Metal, Madness & Mayhem - An Insiders Journey Through The Hollywood 80s

by Michael J. Flaherty

  I'll digress....

  Late one Thursday afternoon I was in the studio office casually chatting with Vince and Joey, going over the evenings rehearsal bookings and discussing the routine planning for the next nights club activities when I heard that familiar Harley pull up outside. Sure enough, in a couple of minutes Lyle knocked on the door.

  “Mike, can I talk to you? It's real important.”

  “Sure Lyle, what's up? Come on in and grab a chair. Have a beer.”

  Pulling up a seat by my desk, Lyle had a serious look on his face. I had seen that look before and knowing him like I did, I listened attentively. “Mike, we need to hire three more security guys for tomorrow night.”

  I was puzzled. “Why? We've never had any major security problems, what's different about tomorrow night? Have we had another threat or something?"

  Despite the seediness of the neighborhood, we had received a number of threats about the all-night party noise from our neighbors. Something about bombs, machetes and automatic weapons. I never paid attention.

  “Well, no...” He began. “But it is Friday the thirteenth and a full moon.”

  I looked at Vince, who looked at Joey who then looked back at me with amazement. Then the laughter broke out among the three of us.

  Lyle was not smiling.

  I asked Lyle if he had joined a cult. “Lyle, buddy....you're fucking with us right? What’s up with a full moon and Friday the thirteenth?”

  I then looked into the eyes of of a man whom I respected greatly. An ex-Navy SEAL who had spent several tours of duty in Vietnam and who was currently a member of the most famous motorcycle club on the planet. Although he was serious and it was clear that this was no joke, I was still laughing.

  “Lyle, listen to me. I don't know where this hippy-dippy- Friday the thirteen-full-moon bull-shit is coming from but everything will be fine as always, just another ‘Friday at Shamrock.’ Besides, we can't afford to hire anyone extra.”

  “I don't think you can afford not to, Mike.”

  “Don't worry, man. You and Dave can handle whatever happens just like you always do. It'll be just another fun night in underground/after-hours Hollywood. Hell Lyle, even the cops are scared shitless to come into this neighborhood, you know that. There won't be any problems.”

  “Fine, whatever you say!” Lyle still had that same serious look as he walked out the door visibly upset with my response.

  I should have listened.

  Friday, after an early intimate dinner in a quiet back booth at the Rainbow with Dana we headed to the studio to open the club. The first problem of what was to become a very long night was that Vince thought Billy had been assigned to pick up the beer and Billy thought Vince had that duty, thus our ‘nightclub’ which was opening in forty-five minutes had no alcohol.

  I hopped in my Jeep, pissed off and headed to the nearest Ralph’s supermarket where I bought cases of their plain wrap beer. The cheapest crap I could find. Classy plain-wrap packaging…a white can with simple blue letters ‘BEER.’ It was better than nothing.

  Driving back, I did notice that the full moon was the brightest moon I'd ever seen. While stuck in Friday night traffic on Santa Monica Boulevard, I remembered that it was Friday the thirteenth. Lyle was still full of shit. Or so I thought.

  Pulling up in the studio’s alley, I heard a commotion inside the building. Vince and his girlfriend were involved in major fight. I was in no mood to get involved with their personal war as Lyle, who was still in his own mood from the day before helped me unload the night’s supply of liquid.

  As what had become usual round midnight, the rockers started arriving in droves. I could tell it was going to be a very large crowd that evening due to the volume of early patrons. Lyle and Dave were working the front door as always taking in the cash by the fist-full. (When Lyle felt he was holding what he considered to be too much cash to safely have at the end of a dark Hollywood alley he would call me on the walkie-talkie for a ‘Barney,’ our code name for ‘pick up the cash and put it in the office safe,’ a reference to the Deputy on the ‘Andy Griffith’ TV show).

  Shortly after opening, there was horrific shrieking and screams from the hallway to the restroom.

  This shit never happened in Mayberry.

