Rock and Roll High School: Growing Up in Hollywood During the Decade of Decadence

by Marisa Tellez

  Faye made an attempt to start a conversation between the four of us because she knew I had a huge crush on Brent. I appreciated her efforts, but it was obvious Brent was looking for a steak dinner, not a side of baked squash with a set of braces.

  After hearing another track, I had enough of what was going on in the backseat and decided to cock block Brent by saying Faye and I had to leave. We all climbed out of the car, and my heart dropped when Brent asked Faye for her phone number. How could he possibly ask for her number? I was the one who loved him since I was 13!

  Faye gave him her number, and we said our goodbyes. As we walked away, Faye felt bad that Brent hit on her instead of me and apologized. She said she only gave him her number to be polite and promised me that if he ever called her, she wouldn’t talk to him. Yeah, right.

  Faye and I never really spoke about Brent again after that night. So if she did hook up with him, I never knew about it.

  9 I’M SO GOTH I SHIT BATS

  Irang in the New Year by sleeping my way through midnight. And just a few short weeks into 1992, I noticed things began to change drastically on The Strip. Cops began putting a stronghold on our socializing, and we weren’t allowed to hang out on the boulevard anymore. If you stopped to talk to people, it wouldn’t be long before an officer popped up behind you, asking you to “keep it moving”. Bands couldn’t pass out flyers because the residents were bitching about the amount of litter and loitering in their neighborhood. Those were a few contributors to the impending death of The Sunset Strip. But I’d have to say the most significant was a tidal wave called Grunge.

  I remember the first time I heard that song. I was in my bedroom, writing in my journal and listening to a local alternative station called KROQ. I was caught up in my writing and not paying too much attention to the song playing on the radio. I figured it was just a new track by a band I already knew of. When the song finished, the DJ said the song was called, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and the name of the band was Nirvana.

  Who the hell was Nirvana?

  Literally, what seemed like overnight, all the glam boys cut off their long locks, threw their spandex pants into their pink glitter caboodles, and chucked everything into the garbage. Nirvana had thrown down the grunge gauntlet, and that put every glam band in Hollywood on the chopping block.

  And while we’re on the subject of death, let me tell you about a gloomy local Hollywood band called The Kids.

  The Kids had played around Hollywood for the last few years and dressed head to toe in black. They never really fit in visually or musically to the glam rock scene on The Strip. They were the gothic misfits that were more like The Cure than Poison. I’d gone to one of their shows a few months earlier at The Roxy. They had the stage lit up with candles while their singer Sebastian, paced the stage singing about love, hate, and other "dark" thoughts while passing out long black stem roses to the crowd.

  Despite his small stature, Sebastian always stood out to me because of his platinum blond hair, pale skin, and beautiful crystal blue eyes. I’d actually met him around the same time I met Sheldon. I’d always see him around Hollywood, but we were never really friends. I knew he was a buddy of my former nemesis Casey, because I’d always see her buzzing around him whenever he was in the vicinity.

  I’m not sure what sparked Sebastian’s interest, but the last few times I’d run into him he became much more friendly towards me. Maybe I had unintentionally sent out an "I am single" pheromone that he picked up on. Regardless, he suddenly started chatting me up quite a bit, which he had never done before.

  One of the last weekends I hung out on The Strip, Hannah randomly decided she wanted to come with me, and we ran into Sebastian. We talked about some of the last few shows we went to, and I let it slip that I had gone to see Electric. Without missing a beat, Sebastian flat out said they were a total hesher band and that they sucked. After hearing that rave review, I decided to keep my recent fling with Charlie to myself.

  He mentioned he was going to an after hours club later that night called The Church. I had heard a little bit about it over the last few months because it was the latest afterhours hotspot. He invited Hannah and I to go, but I wasn’t crazy about driving all the way to valley. However, Sebastian wasn’t taking no for an answer, so I relented and told him we would meet him there later.

  GREG WARKEL: Faster Pussy cat was recording their Whipped albumatthe time,andIwasgoingdowntothesessionsbecauseIwas friends with Muscat. We kept driving by this old church every time we went to the studio, and one day we noticed there was a “For Rent” sign on it. We contacted the guy renting it out and went to take a look. We told the guy we were going to use it as a rehearsal studio when really we were thinking of putting a nightclub together. Neither one of us wanted to give our real names because if things went wrong, we didn’t want anyone coming after us. We used an aliasandsaidwedidn’thaveID’sonus,butwehadcashtopayafew monthsupfront,sohe let us signthe paperwork.

