1
00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:12,320
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Set podcast.

2
00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:18,360
Speaker 1: My guest today his music Writers, who was senior editor

3
00:00:18,520 --> 00:00:23,680
Speaker 1: at Crew Magazine in addition to her other accomplishments. Jan, Hi,

4
00:00:24,040 --> 00:00:27,400
Speaker 1: how are you. I'm good. So there's a new documentary

5
00:00:27,440 --> 00:00:30,920
Speaker 1: on Queen Magazine. Are you happy with it? I am

6
00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 1: happy with it. I mean, I have to say I

7
00:00:33,159 --> 00:00:35,720
Speaker 1: ended up with ulcers of the three years of making it,

8
00:00:35,800 --> 00:00:39,680
Speaker 1: but the end product actually is much better than I

9
00:00:39,720 --> 00:00:42,880
Speaker 1: ever imagined it would be. Well, if you had ulcers

10
00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:45,280
Speaker 1: for three years, that would indicate you were heavily involved

11
00:00:45,280 --> 00:00:47,479
Speaker 1: in the production of the film. H Can you tell

12
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,480
Speaker 1: us more about that? Yeah, I actually wasn't. Initially, I

13
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,040
Speaker 1: was the conduit between J. J. Kramer, whose father was

14
00:00:55,120 --> 00:00:58,400
Speaker 1: Barry Kramer, the founder of the magazine, and Scott Crawford,

15
00:00:58,440 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: who I had worked with at Heart Magazine. And I

16
00:01:01,600 --> 00:01:04,360
Speaker 1: made the introduction and I thought that was just enough

17
00:01:04,920 --> 00:01:07,640
Speaker 1: until they kept asking me questions, and the questions were

18
00:01:07,720 --> 00:01:11,280
Speaker 1: really bad, like oh, I've got to jump in here

19
00:01:11,319 --> 00:01:13,240
Speaker 1: and say no, no, no, no, this is the way

20
00:01:13,280 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 1: it was. So just in increments they pulled me into

21
00:01:18,400 --> 00:01:20,959
Speaker 1: being first a consultant and then a co writer and

22
00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:23,160
Speaker 1: then a co producer, So I ended up having to

23
00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:26,240
Speaker 1: wrangle most of the bands that you see in the

24
00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:29,919
Speaker 1: documentary because honestly, it was time to collect the favors.

25
00:01:29,959 --> 00:01:32,840
Speaker 1: You know. It's like if I had bead on the

26
00:01:32,959 --> 00:01:35,800
Speaker 1: road with Kiss as many times as I have and

27
00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:38,120
Speaker 1: got on stage, then my figured they could speak in

28
00:01:38,160 --> 00:01:40,480
Speaker 1: the documentary. So it was one of those things. I

29
00:01:40,520 --> 00:01:42,920
Speaker 1: just got out all the trading cards and started cashing

30
00:01:42,920 --> 00:01:45,160
Speaker 1: them in. Okay, Well, you you said they had bad

31
00:01:45,240 --> 00:01:47,880
Speaker 1: questions which would indicate a lack of knowledge. You remember

32
00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:50,400
Speaker 1: any of them? Well, I think that they wondered, Like

33
00:01:50,800 --> 00:01:53,120
Speaker 1: they would ask me questions like who is this? Like

34
00:01:53,160 --> 00:01:55,640
Speaker 1: who is Rick Siegel? Who is Dealer? And are these

35
00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:59,040
Speaker 1: people important? You know, the very first pillars of the

36
00:01:59,080 --> 00:02:01,800
Speaker 1: people who founded Cream. So they didn't have this working

37
00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 1: knowledge of that, and I only did because I was there,

38
00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:08,480
Speaker 1: you know. I mean the sad truth about rock journalism

39
00:02:08,480 --> 00:02:12,520
Speaker 1: and maybe rock bands is they eat their young. So

40
00:02:12,560 --> 00:02:15,519
Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of us around to ask, so

41
00:02:15,800 --> 00:02:18,840
Speaker 1: it was pretty much me and J. J. Cramer's mother,

42
00:02:18,919 --> 00:02:22,480
Speaker 1: Connie Kramer, who were actually witness this to this. So

43
00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:25,640
Speaker 1: I felt like I had the sacred duty honestly a

44
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:28,320
Speaker 1: sacred duty to get in there and get it right

45
00:02:28,360 --> 00:02:32,000
Speaker 1: for them. Now you say you wrote the film. Uh,

46
00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:34,720
Speaker 1: had you had any experience in film or was that

47
00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:38,000
Speaker 1: required in this case? It's kind of like it I

48
00:02:38,040 --> 00:02:41,960
Speaker 1: ever written before I went to Cream. No, no, uh no,

49
00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:45,400
Speaker 1: it was It was not. It wasn't like writing the script.

50
00:02:45,680 --> 00:02:49,120
Speaker 1: It was more like fashioning the right questions to elicit

51
00:02:49,360 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: the stories that I wanted to tell, the things that

52
00:02:51,760 --> 00:02:54,840
Speaker 1: I remembered that were important. And as it went along,

53
00:02:54,960 --> 00:03:00,440
Speaker 1: it started a narrative. Arcs started being creative by actually

54
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:03,880
Speaker 1: the interviews. It's like the first rule of journalism, Like

55
00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,280
Speaker 1: when you go into a story, you can't go with

56
00:03:06,280 --> 00:03:08,960
Speaker 1: any preconceived notions. You have an idea of what you want,

57
00:03:09,280 --> 00:03:12,240
Speaker 1: but you have to let the witnesses speak. And the

58
00:03:12,280 --> 00:03:16,240
Speaker 1: better story was there. Um. It really started to have

59
00:03:16,400 --> 00:03:20,680
Speaker 1: shape when we interviewed Cameron Crowe and he likened Cream

60
00:03:20,760 --> 00:03:24,440
Speaker 1: to a band and with three members. I mean it

61
00:03:24,639 --> 00:03:26,680
Speaker 1: actually had more members and it was more like an

62
00:03:26,760 --> 00:03:30,440
Speaker 1: ensemble cast of friends. But that was a really good

63
00:03:30,480 --> 00:03:34,520
Speaker 1: hook because we could organize the three big personalities that

64
00:03:34,639 --> 00:03:37,520
Speaker 1: really were the foundation of Cream. Berry Kramer, who was

65
00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:41,880
Speaker 1: a pugnacious visionary who picked a fight to get what

66
00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:46,840
Speaker 1: he wanted. Dave Marsh another pugnacious visionary unless your bangs,

67
00:03:46,960 --> 00:03:51,280
Speaker 1: who never took anything seriously but was a covert intellectual.

68
00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:55,440
Speaker 1: So it was this really combination of these three personalities

69
00:03:55,440 --> 00:03:58,920
Speaker 1: that made Cream and the various camps that collected around

70
00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:03,800
Speaker 1: their viewpoints. So that I mean, I like, oh, Cameron

71
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,160
Speaker 1: a big debt for actually making it easier for us.

72
00:04:06,920 --> 00:04:10,200
Speaker 1: And of course Barry and Lester are deceased, so that

73
00:04:10,240 --> 00:04:14,640
Speaker 1: makes it even more difficult. Were there any discussions, arguments,

74
00:04:14,720 --> 00:04:18,880
Speaker 1: disagreements over what the history was, Well, I think that

75
00:04:18,960 --> 00:04:22,280
Speaker 1: people think it's one way, and it really wasn't. I

76
00:04:22,320 --> 00:04:25,680
Speaker 1: think that there's this whole perception of when you're writing

77
00:04:25,680 --> 00:04:27,760
Speaker 1: stuff that comes out of your fingers. There's not a

78
00:04:27,760 --> 00:04:30,719
Speaker 1: lot of machinations and how to get the right people,

79
00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:33,040
Speaker 1: or how to get the right acts to cover, or

80
00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:38,600
Speaker 1: or exactly how bombastic and how i'm gonna say glamorous,

81
00:04:38,640 --> 00:04:42,760
Speaker 1: but how exciting it was to be in the presence

82
00:04:42,880 --> 00:04:46,920
Speaker 1: of rock when it was really I'm not gonna say infancy,

83
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:50,359
Speaker 1: because we really were late sixties early seventies rock, but

84
00:04:50,520 --> 00:04:55,000
Speaker 1: there was this collaborative notion between the bands and the

85
00:04:55,080 --> 00:04:57,720
Speaker 1: journalists and the photographers that we're all doing the same

86
00:04:57,760 --> 00:05:00,719
Speaker 1: thing together and we were going to actually feed off

87
00:05:00,720 --> 00:05:03,640
Speaker 1: of each other. So I thought that was important because

88
00:05:03,839 --> 00:05:06,680
Speaker 1: especially in a time period where you get no access

89
00:05:06,760 --> 00:05:09,760
Speaker 1: or very little access to an artist, then it was

90
00:05:09,880 --> 00:05:14,840
Speaker 1: really it was anything but that. I mean there were

91
00:05:14,839 --> 00:05:18,000
Speaker 1: times when we would take like Leslie West, the guitarists

92
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,080
Speaker 1: from Mountain, and we would convince him to be on

93
00:05:21,120 --> 00:05:23,839
Speaker 1: our cover, but to do that here we had to

94
00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: cover him in Whitecastle Hamburgers. So it was like there

95
00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:29,320
Speaker 1: was all these deals struck, but it was all this

96
00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:32,160
Speaker 1: sense of fun, like we felt like we were on

97
00:05:32,200 --> 00:05:35,480
Speaker 1: the same side. And honestly, the difference between the rock

98
00:05:35,520 --> 00:05:38,760
Speaker 1: writers that Cream and the artists were they had better clothes,

99
00:05:39,080 --> 00:05:42,920
Speaker 1: I mean, playing and simple, and probably more money or

100
00:05:42,960 --> 00:05:45,560
Speaker 1: access to more money, yeah, more money than and you

101
00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: know all the things that went along with it. But

102
00:05:48,920 --> 00:05:52,120
Speaker 1: it really there wasn't the sense of there in Valhalla

103
00:05:52,160 --> 00:05:54,560
Speaker 1: and we were it was it was really that we

104
00:05:54,560 --> 00:05:57,800
Speaker 1: were all in the same playing field. Well, of course

105
00:05:58,120 --> 00:06:00,719
Speaker 1: this was a heyday, as you say, sort of the

106
00:06:00,760 --> 00:06:03,200
Speaker 1: second wave. We had the British invasion than we had

107
00:06:03,240 --> 00:06:05,520
Speaker 1: album rock and that's when Queen began. And then of

108
00:06:05,560 --> 00:06:08,440
Speaker 1: course it was mega in the early seventies. You had

109
00:06:08,520 --> 00:06:12,560
Speaker 1: access when no one had access. Did it become dere

110
00:06:12,640 --> 00:06:15,240
Speaker 1: gourt you or were you pinching yourself all the time?

111
00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:19,200
Speaker 1: You know? I think I think we had this real

112
00:06:19,360 --> 00:06:22,679
Speaker 1: sense of that they weren't that much different. I mean, okay,

113
00:06:22,920 --> 00:06:25,440
Speaker 1: going on on tour with LEDs up and I was

114
00:06:25,520 --> 00:06:29,560
Speaker 1: pinching myself and wishing that they weren't such an assholes

115
00:06:29,560 --> 00:06:33,480
Speaker 1: at times, you know. But but the fact was it

116
00:06:33,520 --> 00:06:35,720
Speaker 1: was that was one that got me. Other than that

117
00:06:35,880 --> 00:06:39,440
Speaker 1: I had actually had a job. There was a bollroom

118
00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:42,320
Speaker 1: and in Detroit called the Granny Ballroom. It was model

119
00:06:42,400 --> 00:06:44,760
Speaker 1: on a film more experiment, you know, like the Bill

120
00:06:44,800 --> 00:06:49,039
Speaker 1: Graham And there's a documentary online about it, right, yeah,

121
00:06:49,080 --> 00:06:51,640
Speaker 1: there is. So I was the Coca Cola girl there

122
00:06:51,680 --> 00:06:53,880
Speaker 1: for three years, so I actually saw everybody and I

123
00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:55,840
Speaker 1: had to bring them Coca cola. So I saw a

124
00:06:55,839 --> 00:06:58,080
Speaker 1: lot of a little bit slower. What was what were

125
00:06:58,120 --> 00:07:01,040
Speaker 1: the duties of the Coca Cola girl? The biggest duty

126
00:07:01,240 --> 00:07:03,680
Speaker 1: was to make sure no one spiked the Coca Cola's

127
00:07:04,320 --> 00:07:07,279
Speaker 1: because it was those years of dosing, especially when the

128
00:07:07,320 --> 00:07:10,760
Speaker 1: Grateful Dead would play the Grandy Ballroom. So my most

129
00:07:10,840 --> 00:07:14,360
Speaker 1: important job was to keep my eye on the sodas

130
00:07:14,400 --> 00:07:16,679
Speaker 1: because what you would do is because it was such.

131
00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:19,280
Speaker 1: It would be a big night, especially in the summer,

132
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:21,880
Speaker 1: and you lay out all the drinks and some would

133
00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:24,200
Speaker 1: come along and try to put LSD into the drinks.

134
00:07:24,200 --> 00:07:26,920
Speaker 1: And that happened so many times that that was a

135
00:07:27,120 --> 00:07:31,240
Speaker 1: designated role. Okay, that that begs the question. Were you

136
00:07:31,280 --> 00:07:35,520
Speaker 1: ever dosed? Only once? But not at the Grandy Ballroom

137
00:07:35,840 --> 00:07:39,080
Speaker 1: only there was a festival called the Goose Lake Festival.

138
00:07:39,240 --> 00:07:43,080
Speaker 1: It was the same dosing that felled the Stooges. Uh

139
00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:46,320
Speaker 1: Dave Alexander, the guitar player the Stooges, also got dozed

140
00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:48,480
Speaker 1: and when he got on stage to play with the Stooges,

141
00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:51,760
Speaker 1: he forgot how to play guitar. Had I had a guitar,

142
00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:54,800
Speaker 1: I would have forgotten how to play guitar. But that

143
00:07:54,880 --> 00:07:57,840
Speaker 1: was the only time. No, I was really shrewd about it.

144
00:07:57,960 --> 00:08:01,480
Speaker 1: When you saw your friends babbling, I mean, the whole

145
00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:04,480
Speaker 1: thing about being dosed, you just think you're going to say,

146
00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:07,320
Speaker 1: do you have a grand brain aneurism? You don't think

147
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:10,840
Speaker 1: you're dose. You just think something is profoundly wrong. So

148
00:08:11,560 --> 00:08:14,320
Speaker 1: that just scared me. Okay. Staying on that same tip,

149
00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:17,880
Speaker 1: even though alcohol really came back in the seventies, were

150
00:08:17,920 --> 00:08:21,360
Speaker 1: you someone who got involved in drugs and alcohol? No,

151
00:08:21,960 --> 00:08:24,840
Speaker 1: I honestly, to be completely real, there are too many

152
00:08:24,880 --> 00:08:30,080
Speaker 1: calories and alcohol because, to quote the Sainted Paul Family,

153
00:08:31,120 --> 00:08:33,400
Speaker 1: he says, rock and roll is never kind to the

154
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:36,840
Speaker 1: fat boy. Rock and roll is less kind to the

155
00:08:36,960 --> 00:08:40,240
Speaker 1: rock writer. You know, you can't look like someone's mother

156
00:08:40,320 --> 00:08:43,520
Speaker 1: or grandmother or fat cousin. If you're going to interview

157
00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:45,600
Speaker 1: rock bands, You've got to like dress the part. And

158
00:08:45,640 --> 00:08:48,320
Speaker 1: that was always part of it. Okay, Well that begs

159
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:52,760
Speaker 1: the question once again, are you will you consider yourself

160
00:08:52,760 --> 00:08:56,000
Speaker 1: at that time to be anorexic? Uh? There are days

161
00:08:56,080 --> 00:08:59,520
Speaker 1: I was a little antorexic. Yeah. Um, you know I've

162
00:09:00,040 --> 00:09:02,960
Speaker 1: I've always tried to be you know, trying to be spin.