  Lyle and Dave locked the steel security door at the entrance, which was our procedure in the event an incident, leaving a long line waiting to get in the club and the three of us ran to the restroom area. Four girls were involved in a major confrontation, a full blown cat fight that seemed even more violent than some biker bar fights that I'd seen over the years. They were rolling around on the piss and God knows what else covered concrete floor, throwing punches and scratching eyes. Chucks of Aqua-Netted hair was flying as were pieces of spandex and broken fingernails. One chick had taken off her pumps and was flailing the spiked heels with ninja-like skill and caught Dave in the face about a half-inch below his left eye, puncturing the flesh deeply.

  After a few minutes into the foray, we finally got them separated by the selective use of choke-holds around their little necks. Lyle and Dave knew the technique, but I had to resort to using my twenty-four inch Police flashlight around the big ones throat.

  “Get'em off the Goddamn property!” Lyle screamed. “If they want to kill each other, let'em do it away from here!”

  Good thinking as I had no liability insurance let alone a liquor license.

  We managed to get them out the front door, past the line of waiting patrons who by this time had grown to at least two-hundred people, dumping their bruised asses on the sidewalk across the street at the Sears store.

  Some little Hollywood fluffy had obviously fucked the wrong girl’s rocker boy.

  As we walked back down the alley, Dave said, “Mike, get I’ll you a towel.”

  “What for?” Then I felt it....something warm on my upper lip, that distinctive salty taste of blood. Somehow in the malay a female fist, or maybe a foot had connected with my nose and it was gushing. I hadn't even noticed. It had been almost a year since the Troubadour-hair-fire poseur dude had broken my nose. This was becoming an annual event in my life.

  ‘Honey, the toilet’s overflowing again!’ Dana greeted me with that pleasant bit of news as we walked back in. As an after-thought she added “What the fuck happened to you?”

  I immediately got the feeling from her that the nastiest backed-up toilet in Hollywood took precedent over my bloody nose. I was pissed at her for the first time ever.

  “Fuck the toilet!” I screamed. “In this dump nobody will ever notice!”

  Before she could respond to my outburst there was the sound of a massive car crash out front, squealing tires and the sounds of glass breaking. Then there were the stuck auto horns and alarms going off. Outside once again with Lyle and Dave in tow, we saw a rather large sedan sitting in the carpet showroom across Santa Monica with smoke billowing through the broken glass.

  It was one of our Shamrock regulars, a cute and usually sweet but on this night very drunk girl who was angry that she could not find a parking place on the street and decided, in her current alcohol induced state of mind that the showroom floor of the rug store would do just fine.

  My walkie talkie crackled as Lyle screamed “Call the Fire Department!”

  “Is she hurt?” I asked back.

  “She doesn't seem to be but the car is smoldering.”

  “I don't want the fucking Fire Department here. Just grab a hose from somewhere and put it out yourself!”

  All this had taken place within the first hour or so of opening our doors. I decided to drop back into the main room, which had originally been built as a large public roller-rink to check it out and to see what was happening inside that area.

  There was a crowd of maybe 250-300 Hollywood types dancing and enjoying the pre-recorded sounds of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Motorhead and a few (then) newer bands like Quiet Riot. There was never a mix or a D.J, we just slapped the tapes on our P.A. system and by two-am our d
runken regulars didn't seem to mind the lack of variety in the music.

  On occasions when a band who rehearsed there such as Hollywood Rose and later Poison would bring in a demo we would play it for the crowd out of courtesy.

  There were no special lighting effects either. No smoke, fog or mirrored ‘disco’ light balls. Nothing fancy, this was a bare-bones after-hours club. The only smoke was when the light bulbs that hung on bare wires from the ceiling would overheat.

  Dana somehow found me in the crowd. At home she had asked me the night before if I thought it would be a good idea for her to walk around the club with a tray selling shots of Jack Daniels for a dollar apiece. “It's a terrible idea, giving away beer and wine after hours is legally dangerous enough, but selling booze per shot?”

  Then I thought about it a bit more.

  “Hmmm.....fuck, just go ahead and do it anyway honey. It's not like we have a liqueur license to lose.”

