I have to say I
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: ended up with ulcers of the three years of making it,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: but the end product actually is much better than I
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: ever imagined it would be. Well, if you had ulcers
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: for three years, that would indicate you were heavily involved
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: in the production of the film. H Can you tell
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: us more about that? Yeah, I actually wasn't. Initially, I
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: was the conduit between J. J. Kramer, whose father was
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Barry Kramer, the founder of the magazine, and Scott Crawford,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: who I had worked with at Heart Magazine. And I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: made the introduction and I thought that was just enough
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: until they kept asking me questions, and the questions were
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: really bad, like oh, I've got to jump in here
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and say no, no, no, no, this is the way
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it was. So just in increments they pulled me into
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: being first a consultant and then a co writer and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: then a co producer, So I ended up having to
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: wrangle most of the bands that you see in the
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: documentary because honestly, it was time to collect the favors.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You know. It's like if I had bead on the
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: road with Kiss as many times as I have and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: got on stage, then my figured they could speak in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the documentary. So it was one of those things. I
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: just got out all the trading cards and started cashing
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: them in. Okay, Well, you you said they had bad
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: questions which would indicate a lack of knowledge. You remember
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: any of them? Well, I think that they wondered, Like
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: they would ask me questions like who is this? Like
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: who is Rick Siegel? Who is Dealer? And are these
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: people important? You know, the very first pillars of the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: people who founded Cream. So they didn't have this working
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: knowledge of that, and I only did because I was there,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean the sad truth about rock journalism
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and maybe rock bands is they eat their young. So
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of us around to ask, so
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it was pretty much me and J. J. Cramer's mother,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Connie Kramer, who were actually witness this to this. So
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: I felt like I had the sacred duty honestly a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: sacred duty to get in there and get it right
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: for them. Now you say you wrote the film. Uh,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: had you had any experience in film or was that
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: required in this case? It's kind of like it I
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: ever written before I went to Cream. No, no, uh no,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it was It was not. It wasn't like writing the script.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: It was more like fashioning the right questions to elicit
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the stories that I wanted to tell, the things that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I remembered that were important. And as it went along,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: it started a narrative. Arcs started being creative by actually
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: the interviews. It's like the first rule of journalism, Like
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: when you go into a story, you can't go with
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: any preconceived notions. You have an idea of what you want,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: but you have to let the witnesses speak. And the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: better story was there. Um. It really started to have
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: shape when we interviewed Cameron Crowe and he likened Cream
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to a band and with three members. I mean it
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: actually had more members and it was more like an
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: ensemble cast of friends. But that was a really good
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: hook because we could organize the three big personalities that
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: really were the foundation of Cream. Berry Kramer, who was
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: a pugnacious visionary who picked a fight to get what
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: he wanted. Dave Marsh another pugnacious visionary unless your bangs,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: who never took anything seriously but was a covert intellectual.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: So it was this really combination of these three personalities
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that made Cream and the various camps that collected around
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: their viewpoints. So that I mean, I like, oh, Cameron
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: a big debt for actually making it easier for us.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And of course Barry and Lester are deceased, so that
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: makes it even more difficult. Were there any discussions, arguments,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: disagreements over what the history was, Well, I think that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: people think it's one way, and it really wasn't. I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: think that there's this whole perception of when you're writing
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: stuff that comes out of your fingers. There's not a
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: lot of machinations and how to get the right people,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: or how to get the right acts to cover, or
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: or exactly how bombastic and how i'm gonna say glamorous,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: but how exciting it was to be in the presence
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: of rock when it was really I'm not gonna say infancy,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: because we really were late sixties early seventies rock, but
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: there was this collaborative notion between the bands and the
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: journalists and the photographers that we're all doing the same
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: thing together and we were going to actually feed off
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of each other. So I thought that was important because
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: especially in a time period where you get no access
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: or very little access to an artist, then it was
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: really it was anything but that. I mean there were
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: times when we would take like Leslie West, the guitarists
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: from Mountain, and we would convince him to be on
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: our cover, but to do that here we had to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: cover him in Whitecastle Hamburgers. So it was like there
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: was all these deals struck, but it was all this
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: sense of fun, like we felt like we were on
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: the same side. And honestly, the difference between the rock
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: writers that Cream and the artists were they had better clothes,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, playing and simple, and probably more money or
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: access to more money, yeah, more money than and you
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: know all the things that went along with it. But
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: it really there wasn't the sense of there in Valhalla
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and we were it was it was really that we
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: were all in the same playing field. Well, of course
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: this was a heyday, as you say, sort of the
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: second wave. We had the British invasion than we had
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: album rock and that's when Queen began. And then of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: course it was mega in the early seventies. You had
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: access when no one had access. Did it become dere
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: gourt you or were you pinching yourself all the time?
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You know? I think I think we had this real
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: sense of that they weren't that much different. I mean, okay,
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: going on on tour with LEDs up and I was
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: pinching myself and wishing that they weren't such an assholes
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: at times, you know. But but the fact was it
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: was that was one that got me. Other than that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I had actually had a job. There was a bollroom
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: and in Detroit called the Granny Ballroom. It was model
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: on a film more experiment, you know, like the Bill
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Graham And there's a documentary online about it, right, yeah,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: there is. So I was the Coca Cola girl there
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: for three years, so I actually saw everybody and I
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: had to bring them Coca cola. So I saw a
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: lot of a little bit slower. What was what were
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the duties of the Coca Cola girl? The biggest duty
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: was to make sure no one spiked the Coca Cola's
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: because it was those years of dosing, especially when the
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Grateful Dead would play the Grandy Ballroom. So my most
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: important job was to keep my eye on the sodas
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: because what you would do is because it was such.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It would be a big night, especially in the summer,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and you lay out all the drinks and some would
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: come along and try to put LSD into the drinks.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: And that happened so many times that that was a
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: designated role. Okay, that that begs the question. Were you
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: ever dosed? Only once? But not at the Grandy Ballroom
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: only there was a festival called the Goose Lake Festival.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It was the same dosing that felled the Stooges. Uh
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Dave Alexander, the guitar player the Stooges, also got dozed
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: and when he got on stage to play with the Stooges,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: he forgot how to play guitar. Had I had a guitar,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I would have forgotten how to play guitar. But that
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was the only time. No, I was really shrewd about it.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: When you saw your friends babbling, I mean, the whole
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: thing about being dosed, you just think you're going to say,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: do you have a grand brain aneurism? You don't think
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you're dose. You just think something is profoundly wrong. So
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: that just scared me. Okay. Staying on that same tip,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: even though alcohol really came back in the seventies, were
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: you someone who got involved in drugs and alcohol? No,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: I honestly, to be completely real, there are too many
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: calories and alcohol because, to quote the Sainted Paul Family,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: he says, rock and roll is never kind to the
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: fat boy. Rock and roll is less kind to the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: rock writer. You know, you can't look like someone's mother
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: or grandmother or fat cousin. If you're going to interview
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: rock bands, You've got to like dress the part. And
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: that was always part of it. Okay, Well that begs
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the question once again, are you will you consider yourself
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: at that time to be anorexic? Uh? There are days
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: I was a little antorexic. Yeah. Um, you know I've
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: I've always tried to be you know, trying to be spin.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: But yeah, there were times where I was definitely following
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: the Patty Boy diet of two salting crackers and a
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: slice of cheese. So yeah I was. And how about today?