163
00:09:03,800 --> 00:09:07,559
Speaker 1: But yeah, there were times where I was definitely following

164
00:09:07,559 --> 00:09:11,080
Speaker 1: the Patty Boy diet of two salting crackers and a

165
00:09:11,120 --> 00:09:15,760
Speaker 1: slice of cheese. So yeah I was. And how about today?

166
00:09:15,960 --> 00:09:21,360
Speaker 1: Not today? Not just normal? Okay, So you get a

167
00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,600
Speaker 1: gig at the Grandy Ballroom. How old are you? I

168
00:09:24,679 --> 00:09:28,520
Speaker 1: was fifteen? Okay. Where I grew up in Connecticut, you

169
00:09:28,559 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 1: couldn't work legally until you were sixteen. What was the

170
00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:37,559
Speaker 1: situation in Michigan? False? I D? Okay, And I mean,

171
00:09:37,880 --> 00:09:40,319
Speaker 1: first of all I went there. You had to be seventeen,

172
00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:43,079
Speaker 1: but I had a friendhood and older sisters, and it

173
00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:46,120
Speaker 1: was you could have idea that didn't have pictures on it.

174
00:09:46,120 --> 00:09:47,719
Speaker 1: You can get in with your school, I D. So

175
00:09:47,880 --> 00:09:49,679
Speaker 1: I got into the ball room with a false I D.

176
00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:52,840
Speaker 1: And I just never told them I wasn't seventeen, okay.

177
00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:55,600
Speaker 1: Two questions to get into the venue. Did you have

178
00:09:55,679 --> 00:10:00,360
Speaker 1: to be seventeen just to work there? Okay? So prior

179
00:10:00,400 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 1: to getting this gig at the Grandy Ballroom, how many

180
00:10:03,679 --> 00:10:06,840
Speaker 1: hell active were you in seeing shows? Well? I was.

181
00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:10,520
Speaker 1: The bar was adjacent to the stage, so I could

182
00:10:10,720 --> 00:10:13,280
Speaker 1: I could always have a prince ide to the stage.

183
00:10:13,800 --> 00:10:15,760
Speaker 1: I guess what I'm really asking is, prior to working

184
00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:20,040
Speaker 1: at the Grandy Ballroom, were you an avid concertgoer? Oh? Yeah,

185
00:10:20,080 --> 00:10:22,920
Speaker 1: I mean I convinced my parents to let me go

186
00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:26,040
Speaker 1: see the Stones in nineteen sixty six, all by myself.

187
00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:29,920
Speaker 1: So yeah, I have always all about yourself aline myself.

188
00:10:29,760 --> 00:10:33,079
Speaker 1: I think about that now, like, what the help were

189
00:10:33,080 --> 00:10:37,400
Speaker 1: they thinking and just dropping me off and arena, Um,

190
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:40,199
Speaker 1: I would go see bands by myself because nobody wanted

191
00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:42,479
Speaker 1: to go with me. Well, I have that same experience.

192
00:10:42,520 --> 00:10:44,599
Speaker 1: I don't remember it at ten, but certainly once you

193
00:10:44,679 --> 00:10:47,800
Speaker 1: hit like fourteen fifteen and later, you know I would.

194
00:10:47,840 --> 00:10:49,199
Speaker 1: I would go and no one want to go, but

195
00:10:49,240 --> 00:10:52,880
Speaker 1: it wouldn't stop me. And the other thing that people

196
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:54,640
Speaker 1: say is I have a friend of his concert promoter

197
00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:57,560
Speaker 1: in Denver. He says, well, he thinks about it throwing

198
00:10:57,559 --> 00:11:00,280
Speaker 1: a party, whereas back then they used to have seats.

199
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:03,440
Speaker 1: It was like a religious experience more than you know,

200
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:06,840
Speaker 1: just hanging with the people. Oh yeah, it really was.

201
00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,640
Speaker 1: It was like we were one. You know. It wasn't

202
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:13,360
Speaker 1: like not too continually like conjure up the grateful dead,

203
00:11:13,400 --> 00:11:16,400
Speaker 1: but there was that sense of community that really came

204
00:11:16,440 --> 00:11:18,400
Speaker 1: out of the sixties that we were one. We were

205
00:11:18,440 --> 00:11:21,880
Speaker 1: all in it together. This was holy and actually there's

206
00:11:21,960 --> 00:11:24,800
Speaker 1: like some some kind of information that we're all sharing.

207
00:11:24,880 --> 00:11:27,680
Speaker 1: It's kinda like close encounters of the third kind. We

208
00:11:27,760 --> 00:11:31,560
Speaker 1: all saw mashed potatoes, we all saw mountains that our

209
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:35,240
Speaker 1: mashed potatoes, So there was there was just something addictive

210
00:11:35,240 --> 00:11:38,800
Speaker 1: about it. And well, a lot of our generations sold

211
00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:42,880
Speaker 1: out after Reagan lowered taxes and legitimized greed. Where did

212
00:11:42,920 --> 00:11:46,280
Speaker 1: that leave you? Um? I had my mom years. I

213
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:50,120
Speaker 1: actually um got off the road. I think I saw

214
00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:52,559
Speaker 1: another lids up until I got off the road. I

215
00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:55,439
Speaker 1: found out that I was pregnant and thought, okay, you

216
00:11:55,559 --> 00:11:57,480
Speaker 1: cannot be a mom and be a rock writer and

217
00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:59,720
Speaker 1: be on the road. So I actually took the eighties off.

218
00:11:59,840 --> 00:12:02,360
Speaker 1: My daughter was born eighty, and I didn't really I

219
00:12:02,440 --> 00:12:04,760
Speaker 1: came back and wrote like in the mid eighties, and

220
00:12:04,760 --> 00:12:09,040
Speaker 1: then came back completely in ninety one. And were you

221
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:13,400
Speaker 1: married to your daughter's father? I was yes? And was

222
00:12:13,440 --> 00:12:18,240
Speaker 1: he in the music business? Yes, he owned berserk Lee Records. Um, okay,

223
00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:21,720
Speaker 1: that's Matthew KINGE Coffin. You are still married to him? Yes,

224
00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:25,000
Speaker 1: I am. That's you know, that's very rare, not only

225
00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:29,520
Speaker 1: for people who our generation, but people our age. How

226
00:12:29,559 --> 00:12:32,440
Speaker 1: did you meet him? I was working for a record

227
00:12:32,480 --> 00:12:35,080
Speaker 1: World that was with a minor trade in the in

228
00:12:35,120 --> 00:12:39,600
Speaker 1: the triad of trades and cash box billboard and record World,

229
00:12:39,760 --> 00:12:42,559
Speaker 1: which supposedly had the best charts that's what they said

230
00:12:42,880 --> 00:12:46,600
Speaker 1: Record World. They did say that for so many reasons,

231
00:12:47,080 --> 00:12:50,679
Speaker 1: but we will not explore here. And I was doing

232
00:12:51,080 --> 00:12:54,319
Speaker 1: a column called The Coast and it was deadline and

233
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:58,439
Speaker 1: I got a tip from Toby Mamas, who now works

234
00:12:58,480 --> 00:13:02,400
Speaker 1: for Alice Cooper. Yeah, I hear from every day, I'm sure,

235
00:13:03,760 --> 00:13:09,559
Speaker 1: And he told me that Journey who had to managers, Um,

236
00:13:09,800 --> 00:13:13,440
Speaker 1: we're actually splitting ways. And I just stuck it in

237
00:13:13,480 --> 00:13:16,240
Speaker 1: the end of my column. No big deal, It wasn't flashy.

238
00:13:16,320 --> 00:13:19,400
Speaker 1: I just because I had an industry column. So the

239
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:22,120
Speaker 1: next week I get a call from Rogerson Cowen and

240
00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:25,160
Speaker 1: they have a client, Matthew King Kaufman, and he wants

241
00:13:25,200 --> 00:13:30,680
Speaker 1: to take whoever wrote the item about um the Journey

242
00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:33,680
Speaker 1: managers to lunch because he had just had lunch with

243
00:13:33,760 --> 00:13:36,640
Speaker 1: them and they didn't tell him that that he that

244
00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:39,160
Speaker 1: they were breaking up. So he came down to l

245
00:13:39,200 --> 00:13:43,960
Speaker 1: A from Berkeley and took me to lunch and we

246
00:13:44,040 --> 00:13:46,319
Speaker 1: hit it off. He uh, he used to go to

247
00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:47,960
Speaker 1: the track. I used to go to the track. And

248
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,800
Speaker 1: he had this contraption called a bio later and I

249
00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:54,760
Speaker 1: definitely have a metaphysical bend. And the bileage showed you

250
00:13:54,760 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 1: your virhythms. But also seemed like JFK had three critical

251
00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:03,560
Speaker 1: days in the day died. So I was fascinated, like

252
00:14:03,760 --> 00:14:05,640
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the day I was going to die.

253
00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:09,040
Speaker 1: So he left that lunch and he gave me his violator.

254
00:14:09,280 --> 00:14:15,960
Speaker 1: So fast forward, how many years later? Yeah, still married? Okay,

255
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:19,880
Speaker 1: so it was essentially an instant romance. No, actually a boyfriend.

256
00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:23,120
Speaker 1: So I had to work work through that, you know.

257
00:14:23,520 --> 00:14:26,320
Speaker 1: I we were friends for about six months and we

258
00:14:26,360 --> 00:14:27,920
Speaker 1: would go to the track and then one day I

259
00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:32,400
Speaker 1: just thought, Wow, I've got something for this guy, Like

260
00:14:32,480 --> 00:14:36,840
Speaker 1: there's there's some chemistry. It's a slow burn. Okay, why

261
00:14:36,880 --> 00:14:41,080
Speaker 1: the track. I had an uncle who had horses, and

262
00:14:41,320 --> 00:14:43,920
Speaker 1: um he taught me how to handicap as a kid.

263
00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 1: And I've always been really good at math, and I

264
00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:48,360
Speaker 1: love astrology, so I always would say, oh, it's just

265
00:14:48,440 --> 00:14:52,120
Speaker 1: horse astrology. If you figure out a horse's patterns much

266
00:14:52,200 --> 00:14:55,680
Speaker 1: like astrology, figure out some of these transits, then you

267
00:14:55,680 --> 00:14:59,080
Speaker 1: can actually be pretty good at predict who's going to

268
00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:02,960
Speaker 1: win at the track. And I was. And Matt grew

269
00:15:03,040 --> 00:15:06,760
Speaker 1: up across from Kilmaco in Maryland and he used to

270
00:15:06,760 --> 00:15:08,960
Speaker 1: go to the track as a kid. So we both

271
00:15:08,960 --> 00:15:12,640
Speaker 1: were handicappers, I mean one of those oddball kind of association.

272
00:15:12,840 --> 00:15:16,080
Speaker 1: So what was your biggest win ever? Enough to buy

273
00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:21,080
Speaker 1: furniture from my living room? And and at this if

274
00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,360
Speaker 1: we close your bedding career today in the black or

275
00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:30,440
Speaker 1: the red? Oh, definitely the black. Wo. Yeah, I'm careful

276
00:15:30,520 --> 00:15:34,560
Speaker 1: better and I'm really O C D about my numbers. Okay,

277
00:15:34,720 --> 00:15:37,080
Speaker 1: so I'll ask you, is it fixed or is it not?

278
00:15:38,600 --> 00:15:41,000
Speaker 1: Even if it is, there's certain things when you look

279
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,080
Speaker 1: at a horse. There's a there used to be a

280
00:15:43,160 --> 00:15:46,520
Speaker 1: video tip called the fit of I think It's fit

281
00:15:46,680 --> 00:15:49,760
Speaker 1: racehorse by this woman called Bonnie lead Better, and she

282
00:15:49,800 --> 00:15:52,800
Speaker 1: would show you the physicality of a horse and how

283
00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:55,760
Speaker 1: you you should bet at it that if it has

284
00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:58,680
Speaker 1: certain kind of attributes, or if it had foam in

285
00:15:58,840 --> 00:16:01,560
Speaker 1: his leg or any of those things. So, even if

286
00:16:01,600 --> 00:16:05,360
Speaker 1: it's fixed, which I'm certain it is, you can still

287
00:16:05,480 --> 00:16:07,360
Speaker 1: override that if you look at the condition of horse,

288
00:16:07,360 --> 00:16:09,640
Speaker 1: because sometimes the horse just wants to run, no matter

289
00:16:09,680 --> 00:16:12,680
Speaker 1: what the jockeys thinking. Okay, let's go back to the

290
00:16:12,720 --> 00:16:15,320
Speaker 1: Grandy ball room. So you're the coke girl. How long

291
00:16:15,360 --> 00:16:19,080
Speaker 1: does that last? That loss? About three years? And in

292
00:16:19,120 --> 00:16:21,560
Speaker 1: that three years, you have a desire to get deeper

293
00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:25,280
Speaker 1: into the music business. Well, I would go home after

294
00:16:26,120 --> 00:16:28,360
Speaker 1: after my shift two o'clock in the morning, and I

295
00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:31,480
Speaker 1: would write about what I've seen. I just had a

296
00:16:31,520 --> 00:16:33,640
Speaker 1: sense it was better the second time around. So always

297
00:16:33,760 --> 00:16:36,800
Speaker 1: I was doing this little ad hoc reviews for myself,

298
00:16:36,920 --> 00:16:42,240
Speaker 1: just writing about bands. And right next to the the

299
00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:45,720
Speaker 1: coke counter there was a little kiosk. It was very

300
00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:49,000
Speaker 1: Kramer had a head shop and they sold like papers

301
00:16:49,000 --> 00:16:52,800
Speaker 1: and sundry things, and they sold cream magazines. I wasn't

302
00:16:52,840 --> 00:16:57,000
Speaker 1: there from day one, but I used to say them, Okay,

303
00:16:57,080 --> 00:16:59,720
Speaker 1: if I give you free Coca colas, can I write

304
00:16:59,720 --> 00:17:02,920
Speaker 1: for magazine? And they go, oh yeah, sure. But I

305
00:17:03,000 --> 00:17:05,320
Speaker 1: kept doing that because I was bent and determined that

306
00:17:05,359 --> 00:17:07,159
Speaker 1: I would write for cream magazine because there was not

307
00:17:07,359 --> 00:17:10,000
Speaker 1: the game in town. So yeah, it's funny because and

308
00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:13,000
Speaker 1: I worked in this place called the bird Feeder where

309
00:17:13,040 --> 00:17:17,359
Speaker 1: you said food on the plaza at Snowbird in Utah.

310
00:17:17,800 --> 00:17:20,760
Speaker 1: I would cree favor with the freestyle skiers by giving

311
00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:23,800
Speaker 1: them big ice cream. So it's like the same thing.

312
00:17:23,880 --> 00:17:28,480
Speaker 1: I've never actually had that experience. Okay, so you're staying

313
00:17:28,560 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 1: up till two in the morning when you're in high school.

314
00:17:31,280 --> 00:17:34,720
Speaker 1: I am, and your parents totally cool with that. My

315
00:17:34,760 --> 00:17:38,639
Speaker 1: mom was a dancer and she she used to dance

316
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:41,760
Speaker 1: with jazz bands. So she said to me when I

317
00:17:41,800 --> 00:17:43,560
Speaker 1: was really young, the only thing I'm going to tell

318
00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:46,840
Speaker 1: you is never date a sax player and never try heroin.