  There she appeared with her little black tray of plastic shot glasses and apparently business had been brisk as she had lots of dollar bills stuck in the waistband of her leather mini skirt and some tens hanging out the tops of her fishnet stockings. I knew she hadn't been stripping or table dancing, or at least I hoped not.

  She then screeched. “For Christ's sake my boss has been standing out there in line for over an hour and she has to wait like everybody else! Go tell Lyle to let her in Goddamn it!”

  ‘What the fuck is this Dana?’

  One of the strict policies we had at Shamrock was not to give special entrance treatment to celebrities and VIPs. We were not Studio 51 in New York, there was no ‘velvet rope’ on a fancy Manhattan street but yet just a piss-stained alley where homeless bums slept when we forgot or were too hung over to lock the gates. I figured this ‘no-star’ system had always worked well for the Rainbow Bar and Grill where everyone, celebrity or not, waited their turn to get in. Frankly, it wasn't because we tried to treat everyone equal… It simply made the club seem more desirable when the non-famous patrons saw famous patrons waiting in line like just them.

  This, however, was an exception. Dana's boss was Athena Flynt, the wife of Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt whom not all that many years prior had been shot and paralyzed as a result of a rooftop sniper somewhere in the South. The assailant at that point was still on the loose and their personal security was understandably, extremely tight.

  Although I was angry with the manner in which she screamed at me, I saw Dana's point. Athena, who was a regular at Shamrock, would be safer inside the club. On the other hand, the way this night had gone so far, maybe she wouldn’t.

  Lyle still working the door, I went up front and asked Dave to accompany me outside.

  Walking past the crowd, I was grabbed by someone from behind in a full-on bear hug. My instincts told me to break loose and come back with a hard right, but I hesitated. After all I already had a bloody nose and besides Dave was supposed to be watching my back in the dark Hollywood night.

  I heard a familiar voice in my ear. “Dude! How the fuck are ya? Where have you been, we miss you man! This is your club? cool!”

  I turned around. It was Tommy Lee.

  “Tommy! Great to see you man, I miss you guys too. I heard you kicked some major ass at the US Festival! I'm really proud of you.” I added “by the way, I need to talk to you about something for a minute,” remembering the bankruptcy papers that I had from Alan Coffman. I had wondered if the guys had received the same thing and wanted to ask him. I then told Dave to go ahead take Tommy back in and that I would get Athena.

  Sure enough, I found her mid-way through the line, but not before I noticed a white Lincoln limousine parked blocking our alley entrance on the Boulevard across from the still smoldering and sedan penetrated carpet store. One very well dressed gentleman was standing by the limo, right hand concealed under his coat jacket nervously eyeing the rooftops.

  She was standing patiently in line next to yet another security guard hand under his jacket as well, looking like Presidential security.

  “Hi, come on in Al.” The second bodyguard sighed and looked relieved that he was finally going to get his hi-risk client into a brick structure.

  “Got something good for me tonight, Mike?” Athena asked as we walked in together past Lyle.

  “As always Hon. Lot's of ‘game’ here tonight, we're packed, look around see what you like. By the way, how come I never get invited back to the mansion?”

  She replied with a wicked smile. “You, my dear have an open invitation anytime.” She was so truly beautiful that night and after the way I had been treated by Dana in the last few hours I was almost about to suggest that we leave this insanity and have our own private little party back at her Bel-Air estate.

  Then I heard a loud thump on the concrete floor and a “fuck I’m dying!” to the side.

  Turning around and momentarily forgetting Althea, I see yet more blood. Seems that another one of our regulars, dressed as a vampire (this was before the term ‘Goth’ was coined) had fallen and somehow managed to cut his throat open on the crystal wine goblet that he always brought to the club.

  “OK Lyle, now we call the Fire Department!” I screamed into the walkie-talkie.

  Although the guy was gushing blood and seriously cut, he insisted that we didn’t call anyone.

  “No paramedics! They'll bring the cops! I have warrants out!”

  Vince, who by now had apparently concluded his now two-hour long war with Doria appeared suddenly with a stack of towels. I wrapped them around his neck in an attempt to stop the flow of blood when I insisted again we call for medical help. This was serious shit.