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Not today? Not just normal? Okay, So you get a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: gig at the Grandy Ballroom. How old are you? I
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: was fifteen? Okay. Where I grew up in Connecticut, you
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't work legally until you were sixteen. What was the
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: situation in Michigan? False? I D? Okay, And I mean,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: first of all I went there. You had to be seventeen,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: but I had a friendhood and older sisters, and it
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: was you could have idea that didn't have pictures on it.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: You can get in with your school, I D. So
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: I got into the ball room with a false I D.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: And I just never told them I wasn't seventeen, okay.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Two questions to get into the venue. Did you have
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: to be seventeen just to work there? Okay? So prior
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: to getting this gig at the Grandy Ballroom, how many
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: hell active were you in seeing shows? Well? I was.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: The bar was adjacent to the stage, so I could
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: I could always have a prince ide to the stage.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I guess what I'm really asking is, prior to working
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: at the Grandy Ballroom, were you an avid concertgoer? Oh? Yeah,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I convinced my parents to let me go
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: see the Stones in nineteen sixty six, all by myself.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I have always all about yourself aline myself.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: I think about that now, like, what the help were
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: they thinking and just dropping me off and arena, Um,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: I would go see bands by myself because nobody wanted
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: to go with me. Well, I have that same experience.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: I don't remember it at ten, but certainly once you
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: hit like fourteen fifteen and later, you know I would.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I would go and no one want to go, but
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't stop me. And the other thing that people
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: say is I have a friend of his concert promoter
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: in Denver. He says, well, he thinks about it throwing
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: a party, whereas back then they used to have seats.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: It was like a religious experience more than you know,
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: just hanging with the people. Oh yeah, it really was.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: It was like we were one. You know. It wasn't
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: like not too continually like conjure up the grateful dead,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: but there was that sense of community that really came
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: out of the sixties that we were one. We were
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: all in it together. This was holy and actually there's
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: like some some kind of information that we're all sharing.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: It's kinda like close encounters of the third kind. We
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: all saw mashed potatoes, we all saw mountains that our
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: mashed potatoes, So there was there was just something addictive
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: about it. And well, a lot of our generations sold
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: out after Reagan lowered taxes and legitimized greed. Where did
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that leave you? Um? I had my mom years. I
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: actually um got off the road. I think I saw
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: another lids up until I got off the road. I
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: found out that I was pregnant and thought, okay, you
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: cannot be a mom and be a rock writer and
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: be on the road. So I actually took the eighties off.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: My daughter was born eighty, and I didn't really I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: came back and wrote like in the mid eighties, and
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: then came back completely in ninety one. And were you
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: married to your daughter's father? I was yes? And was
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: he in the music business? Yes, he owned berserk Lee Records. Um, okay,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: that's Matthew KINGE Coffin. You are still married to him? Yes,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: I am. That's you know, that's very rare, not only
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: for people who our generation, but people our age. How
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: did you meet him? I was working for a record
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: World that was with a minor trade in the in
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: the triad of trades and cash box billboard and record World,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: which supposedly had the best charts that's what they said
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Record World. They did say that for so many reasons,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: but we will not explore here. And I was doing
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: a column called The Coast and it was deadline and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I got a tip from Toby Mamas, who now works
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: for Alice Cooper. Yeah, I hear from every day, I'm sure,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And he told me that Journey who had to managers, Um,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: we're actually splitting ways. And I just stuck it in
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: the end of my column. No big deal, It wasn't flashy.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: I just because I had an industry column. So the
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: next week I get a call from Rogerson Cowen and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: they have a client, Matthew King Kaufman, and he wants
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to take whoever wrote the item about um the Journey
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: managers to lunch because he had just had lunch with
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: them and they didn't tell him that that he that
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: they were breaking up. So he came down to l
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: A from Berkeley and took me to lunch and we
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: hit it off. He uh, he used to go to
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the track. I used to go to the track. And
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: he had this contraption called a bio later and I
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: definitely have a metaphysical bend. And the bileage showed you
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: your virhythms. But also seemed like JFK had three critical
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: days in the day died. So I was fascinated, like
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I wanted to see the day I was going to die.
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: So he left that lunch and he gave me his violator.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So fast forward, how many years later? Yeah, still married? Okay,
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: so it was essentially an instant romance. No, actually a boyfriend.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So I had to work work through that, you know.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: I we were friends for about six months and we
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: would go to the track and then one day I
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: just thought, Wow, I've got something for this guy, Like
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: there's there's some chemistry. It's a slow burn. Okay, why
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the track. I had an uncle who had horses, and
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: um he taught me how to handicap as a kid.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: And I've always been really good at math, and I
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: love astrology, so I always would say, oh, it's just
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: horse astrology. If you figure out a horse's patterns much
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: like astrology, figure out some of these transits, then you
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: can actually be pretty good at predict who's going to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: win at the track. And I was. And Matt grew
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: up across from Kilmaco in Maryland and he used to
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: go to the track as a kid. So we both
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: were handicappers, I mean one of those oddball kind of association.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So what was your biggest win ever? Enough to buy
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: furniture from my living room? And and at this if
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: we close your bedding career today in the black or
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the red? Oh, definitely the black. Wo. Yeah, I'm careful
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: better and I'm really O C D about my numbers. Okay,
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: so I'll ask you, is it fixed or is it not?
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: Even if it is, there's certain things when you look
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: at a horse. There's a there used to be a
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: video tip called the fit of I think It's fit
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: racehorse by this woman called Bonnie lead Better, and she
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: would show you the physicality of a horse and how
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you you should bet at it that if it has
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: certain kind of attributes, or if it had foam in
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: his leg or any of those things. So, even if
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it's fixed, which I'm certain it is, you can still
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: override that if you look at the condition of horse,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: because sometimes the horse just wants to run, no matter
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: what the jockeys thinking. Okay, let's go back to the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Grandy ball room. So you're the coke girl. How long
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: does that last? That loss? About three years? And in
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: that three years, you have a desire to get deeper
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: into the music business. Well, I would go home after
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: after my shift two o'clock in the morning, and I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: would write about what I've seen. I just had a
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: sense it was better the second time around. So always
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I was doing this little ad hoc reviews for myself,
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: just writing about bands. And right next to the the
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: coke counter there was a little kiosk. It was very
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Kramer had a head shop and they sold like papers
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and sundry things, and they sold cream magazines. I wasn't
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: there from day one, but I used to say them, Okay,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: if I give you free Coca colas, can I write
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: for magazine? And they go, oh yeah, sure. But I
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: kept doing that because I was bent and determined that
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: I would write for cream magazine because there was not
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: the game in town. So yeah, it's funny because and
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I worked in this place called the bird Feeder where
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: you said food on the plaza at Snowbird in Utah.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: I would cree favor with the freestyle skiers by giving
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: them big ice cream. So it's like the same thing.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: I've never actually had that experience. Okay, so you're staying
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: up till two in the morning when you're in high school.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I am, and your parents totally cool with that. My
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: mom was a dancer and she she used to dance
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: with jazz bands. So she said to me when I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: was really young, the only thing I'm going to tell
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: you is never date a sax player and never try heroin.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So she was absolutely cool, you know. She They really
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: gave me a long leash. You know, they were they
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: were kind of Matthew. My husband always says they were
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: like Sid and Nancy, you know, because my parents just
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: like wild hipsters. So yeah, it was just normal for me. Okay,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: so when did you do your homework? I did on Sundays. Actually,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: like to this day, I hate Sundays because I had
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: to do play catchup. Okay, so you graduate from high school,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you're still working at the Grandy Ballroom. And then where
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: do you end up going to college? I go to
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Wayne State University UM, and I actually that's actually the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: bigger entrance to the Cream because when I was registering,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: a friend of mine, unbeknownst he was growing out with
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the art director at Cream, Charlie Oranger, And she says
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: to me, I'm just about to break up with them,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I've got somebody else I have my eye
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: and I go, really, why would you? And she goes,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just not my types. I said,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: do you mind if I actually make a play for him? Um.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: It was very subtle, but that was it. I met
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Charlie Oranger, and that's how I got to Cream. Really
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: is that we just started having coffee dates and Um
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: eventually brought me over to the offices. So I met
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: everybody that way. Okay, did you graduate from college? Eventually?
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I graduated ninety two because I was I finally got
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: a job full time at Cream and I couldn't do
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: college and Cream that I couldn't do that homework, so
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I dropped out about a year and a half into it.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: And then what was the motivation in the execution of graduating? Well,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: I always felt like I wanted to to actually get
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a degree, But I think the other thing is having
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: those ten mom years where I was just really pretty
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: much a housewife and learning astrology and playing the horses.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: I thought, I've got to figure out my next act.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So I went back to school thinking I'd be a
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: history teacher. I got a degree in history, and the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: only job I could get besides working for the Democratic
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: Party was working at magazine. So I worked at Band
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: magazine for a while, and then I just started freelancing
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and then really worked my way back to my you know,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: chop wood carry water before Enlightenment, chop wood carry water
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: after Enlightenment. I just became myself again. Okay. And where
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: did you get your degree? Cal Berkeley? Okay, so let's
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: go back. So you meet Orange or in the back
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of your mind you want to work for queam in
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in front of my mind, I want to work for Cream. Okay.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: So this this is when you're like a freshman that
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: this starts to happen. Yeah, I'm a freshman. Okay, So
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: how do you drop it on him that, hey, I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: want a connection to the magazine. You know, it was
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: just really subtle. He knew I was a writer, and
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I was writing. I mean for myself. I had published
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: except for, you know, a couple of things in like
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: high school paper, but other than that nothing, And I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: just talked about wanting to be a writer. So he
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: lived at the Cream offices. Cream was a series of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: communes for the first like eight years or so, so
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: he lived where the offices were very Cramer and Dave
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Marsh lives, so I would go there with them and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: I hit it up. It wasn't so strategic. I mean
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: I like to be around people like me. I mean,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: there is that whole misfit outsider aspect of Cream magazine anyway,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and there was something that connected all the people who
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: ended up working there, and I just I really hit
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: it off with Dave Marsh immediately, and Barry Kramer scared
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: me for the longest time, but you know, I felt
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: like I was home. It's funny you mentioned that, because
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: that used to be a defining marker, uh, the inside
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: outside and the fact that, I mean a person who
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: was captain of the football team would never be the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: big Rock fan insider. And now it's all you know.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: You see people going to the Stone show and buying
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: five leather jackets. You go, they were not into the
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Stones back when you went in sixty six. I know, right,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I I think about that, like, especially if I don't
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: know about you, but I've gone to my high school reunions.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: I have not. Oh, I don't recommend it, but well,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: let's float down fascinated. Which reunions have you been to?