319
00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:51,600
Speaker 1: So she was absolutely cool, you know. She They really

320
00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:54,119
Speaker 1: gave me a long leash. You know, they were they

321
00:17:54,119 --> 00:17:57,679
Speaker 1: were kind of Matthew. My husband always says they were

322
00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:00,240
Speaker 1: like Sid and Nancy, you know, because my parents just

323
00:18:00,320 --> 00:18:04,880
Speaker 1: like wild hipsters. So yeah, it was just normal for me. Okay,

324
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:10,680
Speaker 1: so when did you do your homework? I did on Sundays. Actually,

325
00:18:10,760 --> 00:18:12,960
Speaker 1: like to this day, I hate Sundays because I had

326
00:18:12,960 --> 00:18:17,760
Speaker 1: to do play catchup. Okay, so you graduate from high school,

327
00:18:17,800 --> 00:18:21,760
Speaker 1: you're still working at the Grandy Ballroom. And then where

328
00:18:21,800 --> 00:18:23,840
Speaker 1: do you end up going to college? I go to

329
00:18:23,880 --> 00:18:29,720
Speaker 1: Wayne State University UM, and I actually that's actually the

330
00:18:29,760 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 1: bigger entrance to the Cream because when I was registering,

331
00:18:34,040 --> 00:18:37,240
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, unbeknownst he was growing out with

332
00:18:37,280 --> 00:18:39,840
Speaker 1: the art director at Cream, Charlie Oranger, And she says

333
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:42,440
Speaker 1: to me, I'm just about to break up with them,

334
00:18:42,520 --> 00:18:44,320
Speaker 1: you know, I've got somebody else I have my eye

335
00:18:44,320 --> 00:18:46,880
Speaker 1: and I go, really, why would you? And she goes,

336
00:18:47,040 --> 00:18:48,639
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just not my types. I said,

337
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:53,400
Speaker 1: do you mind if I actually make a play for him? Um.

338
00:18:53,720 --> 00:18:55,920
Speaker 1: It was very subtle, but that was it. I met

339
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:58,440
Speaker 1: Charlie Oranger, and that's how I got to Cream. Really

340
00:18:58,520 --> 00:19:01,120
Speaker 1: is that we just started having coffee dates and Um

341
00:19:01,160 --> 00:19:03,920
Speaker 1: eventually brought me over to the offices. So I met

342
00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:07,840
Speaker 1: everybody that way. Okay, did you graduate from college? Eventually?

343
00:19:07,840 --> 00:19:11,320
Speaker 1: I graduated ninety two because I was I finally got

344
00:19:11,320 --> 00:19:13,919
Speaker 1: a job full time at Cream and I couldn't do

345
00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,800
Speaker 1: college and Cream that I couldn't do that homework, so

346
00:19:16,960 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 1: I dropped out about a year and a half into it.

347
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:25,440
Speaker 1: And then what was the motivation in the execution of graduating? Well,

348
00:19:25,480 --> 00:19:29,040
Speaker 1: I always felt like I wanted to to actually get

349
00:19:29,080 --> 00:19:31,439
Speaker 1: a degree, But I think the other thing is having

350
00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:34,920
Speaker 1: those ten mom years where I was just really pretty

351
00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:39,520
Speaker 1: much a housewife and learning astrology and playing the horses.

352
00:19:40,119 --> 00:19:42,280
Speaker 1: I thought, I've got to figure out my next act.

353
00:19:42,920 --> 00:19:44,919
Speaker 1: So I went back to school thinking I'd be a

354
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: history teacher. I got a degree in history, and the

355
00:19:48,400 --> 00:19:51,199
Speaker 1: only job I could get besides working for the Democratic

356
00:19:51,240 --> 00:19:55,560
Speaker 1: Party was working at magazine. So I worked at Band

357
00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:58,439
Speaker 1: magazine for a while, and then I just started freelancing

358
00:19:58,480 --> 00:20:01,199
Speaker 1: and then really worked my way back to my you know,

359
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:05,200
Speaker 1: chop wood carry water before Enlightenment, chop wood carry water

360
00:20:05,280 --> 00:20:08,760
Speaker 1: after Enlightenment. I just became myself again. Okay. And where

361
00:20:08,800 --> 00:20:14,200
Speaker 1: did you get your degree? Cal Berkeley? Okay, so let's

362
00:20:14,200 --> 00:20:17,720
Speaker 1: go back. So you meet Orange or in the back

363
00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:20,199
Speaker 1: of your mind you want to work for queam in

364
00:20:20,200 --> 00:20:23,560
Speaker 1: in front of my mind, I want to work for Cream. Okay.

365
00:20:23,600 --> 00:20:27,080
Speaker 1: So this this is when you're like a freshman that

366
00:20:27,200 --> 00:20:30,800
Speaker 1: this starts to happen. Yeah, I'm a freshman. Okay, So

367
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:32,960
Speaker 1: how do you drop it on him that, hey, I

368
00:20:33,000 --> 00:20:35,359
Speaker 1: want a connection to the magazine. You know, it was

369
00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:37,280
Speaker 1: just really subtle. He knew I was a writer, and

370
00:20:37,440 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 1: I was writing. I mean for myself. I had published

371
00:20:40,359 --> 00:20:42,680
Speaker 1: except for, you know, a couple of things in like

372
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 1: high school paper, but other than that nothing, And I

373
00:20:46,800 --> 00:20:49,480
Speaker 1: just talked about wanting to be a writer. So he

374
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 1: lived at the Cream offices. Cream was a series of

375
00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:55,959
Speaker 1: communes for the first like eight years or so, so

376
00:20:56,080 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 1: he lived where the offices were very Cramer and Dave

377
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:01,119
Speaker 1: Marsh lives, so I would go there with them and

378
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:04,120
Speaker 1: I hit it up. It wasn't so strategic. I mean

379
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:06,440
Speaker 1: I like to be around people like me. I mean,

380
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 1: there is that whole misfit outsider aspect of Cream magazine anyway,

381
00:21:11,840 --> 00:21:13,840
Speaker 1: and there was something that connected all the people who

382
00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 1: ended up working there, and I just I really hit

383
00:21:16,480 --> 00:21:20,440
Speaker 1: it off with Dave Marsh immediately, and Barry Kramer scared

384
00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:23,880
Speaker 1: me for the longest time, but you know, I felt

385
00:21:23,920 --> 00:21:27,119
Speaker 1: like I was home. It's funny you mentioned that, because

386
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,720
Speaker 1: that used to be a defining marker, uh, the inside

387
00:21:30,720 --> 00:21:33,600
Speaker 1: outside and the fact that, I mean a person who

388
00:21:33,600 --> 00:21:35,480
Speaker 1: was captain of the football team would never be the

389
00:21:35,520 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 1: big Rock fan insider. And now it's all you know.

390
00:21:39,440 --> 00:21:41,240
Speaker 1: You see people going to the Stone show and buying

391
00:21:41,280 --> 00:21:44,040
Speaker 1: five leather jackets. You go, they were not into the

392
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 1: Stones back when you went in sixty six. I know, right,

393
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:50,680
Speaker 1: I I think about that, like, especially if I don't

394
00:21:50,720 --> 00:21:53,160
Speaker 1: know about you, but I've gone to my high school reunions.

395
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:58,119
Speaker 1: I have not. Oh, I don't recommend it, but well,

396
00:21:58,320 --> 00:22:02,080
Speaker 1: let's float down fascinated. Which reunions have you been to?

397
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,000
Speaker 1: Did you start like right away, I like with the

398
00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:06,359
Speaker 1: five year reunion, I started the ten year and we

399
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:08,720
Speaker 1: started a ten year so I went to that one. Okay,

400
00:22:08,800 --> 00:22:11,400
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated with history. I got my degree in history.

401
00:22:11,680 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: And there's nothing like seeing your appears as a bookmark

402
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:18,840
Speaker 1: to who you were and who you've become and you

403
00:22:18,880 --> 00:22:23,280
Speaker 1: measure yourself against them, which you which kids always do. Well,

404
00:22:23,440 --> 00:22:26,280
Speaker 1: you don't really think about a sixties something doing that,

405
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:29,359
Speaker 1: but you still do that. And now it's kind of

406
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:31,400
Speaker 1: like the false memory syndrome. It's like all the people

407
00:22:31,400 --> 00:22:34,040
Speaker 1: who said they were at Excess Pistols concert, like all

408
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:35,959
Speaker 1: of the people now say they read cream and they

409
00:22:35,960 --> 00:22:39,960
Speaker 1: always you know, exactly yeah. It's like no, right, and

410
00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,760
Speaker 1: you were you were Woodstock too, Yeah, exactly right. Okay, okay,

411
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,199
Speaker 1: just so we get some of the geography down. What

412
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:49,880
Speaker 1: town do you grow up in? A little town called

413
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,400
Speaker 1: later At Village. It's outside of Detroit, Like how far

414
00:22:53,720 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 1: from the Renaissance Center, etcetera. Twelve miles because Detroit structured

415
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 1: on mile roads that yeah, from down so essentially close.

416
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:04,439
Speaker 1: So if there was like a bus when you were

417
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:06,960
Speaker 1: a teenager you could take into town. There was a

418
00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: bus when I was a teenager, and that's how I

419
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,560
Speaker 1: had to get anywhere because I'm so dyslexic. I didn't

420
00:23:11,600 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: get my license. So I was nineteen. So yes, I

421
00:23:13,880 --> 00:23:15,640
Speaker 1: took a bus to work and then and then how

422
00:23:15,640 --> 00:23:20,119
Speaker 1: did you get back from the Grande Ballroom? Uh? God

423
00:23:20,200 --> 00:23:24,879
Speaker 1: made hitch hiking or asking asking people for rides. My

424
00:23:24,920 --> 00:23:27,320
Speaker 1: girlfriends and I were like a posse of you know,

425
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,560
Speaker 1: could you give us a ride in those perilous times. So, yeah,

426
00:23:31,600 --> 00:23:34,520
Speaker 1: we didn't have cars. None of us drove. Right, It's

427
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:36,640
Speaker 1: not like today when the kids sixteen and they get

428
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:40,480
Speaker 1: a car. And Wayne State is how far from Detroit?

429
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:44,000
Speaker 1: It's about two miles from downtown Detroit. It's an inner

430
00:23:44,000 --> 00:23:48,040
Speaker 1: city college. Okay, So when you're going to Wayne State,

431
00:23:48,040 --> 00:23:51,720
Speaker 1: you're living at home. I'm going at home. Okay. So

432
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:57,399
Speaker 1: Barry Kramer starts Queen magazine on top of his record store.

433
00:23:57,800 --> 00:24:02,399
Speaker 1: How long after that do you start visiting the offices? Okay?

434
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,919
Speaker 1: His record store was elsewhere down Cass Avenue. It was

435
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,840
Speaker 1: actually a place where it was like a It was

436
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: an old storefront where people used to just live, turned

437
00:24:12,840 --> 00:24:16,119
Speaker 1: into apartment. So Barry lived there and he turned that

438
00:24:16,240 --> 00:24:19,960
Speaker 1: into his offices. So I'm there like it starts in

439
00:24:20,080 --> 00:24:23,159
Speaker 1: marsh of sixty nine and I start going. That was

440
00:24:23,280 --> 00:24:27,480
Speaker 1: Charlie Oranger in August of sixty nine, So I'm there

441
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:32,120
Speaker 1: from August August nine on. Well, that's essentially the same

442
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: because outside of Michigan there was very little distribution of

443
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:38,439
Speaker 1: Green magazine at that particular time. But by time you

444
00:24:38,480 --> 00:24:41,640
Speaker 1: get involved, they've already gone to the structure of rural

445
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,480
Speaker 1: living in a house. Now by the time I get involved,

446
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: I'm after class, I'm going to Cream and I'm working,

447
00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:51,159
Speaker 1: and then then Charlie would drive me back Arou. I

448
00:24:51,240 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: would just stay there, so I'm I'm working until we

449
00:24:54,760 --> 00:25:00,639
Speaker 1: don't move to the horrible and horrible hinterlands until Okay,

450
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,800
Speaker 1: so you live with your parents through this whole time.

451
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,360
Speaker 1: I do up until I'm quasi literally tried, but I'm

452
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: not really like I wouldn't really commit. It just felt

453
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:17,439
Speaker 1: not morally wrong, just power structure wrong. Um, so I

454
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:20,600
Speaker 1: would stay there, but I didn't really move out of

455
00:25:20,640 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: my parents until maybe when we moved to Birmingham in

456
00:25:23,920 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: nineteen Okay, so it's sixty nine, you're working at Cream.

457
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 1: How much money are they paying you? Well, if you

458
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: got paid it was which was really twenty five with

459
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: the taxes taken out, someone reminded me, and seventy five,

460
00:25:42,119 --> 00:25:46,240
Speaker 1: even in those days was very little. So you could

461
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:50,119
Speaker 1: essentially do what live with your parents by cokes, you

462
00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: could essentially do that. I got a job at a

463
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:58,919
Speaker 1: suburban mall um to selling jeans, so I actually outfitted

464
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,600
Speaker 1: the whole staff and jeans and the Alice Cooper group

465
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:06,040
Speaker 1: if they came by, because we would, you know, we

466
00:26:07,080 --> 00:26:10,199
Speaker 1: I had no compunction, like you know it was, I

467
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:13,280
Speaker 1: have no this poet. I still a little bad that

468
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:16,240
Speaker 1: I shoplifted from the store that I actually worked for,

469
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: but I gave I gave jeans away to everybody on

470
00:26:18,720 --> 00:26:22,720
Speaker 1: the staff. And how long did you have two gigs? Oh?

471
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: I had two gigs, probably about four years. And selling jeans?

472
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:28,960
Speaker 1: Was that the only one? Or did you have something else?

473
00:26:29,040 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: You know that that was the only one I would.

474
00:26:30,680 --> 00:26:33,040
Speaker 1: I would go there in the morning, opened up the store,

475
00:26:33,240 --> 00:26:34,959
Speaker 1: and then I would go to cream and I'd come

476
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 1: back and close the store. So I pretty much was

477
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,639
Speaker 1: on the treadmill. Wow. How many hours a week were

478
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,040
Speaker 1: you working at the store? Oh, like I guess probably

479
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: between twenty and thirty all day Saturday, all day Sunday. Okay,

480
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:50,200
Speaker 1: so you when you get to Queam, what is the

481
00:26:50,280 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: status of the magazine in the operation? Well, when I

482
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:57,520
Speaker 1: get there, it's moving from that news printy thing. It

483
00:26:57,600 --> 00:27:02,280
Speaker 1: was actually has actual covers that has curt distribution. Um

484
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: how I how I really got there? And the door

485
00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:06,600
Speaker 1: wasn't for writing. It was because I worked at that

486
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: boutique and we sold T shirts and I said, why

487
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:13,119
Speaker 1: don't you let me create a T shirt line for

488
00:27:13,160 --> 00:27:16,359
Speaker 1: you and I'll just sell them under under the counter.

489
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:18,560
Speaker 1: I'll give you a percent of the profits. And I've

490
00:27:18,560 --> 00:27:20,960
Speaker 1: got a little sister and she's got a cadre of friends.

491
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 1: Why didn't I send them door to door selling cream

492
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 1: T shirts? And that's really essentially how I got my

493
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: job because I created a T shirt. Ok what did

494
00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: the T shirts have? The famous boy how and who

495
00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:40,920
Speaker 1: created boy Howdy? Oh? Our chrome created it before my time,

496
00:27:41,000 --> 00:27:44,360
Speaker 1: but but it was it was amazing something I think

497
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: he regretted because he only got paid fifty dollars for

498
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:50,800
Speaker 1: the logo. So I had a lot of situations. I

499
00:27:50,840 --> 00:27:53,439
Speaker 1: once spent night a night playing guitars with him. It

500
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,600
Speaker 1: was very interesting and seventy three, but that's a different digression.

501
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 1: So you're how many of these T shirts do you

502
00:28:00,600 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: think you're sold? Oh? I probably sold a couple, maybe

503
00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: a thousand, and that's yeah. And then well it was

504
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: a really popular mall store. I mean we had like

505
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,239
Speaker 1: so much traffic. We really did a big business. And

506
00:28:15,280 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: then my kid's sister, who's very entrepreneurial, rounded up all

507
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: of her friends and I think we paid them like

508
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: twenty bucks each. So then then we sold them through

509
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,480
Speaker 1: the magazine, and then it actually got to be as

510
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: big as it is. I mean even today people want them.

