Diary of A Rock 'n' Roll Star

by Ian Hunter

  Everybody’s happy, but adjusting - where to now? Someone suggests we go to Disneyland, but apparently long hair is banned. A lot of Americans live Peyton Place. Certain segments of the society, particularly middle-class families, annoy me. I find them nauseating and hypocritical. Over reaction and the tendency to almost act their way through life - a television nation. Too much self-indulgence unreal is a word that's been used many times before, but that about sums it up.

  Back in the truck with Ritchie and left down Sunset Boulevard. It‘s an experience I'd love those poor out-of-work North East English kids to see. It's just like the movies, and I'm Neil Cassidy, hitching a ride on Ritchie’s International Harvester. What a buzz it would be to drive this heap up the M1 We keep going down Sunset until it gets a bit boring. On the right the vastness of L.A. and on the left the word HOLLYWOOD stands out of the hills behind and above.

  Hundreds of hotels, motels, saloons, massage places, bars, clubs and dives. We stop at the corner of Hollywood and Vine - I once wrote a song about Hollywood and Vine with Kim Fowley - who’s still hustling for us to record it. Will his persistence pay off? Listen to our next album and find out folks!

  So here I am on poetic Hollywood and Vine. How the hell can you write about the corner of Wardour and Old Compton? The people who named British cities, towns and streets want a kick up the arse. . . ‘I left my heart . . . in Watford,’ etc. . . .

  So we turn right and it's just your average houses. They're wooden with shutters and toy cars, basketball nets and well-dressed little chicks, tiny Mexican boys and early 60s cars. (There's much more character in them than the shit they make today.) Two dogs wait at the gate and a heavily lined spade parks the car after a hard day's work. It‘s good to see ordinary people in this extraordinary city. Back to Sunset Boulevard and more of those huge billboards. Mom's Apple Pie, The BeeGees, Grand Funk and Chuck Berry - it's only a matter of time before Bolan’s effigy adorns Piccadilly.

  A shop called Sound City (no relation to the English one) sports a see-through drum kit and there's a club called Souled Out. Car lots sell their wares at what seem to be extremely low prices. I think of the ridiculously high prices asked in England for ancient Mustangs. ’69 and '70 models go for a song here. Huge supermarkets with vast car parks making Safeways in Wembley look like a corner fag shop. Various sound studios and one film lot - all you can see is a hangar-like building - looks like a prison and probably is one.

  We turn left on Sunset this time and intend heading for the hills but instead slow sharply as we find ourselves in a street full of adult movies and bookshops. I ain't got much of a memory for names but I do remember it was just off Hollywood Boulevard which runs parallel with Sunset. The pictures were closed so we went into the bookstore instead which was half porn and half straight. A door leads you to the porn section and a sign says 50 cents a look. Not feeling too randy I don't bother. Instead I get Rolling Stone, Changes, and Rock, the American equivalent of Melody Maker, Sounds, and Disc. There’s a review of our album in Rolling Stone and it’s great so decide to go back to the hotel and show the lads. On the way out I get Close Up and International . . . well, you never know - they're only cheap efforts. We pay the middle-aged spiv in charge, whose nose is a mess, his speech (if you could call it that) is slurred to the extreme, and I realize coke isn't just the property of kids here.

  We get back to the hotel and saunter into Pete and Buffy’s room. Some chick called Rachel is ringing Pete once an hour and Phal’s having trouble getting rid of a bird he said hello to three years ago. Excuses are made and the Word's going round already that we're not going to bother this time around. It's all fucking boring anyway. They're lousy lays as a rule and you can never get rid of them once you let them in. They don’t even listen to the music anymore and as I’ve said, you run a big risk in the dose stakes if you decide to dabble. The best thing to do, young and inexperienced musicians (if there is such a thing), is to whip their spotty little arses and lay back and enjoy a professional blow job; then tell them you got crabs and they'll be gone before you know it. Anyway, they don’t make groupies like they used to.

  Stan’s red all over from spending too much time at the pool, and he's hobbling around in Mick's boots. They’re new ones and Stan has smaller feet than Mick so he’s wearing them in for him. Pete and I engage in a game of chess and we draw one apiece. Lucky old me, he usually does me every time; I can never concentrate. Buffs eating a very large hamburger and Phal’s saying he's got to send some postcards. I go back to my room (603) and ring my Mum and Dad. They've never gotten a phone call from 6,000 miles away before so it will really knock them out. I also try Trudy but they’re all out for Thanksgiving dinner.