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: Did you start like right away, I like with the
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: five year reunion, I started the ten year and we
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: started a ten year so I went to that one. Okay,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with history. I got my degree in history.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: And there's nothing like seeing your appears as a bookmark
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: to who you were and who you've become and you
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: measure yourself against them, which you which kids always do. Well,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you don't really think about a sixties something doing that,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but you still do that. And now it's kind of
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: like the false memory syndrome. It's like all the people
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: who said they were at Excess Pistols concert, like all
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of the people now say they read cream and they
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: always you know, exactly yeah. It's like no, right, and
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: you were you were Woodstock too, Yeah, exactly right. Okay, okay,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: just so we get some of the geography down. What
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: town do you grow up in? A little town called
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: later At Village. It's outside of Detroit, Like how far
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: from the Renaissance Center, etcetera. Twelve miles because Detroit structured
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: on mile roads that yeah, from down so essentially close.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: So if there was like a bus when you were
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a teenager you could take into town. There was a
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: bus when I was a teenager, and that's how I
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: had to get anywhere because I'm so dyslexic. I didn't
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: get my license. So I was nineteen. So yes, I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: took a bus to work and then and then how
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: did you get back from the Grande Ballroom? Uh? God
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: made hitch hiking or asking asking people for rides. My
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: girlfriends and I were like a posse of you know,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: could you give us a ride in those perilous times. So, yeah,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: we didn't have cars. None of us drove. Right, It's
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: not like today when the kids sixteen and they get
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: a car. And Wayne State is how far from Detroit?
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It's about two miles from downtown Detroit. It's an inner
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: city college. Okay, So when you're going to Wayne State,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: you're living at home. I'm going at home. Okay. So
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: Barry Kramer starts Queen magazine on top of his record store.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: How long after that do you start visiting the offices? Okay?
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: His record store was elsewhere down Cass Avenue. It was
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: actually a place where it was like a It was
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: an old storefront where people used to just live, turned
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: into apartment. So Barry lived there and he turned that
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: into his offices. So I'm there like it starts in
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: marsh of sixty nine and I start going. That was
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Charlie Oranger in August of sixty nine, So I'm there
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: from August August nine on. Well, that's essentially the same
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: because outside of Michigan there was very little distribution of
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Green magazine at that particular time. But by time you
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: get involved, they've already gone to the structure of rural
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: living in a house. Now by the time I get involved,
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: I'm after class, I'm going to Cream and I'm working,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and then then Charlie would drive me back Arou. I
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: would just stay there, so I'm I'm working until we
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: don't move to the horrible and horrible hinterlands until Okay,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: so you live with your parents through this whole time.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: I do up until I'm quasi literally tried, but I'm
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: not really like I wouldn't really commit. It just felt
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: not morally wrong, just power structure wrong. Um, so I
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: would stay there, but I didn't really move out of
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: my parents until maybe when we moved to Birmingham in
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: nineteen Okay, so it's sixty nine, you're working at Cream.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: How much money are they paying you? Well, if you
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: got paid it was which was really twenty five with
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: the taxes taken out, someone reminded me, and seventy five,
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: even in those days was very little. So you could
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: essentially do what live with your parents by cokes, you
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: could essentially do that. I got a job at a
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: suburban mall um to selling jeans, so I actually outfitted
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: the whole staff and jeans and the Alice Cooper group
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: if they came by, because we would, you know, we
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I had no compunction, like you know it was, I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: have no this poet. I still a little bad that
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I shoplifted from the store that I actually worked for,
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: but I gave I gave jeans away to everybody on
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the staff. And how long did you have two gigs? Oh?
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I had two gigs, probably about four years. And selling jeans?
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: Was that the only one? Or did you have something else?
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: You know that that was the only one I would.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: I would go there in the morning, opened up the store,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: and then I would go to cream and I'd come
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: back and close the store. So I pretty much was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: on the treadmill. Wow. How many hours a week were
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: you working at the store? Oh, like I guess probably
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: between twenty and thirty all day Saturday, all day Sunday. Okay,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: so you when you get to Queam, what is the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: status of the magazine in the operation? Well, when I
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: get there, it's moving from that news printy thing. It
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: was actually has actual covers that has curt distribution. Um
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: how I how I really got there? And the door
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't for writing. It was because I worked at that
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: boutique and we sold T shirts and I said, why
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: don't you let me create a T shirt line for
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: you and I'll just sell them under under the counter.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: I'll give you a percent of the profits. And I've
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: got a little sister and she's got a cadre of friends.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Why didn't I send them door to door selling cream
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: T shirts? And that's really essentially how I got my
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: job because I created a T shirt. Ok what did
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: the T shirts have? The famous boy how and who
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: created boy Howdy? Oh? Our chrome created it before my time,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: but but it was it was amazing something I think
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: he regretted because he only got paid fifty dollars for
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the logo. So I had a lot of situations. I
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: once spent night a night playing guitars with him. It
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: was very interesting and seventy three, but that's a different digression.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: So you're how many of these T shirts do you
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: think you're sold? Oh? I probably sold a couple, maybe
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: a thousand, and that's yeah. And then well it was
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a really popular mall store. I mean we had like
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: so much traffic. We really did a big business. And
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: then my kid's sister, who's very entrepreneurial, rounded up all
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: of her friends and I think we paid them like
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: twenty bucks each. So then then we sold them through
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: the magazine, and then it actually got to be as
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: big as it is. I mean even today people want them.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I finally threw mine now because they were
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: more holes than material. Okay, you're doing this, you're working
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: two gigs, you're selling the T shirts. What does that
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: evolved into? Um, they give me the job as a
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: subscription kid, which I was now fulfilling subscriptions, not a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: writing job, like tapping into these entrepreneurials like like kind
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: of them. I mean they did that. And then I
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: started selling small magazines to small dealers, so I handled
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: all of that part and then I can do reviews
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: at night, um, which I did a couple and they
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: were incredibly bad and terrible. And then finally I had
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: my break when Dave Marsh took me to to a
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: press conference where Smokey Robinson was retiring and didn't tell
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: me I had to write about it, So it was
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: really it was accidental on their part. For me, I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: always planned to write for Cream. I just I just
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: didn't think it was gonna take me almost two years
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to do it. Do you think that the factor was
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: were a woman in a boys club worked against you? Oh? No,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: I always worked for me. Um. I think there's great
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: power and being underestimated and getting away with really really
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: rude questions or really incisive ones and people don't see
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it coming. I think the thing was is I think
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: being able to write about bands are spoke bands. It
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: was a day where they thought most reporters were groupies,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: so they would really act out or not take it seriously,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: and I would always present to my story and it
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: was it was funnier because of that, because I definitely
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: have a comic bent. So I think always worked for me. Okay,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: tell the fulm Smokey Robinson article story, which is delineated
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: or shown in the movie. Um. I went with Dave
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: Marsh and Charlie Orangered down to a hotel in Detroit,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: and with a lot of hoopla, hometown hero Smokey Robinson
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: announces that he's leaving the Miracles, a heartbreaking event for
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: any Detroit kid because he was like poet laureate, he
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: was the man, and I was sad. I was a
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: huge Miracles fan. So Dave took me because of that,
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: but he didn't tell me. He says he did, but
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: he didn't tell me. I had to write about it.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: So I go back to my parents house where I'm living,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: and he calls me about o'clock at night, and he goes,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: where's that story? And I go, what are you talking about?
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: He goes, you know that story about Smoky And I go,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: there is no story. What story? So he says you
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: have to write it? And I go, I don't have
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: any Miracle albums. So it goes get out over here.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So I then by then I'm nineteen, I have a car.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: I drive to the Cream office and I pick up
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: his Miracle's albums. I listened to him all night long
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and stay up all night long and write an open
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: letter to Smokey Robinson, which was the cover story. So
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: my first time out, it's a cover story and it's
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: you know, please please slee smoking, don't go okay they
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: all you know, they also say in the movie it
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was a great letter. So the door is now open.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: What's your next step? Well, next step set, I'm doing reviews. Um.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: I'm still working as a subscription kid, like eight hours
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: a day, ten hours a day, but I'm writing reviews
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: at night and they're better, Like you know, Lester's helping me. Um.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I'm writing them kind of in a style of j. R.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: Young was up. He's still alive, but he was a
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: rolling stone UM reviewer and he always made them into
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: a little story. So all my reviews became little stories,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: little vignettes. And I did that for a while, and
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I just I got all the girls stories,
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: you know, like I got like Dionne Warwick or Carly Simon.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: And one day let's just said, you know, this is
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: unfair to you. We're ghetto wise in you. We've got
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: to get you out of this teenage girl ghetto. So
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: they started giving me like bat you like. I started
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: getting heavy metal bands and stories, you know, led zep one.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So that was how funny, let's see the girl in
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: the short skirt write about metal bands. So you know,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I was playing against type. But that actually I really
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: didn't mind, like anything that someone else didn't want. I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: took because I wanted to get published. And did you
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: like all of this music you were reviewing and writing about? Well?
