Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  We were scheduled to be in Cincinnati for two days. This was a break for us, because we had been playing almost every night for the past 45 days. We were staying in a nice hotel in downtown Cincinnati, a big change from all the previous Motel 6 stays. This hotel had a bar and restaurant downstairs where we could immediately sit down and enjoy a fresh nacho appetizer and cold tap beer. This was very unusual for us, unless a fan was paying for our luxury dinner. Speak of the devil, several fans arrived at the hotel and located us in the bar area of the hotel. This was a group of six people. These were not our usual fans, instead these were people in their thirties with good jobs. It was great because they calmly walked over and asked if we would sign a poster for them. We were very happy to do so. We asked the fans to sit down and join us, and without any further hesitation, they did. We sat downstairs racking up a large bar tab. The six fans that were sitting with us picked up the bill and thanked us for spending time with them. Before they left, I asked them how they knew so much about the band. They told me that we were on the radio at least three time each day and the entire city was in love with Ultra Pop. Well blow me down!

  The club contacted us and advised that there was now plenty of security in place and we could bring the equipment over right away for sound check. We were buzzed and happy, so we headed over to the club for a quick setup and sound check. Upon arrival, the crowd was even larger and more anxious to meet the band. Several security guards met us at the back of the club, where we quickly bolted into the club and left the gear with the guards and our road crew. As we entered the club, fans of all types were pawing at us as we passed them on the way in. Ernie and I compared scratches on our arms from the wild fans that were vying for our attention as we passed them to enter the club. We had arrived! I knew one thing; I was not going back outside to get any of our gear. Someone else would have to perform that job. It was too dangerous for us! Following the sound check, we opted to stay at the club until it was time to start the show. It was approximately 5 pm and the club manager told us that everything would be taken care of if we stayed at the club the entire evening. We agreed because it was so crazy outside with all the fans wanting to attack us for autographs. You have to remember, this was all very new for us. I think that even Lizzie was surprised at the fans reaction to the bands arrival. The owner opened the doors at 6 p.m. instead of the planned 8 p.m. time. I don’t blame him, he probably sold thousands of dollars in drinks before we went on stage. The people began to flood the club and within one hour, the room was at capacity. The club manager came to the back stage area, boasting of the sold out crowd of over 600 people. As the manager beamed with a glow that would compete with a lighthouse, he proudly showered us with fancy drinks and catered food.Backstage the security guards would ask if we wanted any girls to join our private party. “Are you kidding? Of course! Bring them back!”, Lizzie yelled as he giggled while holding a 22 ounce glass of Jack and Coke. Beautiful woman started filtering back to our private balcony that overlooked the entire club. Funny thing, none of us were that interested in the girls that flooded the back stage area. We were more interested in the fans that were acting like complete idiots, trying to get our attention while we were in the balcony. It was so cool to wander out to the edge of the private balcony and see the entire club go crazy as if we were the Beatles. The girls that were back stage felt as if we did not care about them and they knew that they had to start one-upping the crowd down below. This turned into a pretty fun game for the band.

