No Encore!

by Drew Fortune

  However, I don’t think art is corrupted by money. When I go into the studio, the canvas is blank. I want to come up with a creative piece of music. We make something from scratch. Let’s say we make a great song and are excited about it. You want to share that song with the world. If the majority of people like it and it becomes commercial, then it becomes a hit. What’s wrong with that? Do you want to go into the studio with me, and we’re the only two people in the world to hear it? Do you not want to go back to your friends and family and say, “Check this out. Listen to what I did with Paul”? That’s what music is all about! Music gives you a great feeling, and it’s there to share. If you can put a smile on someone’s face with a piece of music, then so be it. When I was on Mt. Everest and played music, there were people from all over the world in front of me. They were holding up their flags and coming up to me for photos. It was only about 300 people up there, but it was a special moment. I don’t want to make music that I’m going to be the only fucking person listening to it. I want to share things with people and make them happy. That’s what being an artist is all about.

  22

  PETER FRAMPTON

  Scrambling to cash in on Frampton-mania, the young Englishman with the funny-sounding guitar voice thing was suddenly playing to over 100,000 rabid fans, resulting in a disaster straight out of the USO show in Apocalypse Now.

  Right when we started to tour in the summer of 1976, which ended up being the big Frampton Comes Alive tour, there were some shows that had already been booked that weren’t up to capacity because it was before the album really took off. I had played to huge audiences before in Humble Pie, but never as the headliner. Humble Pie supported Grand Funk Railroad at Shea Stadium, which was huge. We played before the Beatles. After I left the band, I started back at the bottom, so to speak. I was playing to 10,000–15,000 people, and almost overnight, it was 120,000 people in Philadelphia. That’s a big audience, and so much preparation has to be involved. It was madness. For this one show in Austin, the outside area was only conceptualized to accommodate 10,000–15,000 people comfortably. It was a horribly built stage, and 80,000 people turned up. The mixing board was connected to a walkway off the side of the stage, so there were people climbing up on that. No one in charge had any idea what the hell they were doing. We had to be helicoptered in because there were so many people, as we couldn’t drive in.

  When we finally got on stage, the power was really bad because the grounding was horrible. Every time I touched the microphone, I got a bad shock. It was one of those “Oh shit” situations. All of a sudden, during the first encore, we heard this awful, cracking sound. It was people literally tearing apart the stage. They had pulled away the barricade with their bare hands because they were being crushed against the stage. Suddenly, there were all these people beneath us, and the stage started rocking, as if we were on some giant ship. It was about to collapse, and we were rushed off stage to the helicopter. Our girlfriends and wives were there waiting, but there was only room for us four guys and the pilot. The wives and girlfriends were not happy.

  We squeezed in, and the pilot said, “Well, where are you going?” We screamed, “What do you mean where are we going? Isn’t there some drop-off point? Get us the hell out of here!” The pilot responded calmly, “No. Sorry,” and just took off. Obviously, we weren’t from Austin, but we remembered that we took off from some kind of shopping center in town. At 1,500 feet, we were all trying to work out where the hell we were going as the stage was being destroyed below us. We were still in our stage clothes and were sopping wet. The pilot said, “How bout I drop you down here?” It was just the first supermarket parking lot he saw. We got out and said, “What do we do now?” We didn’t have our road manager or security in contact, so we were just baffled.

  The pilot just said, “I gotta go back and get more people.” He took off, leaving us standing there with towels around our necks. Shoppers were staring at us like we’d just landed from the moon. We had to flag down a guy with a pickup truck. We climbed in the back and gave him the name of our hotel. He yelled, “Frampton! I don’t believe it—I just saw you play!” Our wives and girlfriends eventually got back to the hotel, and believe me, they were pissed. Thankfully, no one was seriously injured. The area got five times the amount of people they were expecting, and it was just built on a local level. You don’t get that with Live Nation now. It was my Altamont moment.