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: I did, I actually did. I mean, I really love
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: hard music. I love the MC five, I liked the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: students a lot. Um. I actually had a great love
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: for like Grand Funk Railroad. You know, I really did
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: like that kind of meat and potatoes, bone headed rock
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: for I still do actually. Okay, so uh, when is
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: the first time you go on the road for cream? Um?
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: I think it was seventy two. I go on the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: road with Steve Miller and we go to a couple
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: of days in Ohio. Who's paying for that? Well, I
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: think it was Capital Records at the time. That was
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: when they would, you know, people would put the bill
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: for everything, you know, the days of like showering you
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: with with ephemera and lobster dinners. And was there a
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: wink wink? Is cam't be a negative article? No, it
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't at all. Actually he was. He was a really
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: good teacher for a lot of things. If that was
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the first one, it was really good, Like he had
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: a brother who was a heroin attic and he told
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: me all about it. And when I didn't put in
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the story, I saw him. Lady goes, well, what I
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: gave you an exclusive? Why didn't you use it? I
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: think I didn't know that you could be that brutal
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: at the time. I mean, I was just finding my
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: sea legs. So no, he was good. He also I
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: remember him making a pass at me and I'm saying, oh, no,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: I have a boyfriend, and he said, well, that was
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: just a test. And I said, are we out right?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: And he goes, no, How could you actually sleep with
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: somebody that you were doing a story on and think
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that you could stick a microphone in their face the
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: next day and actually get something. So I mean that
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: was a good cautionary tale anyway. So um, I thank
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: them for a lot. And was your style to use
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: a cassette recorder? Yeah? I took notes and a cassette recorder. Actually,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: I'm such a spoon vendor. I've always had two tape
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: recorders with me at all times. What kind of tape
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: recorders were they? A little sony cassette? I still own
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: them today. Okay, okay, So if you let's say you
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: went on the road with Steve Miller. How many cassettes
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: would you end up with? Oh my god, Well I
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: would just because I overdo things anyway. I would take
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: six of them and just just keep them talking, because
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: you really don't know what's a good quote. I think
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: when you're learning how to do journalism, you don't know
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: what's important. So you just record everything and and you
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: know the story emerges, but you know what if you
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: miss it? So I think the worst part about journalism
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: was always transcribing the tapes. Okay, so if you're on
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the road with Steve Miller, there's obviously a sit down
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: at some point, but there must be interaction in between,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and you're not recording that, are you know, you're taking
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: notes on Thatt like we were in Cleveland. They went
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: to his cousin's house for dinner, you know. So there's
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: all those cute little moments, and you learn to use
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: those because everything is a metaphor, and every object you
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: see and every reaction that someone has to something that's
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: not mostly a rock question like a quiz show question,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: is where the really more important stuff is. It's like
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: you see the nature of the person who makes the music.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: Then somehow informs the music in a much more interesting way.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: So I've really been more of a forensic object reporter,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: where I will I'll talk about somebody in terms to
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: their objects, or how they act or how they At
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: one point was how how a man treated up Jesse
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Mail and how he treated a waitress. You know, because
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: everything is everything? Is it? Quaintly used to say in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: the seventies, right, So if you're on the road with
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Steve Miller, you the only writer on the road with Steve. Okay,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the magazine came out monthly. Needles just say. Life goes
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: up by daily. So there were certain times where you
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: would write or do something and by time the magazine
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: has produced, your stuff is not included. Your stuff is included. No,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, would you ever write something that
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: ended up on the cutting room floor? Never? Never? Never?
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: And to what degree would they editors alter what you wrote?
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Not much? I mean, you know, we we were all
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: pretty like like I read some of that stuff, like
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I'm complete piling an anniversary issue to go out, go
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: out with the documentary, and I'm like going, oh my god,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: really we wrote that. It's not just me. It's like
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: so I look at some of my stuff and I cringed,
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: but I look at other stuff and go, wow, I
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: was pretty fearless. I can't believe I I wrote that.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: But no, Um, I think the thing was it was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: such a collaborative, great working environment, like a think tank,
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: that if we needed help, we would talk to the
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: prison next to us. We're really small, We're all really
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: close and insular. So if I was having trouble in
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: a story, I'd go to Marshaw, I'd go to Leicester
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: VN Edmonds and say, hey, could you help me on this?
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: So so no, it was never okay. So you break
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in with Steve. Who's your next big act? Oh? Rick
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Wakeman's my next big Rick Wakeman. So he's already left, Yes,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: doing the doing the Caepe stuff and all that other
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: stuff is not really a typical cream magazine or coal.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: So tell us that story well, because because the thing was,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: we would always like to put somebody in the situation
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and let I mean, we would choose for personalities like
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: he was a great recontour. He was just funny as hell.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: And I did this one actually with Cameron Crowe and
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: I remember, I remember we three of us who had
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: went down to have lunch, and he it was just
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: like a boozy lunch and it was super funny. I
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: recorded that used none of that. And then later I
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: went to his room and I remember this so vividly
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: because it was one of those, oh my god, write
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: of passage things. He answers the door and a towel,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: and I go, all right, what and I tell him
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: to could put some clothes on it. He won't just
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: a funk with me, right, not to make a move,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: but just actually leverage the power of the interview. And
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: it was But again, this is what you would put
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: in if you were a more season journalists. I don't
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: think I even put in that he wouldn't put clothes on,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: which is really ridiculously stupid of me. You know, in hindsight,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: where I left out was more interesting than I put
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: in at that point. And by your own choice, did
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you ever have boyfriends in this world, whether they be
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: stars or other business people? Are you loyal to Charlie? No?
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I was? I was. I was like monogamous. And the
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: other part was who had time to meet people? Because
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: we were such a small staff, we really didn't do
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: anything to go to the office like we worked. Maybe
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: eighteen hours a day, and when we went out, we
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: tended to go out on mass like we would go
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: see a band together, like everybody would go and um,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: we socialized together. There was really very little life outside
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: of Cream. You know. I was really monogamous. And Okay,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Rick Wakeman, ultimately you work with led Zeppelin and Leonard Skinner.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: But before we get to those stories, anybody in between memorable. Um,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the Kiss Star is memorable because I can never believe
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: they let me perform with them. Let's start from the game.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: What year was the kiss story? That was? So I'm
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: probably skipping a lot of other stories, but that was
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: that was really memorable. Okay, But rock and Roll All
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Night from the live album has been a hit. Well,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: actually it happened when I went to the story. It
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: was the night after they recovered they record Alive, their
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: big breakout live albums. Okay, okay, so it wasn't released yet,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: it wasn't released. Okay. Were you a Kiss fan? Well,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: I was a really huge Kiss idea fan I had.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: I had gone to London to covering David Essex and
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: one of those many things blocked On, which was an
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: amazing song, and I came back to New York. I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: had a layover because there was no nonstops to Detroit
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and I went to some narest forum and Kiss was
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: one of the speakers. They run on this little panel
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: with Richard Robinson and Danny Fields and Wayne County. It
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: was it was about gender in rock and roll, and
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: they all switched around their name tags and they would
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: answer every every question with its only rock and roll.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: But I like it because that Stone song had just
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: come out and I thought, this is hilarious. I can't
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: believe they're not breaking character. This is really wonderful. We
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: have to cover it. I get back to Cream, but
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I saw this band like like, you know, they they
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: have a record out, and you know, they're just like Nightmares.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: And everybody said, oh no, no, they're just like New
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: York doal clones. That's they're just trash their cartoons and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: go no, no, we got to cover them. And I
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: remember bed Edmonds telling me, cover you cover them, You
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: want to cover them? You right it? So I created
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: this this rock like Kiss comic, a comic strip panel
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: without takes from Dressed to Kill, and that was how
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: we first got them in there. And I don't know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I just pressed hard to get kissed in there because
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I just have this idea, even though I didn't love
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the music, it was like an idea whose time had come,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: and it was just so comic book and so I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: don't know, so death of art that I thought we
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: could make fun of them, which pretty much did right
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: although after you left it seemed to be all kissing
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: Cream magazine. But prior to going on stage with Kiss,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: what was your relationship with them? Or was at the
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: very beginning? Um, when I met them at that panel
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: and then um, they would play Detroit all the time.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And then I got this idea of doing a kiss comics,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: which it was Kissed Comics with a K O K
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: K O M I K and I did that. So
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I went and talked to him then and we got
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: really friendly because I don't know, there was just we're
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: all the same age, we're all coming up together. I
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: think they were making like a hundred bucks a week
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: and we were making so we just had this camaraderie,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: like I just felt like, I feel like Andie Dickinson
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: in the rat pack with them. Really, so tell us
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: the famous story about going on stage. Um, there used
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: to be a guy who worked there Um, Larry Larry