511
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:32,760
Speaker 1: So yeah, I finally threw mine now because they were

512
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 1: more holes than material. Okay, you're doing this, you're working

513
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,520
Speaker 1: two gigs, you're selling the T shirts. What does that

514
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,040
Speaker 1: evolved into? Um, they give me the job as a

515
00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: subscription kid, which I was now fulfilling subscriptions, not a

516
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: writing job, like tapping into these entrepreneurials like like kind

517
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: of them. I mean they did that. And then I

518
00:29:02,120 --> 00:29:05,800
Speaker 1: started selling small magazines to small dealers, so I handled

519
00:29:05,840 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: all of that part and then I can do reviews

520
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: at night, um, which I did a couple and they

521
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: were incredibly bad and terrible. And then finally I had

522
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: my break when Dave Marsh took me to to a

523
00:29:19,520 --> 00:29:23,920
Speaker 1: press conference where Smokey Robinson was retiring and didn't tell

524
00:29:23,920 --> 00:29:27,640
Speaker 1: me I had to write about it, So it was

525
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:30,800
Speaker 1: really it was accidental on their part. For me, I

526
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:33,080
Speaker 1: always planned to write for Cream. I just I just

527
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,120
Speaker 1: didn't think it was gonna take me almost two years

528
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:38,440
Speaker 1: to do it. Do you think that the factor was

529
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,880
Speaker 1: were a woman in a boys club worked against you? Oh? No,

530
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: I always worked for me. Um. I think there's great

531
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:49,240
Speaker 1: power and being underestimated and getting away with really really

532
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: rude questions or really incisive ones and people don't see

533
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: it coming. I think the thing was is I think

534
00:29:57,360 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: being able to write about bands are spoke bands. It

535
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: was a day where they thought most reporters were groupies,

536
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:07,840
Speaker 1: so they would really act out or not take it seriously,

537
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: and I would always present to my story and it

538
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:13,200
Speaker 1: was it was funnier because of that, because I definitely

539
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 1: have a comic bent. So I think always worked for me. Okay,

540
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: tell the fulm Smokey Robinson article story, which is delineated

541
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: or shown in the movie. Um. I went with Dave

542
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: Marsh and Charlie Orangered down to a hotel in Detroit,

543
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:34,640
Speaker 1: and with a lot of hoopla, hometown hero Smokey Robinson

544
00:30:34,680 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 1: announces that he's leaving the Miracles, a heartbreaking event for

545
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:43,479
Speaker 1: any Detroit kid because he was like poet laureate, he

546
00:30:43,680 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: was the man, and I was sad. I was a

547
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,960
Speaker 1: huge Miracles fan. So Dave took me because of that,

548
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 1: but he didn't tell me. He says he did, but

549
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: he didn't tell me. I had to write about it.

550
00:30:54,920 --> 00:30:57,480
Speaker 1: So I go back to my parents house where I'm living,

551
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,840
Speaker 1: and he calls me about o'clock at night, and he goes,

552
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,160
Speaker 1: where's that story? And I go, what are you talking about?

553
00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: He goes, you know that story about Smoky And I go,

554
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,920
Speaker 1: there is no story. What story? So he says you

555
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: have to write it? And I go, I don't have

556
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:13,360
Speaker 1: any Miracle albums. So it goes get out over here.

557
00:31:13,400 --> 00:31:17,040
Speaker 1: So I then by then I'm nineteen, I have a car.

558
00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: I drive to the Cream office and I pick up

559
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:24,720
Speaker 1: his Miracle's albums. I listened to him all night long

560
00:31:24,760 --> 00:31:26,760
Speaker 1: and stay up all night long and write an open

561
00:31:26,840 --> 00:31:30,200
Speaker 1: letter to Smokey Robinson, which was the cover story. So

562
00:31:30,440 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 1: my first time out, it's a cover story and it's

563
00:31:33,320 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: you know, please please slee smoking, don't go okay they

564
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 1: all you know, they also say in the movie it

565
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:42,880
Speaker 1: was a great letter. So the door is now open.

566
00:31:42,880 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: What's your next step? Well, next step set, I'm doing reviews. Um.

567
00:31:48,400 --> 00:31:51,120
Speaker 1: I'm still working as a subscription kid, like eight hours

568
00:31:51,120 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: a day, ten hours a day, but I'm writing reviews

569
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:58,640
Speaker 1: at night and they're better, Like you know, Lester's helping me. Um.

570
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,160
Speaker 1: I'm writing them kind of in a style of j. R.

571
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:04,600
Speaker 1: Young was up. He's still alive, but he was a

572
00:32:04,720 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: rolling stone UM reviewer and he always made them into

573
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: a little story. So all my reviews became little stories,

574
00:32:10,360 --> 00:32:13,480
Speaker 1: little vignettes. And I did that for a while, and

575
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:16,400
Speaker 1: you know, I just I got all the girls stories,

576
00:32:16,440 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: you know, like I got like Dionne Warwick or Carly Simon.

577
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,120
Speaker 1: And one day let's just said, you know, this is

578
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,600
Speaker 1: unfair to you. We're ghetto wise in you. We've got

579
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,200
Speaker 1: to get you out of this teenage girl ghetto. So

580
00:32:27,440 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 1: they started giving me like bat you like. I started

581
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,920
Speaker 1: getting heavy metal bands and stories, you know, led zep one.

582
00:32:34,080 --> 00:32:36,720
Speaker 1: So that was how funny, let's see the girl in

583
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,640
Speaker 1: the short skirt write about metal bands. So you know,

584
00:32:39,880 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 1: I was playing against type. But that actually I really

585
00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 1: didn't mind, like anything that someone else didn't want. I

586
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: took because I wanted to get published. And did you

587
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:53,280
Speaker 1: like all of this music you were reviewing and writing about? Well?

588
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:55,480
Speaker 1: I did, I actually did. I mean, I really love

589
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:57,640
Speaker 1: hard music. I love the MC five, I liked the

590
00:32:57,640 --> 00:33:01,720
Speaker 1: students a lot. Um. I actually had a great love

591
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,840
Speaker 1: for like Grand Funk Railroad. You know, I really did

592
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,920
Speaker 1: like that kind of meat and potatoes, bone headed rock

593
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:14,680
Speaker 1: for I still do actually. Okay, so uh, when is

594
00:33:14,720 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: the first time you go on the road for cream? Um?

595
00:33:18,240 --> 00:33:21,680
Speaker 1: I think it was seventy two. I go on the

596
00:33:21,760 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: road with Steve Miller and we go to a couple

597
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:29,720
Speaker 1: of days in Ohio. Who's paying for that? Well, I

598
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: think it was Capital Records at the time. That was

599
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: when they would, you know, people would put the bill

600
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,440
Speaker 1: for everything, you know, the days of like showering you

601
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 1: with with ephemera and lobster dinners. And was there a

602
00:33:43,840 --> 00:33:48,280
Speaker 1: wink wink? Is cam't be a negative article? No, it

603
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 1: wasn't at all. Actually he was. He was a really

604
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:53,440
Speaker 1: good teacher for a lot of things. If that was

605
00:33:53,480 --> 00:33:56,200
Speaker 1: the first one, it was really good, Like he had

606
00:33:56,240 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: a brother who was a heroin attic and he told

607
00:33:58,880 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: me all about it. And when I didn't put in

608
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: the story, I saw him. Lady goes, well, what I

609
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,760
Speaker 1: gave you an exclusive? Why didn't you use it? I

610
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: think I didn't know that you could be that brutal

611
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,120
Speaker 1: at the time. I mean, I was just finding my

612
00:34:10,200 --> 00:34:13,440
Speaker 1: sea legs. So no, he was good. He also I

613
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:15,759
Speaker 1: remember him making a pass at me and I'm saying, oh, no,

614
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:18,440
Speaker 1: I have a boyfriend, and he said, well, that was

615
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: just a test. And I said, are we out right?

616
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,960
Speaker 1: And he goes, no, How could you actually sleep with

617
00:34:23,000 --> 00:34:25,799
Speaker 1: somebody that you were doing a story on and think

618
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:27,680
Speaker 1: that you could stick a microphone in their face the

619
00:34:27,719 --> 00:34:30,520
Speaker 1: next day and actually get something. So I mean that

620
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: was a good cautionary tale anyway. So um, I thank

621
00:34:34,640 --> 00:34:38,160
Speaker 1: them for a lot. And was your style to use

622
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 1: a cassette recorder? Yeah? I took notes and a cassette recorder. Actually,

623
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:46,479
Speaker 1: I'm such a spoon vendor. I've always had two tape

624
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 1: recorders with me at all times. What kind of tape

625
00:34:49,840 --> 00:34:52,759
Speaker 1: recorders were they? A little sony cassette? I still own

626
00:34:52,840 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 1: them today. Okay, okay, So if you let's say you

627
00:34:57,960 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: went on the road with Steve Miller. How many cassettes

628
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:01,920
Speaker 1: would you end up with? Oh my god, Well I

629
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:04,640
Speaker 1: would just because I overdo things anyway. I would take

630
00:35:04,680 --> 00:35:06,959
Speaker 1: six of them and just just keep them talking, because

631
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,520
Speaker 1: you really don't know what's a good quote. I think

632
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: when you're learning how to do journalism, you don't know

633
00:35:12,719 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 1: what's important. So you just record everything and and you

634
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:18,560
Speaker 1: know the story emerges, but you know what if you

635
00:35:18,640 --> 00:35:21,920
Speaker 1: miss it? So I think the worst part about journalism

636
00:35:21,960 --> 00:35:26,239
Speaker 1: was always transcribing the tapes. Okay, so if you're on

637
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:29,439
Speaker 1: the road with Steve Miller, there's obviously a sit down

638
00:35:29,480 --> 00:35:33,120
Speaker 1: at some point, but there must be interaction in between,

639
00:35:33,719 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 1: and you're not recording that, are you know, you're taking

640
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,200
Speaker 1: notes on Thatt like we were in Cleveland. They went

641
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,919
Speaker 1: to his cousin's house for dinner, you know. So there's

642
00:35:42,960 --> 00:35:45,839
Speaker 1: all those cute little moments, and you learn to use

643
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,799
Speaker 1: those because everything is a metaphor, and every object you

644
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:52,319
Speaker 1: see and every reaction that someone has to something that's

645
00:35:52,400 --> 00:35:56,520
Speaker 1: not mostly a rock question like a quiz show question,

646
00:35:56,920 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 1: is where the really more important stuff is. It's like

647
00:36:00,040 --> 00:36:02,640
Speaker 1: you see the nature of the person who makes the music.

648
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: Then somehow informs the music in a much more interesting way.

649
00:36:07,520 --> 00:36:11,719
Speaker 1: So I've really been more of a forensic object reporter,

650
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:14,360
Speaker 1: where I will I'll talk about somebody in terms to

651
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 1: their objects, or how they act or how they At

652
00:36:17,000 --> 00:36:19,960
Speaker 1: one point was how how a man treated up Jesse

653
00:36:20,120 --> 00:36:22,840
Speaker 1: Mail and how he treated a waitress. You know, because

654
00:36:23,200 --> 00:36:25,680
Speaker 1: everything is everything? Is it? Quaintly used to say in

655
00:36:25,719 --> 00:36:28,800
Speaker 1: the seventies, right, So if you're on the road with

656
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 1: Steve Miller, you the only writer on the road with Steve. Okay,

657
00:36:32,800 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 1: the magazine came out monthly. Needles just say. Life goes

658
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,759
Speaker 1: up by daily. So there were certain times where you

659
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:41,840
Speaker 1: would write or do something and by time the magazine

660
00:36:41,840 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: has produced, your stuff is not included. Your stuff is included. No,

661
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, would you ever write something that

662
00:36:48,640 --> 00:36:52,640
Speaker 1: ended up on the cutting room floor? Never? Never? Never?

663
00:36:53,239 --> 00:36:57,040
Speaker 1: And to what degree would they editors alter what you wrote?

664
00:36:57,600 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: Not much? I mean, you know, we we were all

665
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:02,839
Speaker 1: pretty like like I read some of that stuff, like

666
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: I'm complete piling an anniversary issue to go out, go

667
00:37:06,640 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: out with the documentary, and I'm like going, oh my god,

668
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:12,840
Speaker 1: really we wrote that. It's not just me. It's like

669
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:14,800
Speaker 1: so I look at some of my stuff and I cringed,

670
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: but I look at other stuff and go, wow, I

671
00:37:16,800 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 1: was pretty fearless. I can't believe I I wrote that.

672
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: But no, Um, I think the thing was it was

673
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,280
Speaker 1: such a collaborative, great working environment, like a think tank,

674
00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: that if we needed help, we would talk to the

675
00:37:29,080 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 1: prison next to us. We're really small, We're all really

676
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: close and insular. So if I was having trouble in

677
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: a story, I'd go to Marshaw, I'd go to Leicester

678
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 1: VN Edmonds and say, hey, could you help me on this?

679
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:44,080
Speaker 1: So so no, it was never okay. So you break

680
00:37:44,120 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: in with Steve. Who's your next big act? Oh? Rick

681
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,760
Speaker 1: Wakeman's my next big Rick Wakeman. So he's already left, Yes,

682
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:55,880
Speaker 1: doing the doing the Caepe stuff and all that other

683
00:37:55,960 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: stuff is not really a typical cream magazine or coal.

684
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: So tell us that story well, because because the thing was,

685
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,759
Speaker 1: we would always like to put somebody in the situation

686
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:10,000
Speaker 1: and let I mean, we would choose for personalities like

687
00:38:10,040 --> 00:38:13,120
Speaker 1: he was a great recontour. He was just funny as hell.

688
00:38:13,760 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: And I did this one actually with Cameron Crowe and

689
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:20,160
Speaker 1: I remember, I remember we three of us who had

690
00:38:20,520 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: went down to have lunch, and he it was just

691
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,120
Speaker 1: like a boozy lunch and it was super funny. I

692
00:38:25,200 --> 00:38:28,239
Speaker 1: recorded that used none of that. And then later I

693
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: went to his room and I remember this so vividly

694
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: because it was one of those, oh my god, write

695
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:36,840
Speaker 1: of passage things. He answers the door and a towel,

696
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:41,239
Speaker 1: and I go, all right, what and I tell him

697
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:42,839
Speaker 1: to could put some clothes on it. He won't just

698
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,319
Speaker 1: a funk with me, right, not to make a move,

699
00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:49,000
Speaker 1: but just actually leverage the power of the interview. And

700
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: it was But again, this is what you would put

701
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:54,799
Speaker 1: in if you were a more season journalists. I don't

702
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,000
Speaker 1: think I even put in that he wouldn't put clothes on,

703
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 1: which is really ridiculously stupid of me. You know, in hindsight,

704
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 1: where I left out was more interesting than I put

705
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:09,000
Speaker 1: in at that point. And by your own choice, did

706
00:39:09,080 --> 00:39:12,920
Speaker 1: you ever have boyfriends in this world, whether they be

707
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 1: stars or other business people? Are you loyal to Charlie? No?

708
00:39:17,800 --> 00:39:20,400
Speaker 1: I was? I was. I was like monogamous. And the

709
00:39:20,440 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 1: other part was who had time to meet people? Because

710
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: we were such a small staff, we really didn't do

711
00:39:27,480 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 1: anything to go to the office like we worked. Maybe

712
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: eighteen hours a day, and when we went out, we

713
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 1: tended to go out on mass like we would go

714
00:39:34,239 --> 00:39:37,759
Speaker 1: see a band together, like everybody would go and um,

715
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:41,120
Speaker 1: we socialized together. There was really very little life outside

716
00:39:41,160 --> 00:39:45,760
Speaker 1: of Cream. You know. I was really monogamous. And Okay,

717
00:39:45,840 --> 00:39:51,160
Speaker 1: Rick Wakeman, ultimately you work with led Zeppelin and Leonard Skinner.

718
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: But before we get to those stories, anybody in between memorable. Um,

719
00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:58,160
Speaker 1: the Kiss Star is memorable because I can never believe

720
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:01,160
Speaker 1: they let me perform with them. Let's start from the game.

721
00:40:01,239 --> 00:40:04,759
Speaker 1: What year was the kiss story? That was? So I'm

722
00:40:04,760 --> 00:40:08,359
Speaker 1: probably skipping a lot of other stories, but that was

723
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:12,319
Speaker 1: that was really memorable. Okay, But rock and Roll All

724
00:40:12,440 --> 00:40:16,120
Speaker 1: Night from the live album has been a hit. Well,

725
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:18,799
Speaker 1: actually it happened when I went to the story. It

726
00:40:18,920 --> 00:40:22,839
Speaker 1: was the night after they recovered they record Alive, their

727
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: big breakout live albums. Okay, okay, so it wasn't released yet,

728
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,480
Speaker 1: it wasn't released. Okay. Were you a Kiss fan? Well,

729
00:40:30,520 --> 00:40:34,480
Speaker 1: I was a really huge Kiss idea fan I had.