  There was one really classy looking young woman that was not happy that we were not paying any attention to her. She was the type of girl that was used to people falling all over her, but that was not the case with this Ultra Pop band! We could care less that evening if she was there or not. She was completely decked out in a beautiful white dress, similar to a wedding dress, red 6 inch pumps and bright red lip stick. She had a really beautiful supermodel face and platinum blonde hair that was teased to perfection. We noticed her, but pretended not to. She eventually became frustrated with our lack of enthusiasm and decided to get our attention. She wandered over to Ernie and asked if the band would sign her ass with a black “Sharpie” pen. Ernie accepted the offer and invited me over to also sign her butt. Ernie was first. She hiked up her dress, pulled her panties down and exposed her entire ass for the whole world to see. A small crowd of security guards gathered to witness the hijinks. Ernie signed away, completely defacing her ass with the largest signature he could get away with. He handed me the pen and so it was my turn. I gave a quick little signature, closer to the thigh area. Immediately after I was finished, I capped the Sharpie pen and abruptly shoved the pen directly into the girls ass. She jumped in the air and spun around in circles like a dog chasing it’s tail. She reached around and pulled the Sharpie out of her ass and yelled, “Where is the damn cap to the pen?” In the same breath she called to me to help get the cap out of her anus. The cap was still up there! She kicked off her pumps and hopped around like a rabbit and attempted to pull the pen cap out of her ass. The entire group of us laughed so hard we could not contain ourselves. I walked out of the room, beet red in the face from laughter and did not see the lady again. I hope she got the attention she wanted. Finally it was show time! After several fun filled hours of playing rock star, we had to go out on stage and perform to the crowds expectations. After the first note that was played on my guitar, several fans jumped on stage and tried to attack us. Not an attack of hate, it was a complete crazy fan fest of eager people hoping to just touch us for even one second. Security quickly grabbed the crazed fans and pulled them off stage. This went on for the next hour while we played. I had never experience anything like this. It got better. We were finished for the evening, we had performed three encores, but it was now time to call it a night. The crowd went nuts and a small riot ensued. Hey, when in Ohio....

  We were rushed back to our private balcony by the security guards. Along the way, my clothing was being ripped off my back as I forged ahead to escape the frenzy of crazy fans. Every one of us lost a piece of our stage clothing that evening to someone ripping it off our bodies. It was the scariest, but greatest feelings I had ever experienced in my life to date. We hid out in our backstage room until the club manager could lie to the large group of fans waiting for a quick peek at the band. The club manager walked out on stage and told all of the adoring fans that “Ultra Pop has left the building.” We asked him to say that because it was exactly what they use to say for Elvis Presley, accept of course it was “Elvis has left the building.” It seemed to work, because the frenzy of fans calmed down and eventually filtered out of the area. Who would have guessed that Cincinnati could be so much fun?

  I’m a wild child, come and love me, I want you.

  My heart’s in exile, I need you to touch me.

  -W.A.S.P.

  II Cronicles

  ULTRA POP TOUR - Memphis, TENNESSE - Cupcake

  I remember pulling into the State of Tennessee like it was yesterday. I loved this state since the first day I laid eyes on the lush green foliage. The air was very heavy and the temperature was in the 90‘s. We were scheduled to perform at a club just off the main music strip called Beale Street. The City of Memphis was jumping for a weekday and we were all very excited to have the honor to play in Elvis Presley’s home town. We made our way down the streets where street vending rules the earth. You can smell savory smoked meats slow cooking as you drive in the heart of the city. Beer flows on every street corner as if everyday is a celebration of life. Street musicians compete at every intersection of the city, hoping for a small bit of change you could spare.

  We arrived at the club that we were scheduled to play. It was approximately one block off the main strip also known as Beale Street. The very first thing I noticed was all the southern rock decor around the entire club/restaurant/bar. We all thought this club was just a tad out of our type of place to perform. We had the motto, “Money is money.” We would play anywhere, at anytime. We did not care. An
ything for a buck! We met the club owner that might have said three words to us as we began to unload our gear into the rear of the club. This was your typical southern “good ole’ boy” that appeared to be disgusted by our mere presence. The bar was loaded with cowboys and plenty of what I would consider a bunch of rednecks. Not quite our place to perform.It was around 4:00 in the afternoon and we were not slated to play until 10:30 that evening. We decided to ask the bar manager if we could do a quick sound check, so we could be sure to have great sound for the show. We began to perform a song... I think the bar manager shit himself while he walked toward the stage. Imagine some middle aged, redneck, overweight wanna-be country performer, dressed in pants 4 sizes too small, belly and back fat hanging over his pants like the top of an over-baked muffin, wearing a tight, white button up “cowboy” shirt, and chewing a giant wad of tobacco in his cheek. He was out of breath upon his approach. As he gasped for air, he told us, and I quote; “There is no way in hell you guys are going to play that shit in this club!” You boys would start a riot, dressed like a bunch of gay Hollywood faggots wearing lace and makeup.” Lizzie calmly advised the poor fat bastard that we had a written contract to play a 45 minute show for a sum of $400 dollars. This fat pig, smacking his lips, pulled out four one-hundred dollar bills and quickly paid Lizzie. Immediately after the payment fat-ass told us to “get your shit out of my club.” We were fine with that! We were not going to play a country-western bar in the heart of Memphis... no way!