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: who was Neil Bogart Castle Blanka Records, because you're having
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: to write a good book. He died of just a
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Forty Larry Harris, Larry Harris and Um,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: he was always bringing bands over to Cream and he
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: was he was just a lot of fun. And I
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: called him on one day, um, and I said, Um,
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Connie Cramer and I had this idea Barry's wife because
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: there was a story in and Esquire Blair Sobel had
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: done about being and I get so Connie and I
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: one night, working late read it and she says, do
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: you think you could do that? And I go, oh, yeah,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: I could do that with Kiss? Right? And I go
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: yeah with Kiss. So I called up Larry Benjamin the
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: next day and I said, could I go on stage
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: with Kiss? And he goes what, I go, No, can
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I go on stage with Kiss? And he said yes,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: but you can't call him a glitterband? Like go, oh,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: no problem, I won't call him a glitterban. Okay. So
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: they come to town maybe week later, and I go
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to sound check to learn their moves because I'm gonna
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: go on stage with them, right, And when I meet
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: the band members who I know not well but I know.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: I say, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go and stay
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: with you, and they think I'm going to cover the band.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: They don't know. No one's told them I'm going to
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: go on stage with them, and they look at me
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: like I'm crazy. So so next morning, after they record
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: their album, we go to Johnstown, Pennsylvania on a little
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: prop plane and there I am they outfit me. Then
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I then like mother hands. Then they're into it and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: we're gonna all be in this together and they're gonna
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: fix me up, and they, you know, they take turns
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: putting their makeup and they argue like, I'm looking too
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: much like June Simmons because he's he's like putting his
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: bat wings on me. And you know, Ace Freely is
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: making fun of because I don't know how to put
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: makeup on because I never wore foundations. So but it
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: was great. I have to say it changed my life
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: because I understood the addictive nature of what happens once
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: amazon stage and that surge of energy that you get
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: from being on stage. I understood at that moment why
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: people do what they do and why they can't give
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: it up, and I think that story not for the notoriety,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: but more for that actual recognition of why why musicians
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: do that with has like really served me for the
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: rest of my life. Okay, so how long did you
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: take them to make you up? Oh? Like twenty five
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: minutes longer. It takes them a long time even today,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: like I just covered well last year I covered them
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: and their End of the World tour. They've been there
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: for two hours. It is really an intense process of
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: stages upon stages of making up. And at what point
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: do you go on stage? Well, I'm thinking I'm doing
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the whole show in my innocence, so they go on stage.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I tried to go after them, all dressed up just
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: like them, you know, and the road manager post May goes, no,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you got you got the last song. So I had
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: to watch the whole show with the jitters like I'm
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: just shredding Kleenex. Then I'm nervous, like I'm all full
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: of gravato. I'll do it, you know. When I think
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and do the whole show, I don't
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: know what I was thinking. So when Rocket Roll All
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: Night comes on, they pushed me out there, give me
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: this really this red guitar. I think it's offender, and
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: Paul tells me, like where low really low looks sexier
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that way. And again they're like mother hands watching me
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: like I'm their kid at a recital, and it's so funny.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: But I realized, which is I just made this realization
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: the other day. I was thinking about this that nobody
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: in that crowd in Johnston, Pennsylvania knew there was an
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: extra member of Kiss. They're like, I never heard about it,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: No one wrote, it was in the paper. It was
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: like it was like some kind of big blooper. And
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: the only way I ever knew about it is because
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: I wrote about it later, you know, afterwards. But that
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: realization just cracked me up. And it was like if
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: if a tree falls in the forest and there's no
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: one there to hear, did it really fall? Did it?
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: It was just all mocked. Okay, so what do you do?
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: During the number you were on stage? I actually had
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: an open mic. I sang with them and I danced around.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I danced behind behind Paul, and Paul has told me later,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: he goes, I forgot you were there. All of a sudden,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I looked me. It was like another me like a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: big mini mouse singing. And of course anybody who's seeing
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Kiss knows they wear these gigantic platforms. Did you have
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: a pair of platforms? I did. I did anyway, so
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I just wear my own I actually had. I had
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: the right the right stuff except for the jewelry. I
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: was definitely right in line with their fashion statement. Okay,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: so you have the experience and you have the insight
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: still continuing, you go back to write the story. Do
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: you realize the impact the story will have both for
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: readers who are fans of Kiss and for you personally.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: I just think it's another story. I was always about
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: high concept stories, like I've done other high concept stories before,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: so I just thought it was like the George Limp
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: something like nobody would even notice. It would just be
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: another story. How I knew it was a really big deal.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: And I swear some of the best things that ever
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: happened to me was the Bale Musicians Guide wanted to
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: license it, and I thought, oh my god, blind kids
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: will actually see what that's like. So to me, that's like,
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know why that one just really touches my heart,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: but it did. Yeah, that's like the story that's just
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: reverberated around the world, like you know, just I got
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: to do it. So okay. One thing that always went
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: through my brain during that era had the line the
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: maiden form bra, which of course was the line from
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: the ad, but at that point in time, no one
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: in the demo Warren made in form bra, right, right,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: that's so true. Well, it's because I grew up on
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: like fashion magazines. It's like, do you remember the ads, Belie.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: You wouldn't remember that, but girls remember the ad was
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: these women would wear bras and they would wake up
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: in these odd places like at the symphony or in
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: the office, and they'd be wearing like a pencil skirt
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: and be wearing just a bra and the top. I
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: don't remember that, yeah, of course. Okay, so I dreamt
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: that I was on stage with kissing my man form bra,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: which I wasn't wearing. But the fact what was it
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: was like such a great hook. Oh it was great. Absolutely.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Uh So you're a led Zeppelin fan from the beginning.
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I'm such a led Zeppin fan. When I worked at
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: the Grandi Ballroom, I was a big yard Bird Birds fan.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: And one weekend I'm working there and this new band
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: who never no one ever heard of was led Zeppelin,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: So no was at the at the venue, like no
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: one knew who they were, so no one showed up.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: By the second night, it was like wall to wall
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: people like words spread like wildfire. They were amazing like
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: they were, they looked beautiful, they played like it was
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: just like like sound like sound just broke through. This's
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: like that where mind meet Spotty. It was a trans
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: formative experience for me. Um. And then when they came back.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I remember taking my break during they're set and getting
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: on stage with them so I could hear them better.
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I saw this picture of
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: me like I've got like my elbows on Jimmy Page's
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: amp and I'm just like, you know, like angelically looking
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: like watching this every mood. So yeah, they were like
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: my van And what's what's your favorite Zeppelin album? Physical Graffiti?
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: I go back and fat between Physical Graffiti and the
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: first Physical Graffiti if no other reason's got ten years gone,
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: which I can I know, I know, well, I love
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: the first one because I think that base, that bubbling
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: bass like it's being played under water, unbelievable too. Even
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: today it's still unbelievable to me, and they were just
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: so mysterious. Okay, so how do you end up interviewing them?
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: The first time I interview them there, Um, I just
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: think that one of those things that nobody else wanted
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: to do. It is odd as that is. And they're
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: playing Detroit and I interview them, um backstage at Olympia
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: where they were playing. There was no big deal. It
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: was just, you know, it was just a regular rock interview.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I wasn't on the road with them, um. And then
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: later on I got on the road with them for um.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: I forgot what album it was, but that was when
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: they were holed up in the in the Plaza hotel
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: for for like weeks upon weeks and I went for
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: like probably four days, so we'd fly out to various
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: cities and come back and that was. That was like again,
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: not a big deal, like in terms of it being
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: bigger than life. Yes, But it wasn't until my third
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: time where it got really odd. It was one of
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: those almost famous moments where to me, Page didn't want
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: to do the interview even though it was for a
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: cover story. So I had to dog him for five days,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: like ask because I have an interview because I have
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: an interview, and on the last day before I was
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: going to go home, they finally granted it to me,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: but only in the provision that I couldn't speak directly
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: to him. I had to speak through an interpreter, so
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I had to ask the questions to the publicist and
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: she would translate them to him. And it was like
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: being in a foreign film and with subtitles and watching
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it because it was so bizarre because we all spoke English.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: But I'd have to ask him, he would answer her,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: and she would answer me. So I just went on
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: for like half an hour. It was so unnerving. But
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: at some point I got this like a little like
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: thought balloon, like, oh man, I can make this funny,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I can like do a thoughtful and thing
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: like what's really going through my head? But it was
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: so unnerving. I mean, I don't know how I pulled
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: out of that one, but it was you know, once
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: you get it field to get lemons, you make lemonade.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I really make LeMond On that one. Okay, Uh, you're
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: in this uptight situation. Do you whip out your curveball
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: question or do you say I don't want to screw things.