  KENNY PRICE (BlackboardJungle):Opening nightatTheChurch wasHalloweenin1991.GregandBrentdecided theywanted to do an after hours club with Blackboard being kind of the anchor, so they found a place on Satsuma Avenue in the valley, and we would run afterhoursthereafterourgigs.

  Weusedtorehearse atTheChurch inthebalcony area wherea choir would’ve sang. We rehearsed up there and would play till like 2:30 or 3 in the morning. I remember one time we were doing a cover, I think it was “Sweet Transvestite” or “Paranoid”, something like that when Duff and I think it was Matt from Guns N Roses walked in. I think maybe John Beaubien was working the door that night.Sotheyheardusplaying and Duffwaslike,“Whatthefuck is this shit?” and Beaubien said, “It’s Blackboard Jungle” and Duff was like,“uhhwhatever” andthenhe came inanddrank.

  Onopeningnight,GregandBrentwerepissedbecauseagirlgot reallywastedandendeduppissinginthe confessional. I rememberone nightwhenDazzlefrom StarsFrom Marsgotinafightbecausesome guyswerescreaming,“Faggot!” at him.Abunchof us were drunkand ran up behind Dazzle to back him up. Dazzle whipped off his bullet belt, swung it back, and it hit me right in the face because I was standingbehind him.I waslike,“Oww!Dude!” andhe said,“Ohsorry man”andwentbacktoyellingattheguys.“Yeah,manwe’regonna kick yourass!”

  JOE HOWARD: The work staff at The Church consisted of Eric whowasthemusicguy,JohnBeaubienandJay werebartenders,then I workedthefrontdoorwithabigblackguynamedCurtisandGreg’s brotherJamie.Jamiewasmorelikethesecuritydude.He was builtlike a brick shit house. He was a monster but the nicest dude ever IF he likedyou.Gregwas the guythat ranit all,andBrentwasmorebehind the scenes;hewasn’thandsonlikeGreg was.

  I remember people used to come to the door and say , “I know Brent Muscat”, thinking that would get them in for free. I’d say, “I don’tgiveafuck.”Brentwouldsay,“Dude yougottalet myfriends in iftheysaytheyknowme.”,andIsaid, “Everyoneinthefucking world comes upandtells me that theyknowyou.Fuckthat.Theycancome iniftheypaymoneyandthat’sit.”

  One thing about Greg, he was a businessman, so we weren’t lettingANYBODYinfor free. There’snobodythatgotinto thatplace without paying. I would’ve made my own mom pay it didn’t matter (laughs).Whenitstarted, itwas$15atthedoor.I toldGregtomake it $20 because it was a pain in the ass to deal with change, so he changed it. We were making so much money at the door it was ridiculous.

  Greg’s meetings were the best. He’d get everyone together and saythe same three things everySaturday.“Ilove youguys,but don’t stealfrom me,don’t let anyone infor free anddon’t give awayany alcoholforfree.” Those were the three rules.It was hilarious.

  Being an after hours club, I knew The Church wouldn't get going for at least a few more hours. This worked out perfectly for me because it gave my mom and Lucy plenty of time to drift into a comfy deep sleep before sneaking back out of the house with one of their cars. Since Lucy had a small 2 door Ford Escort, as opposed to my mom’s huge station wagon, Lucy’s was the obvious car to steal. I had coincidentally borrowed her car to go out that night, and there were always tw
o rules she made me go by when I took her car.

  First, she always wanted her car home before 2:00am because she didn’t want me driving around Hollywood when people were getting out of bars. Fair enough.

  Lastly, I had to put her car keys back in her bedroom when I came home. She said it was so she could easily find them the next day. I knew damn well it was a preventative measure to keep me from stealing her car in the middle of the night to go out. But unbeknownst to her a few weeks earlier, I had swung by a key shack on the way home from the mall to have my own set of secret keys made for her car.

  When I got Lucy’s car home that night, I was happy to find everyone was already asleep, including Lucy. I walked into the house, put her car keys in her room like the good, responsible sister I was, then walked into my bedroom and quietly started getting ready.