730
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:38,719
Speaker 1: I had gone to London to covering David Essex and

731
00:40:38,760 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: one of those many things blocked On, which was an

732
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,480
Speaker 1: amazing song, and I came back to New York. I

733
00:40:43,480 --> 00:40:46,280
Speaker 1: had a layover because there was no nonstops to Detroit

734
00:40:46,360 --> 00:40:51,520
Speaker 1: and I went to some narest forum and Kiss was

735
00:40:51,640 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: one of the speakers. They run on this little panel

736
00:40:55,480 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: with Richard Robinson and Danny Fields and Wayne County. It

737
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,919
Speaker 1: was it was about gender in rock and roll, and

738
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,359
Speaker 1: they all switched around their name tags and they would

739
00:41:06,440 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: answer every every question with its only rock and roll.

740
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: But I like it because that Stone song had just

741
00:41:12,120 --> 00:41:14,239
Speaker 1: come out and I thought, this is hilarious. I can't

742
00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: believe they're not breaking character. This is really wonderful. We

743
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 1: have to cover it. I get back to Cream, but

744
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:23,400
Speaker 1: I saw this band like like, you know, they they

745
00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 1: have a record out, and you know, they're just like Nightmares.

746
00:41:27,320 --> 00:41:29,640
Speaker 1: And everybody said, oh no, no, they're just like New

747
00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: York doal clones. That's they're just trash their cartoons and

748
00:41:32,719 --> 00:41:35,640
Speaker 1: go no, no, we got to cover them. And I

749
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,120
Speaker 1: remember bed Edmonds telling me, cover you cover them, You

750
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:41,320
Speaker 1: want to cover them? You right it? So I created

751
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:45,960
Speaker 1: this this rock like Kiss comic, a comic strip panel

752
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: without takes from Dressed to Kill, and that was how

753
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,120
Speaker 1: we first got them in there. And I don't know,

754
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: I just pressed hard to get kissed in there because

755
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:56,439
Speaker 1: I just have this idea, even though I didn't love

756
00:41:56,480 --> 00:41:58,719
Speaker 1: the music, it was like an idea whose time had come,

757
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:02,040
Speaker 1: and it was just so comic book and so I

758
00:42:02,040 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: don't know, so death of art that I thought we

759
00:42:04,400 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: could make fun of them, which pretty much did right

760
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,440
Speaker 1: although after you left it seemed to be all kissing

761
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:16,320
Speaker 1: Cream magazine. But prior to going on stage with Kiss,

762
00:42:17,239 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: what was your relationship with them? Or was at the

763
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: very beginning? Um, when I met them at that panel

764
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,959
Speaker 1: and then um, they would play Detroit all the time.

765
00:42:26,000 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: And then I got this idea of doing a kiss comics,

766
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: which it was Kissed Comics with a K O K

767
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:34,839
Speaker 1: K O M I K and I did that. So

768
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:36,759
Speaker 1: I went and talked to him then and we got

769
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,399
Speaker 1: really friendly because I don't know, there was just we're

770
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:41,560
Speaker 1: all the same age, we're all coming up together. I

771
00:42:41,600 --> 00:42:43,399
Speaker 1: think they were making like a hundred bucks a week

772
00:42:43,440 --> 00:42:49,319
Speaker 1: and we were making so we just had this camaraderie,

773
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:52,120
Speaker 1: like I just felt like, I feel like Andie Dickinson

774
00:42:52,120 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: in the rat pack with them. Really, so tell us

775
00:42:55,120 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: the famous story about going on stage. Um, there used

776
00:43:00,560 --> 00:43:03,920
Speaker 1: to be a guy who worked there Um, Larry Larry

777
00:43:03,960 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 1: who was Neil Bogart Castle Blanka Records, because you're having

778
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:09,239
Speaker 1: to write a good book. He died of just a

779
00:43:09,239 --> 00:43:15,640
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. Forty Larry Harris, Larry Harris and Um,

780
00:43:15,680 --> 00:43:19,239
Speaker 1: he was always bringing bands over to Cream and he

781
00:43:19,360 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: was he was just a lot of fun. And I

782
00:43:22,000 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 1: called him on one day, um, and I said, Um,

783
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: Connie Cramer and I had this idea Barry's wife because

784
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: there was a story in and Esquire Blair Sobel had

785
00:43:33,600 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 1: done about being and I get so Connie and I

786
00:43:36,200 --> 00:43:38,520
Speaker 1: one night, working late read it and she says, do

787
00:43:38,520 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: you think you could do that? And I go, oh, yeah,

788
00:43:40,000 --> 00:43:42,440
Speaker 1: I could do that with Kiss? Right? And I go

789
00:43:42,520 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: yeah with Kiss. So I called up Larry Benjamin the

790
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:47,280
Speaker 1: next day and I said, could I go on stage

791
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: with Kiss? And he goes what, I go, No, can

792
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: I go on stage with Kiss? And he said yes,

793
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:55,160
Speaker 1: but you can't call him a glitterband? Like go, oh,

794
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,480
Speaker 1: no problem, I won't call him a glitterban. Okay. So

795
00:43:58,560 --> 00:44:01,560
Speaker 1: they come to town maybe week later, and I go

796
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:04,759
Speaker 1: to sound check to learn their moves because I'm gonna

797
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 1: go on stage with them, right, And when I meet

798
00:44:08,280 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: the band members who I know not well but I know.

799
00:44:11,520 --> 00:44:16,040
Speaker 1: I say, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go and stay

800
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:17,839
Speaker 1: with you, and they think I'm going to cover the band.

801
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 1: They don't know. No one's told them I'm going to

802
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:21,120
Speaker 1: go on stage with them, and they look at me

803
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 1: like I'm crazy. So so next morning, after they record

804
00:44:27,000 --> 00:44:30,520
Speaker 1: their album, we go to Johnstown, Pennsylvania on a little

805
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: prop plane and there I am they outfit me. Then

806
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:35,520
Speaker 1: I then like mother hands. Then they're into it and

807
00:44:35,560 --> 00:44:38,200
Speaker 1: we're gonna all be in this together and they're gonna

808
00:44:38,239 --> 00:44:40,880
Speaker 1: fix me up, and they, you know, they take turns

809
00:44:40,920 --> 00:44:43,160
Speaker 1: putting their makeup and they argue like, I'm looking too

810
00:44:43,239 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: much like June Simmons because he's he's like putting his

811
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:49,600
Speaker 1: bat wings on me. And you know, Ace Freely is

812
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 1: making fun of because I don't know how to put

813
00:44:51,080 --> 00:44:54,480
Speaker 1: makeup on because I never wore foundations. So but it

814
00:44:54,560 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 1: was great. I have to say it changed my life

815
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,919
Speaker 1: because I understood the addictive nature of what happens once

816
00:45:00,000 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: amazon stage and that surge of energy that you get

817
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,239
Speaker 1: from being on stage. I understood at that moment why

818
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 1: people do what they do and why they can't give

819
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,120
Speaker 1: it up, and I think that story not for the notoriety,

820
00:45:12,160 --> 00:45:16,280
Speaker 1: but more for that actual recognition of why why musicians

821
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: do that with has like really served me for the

822
00:45:19,120 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 1: rest of my life. Okay, so how long did you

823
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:24,839
Speaker 1: take them to make you up? Oh? Like twenty five

824
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 1: minutes longer. It takes them a long time even today,

825
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:30,399
Speaker 1: like I just covered well last year I covered them

826
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:33,160
Speaker 1: and their End of the World tour. They've been there

827
00:45:33,200 --> 00:45:38,080
Speaker 1: for two hours. It is really an intense process of

828
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,720
Speaker 1: stages upon stages of making up. And at what point

829
00:45:43,360 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 1: do you go on stage? Well, I'm thinking I'm doing

830
00:45:46,520 --> 00:45:50,760
Speaker 1: the whole show in my innocence, so they go on stage.

831
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,279
Speaker 1: I tried to go after them, all dressed up just

832
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 1: like them, you know, and the road manager post May goes, no,

833
00:45:58,200 --> 00:46:00,719
Speaker 1: you got you got the last song. So I had

834
00:46:00,760 --> 00:46:03,279
Speaker 1: to watch the whole show with the jitters like I'm

835
00:46:03,320 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 1: just shredding Kleenex. Then I'm nervous, like I'm all full

836
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 1: of gravato. I'll do it, you know. When I think

837
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:09,719
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go and do the whole show, I don't

838
00:46:09,760 --> 00:46:13,040
Speaker 1: know what I was thinking. So when Rocket Roll All

839
00:46:13,160 --> 00:46:16,600
Speaker 1: Night comes on, they pushed me out there, give me

840
00:46:17,440 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: this really this red guitar. I think it's offender, and

841
00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:25,440
Speaker 1: Paul tells me, like where low really low looks sexier

842
00:46:25,480 --> 00:46:28,279
Speaker 1: that way. And again they're like mother hands watching me

843
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 1: like I'm their kid at a recital, and it's so funny.

844
00:46:31,400 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: But I realized, which is I just made this realization

845
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 1: the other day. I was thinking about this that nobody

846
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 1: in that crowd in Johnston, Pennsylvania knew there was an

847
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:43,560
Speaker 1: extra member of Kiss. They're like, I never heard about it,

848
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:45,560
Speaker 1: No one wrote, it was in the paper. It was

849
00:46:45,800 --> 00:46:48,759
Speaker 1: like it was like some kind of big blooper. And

850
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:50,439
Speaker 1: the only way I ever knew about it is because

851
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:54,600
Speaker 1: I wrote about it later, you know, afterwards. But that

852
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 1: realization just cracked me up. And it was like if

853
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: if a tree falls in the forest and there's no

854
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: one there to hear, did it really fall? Did it?

855
00:47:02,480 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 1: It was just all mocked. Okay, so what do you do?

856
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:08,759
Speaker 1: During the number you were on stage? I actually had

857
00:47:08,760 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: an open mic. I sang with them and I danced around.

858
00:47:11,120 --> 00:47:14,560
Speaker 1: I danced behind behind Paul, and Paul has told me later,

859
00:47:14,600 --> 00:47:16,520
Speaker 1: he goes, I forgot you were there. All of a sudden,

860
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:18,239
Speaker 1: I looked me. It was like another me like a

861
00:47:18,280 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: big mini mouse singing. And of course anybody who's seeing

862
00:47:22,360 --> 00:47:25,799
Speaker 1: Kiss knows they wear these gigantic platforms. Did you have

863
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: a pair of platforms? I did. I did anyway, so

864
00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:31,560
Speaker 1: I just wear my own I actually had. I had

865
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: the right the right stuff except for the jewelry. I

866
00:47:34,280 --> 00:47:38,680
Speaker 1: was definitely right in line with their fashion statement. Okay,

867
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:40,760
Speaker 1: so you have the experience and you have the insight

868
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:44,319
Speaker 1: still continuing, you go back to write the story. Do

869
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: you realize the impact the story will have both for

870
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:51,239
Speaker 1: readers who are fans of Kiss and for you personally.

871
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,839
Speaker 1: I just think it's another story. I was always about

872
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:58,240
Speaker 1: high concept stories, like I've done other high concept stories before,

873
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:00,200
Speaker 1: so I just thought it was like the George Limp

874
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 1: something like nobody would even notice. It would just be

875
00:48:02,239 --> 00:48:05,319
Speaker 1: another story. How I knew it was a really big deal.

876
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:07,160
Speaker 1: And I swear some of the best things that ever

877
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: happened to me was the Bale Musicians Guide wanted to

878
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:14,640
Speaker 1: license it, and I thought, oh my god, blind kids

879
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 1: will actually see what that's like. So to me, that's like,

880
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:20,080
Speaker 1: I don't know why that one just really touches my heart,

881
00:48:20,080 --> 00:48:22,480
Speaker 1: but it did. Yeah, that's like the story that's just

882
00:48:22,800 --> 00:48:25,600
Speaker 1: reverberated around the world, like you know, just I got

883
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: to do it. So okay. One thing that always went

884
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: through my brain during that era had the line the

885
00:48:34,080 --> 00:48:36,960
Speaker 1: maiden form bra, which of course was the line from

886
00:48:37,040 --> 00:48:39,359
Speaker 1: the ad, but at that point in time, no one

887
00:48:39,400 --> 00:48:42,520
Speaker 1: in the demo Warren made in form bra, right, right,

888
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: that's so true. Well, it's because I grew up on

889
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: like fashion magazines. It's like, do you remember the ads, Belie.

890
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 1: You wouldn't remember that, but girls remember the ad was

891
00:48:50,200 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 1: these women would wear bras and they would wake up

892
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,719
Speaker 1: in these odd places like at the symphony or in

893
00:48:55,760 --> 00:48:58,040
Speaker 1: the office, and they'd be wearing like a pencil skirt

894
00:48:58,280 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: and be wearing just a bra and the top. I

895
00:49:01,000 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: don't remember that, yeah, of course. Okay, so I dreamt

896
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: that I was on stage with kissing my man form bra,

897
00:49:08,239 --> 00:49:11,759
Speaker 1: which I wasn't wearing. But the fact what was it

898
00:49:11,880 --> 00:49:15,759
Speaker 1: was like such a great hook. Oh it was great. Absolutely.

899
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:20,160
Speaker 1: Uh So you're a led Zeppelin fan from the beginning.

900
00:49:20,520 --> 00:49:22,400
Speaker 1: I'm such a led Zeppin fan. When I worked at

901
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,839
Speaker 1: the Grandi Ballroom, I was a big yard Bird Birds fan.

902
00:49:26,040 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: And one weekend I'm working there and this new band

903
00:49:29,440 --> 00:49:32,400
Speaker 1: who never no one ever heard of was led Zeppelin,

904
00:49:32,520 --> 00:49:35,440
Speaker 1: So no was at the at the venue, like no

905
00:49:35,480 --> 00:49:37,239
Speaker 1: one knew who they were, so no one showed up.

906
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:40,279
Speaker 1: By the second night, it was like wall to wall

907
00:49:40,320 --> 00:49:43,680
Speaker 1: people like words spread like wildfire. They were amazing like

908
00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,279
Speaker 1: they were, they looked beautiful, they played like it was

909
00:49:47,320 --> 00:49:51,319
Speaker 1: just like like sound like sound just broke through. This's

910
00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,680
Speaker 1: like that where mind meet Spotty. It was a trans

911
00:49:54,120 --> 00:49:57,640
Speaker 1: formative experience for me. Um. And then when they came back.

912
00:49:57,920 --> 00:50:01,200
Speaker 1: I remember taking my break during they're set and getting

913
00:50:01,239 --> 00:50:03,919
Speaker 1: on stage with them so I could hear them better.

914
00:50:04,000 --> 00:50:05,839
Speaker 1: And all of a sudden, I saw this picture of

915
00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,320
Speaker 1: me like I've got like my elbows on Jimmy Page's

916
00:50:09,440 --> 00:50:12,720
Speaker 1: amp and I'm just like, you know, like angelically looking

917
00:50:12,760 --> 00:50:15,279
Speaker 1: like watching this every mood. So yeah, they were like

918
00:50:15,360 --> 00:50:21,279
Speaker 1: my van And what's what's your favorite Zeppelin album? Physical Graffiti?

919
00:50:22,600 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: I go back and fat between Physical Graffiti and the

920
00:50:25,680 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: first Physical Graffiti if no other reason's got ten years gone,

921
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:33,120
Speaker 1: which I can I know, I know, well, I love

922
00:50:33,200 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 1: the first one because I think that base, that bubbling

923
00:50:36,080 --> 00:50:40,279
Speaker 1: bass like it's being played under water, unbelievable too. Even

924
00:50:40,320 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 1: today it's still unbelievable to me, and they were just

925
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:47,959
Speaker 1: so mysterious. Okay, so how do you end up interviewing them?