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Oh you don't, I really, although I have to say
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: that I did because it was during the tour where
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the tour doctor confronted Jimmy Page about someone stealing the
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: quay lose that was the tour doctor carried, and I
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: had the audacity asked him if he actually stole the
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: quay loose so and he was this indignant and the
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: crazy part is part two of the story. In two
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: thousand six, Hugh Magazine hired me to do my recollections
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: on on led c up one tours, So I wrote
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: about that whole tour and a friend of mine, Brad Tolnsky,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: who was the editor of Guitar World, was friends during
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: Page and one day he called me, so, there's somebody
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: here who wants to talk to you, and he puts
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Stey Page on the phone. He goes, jan, I stole
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: the kay lose. That's funny. That was great. I had
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: no idea was going to do that. I was like
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: one of those those yeah, sure, sure, it's Jimmy Page.
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: But it was great. Okay. Now, I met a lot
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: of these rock stars, and I've met them myself. They
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: very rarely live up to the image in your head.
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: So that begs the question who did and who didn't. Um,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: I'd say Ronnie van zandt did. He was he was
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: like a prophet. He was like tapped into something that
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: the rest of us just don't hear. You know, it
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: was like he knew was going in. The sad part
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: was he knew when he was leaving. And I think
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: I talked about unnerving when I did a story on
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: him and I was ill prepared. It was Lester Banning's
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: birthday and he decided he didn't want the story because
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: of birthday, said Jane, you go to the story, here's
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: the questions, and just shoved me out of the nest. Really,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: I just did that. But during the course of the interview,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: and it was really long, I interviewed all of them,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Ronnie Um and I just sat and talked to He said,
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I had Janni's Choplin disease. I don't think
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: I'm to be here long. In fact, I doubt i'll
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: see thirty. This was about a month before his twenty
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: ninth birthday. And you know, it's one of those things
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: that I don't know why I might have left out
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Rick Waiteman's tall, but I put in that Ronnie van
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Zandt said he was never going to see thirty And
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: then I remember being in Los Angeles reviewing some concert
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and hearing that they're playing had gone down and there
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: were some survivors, and I immediately knew it wasn't him,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like there was a president of
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: some press of something like surreal metaphysical, Like I think
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the best musicians get their information for someplace that world
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: never know, and I think he was one of them.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I think he was like the one who had the
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: greatest impact on me. Um, just as soon al though
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: we can't if he had not passed away, would he
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: still have had the greatest impact? Um? I don't know that,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: because I think it was the fact that he shared
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: that with me. That's a really great question, that he
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: shared that moment with me, and I was somehow part
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: of it. Um. I think that's what the impact was. UM.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Other people, you know. I remember people who are nice
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: to little people, you know. I love like Kirk Halmet
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: from Metallica. It's always great and personalizes every interview and
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: makes you feel like a human. I think when a
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: rock star makes you feel like we're again back to
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: that cream Ethos that were all the same and they
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: remember you. Although your friend of my friend, Dicky straight
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: told me a secret and I've got to stop now
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: or show kill me. Never mind, never mind? You know
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Vicky through the Metallica club or do you know were
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: previously at Columbia. I know, I know because she's from
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Royal at Michigan, the next town over from where I
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: grew up and off Mike. But in uh, in any event,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: this brings us to Lester Banks. I mean, on my end,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the most famous thing with Lester Banks, he wrote a
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: review for Rolling Stone of Alice Cooper's Killer and it
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: was boxed out and it was so over the top.
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: This was in the days of the Great White Wonder
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: and hoaxes that I bought the album just to see
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: if it was a hoax or not. Of course you dropped,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: you dropped the needle. It was under my wheels and
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: it was, of course incredible. So you follow the guy.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: Then he's playing on stage with the typewriter, etcetera. Then
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: they have that he dies, they have the compilation book,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: so people like you and me know who these guys.
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: These guys. Then Cameron makes the movie, turns him into
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: a folk hero, who won't be forgotten. What was your
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: experience of Lester Bags? You know, one of the greatest
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: people ever met, too great impact on me, hev he
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: even lived. In fact, I have a reoccurring dream about
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: every two years where he says to me, jan I'm
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: not dead of justin Florida. So I can't tell you
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: how odd that is for me. But he was really
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: He would call like subscribers up or people who would
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: write him letters. We would because we work so late.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: We would just we would all like get the phone.
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: He would call people who wrote him and give him encouragement.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: I mean he was every young writer's best friend. He
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: was certainly mine. I mean he really helped me with
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of things. He was driven in a way
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: that you hardly ever see. When I say that people
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: think that stories come out of your fingers, not your brain.
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: They seemed to come out of his fingers. It was like,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I don't want to belabor this. This like people know
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: where they're going to go. But it was like he
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: was racing the devil. Like he almost felt like he
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: didn't have all the time that he wanted because he
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: he would sit down and just write the most beautifully constructed,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: well thought out pieces. It was a marvel and actually
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: gave me a phobia for a long time because I
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: wonder why I didn't write that fast. Now. He was
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: a guy who would stare the ship. I mean, all
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: you had to do is go to one of those
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: lou Read contests. Every time he interviewed lou Read, he
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: would always bring a posse and I was there a
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: couple of times and he would just go writer's I
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: mean box stars into like saying things that they might
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: not like. He called it a little insect or asked
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: him about his wife girlfriend Rachel, who was like omni sexual.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: I never figured that one out, but he would insult
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: them to their face and it was like it was
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: a site to be behold. It was also really embarrassing.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: But I can't say he did it in good fun.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: I think he just did because he wanted a reaction,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: because he knew it was a better story. He could
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: be brutal and he could be the kindest man in
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: the world. There was no middle speed with Lester. It
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: was either fast or slow. And what do you think
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: about his depiction and almost famous. Well, having had a
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: little ado with that, Cameron hired me and Jim Durgat
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: us to do little treatments, so it was so accurate.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that Cameron was such a genius in
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: that character for two reasons. They would call me from
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: the set all the time. But what kind of pieza
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: did he really eat? Or whatever did they barbecue really
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: come from there? So he was just slaved detail and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that comes across. But the other thing which was so
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: strange is casting phil Um Samoura Hoffmann because I interviewed
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: him from OJO and I was sitting across from him,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: and I felt like there was less just ghost. He
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: would even when he talked, he ate, and he would
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: talk with his mouth full, something Lester always did. I
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: felt that he was a mediumistic actor anyway, but I
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: felt like I was. I was in the presence of Lester.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I can't think that anyone was any better than that,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: like in that choice. Going back to almost famous, you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: know the scenes in the riot House, which is no
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: longer called a hyatt uh. They changed the branding of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: those who thus who followed that from the late sixties on,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: especially a lot of the British musicians. These were dark
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: characters doing dark things, dripping wax on people. Uh, what
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: was your insight into the dark side of these musicians?
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: You know, it was always fast it and how they
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: got that way. I mean, the thing is that they
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: would actually talk about if you had the guts to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: ask somebody about it. Maybe not Jimmy Page, who was
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: the purveyor of most of that, you know, but um,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it was like, how did
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: they get away with that? I honestly have to say
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't ever get involved in anything that like the
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: farious or witness to it, because I don't know, maybe
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: this is the part about not going for the sleeves
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: part of it. I was always more ironic, psychological, like
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: satiric writer, so I usually didn't see any of the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: horror mongy, you know. I do remember like when I
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: was on tour with Fred Zeppelin, I mean, Jimmy Page
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: dressing up just like this most beautiful boy there and
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: having his arms slung around, you know, around his back,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, you know, I'm a little
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: young and I'm Midwestern, and this is the first time
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: I've seen that, so it kind of jolted me. So,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't pretty to all of that stuff.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not really sure who it was except for but
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: who's Stanley Boost who wrote a really great book on
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. I mean, not many people. You had
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: to hang with them. You had to have the same
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: kind of habits, had the same kind of cool, had
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: the same kind of land Nick Nick can't he did
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: with Iggy and was like like, I think probably stuff
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: and it was Iggy definitely do you do you think
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: you're cool? I do think I'm cool? Okay. Is it's
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: something you always knew? Uh? It was something I always knew.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I just I just but I cultivated. Yeah. Maybe I
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: think it was just like I kind of grew up
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: being fully formed, like I always knew what I wanted,
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: and it's that never let them see you sweat kind
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: of thing. Okay, continue, So others thy disagree. You know,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: I don't have my distractors, so okay. Uh So what
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: are your parents to do for a living when you're
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: growing up? Um, my dad was a was I worked
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: at four. He was a design engineer and my mom
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: was a dancer who hung up her shoes by the time,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: you know, my sister and I came along. And how
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: many generations has your family been in America. My parents
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: were both second generation. Their parents were born in the
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Old countries. They so quaintly said, how did your parents meet?