  The most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me on stage was in ’77. We were playing Hartford, Connecticut, and that whole summer we had been playing outside during the day with a reflective stage. All our instruments were white, so there were no lighting rigs involved. After a short break, we switched to nighttime gigs. We were playing a racetrack in Hartford, and there were about 45,000 people in attendance. For our first nighttime show, we did what we always used to do. I would run onstage first, wave to the crowd, and pick up a guitar for three acoustic numbers. Then the band would come out. We did it the same way that night, and as I was not used to running on stage in the dark, the bright lights hit, nearly blinding me. There was no white line on the edge of the stage in front of the barricade.

  I ran right on, and right off, the stage. I landed on the crash barrier as the crowd audibly gasped, “Ohhhhh.” I finally got up and turned around, and my manager’s brother ran on stage to pull me up. I put one foot on the front of the stage, and as he pulled me forward, my satin pants split from seam to seam. Because I wore them so tight in those days, there was nothing underneath. The crowd went from “Ohhhh,” to “Ahhhhh,” as I gave 45,000 people a proper mooning. I scrambled on stage and had to find some new pants. I was scraped from head to toe, but the show went on. That was my wardrobe malfunction moment…in a big way.

  23

  WAYNE KRAMER

  (MC5)

  The Motor City Five were one of the most outwardly political bands of their day, imploring a generation to kick out the jams, while inwardly destroying themselves with drugs and drink. Guitarist Wayne Kramer reflects on riotous youth, playing the 1968 Democratic Convention, and a nightmare tour with Johnny Thunders.

  I really don’t know where to begin. I have so many terrible experiences with bad gigs. Anyone who has played in a band, for any period of time, has stories like this. It’s so hard to sustain a band and earn a living, let alone thrive and succeed. It’s inevitable that you’ll have so many bad experiences, and that’s the reason so many people stop doing it, because it’s awful. It’s all great fun in the beginning, and even if you achieve some kind of recognition and make a few bucks, suddenly you’re not the hot band anymore. I found myself discovering the painkilling properties of drugs and alcohol, and those contributed greatly to terrible gigs.

  Towards the end of the MC5, I had lost my original inspiration. My idea was to be the greatest band in the history of rock and do something important. I wanted to have a positive influence on the world. Towards the end, it was easier to dull the pain. Going to the gigs really meant getting through the show so I could get fucked up afterwards. I had lost track of what I had set out to do. Band members left, but we had a final tour of Europe booked. I was in agreement with the guys that wanted to leave, but I wanted to continue to have a career as a musician.

  Me and the other guitarist, Fred Smith, went to Europe to salvage what we could of the tour. We didn’t even know the drummer. We met him in the dressing room of the first gig. We had a new bassist but no singer. Neither Fred nor I had ever tried to sing the MC5 songs. I had written many of them, but never sang them. Since the MC5 singer wasn’t on the tour, we had to try and sing them. We didn’t even know all the lyrics. Fred and I realized we couldn’t do it, so we had to play standards, like Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, or a simple, three-chord vamp.

  There was no time to rehearse, and when we got to the venue, everyone was so happy to see us. We were the MC5 from Detroit…all the way from America! The dressing room had flowers and a full bar. The promoter was there with his family, and he wante
d me to meet his kids. He wanted to have dinner after the show. Then we played and were just Godawful. It had nothing to do with the MC5. It was like some musicians who threw some shit together to play forty-five minutes to fulfill a contract. We went in the dressing room after the set, and the promoter was gone. The kids and the flowers were gone. The liquor was gone. Nobody was around to pay us because we were so bad. It was a nightmare, and my worst fears as a musician were realized.

  I got into this because I wanted everyone to love me. Then everybody hated me, and I had to do it again the next night! In the MC5, it was really poly-substance abuse. It ran the gamut from hardcore alcoholism to crippling heroin abuse, and everything in-between. All drugs end up achieving the same end, which is to change the way you feel, because you don’t like the way you feel.