  After we left the country bar loaded with money that we did not have to work for, we wandered the city of Memphis looking for something to keep us entertained for the next 24 hours. We made our way out onto main street and strolled through the city enjoying the sights and sounds of a real music town. We located a great outdoor pub to have a few afternoon attitude adjusters, also known as beer. We made our way to a table on the outside patio, and without even trying, we made a spectacle of ourselves by knocking over an adjacent patio table full of empty glasses. Great! Shit! Just great! The manager of the bar ran over to our table and apologized for the mess. I thought, why is he apologizing for our mistake? The manager had his busboy clean up the giant mess and had the waiter bring us three pitchers of beer on the house. When does that ever happen in California? Lizzie began talking to the bar manager over the next ten minutes. Before any of us could know what happened, Lizzie had scheduled us to perform as the opening act for a semi-famous up-and-coming rock band named Dangerous Toys. I guess meeting the manager at this club was fate? Crap... I don’t know but we were excited. We had already been paid for not playing the show at the country bar, and now we were going to be paid even more money to play with a band that would, without question, pack whatever club they were playing!We finished off the free beer and headed over to the club we were scheduled to play. We had directions provided by the manager that just booked the show for us. They were written on a napkin with landmarks as directions, instead of actual street names. We drove approximately ten miles out of town, down a two lane highway that wound through the swampy wetlands that surrounded Memphis. I thought during our travels that this manager gave us bogus directions, because it seemed as if we were traveling to the middle of nowhere and that it took forever. After a few more turns at the large red barn on the left and the chicken coop on the right, oh and just past the two large oak trees... finally we made it. Here we were at a run down building right smack in the middle of tons of swampland. I am not sure why we did not turn around right then and there, but we didn’t. We pulled up to the front of the building and parked the vans. The building from my view of the outside, reminded me of an old run-down dairy barn. The structure was long, gray in color, and made of old wood. There was not one window located anywhere on the building and the outside parking area was just dirt, peppered with mud puddles from the daily summer rains. The air was extremely hot, thick and heavy with an odor that was somewhat musty with a hint of wet grass. The air conditioner that crowned the building sounded as if it was ready to break at any moment. There must have been a belt that was going bad, because the squeak emitting from the cooling system was so loud it was drowning out all the other sounds in the area.

  We entered the club and we were really surprised how nice the inside of the club was. I was shocked because the outside of the club did not fall in the same category as the outside. There were a few people milling about the area. I assumed they were the other bands members that were also playing later in the evening. It was now 6 P.M. and we had set up all of our stage gear and were ready for soundcheck. We inquired with the sound man who was rushing around like his ass was on fire, pulling wire, setting up microphones and tuning sounds on the mixing board. “What time we should be back to perform for the evening?” I asked. The sound man softly replied, “You guys are on at 11:00 P.M., right before the band Dangerous Toys.” I thought that sounded pretty good for just booking the gig only a few hours prior. Lizzie, Votel, Ernie and our other roadie named Mike, took off in the van to go find a motel to stay in for the night. Pops and I were left with the passenger van and told to hang out and wait for them to get back form their motel hunt. Pops and I agreed to hang around the club while they were gone. Well, that lasted about ten minutes! Pops decided he was thirsty and hungry, so we decided to go look for something to eat. We asked the other musicians hanging around the area, but none of them seemed to know where a good fast food or liquor store could be located. After all... we are in the middle of nowhere! Pops and I ventured off and looked for food. As I was driving, Pops asked, “Hey Cupkake, don’t we have beer left over in the cooler from yesterday?” I told Pops to crawl into the back passenger cabin and check. Pops returned with two ice cold beers, still dripping with ice water. Pops kicked back and sat in the passenger seat with a satisfied smile. He opened both beers and handed me one. Pops kicked his feet up onto the dashboard of the van, and pulled out a cigarette he snagged from Vince earlier that day. We continued to drive around, trying not to get lost. I kept reminding Pops to pay attention to where we were going so we did not get lost. I told him to help me look for anything that may be a store or fast food joint. As Pops had his feet kicked up on the dash board, seat leaned back, cold beer in hand, he lit the cigarette that was hanging off the side of his mouth. It was really hot and muggy outside, so we had every window on the van wide open. Pops and I were chatting while we drove around looking for a place to get something to eat. Pops had finished the cigarette and tossed it out the van’s passenger side window.