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: They met in a bar um in Detroit, and they
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: did they remain married during their lifetimes. And how many
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: siblings do you have? I just have one sister who's
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: a photographer, and she's older or younger. She's younger by
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: how many years? By seven? That's a long time. What
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: was going on? What was going on there? Well, at
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: least something. Actually, my mom was afraid of the pain
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: of childbirth, so she vowed never to have another child
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: until they introduced togs into the birthing process. So my
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: sister is like a drug baby. Okay, So you go
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: to school, are you like popular, do you have friends?
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Or what kind of kid are you? I'm the second
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: tallest kid in elementary school. So I either had a
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: really good firs eide view or I was a really
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: like um, I mean it was a little bit of
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: an outcast, but not really like I had like my
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: sub genre of people. So, um, you know, I was
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: really like sporty spice I was. I was super athletic.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: I used to compete in track, so, um you know,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: I was I was pretty normal. But I think the
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: hardest thing was is my name was so unpronounceable that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: I definitely had a complex. I remember a letter to
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Cream in later years and my favorite letter as someone said,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: tell you and your hellsky to get an American names.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Love that that's gonna add a good sense of humors
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: because the writers for Cream you did you have that
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: sense of humor before you went to the magazine or that? Okay?
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: And Dave Marsh, who has a reputation anybody's dealt with him,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: has an edge. What was your experience working with him?
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: He was always like a for me, it was always
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: like a kindly older brother and not that that much older,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: but you know, we've he was really impish with me,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: like we would go on like when the Detroit the
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Michigan State Fair would come, he would go on rise
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: with me, like we can be kids together. I think
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: we're We and Robbie Krueger were the youngest people on
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: the staff, so we just brought out the kid in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: each other. He was still always amazing to me. Um
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: for a long time, I felt like an apologist, and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: I've just thought why bother? You know, he can think
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and do it and so, but I've always seen a
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: really good side of him. Okay, since we have this
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: movie which goes back to them, where are all these
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: people today? And you continue to have contact with them?
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: I do. Everybody you see who's on the staff or
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: who's still alive, absolutely in the dead ones. Yeah, obviously
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: they come in dreams, but yeah, I keep intentioned. It
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: was something about the fraternity of being in in Cream
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: in the beginning of the inception of something really amazing
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: and going through it. It's like almost like going to
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: high school with people together, or going through a war,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: like we experienced things together that you didn't experience a
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: normal that it was really like heightened reality there. And
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: what happened to them job was well, most people stayed
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: either went into advertising, like Robert Duncan owned an ad agency,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: Eric Gnheimer. Everybody actually got really good jobs. It was
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: a good step up. I mean, Susan Whitehall became the
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: pop music critic at the Detroit News. Um, Lester, I
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: don't know, Lester, he had to do that vagabond go
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: to New York and be a New York writer thing,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you know, Um, you know, I'm not really sure what
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: what went wrong. I'm not sure what twist he took.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was always a heavy drinker, and we
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: definitely consumed codings because we thought it would be a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: performance enhancer in terms of our writing. But you know,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: I never thought of him as that excessive. I mean,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm naive about that, but I didn't see that.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: I think everybody really got got good jobs afterwards. Okay,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: just staying with Lester as an outsider, uh and reading
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: the publicity. It was the punk era where theoretically anybody
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: could get on stage. It seemed from a distance that
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: he wanted to be on stage a star, not only
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: a writer. Was that your experience? Would you say that's undrew?
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: You know, I think that happened after I left, Like
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I left in nineteen seventy six in March, and he
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: left in December of seventy six, and then he started,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the Radio Birdman happened maybe the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: next couple of years. I honestly thought when he got
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: on stage with with Peter Wolf and Jay Giles that
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: that was a flute. That was just another story, one
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: of our high concept stories. So I was actually surprised
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: because he didn't have a tremendous voice. You know, but
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: he had he had that hutzpah. I remember the whole
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: thing pleased in the band with Nicky Um. Mickey Joy,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: Roon's brother also and they described it both the Mickey
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and Enjoys described it as kind of like Lester was
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: like that movie Will Build. It's not feeling worried that
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: what about Bob where the guy comes up and shows
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: up the shrinks. That's how how Lester was because their
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: stepfather was his shrink. So, um, I don't know. I
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: honestly was surprised when he did it. Okay, so how
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: did you decide to leave cream? Um? This is really personal,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: but Charlie Oranger slept with my best friend Peggy, Peggy Carlson,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: one of the T shirt girls, and I thought I'm
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: out of here. It was it's really it was like
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: one of those things that was a watershed moment and
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: my whole life spun on that moment. Okay, how did
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: you find out? He told me? Why? Because I told
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: told them that, um, she wanted him to fix her
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: up with his assistant, and he told me know, she's
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: more interested in me, and I go, oh no, she's
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: my best friend. Honestly, my whole life collapsed on that
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: moment and I started making other plans. Just what what
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: went through your head when he told you that? It
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: was like it was like a hot knife, you know,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: to go a little bit deeper. Was this a one
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: time event or was he having a full blown affair? Well, no,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I think it was a one time event. But I
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: it just it just really cut me, you know. I
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: think I was so unaware of it or that actually
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: even to the day, I don't know. I think it
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: was just a one time event. And and of course
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: I've forgiven them all and we're all like not close,
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: but you know, amends have been made. But honestly, I
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: have to say that it was the small moment that
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: that actually informed the whole rest of my life. Okay,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: walk us through that quickly. Oh. Then I decided I
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: was going to probably go get another job. I remember
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Barry Kramer saying to me, well, you better make this work,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: because if I have to fire somebody, I'm going to
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: fire you because Charlie has been with me since day
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: when he is the art director, and you're one of
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: many editors. So I so I pretty much went through
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: the motions for the next couple of years, until I
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: finally left. And also it took a couple of years.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I just started planning. I'm a planner.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: Can't you see that? The true line? Okay, so everybody knew,
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I Verry knew. I didn't tell anybody else. Okay, So
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: for these couple of years, needles to say, you're not
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: his girlfriend anymore? Right, I'm just taking it. I'm like
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: phoning it in. Okay. So then how do you ultimately
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: decide to make the break and how does that happen?
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: I actually met somebody else, you know, because I didn't
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: feel all that monogamous anymore. So I met um, I
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: met a photographer at barbecue at the oh my god,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: the Capricorn Barbecue and wow, yeah, so wait, just let's
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: go back all these events. They would say, hey, do
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: you want to come? We're gonna pay. Often how often
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: did you go? Well, I'd say I went on the
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: road one week a year, one week, one week a month,
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: like every time you did a story, you went on
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: the road. And they would like thing, whip you, you know,
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: like they would like say, I remember that's the London trip.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: I remember them saying the record Covery would say, well,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: if you need anything. It's working for Christmas, I doing anything,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Just go get a few things from the gift shop.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: So it was like Pola yet insidious, subtle Paola okay,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: but being on the road forgetting in one town, but
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: being on the road on a bus, even in a plane,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: it takes a strong constitution to be on the road
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: for a week. You don't get much sleep, etcetera. I mean,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: what's your viewpoint about going on the road? Been there,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: done that, don't want to do it again. I think
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: that you get the best stories because you get people
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: an act of being themselves, so you see so much more,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: just like the Steve Miller thing. You see the small motions,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: the how someone interacts with somebody else, how they act
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: in any situations. But you don't see that when you're
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: sitting across from somebody in a record company office. Like,
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: given given the choice, I will always go Now. You
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: don't go on the road. You go to somebody's house,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: like now I'll go to like because most of the
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: stories I do for Uncut magazine, they're in home visits,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: Like I show up at somebody's house with you know,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: my my digital recorder and my camera, and I do
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: the story, So I pick up the clues of a person.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: Well on the road, it's like it's stretched out. You're
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: picking up clues with somebody for like a week or
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: three days or four days or however long it was,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: but it was some time, and you get these sit
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: down sessions with them, or you go do things with them,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: like go see a jazz ban or do this or that,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: like Allin Brothers was like that. So you go to
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: the Capricorn picnic, you meet this other guy. How do
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: you finally quit um? He asked me to marry him,
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and I moved to l A and where he was,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: where he was and it didn't work out? How long?
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: How long did it taken out to work out? Five days?
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: Five days? How much contact that you had it before
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: you moved up, had with him before you moved out?
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: A lot more than you would think that I would
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: come to that conclusion after five days? What was what
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: was the deal breaker? He had done? S to remember
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: sked that self realization kind of program that people did
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: sevent days more in air Heart and he was going
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: to go back for a seminar while I was there
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: my first a few days when I was there and
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: we came back from the seminar, he said he didn't
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: feel like he had thoroughly ended it with his ex
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: girlfriend and maybe I should move out. So it was
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: kind of not my decision, but I refused to tell
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: anybody because I had quit the best job in the
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: world to move to l A. And did you have
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: a job in l A. No. I started freelancing for
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: Playgirl magazine. I don't know if you remember that magazine Centerfold,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: that's the one. So I worked for them a little
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: bit and then I got outimately got hired at Record World,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: and that was which led to the next chapters of
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: my life. So I became the columnists at home at
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Record World. Like shortly after that, I just said I
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: wasn't going home. I spent all my furniture with me,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Like everything I owned was with me in l A.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: And did you have enough money to exist? Well, when
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: my grandmother died, she gave me a dream book. She said,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: go to the track with the dream book because the
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: numbers you everything you dream has a number in bet
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: those and five. So um, yeah, I actually, um, I
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: actually made money, you know, and I supported myself and
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: then um, I got the job at Record World. And
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: then you know, things just picked up. Okay, So then
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: you get married, you have your daughter. What's your daughter
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: up to today? She is an ad copywriter and she
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: owns candle company where she she makes candles like metaphysical
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: candles based on the throw. And where does she live?