  At the time, our house had hardwood floors. It was only through trial and error that I found three areas in the living room with particularly squeaky boards that were loud enough to wake the entire neighborhood. I memorized where those landmines were and made a mental note not to hit them as I snuck in or out of the house.

  About an hour or so later, I grabbed my cordless phone and put it under my pillow to muffle the sound of buttons being pushed. Without being able to see the numbers, I slowly moved my fingers around the pad like I was reading Braille. I joined my phone under the pillow and whispered to Hannah to be outside her house in ten minutes.

  I still didn’t have my own private phone line and was continuing to do the “balancing jack” act with the phone cord on the kitchen phone. But I had recently devised a better plan in dealing with late night phone calls.

  I had two different phones in my room, each serving it’s own important purpose. A cord less and an old school corded phone with a clear case that lit up bright neon orange when I had a call.

  My cord less phone is what I used the most, but it had a ringer that woke the dead, so I always unplugged it at night along with the phone in the kitchen. I’d rely on the corded neon phone in the late evenings because even with the ringer off, the damn thing lit up my entire bedroom like a searchlight anytime I had a call.

  After double-checking my phones, I grabbed my things and slowly opened my bedroom door. I inched and stretched my way through the living room like I was playing a round of Twister, being careful not to step on any of the land mines that could get me in trouble.

  Although I made it safely out my front door, I had a whole new hurdle to leap over in terms of getting my sisters car out of the driveway. Luckily, I had the good sense to leave our squeaky driveway gates open when I came home earlier. It was one less thing I had to do as I executed my escape.

  I slowly unlocked the driver’s side door to Lucy’s car and placed my purse on the passengers seat. I put the key in the ignition and shifted the car into neutral. With one hand on the wheel and all the strength I could muster in my legs, I slowly started to push Lucy’s little Ford Escort down our 20-foot driveway.

  It was a very slow start, but it wasn’t long before I had the car moving at a safe manageable speed, or so I thought. The car was almost out of the driveway when it started veering to the right. I wasn’t able to hop in the car fast enough to hit the brake, so the corner of one of the gates gently smashed into the passenger side mirror. I put the car in park and walked over to see the damage. The entire mirror was gone. Luckily, the broken chunks had landed quietly onto a patch of grass.

  Damn it.

  Lucy was definitely going to kick my ass; it was just a matter of when. If I went in the house right then and there, my grounding would start on the spot.

  OR

  I could enjoy one last night of freedom and just deal with it in the morning. So I walked over to the driver’s side, threw it back into neutral, and resumed pushing.

  The car rolled out of the driveway and onto the street. I hopped in, started up the engine, and tore off towards Hannah’s.

  We didn't have an exact address to The Church. Sebastian only mentioned a general area on Satsuma Avenue in The Valley near Burbank Blvd. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find it because it was in an industrial area. But as soon as we turned down Satsuma, we parked the car and followed the trail of people to a small, white church surrounded by wrought iron gates. I noticed a few people on the roof and also in a small watchtower just to the right of the church.

  We walked in and stood just inside the doorway. Beyond the crowded room was a cross-lit up with white Christmas lights, on what used to be the altar. I also noticed all the pews were missing. I continued looking around the crowd and figured I’d never be able to find Sebastian when he suddenly yelled out my name. He was sitting on the floor in a corner right by the entrance with a few random people and the guy responsible for my first black eye, Mandie, the singer of The Glamour Punks. Hannah and I walked over to Sebastian, and he immediately pulled me down to the ground to sit next to him.

  “That’s MandieBamandRonnie,” Sebastian slurred out as if it were all one name.

  Mandie had a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand and looked up at me.

  “She’s only here for la botella!” he yelled to Sebastian.

  Mandie took a swig of the bottle and passed it to Bam. Bam was the drummer of a band called the The Hatebreeders. He was super skinny and stood about 6’ 3” with bright purple hair. I remembered seeing him around Hollywood from time to time, but Ronnie was not a familiar face. He didn’t seem to be in a band and looked quite out of place hanging out with all those colorful characters. Regardless of Mandie’s outburst, I said hi to the guys and smiled at them with a mouth full of braces. Ronnie laughed as he pulled his long, curly brown locks into a ponytail. “So why are you here?” Ronnie asked.