926
00:50:48,760 --> 00:50:52,279
Speaker 1: The first time I interview them there, Um, I just

927
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,080
Speaker 1: think that one of those things that nobody else wanted

928
00:50:54,120 --> 00:50:56,279
Speaker 1: to do. It is odd as that is. And they're

929
00:50:56,320 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: playing Detroit and I interview them, um backstage at Olympia

930
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,759
Speaker 1: where they were playing. There was no big deal. It

931
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: was just, you know, it was just a regular rock interview.

932
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:09,439
Speaker 1: I wasn't on the road with them, um. And then

933
00:51:09,520 --> 00:51:12,840
Speaker 1: later on I got on the road with them for um.

934
00:51:12,880 --> 00:51:14,839
Speaker 1: I forgot what album it was, but that was when

935
00:51:14,880 --> 00:51:17,280
Speaker 1: they were holed up in the in the Plaza hotel

936
00:51:17,800 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 1: for for like weeks upon weeks and I went for

937
00:51:20,760 --> 00:51:23,200
Speaker 1: like probably four days, so we'd fly out to various

938
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:26,840
Speaker 1: cities and come back and that was. That was like again,

939
00:51:27,280 --> 00:51:29,919
Speaker 1: not a big deal, like in terms of it being

940
00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:34,480
Speaker 1: bigger than life. Yes, But it wasn't until my third

941
00:51:34,480 --> 00:51:37,759
Speaker 1: time where it got really odd. It was one of

942
00:51:37,840 --> 00:51:42,080
Speaker 1: those almost famous moments where to me, Page didn't want

943
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: to do the interview even though it was for a

944
00:51:43,480 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: cover story. So I had to dog him for five days,

945
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:48,640
Speaker 1: like ask because I have an interview because I have

946
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 1: an interview, and on the last day before I was

947
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:53,279
Speaker 1: going to go home, they finally granted it to me,

948
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: but only in the provision that I couldn't speak directly

949
00:51:57,600 --> 00:52:00,279
Speaker 1: to him. I had to speak through an interpreter, so

950
00:52:00,360 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 1: I had to ask the questions to the publicist and

951
00:52:03,080 --> 00:52:06,439
Speaker 1: she would translate them to him. And it was like

952
00:52:06,719 --> 00:52:12,040
Speaker 1: being in a foreign film and with subtitles and watching

953
00:52:12,120 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 1: it because it was so bizarre because we all spoke English.

954
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: But I'd have to ask him, he would answer her,

955
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:20,440
Speaker 1: and she would answer me. So I just went on

956
00:52:20,520 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: for like half an hour. It was so unnerving. But

957
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:25,440
Speaker 1: at some point I got this like a little like

958
00:52:25,600 --> 00:52:28,719
Speaker 1: thought balloon, like, oh man, I can make this funny,

959
00:52:29,000 --> 00:52:31,680
Speaker 1: you know, I can like do a thoughtful and thing

960
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:34,239
Speaker 1: like what's really going through my head? But it was

961
00:52:34,360 --> 00:52:37,919
Speaker 1: so unnerving. I mean, I don't know how I pulled

962
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,919
Speaker 1: out of that one, but it was you know, once

963
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 1: you get it field to get lemons, you make lemonade.

964
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:48,640
Speaker 1: I really make LeMond On that one. Okay, Uh, you're

965
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:52,160
Speaker 1: in this uptight situation. Do you whip out your curveball

966
00:52:52,280 --> 00:52:54,479
Speaker 1: question or do you say I don't want to screw things.

967
00:52:54,480 --> 00:52:58,720
Speaker 1: Oh you don't, I really, although I have to say

968
00:52:58,760 --> 00:53:01,919
Speaker 1: that I did because it was during the tour where

969
00:53:01,960 --> 00:53:06,680
Speaker 1: the tour doctor confronted Jimmy Page about someone stealing the

970
00:53:06,800 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 1: quay lose that was the tour doctor carried, and I

971
00:53:10,840 --> 00:53:13,840
Speaker 1: had the audacity asked him if he actually stole the

972
00:53:13,920 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 1: quay loose so and he was this indignant and the

973
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:21,520
Speaker 1: crazy part is part two of the story. In two

974
00:53:21,560 --> 00:53:24,879
Speaker 1: thousand six, Hugh Magazine hired me to do my recollections

975
00:53:24,960 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 1: on on led c up one tours, So I wrote

976
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:31,799
Speaker 1: about that whole tour and a friend of mine, Brad Tolnsky,

977
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: who was the editor of Guitar World, was friends during

978
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 1: Page and one day he called me, so, there's somebody

979
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:39,160
Speaker 1: here who wants to talk to you, and he puts

980
00:53:39,160 --> 00:53:41,960
Speaker 1: Stey Page on the phone. He goes, jan, I stole

981
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:46,880
Speaker 1: the kay lose. That's funny. That was great. I had

982
00:53:46,920 --> 00:53:48,480
Speaker 1: no idea was going to do that. I was like

983
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: one of those those yeah, sure, sure, it's Jimmy Page.

984
00:53:51,560 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: But it was great. Okay. Now, I met a lot

985
00:54:00,719 --> 00:54:04,080
Speaker 1: of these rock stars, and I've met them myself. They

986
00:54:04,360 --> 00:54:08,520
Speaker 1: very rarely live up to the image in your head.

987
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:14,879
Speaker 1: So that begs the question who did and who didn't. Um,

988
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:18,840
Speaker 1: I'd say Ronnie van zandt did. He was he was

989
00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:21,520
Speaker 1: like a prophet. He was like tapped into something that

990
00:54:21,600 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 1: the rest of us just don't hear. You know, it

991
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,960
Speaker 1: was like he knew was going in. The sad part

992
00:54:27,040 --> 00:54:30,799
Speaker 1: was he knew when he was leaving. And I think

993
00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:34,319
Speaker 1: I talked about unnerving when I did a story on

994
00:54:34,480 --> 00:54:37,240
Speaker 1: him and I was ill prepared. It was Lester Banning's

995
00:54:37,280 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: birthday and he decided he didn't want the story because

996
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:43,720
Speaker 1: of birthday, said Jane, you go to the story, here's

997
00:54:43,719 --> 00:54:46,560
Speaker 1: the questions, and just shoved me out of the nest. Really,

998
00:54:46,600 --> 00:54:50,160
Speaker 1: I just did that. But during the course of the interview,

999
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:52,000
Speaker 1: and it was really long, I interviewed all of them,

1000
00:54:52,520 --> 00:54:56,280
Speaker 1: Ronnie Um and I just sat and talked to He said,

1001
00:54:56,400 --> 00:54:59,200
Speaker 1: you know, I had Janni's Choplin disease. I don't think

1002
00:54:59,239 --> 00:55:02,040
Speaker 1: I'm to be here long. In fact, I doubt i'll

1003
00:55:02,040 --> 00:55:05,040
Speaker 1: see thirty. This was about a month before his twenty

1004
00:55:05,120 --> 00:55:08,359
Speaker 1: ninth birthday. And you know, it's one of those things

1005
00:55:08,400 --> 00:55:10,839
Speaker 1: that I don't know why I might have left out

1006
00:55:11,080 --> 00:55:14,160
Speaker 1: Rick Waiteman's tall, but I put in that Ronnie van

1007
00:55:14,239 --> 00:55:16,160
Speaker 1: Zandt said he was never going to see thirty And

1008
00:55:16,200 --> 00:55:20,280
Speaker 1: then I remember being in Los Angeles reviewing some concert

1009
00:55:20,280 --> 00:55:23,239
Speaker 1: and hearing that they're playing had gone down and there

1010
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:26,439
Speaker 1: were some survivors, and I immediately knew it wasn't him,

1011
00:55:26,520 --> 00:55:28,239
Speaker 1: you know, it was like there was a president of

1012
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:33,640
Speaker 1: some press of something like surreal metaphysical, Like I think

1013
00:55:33,640 --> 00:55:36,719
Speaker 1: the best musicians get their information for someplace that world

1014
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:39,560
Speaker 1: never know, and I think he was one of them.

1015
00:55:39,560 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 1: I think he was like the one who had the

1016
00:55:41,000 --> 00:55:45,239
Speaker 1: greatest impact on me. Um, just as soon al though

1017
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,160
Speaker 1: we can't if he had not passed away, would he

1018
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,799
Speaker 1: still have had the greatest impact? Um? I don't know that,

1019
00:55:51,840 --> 00:55:55,040
Speaker 1: because I think it was the fact that he shared

1020
00:55:55,080 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: that with me. That's a really great question, that he

1021
00:55:57,160 --> 00:55:59,919
Speaker 1: shared that moment with me, and I was somehow part

1022
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:04,000
Speaker 1: of it. Um. I think that's what the impact was. UM.

1023
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 1: Other people, you know. I remember people who are nice

1024
00:56:06,600 --> 00:56:09,600
Speaker 1: to little people, you know. I love like Kirk Halmet

1025
00:56:09,600 --> 00:56:13,920
Speaker 1: from Metallica. It's always great and personalizes every interview and

1026
00:56:14,000 --> 00:56:17,719
Speaker 1: makes you feel like a human. I think when a

1027
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,200
Speaker 1: rock star makes you feel like we're again back to

1028
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:23,839
Speaker 1: that cream Ethos that were all the same and they

1029
00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:28,000
Speaker 1: remember you. Although your friend of my friend, Dicky straight

1030
00:56:28,080 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: told me a secret and I've got to stop now

1031
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:35,080
Speaker 1: or show kill me. Never mind, never mind? You know

1032
00:56:35,239 --> 00:56:37,520
Speaker 1: Vicky through the Metallica club or do you know were

1033
00:56:37,520 --> 00:56:40,200
Speaker 1: previously at Columbia. I know, I know because she's from

1034
00:56:40,239 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 1: Royal at Michigan, the next town over from where I

1035
00:56:42,600 --> 00:56:49,840
Speaker 1: grew up and off Mike. But in uh, in any event,

1036
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:53,520
Speaker 1: this brings us to Lester Banks. I mean, on my end,

1037
00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:56,319
Speaker 1: the most famous thing with Lester Banks, he wrote a

1038
00:56:56,480 --> 00:57:00,719
Speaker 1: review for Rolling Stone of Alice Cooper's Killer and it

1039
00:57:00,840 --> 00:57:02,920
Speaker 1: was boxed out and it was so over the top.

1040
00:57:03,360 --> 00:57:05,480
Speaker 1: This was in the days of the Great White Wonder

1041
00:57:05,520 --> 00:57:08,000
Speaker 1: and hoaxes that I bought the album just to see

1042
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:10,360
Speaker 1: if it was a hoax or not. Of course you dropped,

1043
00:57:10,480 --> 00:57:12,920
Speaker 1: you dropped the needle. It was under my wheels and

1044
00:57:12,920 --> 00:57:15,879
Speaker 1: it was, of course incredible. So you follow the guy.

1045
00:57:16,040 --> 00:57:19,400
Speaker 1: Then he's playing on stage with the typewriter, etcetera. Then

1046
00:57:19,720 --> 00:57:22,080
Speaker 1: they have that he dies, they have the compilation book,

1047
00:57:22,160 --> 00:57:24,000
Speaker 1: so people like you and me know who these guys.

1048
00:57:24,760 --> 00:57:28,520
Speaker 1: These guys. Then Cameron makes the movie, turns him into

1049
00:57:28,600 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: a folk hero, who won't be forgotten. What was your

1050
00:57:31,800 --> 00:57:36,560
Speaker 1: experience of Lester Bags? You know, one of the greatest

1051
00:57:36,600 --> 00:57:39,520
Speaker 1: people ever met, too great impact on me, hev he

1052
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:42,200
Speaker 1: even lived. In fact, I have a reoccurring dream about

1053
00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: every two years where he says to me, jan I'm

1054
00:57:45,880 --> 00:57:49,200
Speaker 1: not dead of justin Florida. So I can't tell you

1055
00:57:49,240 --> 00:57:52,760
Speaker 1: how odd that is for me. But he was really

1056
00:57:53,360 --> 00:57:56,080
Speaker 1: He would call like subscribers up or people who would

1057
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:58,919
Speaker 1: write him letters. We would because we work so late.

1058
00:57:59,120 --> 00:58:01,479
Speaker 1: We would just we would all like get the phone.

1059
00:58:01,520 --> 00:58:05,000
Speaker 1: He would call people who wrote him and give him encouragement.

1060
00:58:05,040 --> 00:58:07,880
Speaker 1: I mean he was every young writer's best friend. He

1061
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:10,080
Speaker 1: was certainly mine. I mean he really helped me with

1062
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,360
Speaker 1: a lot of things. He was driven in a way

1063
00:58:13,360 --> 00:58:15,760
Speaker 1: that you hardly ever see. When I say that people

1064
00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: think that stories come out of your fingers, not your brain.

1065
00:58:19,080 --> 00:58:21,400
Speaker 1: They seemed to come out of his fingers. It was like,

1066
00:58:22,160 --> 00:58:24,360
Speaker 1: I don't want to belabor this. This like people know

1067
00:58:24,360 --> 00:58:26,000
Speaker 1: where they're going to go. But it was like he

1068
00:58:26,120 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: was racing the devil. Like he almost felt like he

1069
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,600
Speaker 1: didn't have all the time that he wanted because he

1070
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:36,320
Speaker 1: he would sit down and just write the most beautifully constructed,

1071
00:58:36,320 --> 00:58:39,440
Speaker 1: well thought out pieces. It was a marvel and actually

1072
00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:41,200
Speaker 1: gave me a phobia for a long time because I

1073
00:58:41,200 --> 00:58:44,000
Speaker 1: wonder why I didn't write that fast. Now. He was

1074
00:58:44,040 --> 00:58:47,080
Speaker 1: a guy who would stare the ship. I mean, all

1075
00:58:47,120 --> 00:58:48,640
Speaker 1: you had to do is go to one of those

1076
00:58:48,760 --> 00:58:52,920
Speaker 1: lou Read contests. Every time he interviewed lou Read, he

1077
00:58:52,960 --> 00:58:55,560
Speaker 1: would always bring a posse and I was there a

1078
00:58:55,560 --> 00:59:00,640
Speaker 1: couple of times and he would just go writer's I

1079
00:59:00,640 --> 00:59:04,120
Speaker 1: mean box stars into like saying things that they might

1080
00:59:04,160 --> 00:59:06,760
Speaker 1: not like. He called it a little insect or asked

1081
00:59:06,800 --> 00:59:13,080
Speaker 1: him about his wife girlfriend Rachel, who was like omni sexual.

1082
00:59:13,120 --> 00:59:15,480
Speaker 1: I never figured that one out, but he would insult

1083
00:59:15,560 --> 00:59:18,200
Speaker 1: them to their face and it was like it was

1084
00:59:18,240 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 1: a site to be behold. It was also really embarrassing.

1085
00:59:21,920 --> 00:59:24,320
Speaker 1: But I can't say he did it in good fun.

1086
00:59:24,440 --> 00:59:26,440
Speaker 1: I think he just did because he wanted a reaction,

1087
00:59:26,480 --> 00:59:28,919
Speaker 1: because he knew it was a better story. He could

1088
00:59:28,920 --> 00:59:30,760
Speaker 1: be brutal and he could be the kindest man in

1089
00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,200
Speaker 1: the world. There was no middle speed with Lester. It

1090
00:59:33,240 --> 00:59:36,880
Speaker 1: was either fast or slow. And what do you think

1091
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:41,280
Speaker 1: about his depiction and almost famous. Well, having had a

1092
00:59:41,320 --> 00:59:44,440
Speaker 1: little ado with that, Cameron hired me and Jim Durgat

1093
00:59:44,480 --> 00:59:47,120
Speaker 1: us to do little treatments, so it was so accurate.