  Pops and I both assumed the cigarette made its way out onto the street and we did not think about it any further.

  We finally found a burger place, so we stopped in for a bite to eat. We were in the restaurant for approximately twenty minutes. Then we finished our food and went back out to the van. We got in the van and looked at each other, because we both smelled the faint scent of something burning. Pops and I were basically clueless, we simply wrote off the burning smell to something outside. After all, everything in Memphis smelled weird.

  We started driving back to the club, hoping that we would beat the other band members back so they would not have any idea that we left. As we were driving, the burning smell got stronger and stronger. I could see a little smoke inside the van, and at this point I had a bad feeling about the smoke. Not more than a minute had passed, when it became very apparent that something was smoldering in the back of the van. I pulled the van over to the shoulder of the road to see what was burning. I walked to the rear of the van and opened the two rear doors. I could not see anything that was burning, but the smoke was getting thicker by the second. Pops entered the side doors of the van and started looking through the contents of the van.

  The van was set up a lot like a camper. There was a bench seat, an ice chest, several pillows and blankets, suitcases and personal items of all sorts. The very rear of the van was a really, really comfortably soft and fluffy feather bed that belonged to Ernie. This was no regular mattress, this was a duck down-feather bed. Ernie abso
lutely did not want to bring this bed on tour with the band, but somehow we talked him into making it our makeshift bed for the van. Pops and I searched for what could possibly be burning, but we could not find anything, so we got back into the van and drove off down the street.

  We both knew that there was some type of fire somewhere in the van, but we kept our thoughts to ourselves as we drove down the road. I have no idea why we were so stupid. That was very typical of us; if we ignore it, it will go away. The smoke was now severe and we knew we were going to have to do something quick. I saw a gas station up ahead and thought maybe there was something mechanically wrong with the vehicle and they could take a quick peek and advise us what the problem was. I pulled into the gas station and the smoke was now pouring out of all the windows like a full raging bonfire, without the flames. We re-entered the van to take another look at what could be on fire. As the search continued...JACKPOT!!!! Pops yelled, “Fuck, there is a lit cigarette on Ernie’s feather bed!” I yelled back to Pops and told him to get some ice water from the cooler and dump it onto the bed. The panic set in and we both started to fumble around like a couple of idiots. Pops removed the blankets from the smoldering bed, only to feed oxygen to the fire. The fire liked the fact that we gave it some air because it quickly spread onto the blankets that were obviously very flammable. I ran over and pulled the engulfed blankets from the van and threw them out onto the concrete. As all of this chaos ensued, the gas station attendant was running toward us yelling to “Get the hell out of my gas station!” The blankets were now a pile of burning matter and the flames were at least four feet high. I elected to dump the rest of the ice water onto Ernie’s prize mattress that was a host to a fairly impressive fire. There was not enough ice water to put the fire out, so Pops and I frantically opened beers and soda cans and started pouring them onto the burning portion of the mattress. The gas station attendant was cursing us at the top of his lungs and threatening to sue us if his station burned to the ground. We thought quick and used the nearby radiator refill hose to extinguish the remaining flames on the mattress. The service station attendant, along with several other people in the area had somehow already put out the flames emitting from the blankets that were tossed out onto the concrete of the gas station parking lot.