  And now I'm in the bath and Stan bangs on the door shouting Tony’s in from New Orleans. He was with David Bowie last night at the Warehouse gig. Tony Defries is our much maligned manager. David had seen us at Guildford earlier this year and dragged Tony along with him. Tony said, ‘Do you want me to be your manager?’ We all said, ‘Yeah’, but then explained we were up to our eyes in contracts and debts but it didn’t seem to bother him, and now he’s finally extricated us from our former bosses and placed us firmly under his wing. Since we've had considerable success in the short time we've been with him we are, needless to say, more than grateful. I simply think he’s the best manager since Colonel Tom Parker. And I will continue to think that whether we continue our relationship or not. The fact that we're not even signed to him in any way should indicate the trust involved. Everybody slags him off just because he believes his artists should be treated properly - something that usually isn't done in the rock profession. He's young, Jewish and an ex-lawyer’s lawyer. Still new enough in the business to take the simple sane decisions that seem to elude those more established managers, who all seem to disappear up their own arses at some stage in the game. He's quiet, calm, and careful. I've never seen him lose his temper.

  We exchange notes; he wants to know how the London office is doing and we want to know about David’s tour (which by all outside accounts has been ‘a killer). He says Bowie’s tired and the Warehouse gig didn’t help. It was freezing cold there and the heating system didn't work. I remember doing that gig once in the summer; it was boiling hot then, so they want to get things together. It's the same old story - fuck the kids - fuck the bands - get them in and out - and MAKE MONEY!

  He says Bowie got pissed and the guitars wouldn't stay in tune. It was all a bit of a drag. He doesn't want any of us to do that gig again. He also said that Mick Ronson (Bowie’s guitarist) looks like a rainbow at the moment. Apparently Mick went bright red from swimming and sun bathing here in L.A. and the chlorine in the pool water caused his peroxide tresses to turn green. So now the Spiders have a red and green guitar player!

  We then discuss plans for recording the next single. It seems likely we'll do it in New York in early December as David's tour will be over by then and we should be in the New York area. Buff wants to use Wally Heider’s place here in L.A. but the timing makes this impossible. Tony makes a note of tentative places and dates as he has to liaise with Bowie, who, as I said before, is now very tired. He’s going to need a couple of days’ rest before recording. Tony also gives us the latest run-down on record sales. It looks pretty good. The single has touched the 30s in the American top 100 and has sold roughly 180,000 thus far, and the album is also doing well. David’s got three albums in the charts, so Tony's well pleased for the moment and it’s still early days.

  Unfortunately, the royalties you make from selling records take a long time to come through and meanwhile Tony has to keep us all going. That's quite a sum of money going out every week. While we’re on about money I’d better explain a bit more how money works for and against the band. The age-old question. Where does it come from and where does it go to? I’ll try and keep it simple.

  There're three guys you can get money from. The first bloke is commonly known as a financial backer. Briefly he’s got a lot of bread and wants t
o get rid of some against his tax bill. He'll generally put in a few thousand in return of a percentage of the group's gross earnings. From the group's point of view this way ain’t too good because you’re already paying a manager 20 per cent of your earnings, plus an agency 10 per cent for getting you the gigs. Start giving a backer 10 or 15 per cent and by the time you‘ve paid the hotels and transport you’re left with nothing.

  It’s better to have the two other guys putting up the money. One’s the manager; you need a bloke with plenty of bread. Now he still only takes 20 per cent of your earnings but he believes in you so he spends out a lot of money initially in order that his returns will be bigger. Really it’s like backing a horse, but sometimes the favourites lose and the manager’s broke and the favourite's back on a milk round again! Of course there're a lot of managers around looking for ‘outsiders’ but the outsider’s chances get slimmer these days, as to present a group in any positive way at all is going to cost you seven or eight thousand pounds.

  Of course, if you have potential then it becomes easier for the manager. He goes to the third bloke to help him out financially.