1094
00:59:47,400 --> 00:59:49,520
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that Cameron was such a genius in

1095
00:59:49,760 --> 00:59:52,840
Speaker 1: that character for two reasons. They would call me from

1096
00:59:52,840 --> 00:59:55,080
Speaker 1: the set all the time. But what kind of pieza

1097
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:57,560
Speaker 1: did he really eat? Or whatever did they barbecue really

1098
00:59:57,560 --> 01:00:00,600
Speaker 1: come from there? So he was just slaved detail and

1099
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:04,040
Speaker 1: that comes across. But the other thing which was so

1100
01:00:04,520 --> 01:00:10,000
Speaker 1: strange is casting phil Um Samoura Hoffmann because I interviewed

1101
01:00:10,080 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 1: him from OJO and I was sitting across from him,

1102
01:00:12,480 --> 01:00:15,040
Speaker 1: and I felt like there was less just ghost. He

1103
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,919
Speaker 1: would even when he talked, he ate, and he would

1104
01:00:18,960 --> 01:00:21,960
Speaker 1: talk with his mouth full, something Lester always did. I

1105
01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:25,920
Speaker 1: felt that he was a mediumistic actor anyway, but I

1106
01:00:26,040 --> 01:00:28,959
Speaker 1: felt like I was. I was in the presence of Lester.

1107
01:00:29,080 --> 01:00:31,720
Speaker 1: I can't think that anyone was any better than that,

1108
01:00:32,120 --> 01:00:36,400
Speaker 1: like in that choice. Going back to almost famous, you

1109
01:00:36,440 --> 01:00:39,120
Speaker 1: know the scenes in the riot House, which is no

1110
01:00:39,200 --> 01:00:42,960
Speaker 1: longer called a hyatt uh. They changed the branding of

1111
01:00:43,080 --> 01:00:45,840
Speaker 1: those who thus who followed that from the late sixties on,

1112
01:00:46,360 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 1: especially a lot of the British musicians. These were dark

1113
01:00:49,360 --> 01:00:54,320
Speaker 1: characters doing dark things, dripping wax on people. Uh, what

1114
01:00:54,520 --> 01:00:58,000
Speaker 1: was your insight into the dark side of these musicians?

1115
01:00:58,440 --> 01:01:00,800
Speaker 1: You know, it was always fast it and how they

1116
01:01:00,840 --> 01:01:03,880
Speaker 1: got that way. I mean, the thing is that they

1117
01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 1: would actually talk about if you had the guts to

1118
01:01:06,680 --> 01:01:09,680
Speaker 1: ask somebody about it. Maybe not Jimmy Page, who was

1119
01:01:10,320 --> 01:01:13,400
Speaker 1: the purveyor of most of that, you know, but um,

1120
01:01:14,160 --> 01:01:16,200
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean it was like, how did

1121
01:01:16,240 --> 01:01:18,880
Speaker 1: they get away with that? I honestly have to say

1122
01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: I didn't ever get involved in anything that like the

1123
01:01:22,760 --> 01:01:26,200
Speaker 1: farious or witness to it, because I don't know, maybe

1124
01:01:26,280 --> 01:01:28,840
Speaker 1: this is the part about not going for the sleeves

1125
01:01:28,920 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: part of it. I was always more ironic, psychological, like

1126
01:01:32,880 --> 01:01:36,000
Speaker 1: satiric writer, so I usually didn't see any of the

1127
01:01:36,000 --> 01:01:38,240
Speaker 1: horror mongy, you know. I do remember like when I

1128
01:01:38,280 --> 01:01:41,720
Speaker 1: was on tour with Fred Zeppelin, I mean, Jimmy Page

1129
01:01:41,880 --> 01:01:44,800
Speaker 1: dressing up just like this most beautiful boy there and

1130
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:48,200
Speaker 1: having his arms slung around, you know, around his back,

1131
01:01:48,240 --> 01:01:50,800
Speaker 1: and I was like, okay, you know, I'm a little

1132
01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 1: young and I'm Midwestern, and this is the first time

1133
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:56,240
Speaker 1: I've seen that, so it kind of jolted me. So,

1134
01:01:57,040 --> 01:02:00,440
Speaker 1: you know, I wasn't pretty to all of that stuff.

1135
01:02:00,600 --> 01:02:03,680
Speaker 1: I'm not really sure who it was except for but

1136
01:02:03,720 --> 01:02:07,320
Speaker 1: who's Stanley Boost who wrote a really great book on

1137
01:02:07,360 --> 01:02:10,560
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. I mean, not many people. You had

1138
01:02:10,640 --> 01:02:12,280
Speaker 1: to hang with them. You had to have the same

1139
01:02:12,360 --> 01:02:14,680
Speaker 1: kind of habits, had the same kind of cool, had

1140
01:02:14,720 --> 01:02:17,720
Speaker 1: the same kind of land Nick Nick can't he did

1141
01:02:18,040 --> 01:02:21,080
Speaker 1: with Iggy and was like like, I think probably stuff

1142
01:02:21,080 --> 01:02:24,600
Speaker 1: and it was Iggy definitely do you do you think

1143
01:02:24,640 --> 01:02:29,240
Speaker 1: you're cool? I do think I'm cool? Okay. Is it's

1144
01:02:29,240 --> 01:02:33,960
Speaker 1: something you always knew? Uh? It was something I always knew.

1145
01:02:34,960 --> 01:02:39,600
Speaker 1: I just I just but I cultivated. Yeah. Maybe I

1146
01:02:39,640 --> 01:02:42,840
Speaker 1: think it was just like I kind of grew up

1147
01:02:43,280 --> 01:02:45,720
Speaker 1: being fully formed, like I always knew what I wanted,

1148
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:48,840
Speaker 1: and it's that never let them see you sweat kind

1149
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:54,600
Speaker 1: of thing. Okay, continue, So others thy disagree. You know,

1150
01:02:54,680 --> 01:02:59,440
Speaker 1: I don't have my distractors, so okay. Uh So what

1151
01:02:59,480 --> 01:03:01,400
Speaker 1: are your parents to do for a living when you're

1152
01:03:01,400 --> 01:03:05,280
Speaker 1: growing up? Um, my dad was a was I worked

1153
01:03:05,280 --> 01:03:07,600
Speaker 1: at four. He was a design engineer and my mom

1154
01:03:07,680 --> 01:03:10,680
Speaker 1: was a dancer who hung up her shoes by the time,

1155
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:14,720
Speaker 1: you know, my sister and I came along. And how

1156
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:19,000
Speaker 1: many generations has your family been in America. My parents

1157
01:03:19,080 --> 01:03:22,960
Speaker 1: were both second generation. Their parents were born in the

1158
01:03:23,040 --> 01:03:26,720
Speaker 1: Old countries. They so quaintly said, how did your parents meet?

1159
01:03:27,440 --> 01:03:32,840
Speaker 1: They met in a bar um in Detroit, and they

1160
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:38,080
Speaker 1: did they remain married during their lifetimes. And how many

1161
01:03:38,720 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 1: siblings do you have? I just have one sister who's

1162
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:45,080
Speaker 1: a photographer, and she's older or younger. She's younger by

1163
01:03:45,120 --> 01:03:48,880
Speaker 1: how many years? By seven? That's a long time. What

1164
01:03:48,960 --> 01:03:51,640
Speaker 1: was going on? What was going on there? Well, at

1165
01:03:51,760 --> 01:03:54,480
Speaker 1: least something. Actually, my mom was afraid of the pain

1166
01:03:54,560 --> 01:03:57,760
Speaker 1: of childbirth, so she vowed never to have another child

1167
01:03:58,080 --> 01:04:02,040
Speaker 1: until they introduced togs into the birthing process. So my

1168
01:04:02,120 --> 01:04:05,240
Speaker 1: sister is like a drug baby. Okay, So you go

1169
01:04:05,320 --> 01:04:08,840
Speaker 1: to school, are you like popular, do you have friends?

1170
01:04:09,000 --> 01:04:11,840
Speaker 1: Or what kind of kid are you? I'm the second

1171
01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:15,360
Speaker 1: tallest kid in elementary school. So I either had a

1172
01:04:15,360 --> 01:04:18,680
Speaker 1: really good firs eide view or I was a really

1173
01:04:18,760 --> 01:04:20,640
Speaker 1: like um, I mean it was a little bit of

1174
01:04:20,680 --> 01:04:23,080
Speaker 1: an outcast, but not really like I had like my

1175
01:04:23,200 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: sub genre of people. So, um, you know, I was

1176
01:04:27,080 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 1: really like sporty spice I was. I was super athletic.

1177
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,120
Speaker 1: I used to compete in track, so, um you know,

1178
01:04:33,160 --> 01:04:35,760
Speaker 1: I was I was pretty normal. But I think the

1179
01:04:35,840 --> 01:04:38,920
Speaker 1: hardest thing was is my name was so unpronounceable that

1180
01:04:39,040 --> 01:04:41,440
Speaker 1: I definitely had a complex. I remember a letter to

1181
01:04:41,520 --> 01:04:44,520
Speaker 1: Cream in later years and my favorite letter as someone said,

1182
01:04:44,520 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 1: tell you and your hellsky to get an American names.

1183
01:04:47,560 --> 01:04:50,600
Speaker 1: Love that that's gonna add a good sense of humors

1184
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:54,440
Speaker 1: because the writers for Cream you did you have that

1185
01:04:54,440 --> 01:04:59,000
Speaker 1: sense of humor before you went to the magazine or that? Okay?

1186
01:04:59,360 --> 01:05:04,280
Speaker 1: And Dave Marsh, who has a reputation anybody's dealt with him,

1187
01:05:04,320 --> 01:05:07,040
Speaker 1: has an edge. What was your experience working with him?

1188
01:05:07,720 --> 01:05:10,320
Speaker 1: He was always like a for me, it was always

1189
01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:14,360
Speaker 1: like a kindly older brother and not that that much older,

1190
01:05:14,440 --> 01:05:17,640
Speaker 1: but you know, we've he was really impish with me,

1191
01:05:17,760 --> 01:05:20,680
Speaker 1: like we would go on like when the Detroit the

1192
01:05:20,880 --> 01:05:23,040
Speaker 1: Michigan State Fair would come, he would go on rise

1193
01:05:23,080 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: with me, like we can be kids together. I think

1194
01:05:25,200 --> 01:05:28,040
Speaker 1: we're We and Robbie Krueger were the youngest people on

1195
01:05:28,080 --> 01:05:30,960
Speaker 1: the staff, so we just brought out the kid in

1196
01:05:31,000 --> 01:05:35,000
Speaker 1: each other. He was still always amazing to me. Um

1197
01:05:35,160 --> 01:05:37,080
Speaker 1: for a long time, I felt like an apologist, and

1198
01:05:37,160 --> 01:05:39,439
Speaker 1: I've just thought why bother? You know, he can think

1199
01:05:39,480 --> 01:05:41,520
Speaker 1: and do it and so, but I've always seen a

1200
01:05:41,560 --> 01:05:44,320
Speaker 1: really good side of him. Okay, since we have this

1201
01:05:44,360 --> 01:05:47,800
Speaker 1: movie which goes back to them, where are all these

1202
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:50,760
Speaker 1: people today? And you continue to have contact with them?

1203
01:05:50,880 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 1: I do. Everybody you see who's on the staff or

1204
01:05:53,760 --> 01:05:56,960
Speaker 1: who's still alive, absolutely in the dead ones. Yeah, obviously

1205
01:05:56,960 --> 01:05:59,840
Speaker 1: they come in dreams, but yeah, I keep intentioned. It

1206
01:05:59,920 --> 01:06:03,160
Speaker 1: was something about the fraternity of being in in Cream

1207
01:06:03,160 --> 01:06:06,560
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the inception of something really amazing

1208
01:06:06,640 --> 01:06:08,640
Speaker 1: and going through it. It's like almost like going to

1209
01:06:08,720 --> 01:06:11,280
Speaker 1: high school with people together, or going through a war,

1210
01:06:11,480 --> 01:06:15,600
Speaker 1: like we experienced things together that you didn't experience a

1211
01:06:15,760 --> 01:06:19,920
Speaker 1: normal that it was really like heightened reality there. And

1212
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:25,160
Speaker 1: what happened to them job was well, most people stayed

1213
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:29,120
Speaker 1: either went into advertising, like Robert Duncan owned an ad agency,

1214
01:06:29,240 --> 01:06:32,600
Speaker 1: Eric Gnheimer. Everybody actually got really good jobs. It was

1215
01:06:32,640 --> 01:06:35,160
Speaker 1: a good step up. I mean, Susan Whitehall became the

1216
01:06:35,200 --> 01:06:39,200
Speaker 1: pop music critic at the Detroit News. Um, Lester, I

1217
01:06:39,200 --> 01:06:42,960
Speaker 1: don't know, Lester, he had to do that vagabond go

1218
01:06:43,040 --> 01:06:44,880
Speaker 1: to New York and be a New York writer thing,

1219
01:06:45,000 --> 01:06:48,800
Speaker 1: you know, Um, you know, I'm not really sure what

1220
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:51,160
Speaker 1: what went wrong. I'm not sure what twist he took.

1221
01:06:51,200 --> 01:06:53,840
Speaker 1: I mean, he was always a heavy drinker, and we

1222
01:06:54,240 --> 01:06:57,120
Speaker 1: definitely consumed codings because we thought it would be a

1223
01:06:57,160 --> 01:06:59,840
Speaker 1: performance enhancer in terms of our writing. But you know,

1224
01:07:00,640 --> 01:07:03,120
Speaker 1: I never thought of him as that excessive. I mean,

1225
01:07:03,160 --> 01:07:05,800
Speaker 1: maybe I'm naive about that, but I didn't see that.

1226
01:07:05,960 --> 01:07:09,840
Speaker 1: I think everybody really got got good jobs afterwards. Okay,

1227
01:07:10,000 --> 01:07:13,680
Speaker 1: just staying with Lester as an outsider, uh and reading

1228
01:07:13,680 --> 01:07:17,480
Speaker 1: the publicity. It was the punk era where theoretically anybody

1229
01:07:17,520 --> 01:07:21,160
Speaker 1: could get on stage. It seemed from a distance that

1230
01:07:21,280 --> 01:07:25,240
Speaker 1: he wanted to be on stage a star, not only

1231
01:07:25,280 --> 01:07:28,440
Speaker 1: a writer. Was that your experience? Would you say that's undrew?