  Starting a band with Johnny Thunders was an impossible dream. I had just been released from prison, and I started a band with him. He wanted to call it Gang War, and it was like the mythical two leaders from two separate gangs joining forces. It looked good on paper, but the reality was that he was a practicing opiate abuser, and eventually I returned to opiate abuse with him. The band never had a chance, and it was another complete disaster.

  It was ironic that we would play a small club somewhere in the Midwest, and Johnny would be brilliant. I would think, “This could work!” Then we’d play a really important show, and he’d be too fucked up to play. Our motto became, “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.” But I have to say, there were many riots at MC5 shows. It was the ’60s, and the youth were rebelling. The police were very violent, and any excuse to bust heads, they would do it. We played the Democratic Riot in Chicago in 1968. We played numerous riots in the Detroit area. A riot became a possibility any time there were 2,000 young people assembled, and the police would assert themselves. The shit would hit the fan. I never really feared for my life, but I never could tell. Let me add this: when you’re smashing the States, keep a smile on your lips, and a song in your heart.

  24

  KING KHAN

  (King Khan and the Shrines, The King Khan & BBQ Show, Louder Than Death, The Almighty Defenders, Tandoori Knights)

  If you’ve never heard of King Khan, I implore you to read this chapter immediately. I guarantee, it will turn into your dark horse favorite. Khan chronicles his mental and drug-addled breakdown, which culminates in the flicking of Lou Reed’s nose.

  We were playing the Musicbox Lisboa Festival in 2016, which is this huge festival in Portugal. I was hitting the wine really hard that whole day, and remember I was drinking from the bottle with a straw. In the Shrines, we’ve got two Frenchmen and one who was born in Bordeaux. He was basically born in a puddle of wine, so when we hit the vino, it got crazy. This was a really mainstream festival, with Kanye West and all that. The day of our set, David Guetta was headlining, and he was DJ-ing atop this gigantic, neon pyramid.

  Maybe it’s because I’m bipolar or the fact that Guetta’s music makes me aggressive, but at that moment, all I could think about was climbing that pyramid and tackling him. I was completely fixated, and I turned to Fred from the Shrines and said, “I’m gonna get kicked out of this festival. Tell my wife and kids that I love them.” I got a running start and started climbing the pyramid. There were two big, buff security guards at the base of the thing, and they spotted me right away but couldn’t intercept me. The pyramid was quite high, and I had scrambled up to the middle of it.

  The guards finally caught up with me and threw me off the thing. I landed on my leg really badly, and I couldn’t walk. I screamed and tried limping away. They started dragging me away, and the whole time I was trying to explain that I was an artist, but they just thought I was some crazy person. They threw me out of the festival. It reminded me of this one time that I pulled my pants down at some club in France. As they were throwing me out, I was screaming about how I knew Jean-Claude Van Damme. That security guard actually stopped and said, “Really?”

  So, I get thrown out of the festival, but luckily we had a shuttle coming in twenty minutes to take us to the airport, so it was good timing. It was around three in the morning, and I was this staggering wine drunk with a busted leg. The shuttle van pulled up, and the whole band was inside. I hobbled in and started throwing up all over myself. We got to the airport, and my band guys helped me into the bathroom to wash off. I came out looking semi-normal but still couldn’t walk.

  I found an empty wheelchair right outside the bathroom, which was a miracle. I’m convinced God left me that wheelchair. Fred was wheeling me around, and when we got to the gate, I told the attendants that I needed support getting into the plane. I was still viciously drunk, and there was a twisting ramp that led into the plane. Fred shoved me down the ramp, and I smashed into one of the corners, sending me toppling out of the wheelchair. Everyone boarding looked at me, and they were so shocked that this man had pushed a handicapped guy down the ramp.

  The whole band was pointing and laughing, and none of the passengers or crew knew what the hell was happening, as there was also a language barrier. These people were horrified and thought it was some kind of weird hate crime. When we finally landed, I had to wait until everyone got off, and then this elevator thing lowered me off the plane. I kept thinking about the poor person whose wheelchair I had stolen. The rest of that tour I had to sing with a cane, and people thought it was some kind of pimp affectation I had adopted.