  Now the third bloke is the record company man, a very shrewd operator. Stars rise and fall every day and like a greengrocer, the record-man looks for commodities that aren't going to rot quickly after he's paid a good price for them. If the record man feels the band has a great deal of talent, he will prepare a contract, as does the manager, for the band to sign. This contract will hold the band to him exclusively and in return he’ll dish out bread for equipment, lights, wages, transport, etc.

  If the band is lucky enough to have three or four companies interested in them (as we were) their manager can then pit one record company against another emerging with an even bigger record royalty and money advance.

  It is on these advances that groups exist until such times as they're earning enough on the road and on the sale of records to support themselves. I must point out that these advances are returnable so initially the band's got to sell a hell of a lot of albums and singles to make any kind of profit.

  So the next time you see your rising idol roaring down the road in his Jensen think twice. He’s probably got it on H.P., he’s probably up to his ears in debt and he probably ain't got the price of a pint in his pocket. Mind you if you do hit the jackpot - gold albums, singles, huge money-spinning tours, etc., like the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, The Rolling Stones, E.L.P., and Yes have done - there's no doubt about it. You'll live in luxury for the rest of your life. But every time I see a hairy carefully unloading his Marshall Stack out of a battered Transit van I can’t help thinking the chances are getting longer every year. After all, when I started all you needed was a Vox AC 30 and a Framus Star Bass an’ you were nearly there. If you, dear reader, are thinking of starting on the road to fame and fortune, think again hard. But if you can feel the buzz, the ambition and the optimism, fuck the money - it’ll come, eventually.

  Red wine begins to tire me. Everyone else is tired too, even though it’s only 9.30 so we split up and I wander back to my room, promising to meet the others later for the Whiskey. I decide to sleep until midnight, but about 10:30 I’m woken by the phone. ‘Hi! I’m Lynn. I'm ringing to ask you if you'd like to see L.A. Kim Fowley told me to look you up - oh, me and my friend Nancy too. No hassle really, I have a boyfriend already. We just want to talk.’

  ‘Well I don’t know, I'm a newly married man. I mean . . . really no hassle?’

  ‘Really, no hassle man.’

  ‘O.K.’

  Five minutes later . . .

  ‘Hello, we know Rodney at the E Club and Kim Fowley phoned Rodney and Rodney thought you might like to come round the club.’

  ‘Well, that’s real nice of Rodney.’

  ‘Oh Rodney’s a great guy—where’s the rest of the band? Only we met Bowie, he’s a beautiful cat . . . he taught us so much [I bet he fuckin’ did]. And my boyfriend's group is going to back him in about a year from now, but I know how much we love each other [Christ] so I don't care.’

  ‘Well thanks for dropping in. Give Rodders my humble thanks, but I heard all his ladies are ill this year.’

  ‘Hey, I feel kind of weird. If you don’t dig us just say so.’

  ‘Hello, Nancy? How are you? No, I think you're both very nice, but I'm pretty tired at the moment.’

  ‘See, some chicks are O.K., but there’s a thing about - it’s not Vietnam clap, but guys are carrying it around and there’s a few down the hospital . . .’ [Oh my God]

  ‘Er, the roadies are in 606, why don’t you nip round and see them. They’re really nice people.’

  ‘Do you really think they’d mind? I mean. We don't really want to hassle them in any way you know.’

  ‘No. It's great - go and knock them up. They’ll like you and they’re nice guys. I'm sorry to be unsociable but I really am tired.’

  ‘O.K. then. But remember to come and see us at the E . . . really, no hassle. You look tired. try and get some sleep.’

  ‘Great . . . thanks for coming. We'll be around. Don't forget the roadies are in 606. Tara.’

  10 minutes later . . . the phone rings.

  ‘Cunt!’

  Well now - that must have been 606.

  Friday, 24 November 1972

  Good morning, readers. The sun shines again - I didn't wake up for the Whiskey and it's 7:14 a.m. How long’s it going to take to get rid of this time change.

  Already Bugs Bunny leaps about the T.V. screen, closely followed by Batman and some film which I can't follow as I'm trying to write. Phally says I'm getting fat so I'm trying to avoid room service. I've already smoked five fags. So many things I want to give up.