  “Sebastian invited me,” I said.

  “Do you do EVERYTHING people tell you to do?” “Huh? Well…no,” I said caught off guard.

  “Apparently you do,” he snapped.

  Who was this asshole?

  “No, I don’t. And what makes you think you’re such hot shit?” I barked back.

  Ronnie laughed and patted an area of the floor next to him, gesturing for me to sit down. I cautiously moved over, and to my surprise, he immediately warmed up to me. We got to talking, and I asked why he came off like such an asshole. He said there were so many idiots in Hollywood, and it was his way of testing people.

  I was about to say something to Hannah, who was sitting next to Bam, but they seemed to be in the middle of a deep conversation. He had his hand around a fifth of Jim Beam. Bam took a swig then passed it to Sebastian without distracting from his conversation. Sebastian took a hit then handed the bottle to me. I had never tried Jim Beam before. I was more a vodka person.

  Sebastian held the bottle just inches away from my nose and waited for a response. The smell of bourbon was strong, and I felt nauseous just thinking of what that would taste like going down my throat.

  “I've never tried bourbon before,” I said as I took the bottle.

  He shoved a liter of Coke in front of me and said, “Here, chase it with this.”

  I took the liter, filled half of my mouth up with Coke then grabbed the neck of the Jim Beam bottle. I threw my head back till I could taste the bitterness of bourbon touch my tongue and swallowed everything in one gulp. It was pretty bad, but it did give me a warm fuzzy feeling in my stomach a few minutes later. I figured what damage could one shot do? I continued to say that after the 2nd and 3rd shot. It wasn’t until after my 4th that I started to second-guess that theory.

  I was enjoying my time with Sebastian until the reality set in that I was the one who had to drive Hannah and I home. I was pissed at myself for drinking so much. Knowing I had to sober up quickly, I figured the best thing to do was to stand up and see how bad the damage was.

  Before I stood up, I asked Sebastian where the bathroom was. Actually, I yelled over the loud music to see where the bathroom was. He yelled out where it was, but I couldn’t hear him. I pretended I understood and glanced over
to Hannah to take her with me, but she was still busy talking to Bam. I kept yelling to get her attention, but she couldn’t hear me. So I decided to venture off on my own.

  I slowly peeled myself off the floor when gravity pulled me quite heavily to the right, and I almost fell on Bam. He started laughing and caught me. I stood there for a moment and put my hands out as if I were trying to get my balance on a tightrope. Still laughing, Bam slowly pulled my arm down, and as I started to tip over he yelled, “timber!” then caught me. He did this two or three more times, and for some reason, we found it hysterical. I finally had to tell him to stop or else I’d pee all over him.

  When I walked away from Bam, I noticed Brent Muscat shuffle by me or what I thought looked like Brent. He had his hair pulled back in a ponytail and was wearing a black fedora. I wasn’t sure if it was really him or just a drunk hallucination. I never saw a pink elephant look so good. So I made my way through the crowd and decided to follow him.

  I followed Brent to a side room where an Asian girl with a long, white boa greeted him. She had a video camera in her hand and started filming him as she asked him random questions. I watched for a few moments and quickly realized I was being a total stalker. I decided it was best that I walk off and try to find the bathroom.

  As I walked around the crowd in my drunken stupor, I hadn't realized that a band had been playing. I squinted at each band member and quickly realized it was Blackboard Jungle.

  I really liked Blackboard Jungle because they were one of the few bands playing in Hollywood that didn’t suck. Back then there were so many cheesy Sunset Strip bands with horrible band names to go with their horrible music. But Blackboard really stuck out and actually had talent. Their songs were great, all the guys in the band were hot, and the singer Kenny Price had a voice like butter that could make a girl slide right off her seat.

  JO E HOWARD:Blackboard wasreallybigat the time,andsome ofpromotersonTheStrip had heard theywereplaying TheChurchon a regular basis. They were pissed that they were losing money over themplayingsome undergroundclubas opposedtoone of the clubs on The Strip because we were packing it in. Our headcount one night came to about 1200 people. And it wasn’t just Blackboard playing there, wehadabunchofother bigStripbands too.Gregwas turning away bands that wanted to play there, and the promoters were pissed thatGreg wasn’talegitclub owner.