  “No! I'll sue your asses off!”

  As the blood flow began to slow to an acceptable level thanks to the towels, Vince offered to drive him to a nearby hospital.

  “Fine Vince, he's your responsibility from here on.” I thought about those years I had spent working in the law office and what I’d learned there. This was a blatant breach of personal liability. I was getting sloppy.

  After Vince and our patient were well on their way to a medical facility I found Lyle. It was now only three hours into the night and I had lost track of the number of incidents.

  “Lyle, this place is like a Goddamn Army MASH ward! Look, we're walking in blood!” pointing to my feet.

  Lyle didn't say a word. He looked at me, not smirking at all, but just saying with his eyes ‘I told you so Mike.’

  Friday the thirteenth.... A full moon. I admit when I'm wrong.

  But the worst was yet to come.

  “Here's a 'Barney” Lyle whispered. He put a large wad of cash in my hand and I went straight into my private office, where I found Dana holding court and serving the Jack shots on my desk along with Athena, Tommy and a face I'd seen on album covers and a voice I'd heard many times. It was Ronnie James Dio there with his lovely wife Wendy.

  As I've said before, although I enjoyed metal music greatly I was in the business for the money, not to suck ass or hang out with the stars. I would have been just as happy running an auto junk-yard in the Valley if it showed a profit, but none-the-less I was a huge ‘Blackmore’s Rainbow’ fan and to have the original ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’ sitting casually in my office sipping fine whiskey was a welcome treat, especially after the last few hour's events.

  Nicer people could not have been found on the planet. We spoke casually about the current state of the music industry and I mentioned to Wendy that I had previously met with Ann from Hellion, whom she indicated she had recently become involved with on a management level.

  Ronnie started telling us in detail about recently completing his new solo album, which later turned out to be ‘The Last in Line.’ I thanked them both for dropping in and supporting the club.

  “Well to tell you the truth Mike, Wendy and I thought at first we'd just stay home tonight.... After all, it is Friday the thirteenth and a full moon, kind’a scary.” Ronnie answered.

  Geez, where ha
d I heard that before? I was quickly becoming a believer. “Yeah I know, Ronnie.”

  Meanwhile, Tommy and Athena were cozy, chatting on the office couch, something about inviting a select few of the Shamrock partiers back to the Hustler mansion. It was an intimate, relaxed scene, and we were totally oblivious to the madness and the roar of the music that was going on outside the office and throbbing through the walls.

  Dio asked if we had any candles or incense, which we indeed happened to have. Dana took care of the ignition duties and dimmed the office lights to a nice, soothing glow. She even came over behind the desk and sat on my lap, apologizing for her earlier verbal snaps with a kiss. There was something about fishnet hose and black pumps that I couldn't resist....

  “It's OK, honey. I know it's been a long night.” I was not aware at that point how much longer this night would continue.

  The nice, quiet, incense/candle/herb enhanced conversation between Ronnie, Wendy, Tommy, Athena, Dana and I sadly lasted only a few minutes.

  There was a knock on the office door. It was Lyle... “Mike! There’s a guy out here named Chris that says he's been waiting in line for two hours and he wants in now! Say's he's a star or some shit like that and he's majorly pissed! I think you should talk to him.”

  “Stand by Lyle. Dana get off my lap please.”

  Damn.

  I walked out of my quiet little office cocoon with Lyle through the club front door where a very drunk and pissed off tall blonde guy was standing in front of another one-hundred or so leather and spandex clad after-hours party goers were waiting.

  “I want in now!” he yelled down at me. I'm a tall guy, but this guy was at least a head taller. As I looked up I recognized him.

  “O.K. Chris, calm down, we'll let you in, no problem, just relax. I know your bass player. In fact I bought pyro gear from him some time ago. Everything's cool, enjoy...come on in and have a drink on the house”

  Indeed he calmed down and chilled out. By the time this confrontation with Chris Holmes was concluded, I returned to the office expecting to find Ronnie, Wendy, Tommy, Athena and my precious Dana waiting for me, incense and candles still burning.