  Anthony Scaduto‘s book on Dylan and Jim Morrison's The Lords and the New Creatures lie at my side. I never dug the Doors, but I dug the idea. The guy that Jim Morrison was got lost in an image cultivated by others as well as himself. Fine poetry got confused and lost in the rush to see the leather-clad arse, and he died, as Hendrix died, a mistaken identity. It seems to me you’ve really got to know what you are in the business of rock or you’ve had it. Those who falter or who challenge and fight what they are, usually wind up wrecks – or worse still - out of it.

  Poor old George Best - he’s having a heavy one at the moment. I got near to it once, but backed off after one drama-ridden, and very unsuccessful album. Rock is entertainment - a fun game; it shouldn't be taken too seriously. I find the press largely at fault for this dramatization of music. I just think we're all a bunch of kids playing a game with high stakes just doing what comes naturally. I’m grateful that I don’t have to work in a factory like a lot of my less fortunate friends.

  My only beef, one that really gets me going, is the press. These fuckers can ruin a beautiful day. I can never quite understand how a guy from a northern weekly local paper can be brought down to London and suddenly transformed into a knowledgeable critic - qualified to knock, laud or misinterpret the work of someone like Hendrix or Morrison. Sometimes you find these guys have been in bands themselves and think they're ten times better than the musicians they are criticizing. Basically, all but a very few journalists are fans. They set stars up then wait for the next issue to pull them down. They have their favourite artists who can do no wrong, and they have their little dislikes which they continually air. I remember once reading an article in Melody Maker saying, ‘. . . The 700-strong crowd at Liverpool Stadium went mad . . .’ The stadium holds about 4,000 people, but the reviewer disguises this because he digs the band. Had it been a band he didn't like, he would have put, ‘. . . A three-quarter empty hall turned up to see so-and-so - are they on the way out?’ Oh yes. While we're at it, who chooses the letters for mail-bag, lads? And there’s no way I’ll ever forgive you for taking the piss at Screaming Lord Sutch (one of my heroes) and for continually going on about Craig Douglas - say no more. It’s 10:30 Friday morning. Fuck it, I’ve got to eat!

  The pressure has been building up all day. Phone calls - ‘You don’t
know me but . . .’ and various presents handed in at the front desk. One of the packages included Mott's Apple Juice and gay lib leaflets. These were sent by the Petit Bon-Bons - a group of lads who seem to have gotten us mixed up in the fag rock craze now sweeping America.

  Now an American gig is really something. 5,000 kids are packed into the Palladium tonight, and the promoter, Gary, looks happy with the turn out. He seems a bit embarrassed about us opening the bill, bless him, so he sees to it that we get a decent sound check and ensures every kid is in the building before we open the show. Top of the bill is West, Bruce and Laing, second is Flash Cadillac and then us.

  Flash Cadillac, contrary to their name, are a quiet bunch of lads; no inflated egos anywhere so the atmosphere is really good.

  Anyway, the crowd is in and the Jupiter bit of The Planets we use goes on over the P.A. Straight into Jerkin' Crocus off the Dudes album, then Sucker - Ready for Love - and Lou Reed’s Sweet Jane. All get a bit of applause before we do them so we know they know us and it makes us feel better. The sound’s good too, but the lights are bloody awful. Union men doing artists’ work and follow spots lurch about the stage drunkenly. Still, it all goes very well and we come back on and do Dudes and Honky Tank Woman for encores.

  We've had to shorten the act for this gig and it’s always a problem changing the sequences. This time it worked. I don’t think we could have done better under the circumstances. A happy atmosphere pervades the dressing room. Happy, but cold as there’s no heating on . . . and some fucker‘s pinched the beer! Ladies sit around and Tony comes in and looks well pleased. We've been paid by the promoter so we'll all eat this week and there's another gig tomorrow so we should be quids in. Columbia Records are helping out moneywise as it’s our first tour with them so financially the tour should be O.K. The gig after tomorrow’s is in a probably very cold Philadelphia. I’m not looking forward to leaving the Californian sunshine, but still, perhaps my wife will get there - and I'm beginning to get increasingly randy. She has no competition what-so-ever here. Fuck knows where all the starlets are supposed to be - they ain’t here, and the coke that's flying around is unbelievable. I even saw a gas bottle and inhaler like an oxygen mask, but I can't tell who had it.