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: She lives in New York Okay, and you have her,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: she grows up. How do you go back to college?
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: How do you decide to get back into the writing game. Um.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: When I graduated from college, I went to work for
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and I worked for a national women's
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: political caucus and it's women trying to get other women elected.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: But the crazy part about it was it was a
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: little mean spirit. It was women on women crime and
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: it was so like I was so shocked that it did.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: There was not that camaraderie like we're in this together,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: which I like, I love. That's my favorite thing work
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: collaborative with a lot of people towards one goal. And
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: it wasn't that. So I thought, well what am I
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: gonna do? So I started I started freelancing. I thought, well,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be I was gonna get a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: graduate school to go get a teaching degree to teach history,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and but no, that doesn't really appeal to me. So
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: I started freelancing, and I started getting hired a lot
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: for writing about music. So I just went down that path.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: It just opened up again. I mean, it was pretty
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: much I just re entered my life where I left it. Okay,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: need let's just say we grew up in Eric, where
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: music drove the culture. What do you think about today's
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: seeing in today's music visa VI what it was? Well,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: I feel like they don't seek there. I don't. I
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: got my identity from music, I mean somehow, and the
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: lyrics there was prophecy, it was encoded, was a message
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: that we all got, you know. And if you like
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the Stone to a certain kind of person, if you
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: like the Beatles, you are another kind Like it defined
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: who we were everything. Now people don't need that sense
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: of identification. It's not so cut and dry. It's not
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: a world of strays and heads is that you know?
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: That term used to be too. So I think that
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: there's other ways that people pick up who they are
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: the persona and if there's anything and people are more gamers,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: you know, and music has just fallen out. It's kind
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: of background music. And I think it's really a disservice
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: because I still think that somehow musicians are tapped in
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: and they hear things that the rest of us don't.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: They just get some kind of message, some kind of
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: enlighten it, some kind of way to live. And maybe
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: I'm putting too much on a musician, but I've I've
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: found out a lot of things that I know, I
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: find just by probing a musicians brain. I mean, I
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: don't know you interview musicians, I mean, do you know?
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: I mean I find that you know, you talk about
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: being in a club and being different. The only people
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: I tend to be able to relate to our musicians.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: They have the same attitude. They're outsiders. They can laugh
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: at life, They're gonna go whereas everybody else you know,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: is following the buck and checking off the boxes whatever,
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: which is just not who I am. And uh, I'm
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: gonna ask you a very standard question. But you have
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: so much experience, I think people want to know, Oh,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: you've been to so many concerts. What are the handful
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: of best concerts you ever saw? Prince at Radio City
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: back in the eighties, maybe eighty one, that was probably
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: number one. The Stone Roses actually at the fillmore Um
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: when they came back for their second coming album. That
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: was transformative led Zeppelin the second time I saw them
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: in nineteen um the Beatles in sixty six, even though
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: I couldn't hear them, It's it was like one of
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: those life changing and um Connor Oberst when he was
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: just when he was Bright Eyes around two thousand four,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: that one just really spoke to my core. There's something
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: again he something in his voice, something in his expression,
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: something in that that stream of consciousness words. It's almost
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: like like deciphering cave dwelling. Like I feel like again
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: he's tapped into something and I relate to that. And
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: I always think that arts, amir like the bands, you
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: like the artists, you like they reflect something of yourself
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: and you see that in them. And obviously something I
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: see in myself I see in him. Maybe not Liz
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: Up when that's just pure like m Bass. I don't know.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I think I think I have like an incomplete theory
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: about that. But those are my five. Okay. At the time,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the Stone Roses only had one album. They
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: were legends in the UK, really didn't have impact in
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: the US. Why was the show so great? You know,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: I came to light I missed in the first time around,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: and it was really an assignment, like I had to
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: cover it for I was working for a news magazine
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: Addicted to Noise that um I did back in the
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: early nineties with Michael Roberg, one of the first online
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: music magazines, and it was one of those things which
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: always works for me, Like you said, just go cover
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: these guys, so I um I started writing news about
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: them and I did an interview with them, and when
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: they came out for that second tour after that second
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: album Electra, I don't know, there was just magic. It's
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: just something in that kind of like Shoegazer tonality. It's
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: just really like sound. Like Braceleck said that God is
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: energy and and you know, music is vibration and that's
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: where the Holy list. And there was something about that
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: Stone Roses concert that I saw the film were not
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: technically wonderful. Ian Brown's voice was flat, but there's just
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: something in that whole experience of that that blast of sound,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: that way it goes into your body and the viscual
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: reaction to it. They just strike a chord with me,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: and that's really what it is. Did you keep the
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: records in the ephemeral Yes, no, not not, not any
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: of it. I had the Stone Roads and stuff. I
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: have a Gold Fool's Gold album. But no, I gave everything. Wait,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: I even gave my last cream T shirt to Joey
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: Ramone like no, nothing, Well that makes a story that's
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: worth So why did you mean to get the records
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: for free? That was one reason you became a rock critic. Okay,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: so you gave them away later in life or during
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: the era? No, you know, I have so I could
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: get everything back, Like I als was traveling light, like
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: when I moved to California. I was thinking about this
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: because my daughter was moving to l A. And I
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: was thinking about how much stuff I put on that
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: Mayflower truck. And did I take my records? Yeah, just
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: to select few. I found them when my father died.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: I found the rest of them and I just sold
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: them and um and like in a state sale. But
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the other fact was they weren't in good shape.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: My parents living in Michigan, they would have annual floods,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: so they weren't in great shape. But I just think
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: I was always going to be able and pick up
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Again, I think it was always going to
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: go on forever. I said that in the Cream documentary.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure it made it into the film, but
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: they asked me if I kept anything. I said no,
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: I didn't keep anything. I really thought it would go
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: on forever and I can go and get my Cream
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: T shirts later. I know. Okay, if you have to
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: do it all over again, the same path, same path,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: you well that you know this is about you. I mean, uh,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: I would say I don't have any regrets, but there
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: are choices I made that I question, okay, in terms
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: of dedicating myself to rock and roll, not that it
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: was consciously that. You know, it's kind of like Godfather
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: three and he tried to leave. It just pulls you
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: back in. And uh so what did we learn? You
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: know all this? You know, this journey of decades. I
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: think that, um, I mean, it's a thing that keeps
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: going back to that there's something holy in the sound.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: It's like it's like the tribe speaks to each other
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: through music, and I like to be part of the tribe.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: I mean, I really did grow up in that Hipper
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: era and I feel completely dedicated to preserving that group.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Think that that we're in it together and we can
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: make this a better way. And I got those messages
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: in the music. Like I remember this Lester quote. It's
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: something like like he he listened to black bands obsessively
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: because in some flash flight moment he saw he saw
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: hope of a better world, a better society, saw prophecy
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: in that. And that quote always got me because that
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: was it. It's like I saw some vision that I
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: wanted to be. Do I want to date rock Star's
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: note I want to be them? No, I just wanted
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: to explain them to myself and then exclaim to other people.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: It was just fascinating to me. Well, Needles say, the
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: ethos has changed. When we were growing up, if there
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: were any Republicans, you literally knew who they were and
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: you hunt them out. Okay, and certainly remember after Ken
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: State we had Ohio. We also remember listening to the radio.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: The radio gave you everything, gave you the music, gave
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: you the news, whatever. But it doesn't seem to be
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: that way. This just going to the ultimate question. Is
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: there hope? You seem to be an optimistic person in
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: a nation full of turmoil? Is their hope? And what
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: role does music I have to play in that, you know.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: I think it's more like artists or maybe actors. There
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: any kind of artists. You know, it's like if you
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: can make enough of a statement in people who follow you,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: which that's what it is, you know that they will
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: follow you anywhere kind of thing. I mean, I don't know.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: I mean I think that there's always room for the truth,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes it's listened to and sometimes it's not.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: Do I feel pessimistic about the future. I still feel
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: like it's going to readjust things get so bad that
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: the pendulum has to swing swing the other way. So
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there hope for music. I want
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: to say yes, but not in the part it doesn't
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: occupy the same place in the culture and it may
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: never again. Well, you've certainly laid down some truth and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: inside here, Jan this has been wonderful. Thanks so much
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: for fearing the time. Oh thank you for maowing me
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: until next time. This is Bob left us