  Here’s a good Lou Reed story, and it begins with director Alejandro Jodorowsky. I was thirty-three, and this was in 2010, before I had been diagnosed as bipolar or properly medicated. I had become friends with Jodorowsky’s son, and I was a huge fan of his dad. Not just his movies, but his philosophies and belief in tarot readings. I waited three years to accept his invitation because I didn’t feel that I was prepared. Finally, one day I was ready. Alejandro had sent me this email about how to get to the house, and it was so intense. “Come to the door. Push the button. I will be there,” it read.

  I had slowly been losing my mind that year, but when you’re going crazy, you don’t really know it. I just knew something was wrong, and the non-stop touring and partying wasn’t helping. Jodorowsky read my tarot cards, we talked for a few hours, he gave me a deck of the tarot de marsielles, and called me his “cher music-shaman”. As I was leaving, he said, “You must be careful. This is the year of your crucifixion.” That was it. I was like, “OK…thank you. Bye.” It just felt so ominous, as those were his parting words, but believe you me, I was really mentally crucified about a month later.

  At the end of the tour, we played the Primavera Festival in Barcelona and immediately had to fly straight to Australia for a festival that Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson had curated. We were one of the eight bands they chose, so it was a huge honor. The last night of Primavera, I had been partying all night with the Black Lips, and when I finally went to leave, there was chaos in the streets. It was a total Beatles moment as fans surrounded the cab and started banging on it. They’re yelling, “King Khan! King Khan!” and the driver doesn’t understand what’s happening. We had about four hours to catch our flight, and I stepped outside the cab to try and explain that we had to leave.

  The fans picked me up and put me on top of the car. I pulled my pants down, and because of my girth, I partially collapsed the roof. There were a bunch of cops around, and when I got back in, the cabbie was shouting at me in Spanish. I had two Spanish friends with me, who translated that the driver was complaining that I had broken his cab. As I’m trying to get the guy to pull over, he stopped at a police station. He had already called the cops on his phone, and ten cops walked out of the station and surrounded me. They took me in, and I had to wait for an English-speaking cop. He started reading me my rights, and I was freaking out.

  I was trying to explain that I had to catch a flight to Australia to play for Lou Reed, but the cops didn’t give a shit, or certainly didn’t know who Lou Reed was. They put me in a holding cell, and I looked so ridiculous. I was wearin
g this weird, ill-fitting track suit and a necklace with fake shrimp on it. I looked like a complete freak. I was trying to explain to anyone who would listen that the whole thing was a huge mistake while begging for help to get out of there. An hour later, two Spanish cops approached my cell and started saying, “Foto! Foto!”

  At this point, I’m just pissed but posed for the photo. One of the cops started playing “Blitzkrieg Bop” on his phone, and it was obvious they just thought I was some weirdo rocker. Suddenly, the guy says, “OK, you’re free to go.” As I’m walking out of the station, the cops are singing, “Hey, ho, let’s go! Hey, ho, let’s go!” One of them touched my shoulder and said, “Always remember the Barcelona police.” Goes to show that the Barcelona police can be quite punk rock. The cabbie whose roof I bent insisted that he drive me to the hotel free of charge and played me all his favorite Johnny Thunders songs on his tape player in the cab, and we actually made our flight and went down unda!

  When we got to Australia, I realized that I had some MDMA in my shirt the whole time and could easily have been arrested for it. At that point, I was beginning to realize that I really needed some mental help, but I just kept going. When we finally got to the Sydney Opera House to meet Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson, I was coming unglued. It was a couple days before the event, and they asked if I wanted to come hang out for some private rehearsals. I was still in shock that they were fans, let alone allowing me to watch a private rehearsal. I go in to this secret room in the Opera House and sat down next to Lou, who was singing. Aside from a piano player and a sound guy, it was only us, with Laurie on violin.