1232
01:07:28,920 --> 01:07:31,120
Speaker 1: You know, I think that happened after I left, Like

1233
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:33,280
Speaker 1: I left in nineteen seventy six in March, and he

1234
01:07:33,400 --> 01:07:36,440
Speaker 1: left in December of seventy six, and then he started,

1235
01:07:37,000 --> 01:07:39,320
Speaker 1: you know, I think the Radio Birdman happened maybe the

1236
01:07:39,360 --> 01:07:42,280
Speaker 1: next couple of years. I honestly thought when he got

1237
01:07:42,280 --> 01:07:47,120
Speaker 1: on stage with with Peter Wolf and Jay Giles that

1238
01:07:47,120 --> 01:07:49,160
Speaker 1: that was a flute. That was just another story, one

1239
01:07:49,200 --> 01:07:52,160
Speaker 1: of our high concept stories. So I was actually surprised

1240
01:07:52,560 --> 01:07:56,200
Speaker 1: because he didn't have a tremendous voice. You know, but

1241
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,680
Speaker 1: he had he had that hutzpah. I remember the whole

1242
01:07:59,720 --> 01:08:02,480
Speaker 1: thing pleased in the band with Nicky Um. Mickey Joy,

1243
01:08:02,600 --> 01:08:07,480
Speaker 1: Roon's brother also and they described it both the Mickey

1244
01:08:07,520 --> 01:08:09,880
Speaker 1: and Enjoys described it as kind of like Lester was

1245
01:08:09,960 --> 01:08:12,320
Speaker 1: like that movie Will Build. It's not feeling worried that

1246
01:08:12,440 --> 01:08:15,000
Speaker 1: what about Bob where the guy comes up and shows

1247
01:08:15,040 --> 01:08:18,120
Speaker 1: up the shrinks. That's how how Lester was because their

1248
01:08:18,200 --> 01:08:22,320
Speaker 1: stepfather was his shrink. So, um, I don't know. I

1249
01:08:22,479 --> 01:08:25,320
Speaker 1: honestly was surprised when he did it. Okay, so how

1250
01:08:25,360 --> 01:08:30,599
Speaker 1: did you decide to leave cream? Um? This is really personal,

1251
01:08:30,720 --> 01:08:36,720
Speaker 1: but Charlie Oranger slept with my best friend Peggy, Peggy Carlson,

1252
01:08:37,040 --> 01:08:39,720
Speaker 1: one of the T shirt girls, and I thought I'm

1253
01:08:39,760 --> 01:08:43,000
Speaker 1: out of here. It was it's really it was like

1254
01:08:43,040 --> 01:08:45,000
Speaker 1: one of those things that was a watershed moment and

1255
01:08:45,080 --> 01:08:48,840
Speaker 1: my whole life spun on that moment. Okay, how did

1256
01:08:48,840 --> 01:08:53,679
Speaker 1: you find out? He told me? Why? Because I told

1257
01:08:53,960 --> 01:08:57,040
Speaker 1: told them that, um, she wanted him to fix her

1258
01:08:57,120 --> 01:09:01,080
Speaker 1: up with his assistant, and he told me know, she's

1259
01:09:01,200 --> 01:09:03,120
Speaker 1: more interested in me, and I go, oh no, she's

1260
01:09:03,160 --> 01:09:06,559
Speaker 1: my best friend. Honestly, my whole life collapsed on that

1261
01:09:06,600 --> 01:09:10,080
Speaker 1: moment and I started making other plans. Just what what

1262
01:09:10,160 --> 01:09:13,240
Speaker 1: went through your head when he told you that? It

1263
01:09:13,360 --> 01:09:15,519
Speaker 1: was like it was like a hot knife, you know,

1264
01:09:16,080 --> 01:09:17,840
Speaker 1: to go a little bit deeper. Was this a one

1265
01:09:17,840 --> 01:09:20,120
Speaker 1: time event or was he having a full blown affair? Well, no,

1266
01:09:20,200 --> 01:09:21,720
Speaker 1: I think it was a one time event. But I

1267
01:09:21,920 --> 01:09:25,439
Speaker 1: it just it just really cut me, you know. I

1268
01:09:25,479 --> 01:09:29,000
Speaker 1: think I was so unaware of it or that actually

1269
01:09:29,320 --> 01:09:30,680
Speaker 1: even to the day, I don't know. I think it

1270
01:09:30,760 --> 01:09:33,559
Speaker 1: was just a one time event. And and of course

1271
01:09:33,600 --> 01:09:36,799
Speaker 1: I've forgiven them all and we're all like not close,

1272
01:09:36,880 --> 01:09:40,840
Speaker 1: but you know, amends have been made. But honestly, I

1273
01:09:40,920 --> 01:09:43,360
Speaker 1: have to say that it was the small moment that

1274
01:09:43,840 --> 01:09:47,839
Speaker 1: that actually informed the whole rest of my life. Okay,

1275
01:09:47,960 --> 01:09:51,920
Speaker 1: walk us through that quickly. Oh. Then I decided I

1276
01:09:51,960 --> 01:09:54,719
Speaker 1: was going to probably go get another job. I remember

1277
01:09:54,760 --> 01:09:58,000
Speaker 1: Barry Kramer saying to me, well, you better make this work,

1278
01:09:58,400 --> 01:10:00,400
Speaker 1: because if I have to fire somebody, I'm going to

1279
01:10:00,560 --> 01:10:03,800
Speaker 1: fire you because Charlie has been with me since day

1280
01:10:03,800 --> 01:10:06,040
Speaker 1: when he is the art director, and you're one of

1281
01:10:06,640 --> 01:10:09,479
Speaker 1: many editors. So I so I pretty much went through

1282
01:10:09,479 --> 01:10:12,320
Speaker 1: the motions for the next couple of years, until I

1283
01:10:12,360 --> 01:10:14,880
Speaker 1: finally left. And also it took a couple of years.

1284
01:10:15,200 --> 01:10:18,000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I just started planning. I'm a planner.

1285
01:10:18,000 --> 01:10:22,920
Speaker 1: Can't you see that? The true line? Okay, so everybody knew,

1286
01:10:24,240 --> 01:10:28,040
Speaker 1: I Verry knew. I didn't tell anybody else. Okay, So

1287
01:10:28,280 --> 01:10:30,840
Speaker 1: for these couple of years, needles to say, you're not

1288
01:10:31,000 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: his girlfriend anymore? Right, I'm just taking it. I'm like

1289
01:10:34,960 --> 01:10:40,040
Speaker 1: phoning it in. Okay. So then how do you ultimately

1290
01:10:40,080 --> 01:10:42,880
Speaker 1: decide to make the break and how does that happen?

1291
01:10:42,960 --> 01:10:45,880
Speaker 1: I actually met somebody else, you know, because I didn't

1292
01:10:45,920 --> 01:10:50,080
Speaker 1: feel all that monogamous anymore. So I met um, I

1293
01:10:50,200 --> 01:10:53,880
Speaker 1: met a photographer at barbecue at the oh my god,

1294
01:10:53,920 --> 01:10:58,880
Speaker 1: the Capricorn Barbecue and wow, yeah, so wait, just let's

1295
01:10:58,920 --> 01:11:02,200
Speaker 1: go back all these events. They would say, hey, do

1296
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:05,479
Speaker 1: you want to come? We're gonna pay. Often how often

1297
01:11:05,520 --> 01:11:08,920
Speaker 1: did you go? Well, I'd say I went on the

1298
01:11:09,000 --> 01:11:12,479
Speaker 1: road one week a year, one week, one week a month,

1299
01:11:12,640 --> 01:11:14,240
Speaker 1: like every time you did a story, you went on

1300
01:11:14,280 --> 01:11:17,880
Speaker 1: the road. And they would like thing, whip you, you know,

1301
01:11:18,000 --> 01:11:22,080
Speaker 1: like they would like say, I remember that's the London trip.

1302
01:11:22,160 --> 01:11:25,679
Speaker 1: I remember them saying the record Covery would say, well,

1303
01:11:25,760 --> 01:11:28,080
Speaker 1: if you need anything. It's working for Christmas, I doing anything,

1304
01:11:28,120 --> 01:11:30,360
Speaker 1: Just go get a few things from the gift shop.

1305
01:11:30,479 --> 01:11:37,600
Speaker 1: So it was like Pola yet insidious, subtle Paola okay,

1306
01:11:37,680 --> 01:11:40,760
Speaker 1: but being on the road forgetting in one town, but

1307
01:11:40,880 --> 01:11:42,839
Speaker 1: being on the road on a bus, even in a plane,

1308
01:11:43,720 --> 01:11:46,120
Speaker 1: it takes a strong constitution to be on the road

1309
01:11:46,160 --> 01:11:50,400
Speaker 1: for a week. You don't get much sleep, etcetera. I mean,

1310
01:11:50,439 --> 01:11:52,880
Speaker 1: what's your viewpoint about going on the road? Been there,

1311
01:11:52,960 --> 01:11:55,040
Speaker 1: done that, don't want to do it again. I think

1312
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:57,719
Speaker 1: that you get the best stories because you get people

1313
01:11:57,800 --> 01:12:00,800
Speaker 1: an act of being themselves, so you see so much more,

1314
01:12:00,960 --> 01:12:04,560
Speaker 1: just like the Steve Miller thing. You see the small motions,

1315
01:12:04,600 --> 01:12:07,080
Speaker 1: the how someone interacts with somebody else, how they act

1316
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:09,479
Speaker 1: in any situations. But you don't see that when you're

1317
01:12:09,479 --> 01:12:12,360
Speaker 1: sitting across from somebody in a record company office. Like,

1318
01:12:12,479 --> 01:12:15,200
Speaker 1: given given the choice, I will always go Now. You

1319
01:12:15,240 --> 01:12:17,120
Speaker 1: don't go on the road. You go to somebody's house,

1320
01:12:17,200 --> 01:12:19,920
Speaker 1: like now I'll go to like because most of the

1321
01:12:19,960 --> 01:12:23,400
Speaker 1: stories I do for Uncut magazine, they're in home visits,

1322
01:12:23,479 --> 01:12:26,559
Speaker 1: Like I show up at somebody's house with you know,

1323
01:12:26,640 --> 01:12:29,880
Speaker 1: my my digital recorder and my camera, and I do

1324
01:12:29,960 --> 01:12:32,200
Speaker 1: the story, So I pick up the clues of a person.

1325
01:12:32,520 --> 01:12:35,320
Speaker 1: Well on the road, it's like it's stretched out. You're

1326
01:12:35,360 --> 01:12:37,640
Speaker 1: picking up clues with somebody for like a week or

1327
01:12:37,680 --> 01:12:39,840
Speaker 1: three days or four days or however long it was,

1328
01:12:39,920 --> 01:12:42,040
Speaker 1: but it was some time, and you get these sit

1329
01:12:42,080 --> 01:12:45,120
Speaker 1: down sessions with them, or you go do things with them,

1330
01:12:45,160 --> 01:12:47,360
Speaker 1: like go see a jazz ban or do this or that,

1331
01:12:47,479 --> 01:12:51,120
Speaker 1: like Allin Brothers was like that. So you go to

1332
01:12:51,120 --> 01:12:53,439
Speaker 1: the Capricorn picnic, you meet this other guy. How do

1333
01:12:53,479 --> 01:12:58,559
Speaker 1: you finally quit um? He asked me to marry him,

1334
01:12:58,880 --> 01:13:02,439
Speaker 1: and I moved to l A and where he was,

1335
01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:05,720
Speaker 1: where he was and it didn't work out? How long?

1336
01:13:06,280 --> 01:13:08,880
Speaker 1: How long did it taken out to work out? Five days?

1337
01:13:09,400 --> 01:13:15,439
Speaker 1: Five days? How much contact that you had it before

1338
01:13:15,479 --> 01:13:17,200
Speaker 1: you moved up, had with him before you moved out?

1339
01:13:17,760 --> 01:13:19,800
Speaker 1: A lot more than you would think that I would

1340
01:13:19,840 --> 01:13:23,960
Speaker 1: come to that conclusion after five days? What was what

1341
01:13:24,120 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: was the deal breaker? He had done? S to remember

1342
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:33,080
Speaker 1: sked that self realization kind of program that people did

1343
01:13:33,479 --> 01:13:36,760
Speaker 1: sevent days more in air Heart and he was going

1344
01:13:36,800 --> 01:13:38,880
Speaker 1: to go back for a seminar while I was there

1345
01:13:39,040 --> 01:13:41,400
Speaker 1: my first a few days when I was there and

1346
01:13:41,400 --> 01:13:43,920
Speaker 1: we came back from the seminar, he said he didn't

1347
01:13:43,960 --> 01:13:47,800
Speaker 1: feel like he had thoroughly ended it with his ex

1348
01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:50,040
Speaker 1: girlfriend and maybe I should move out. So it was

1349
01:13:50,160 --> 01:13:52,760
Speaker 1: kind of not my decision, but I refused to tell

1350
01:13:52,800 --> 01:13:55,720
Speaker 1: anybody because I had quit the best job in the

1351
01:13:55,760 --> 01:13:58,439
Speaker 1: world to move to l A. And did you have

1352
01:13:58,520 --> 01:14:02,200
Speaker 1: a job in l A. No. I started freelancing for

1353
01:14:02,320 --> 01:14:07,120
Speaker 1: Playgirl magazine. I don't know if you remember that magazine Centerfold,

1354
01:14:07,479 --> 01:14:09,960
Speaker 1: that's the one. So I worked for them a little

1355
01:14:10,000 --> 01:14:13,120
Speaker 1: bit and then I got outimately got hired at Record World,

1356
01:14:13,120 --> 01:14:15,960
Speaker 1: and that was which led to the next chapters of

1357
01:14:15,960 --> 01:14:19,160
Speaker 1: my life. So I became the columnists at home at

1358
01:14:19,160 --> 01:14:21,600
Speaker 1: Record World. Like shortly after that, I just said I

1359
01:14:21,640 --> 01:14:24,600
Speaker 1: wasn't going home. I spent all my furniture with me,

1360
01:14:24,720 --> 01:14:26,720
Speaker 1: Like everything I owned was with me in l A.

1361
01:14:27,880 --> 01:14:31,080
Speaker 1: And did you have enough money to exist? Well, when

1362
01:14:31,080 --> 01:14:34,479
Speaker 1: my grandmother died, she gave me a dream book. She said,

1363
01:14:34,640 --> 01:14:36,880
Speaker 1: go to the track with the dream book because the

1364
01:14:36,960 --> 01:14:40,559
Speaker 1: numbers you everything you dream has a number in bet

1365
01:14:40,640 --> 01:14:44,519
Speaker 1: those and five. So um, yeah, I actually, um, I

1366
01:14:44,600 --> 01:14:48,120
Speaker 1: actually made money, you know, and I supported myself and

1367
01:14:48,160 --> 01:14:50,559
Speaker 1: then um, I got the job at Record World. And

1368
01:14:50,560 --> 01:14:53,280
Speaker 1: then you know, things just picked up. Okay, So then

1369
01:14:53,320 --> 01:14:55,880
Speaker 1: you get married, you have your daughter. What's your daughter

1370
01:14:55,960 --> 01:14:59,519
Speaker 1: up to today? She is an ad copywriter and she

1371
01:14:59,560 --> 01:15:03,480
Speaker 1: owns candle company where she she makes candles like metaphysical

1372
01:15:03,560 --> 01:15:06,439
Speaker 1: candles based on the throw. And where does she live?

1373
01:15:06,840 --> 01:15:12,120
Speaker 1: She lives in New York Okay, and you have her,

1374
01:15:12,280 --> 01:15:15,479
Speaker 1: she grows up. How do you go back to college?

1375
01:15:15,760 --> 01:15:19,520
Speaker 1: How do you decide to get back into the writing game. Um.

1376
01:15:19,600 --> 01:15:21,840
Speaker 1: When I graduated from college, I went to work for

1377
01:15:21,840 --> 01:15:25,040
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party and I worked for a national women's

1378
01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:30,400
Speaker 1: political caucus and it's women trying to get other women elected.

1379
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:33,600
Speaker 1: But the crazy part about it was it was a

1380
01:15:33,640 --> 01:15:36,200
Speaker 1: little mean spirit. It was women on women crime and

1381
01:15:36,240 --> 01:15:40,679
Speaker 1: it was so like I was so shocked that it did.

1382
01:15:40,760 --> 01:15:43,080
Speaker 1: There was not that camaraderie like we're in this together,

1383
01:15:43,160 --> 01:15:45,280
Speaker 1: which I like, I love. That's my favorite thing work

1384
01:15:45,360 --> 01:15:49,200
Speaker 1: collaborative with a lot of people towards one goal. And

1385
01:15:49,560 --> 01:15:52,160
Speaker 1: it wasn't that. So I thought, well what am I

1386
01:15:52,200 --> 01:15:55,320
Speaker 1: gonna do? So I started I started freelancing. I thought, well,

1387
01:15:55,360 --> 01:15:57,160
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be I was gonna get a

1388
01:15:57,200 --> 01:15:59,800
Speaker 1: graduate school to go get a teaching degree to teach history,

1389
01:15:59,840 --> 01:16:02,559
Speaker 1: and but no, that doesn't really appeal to me. So

1390
01:16:02,640 --> 01:16:05,840
Speaker 1: I started freelancing, and I started getting hired a lot

1391
01:16:06,120 --> 01:16:09,960
Speaker 1: for writing about music. So I just went down that path.

1392
01:16:10,040 --> 01:16:11,880
Speaker 1: It just opened up again. I mean, it was pretty

1393
01:16:11,960 --> 01:16:16,200
Speaker 1: much I just re entered my life where I left it. Okay,

1394
01:16:16,280 --> 01:16:19,120
Speaker 1: need let's just say we grew up in Eric, where

1395
01:16:19,200 --> 01:16:23,360
Speaker 1: music drove the culture. What do you think about today's

1396
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:27,000
Speaker 1: seeing in today's music visa VI what it was? Well,

1397
01:16:27,080 --> 01:16:31,120
Speaker 1: I feel like they don't seek there. I don't. I

1398
01:16:31,200 --> 01:16:34,080
Speaker 1: got my identity from music, I mean somehow, and the

1399
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:37,320
Speaker 1: lyrics there was prophecy, it was encoded, was a message

1400
01:16:37,360 --> 01:16:39,760
Speaker 1: that we all got, you know. And if you like

1401
01:16:39,840 --> 01:16:41,880
Speaker 1: the Stone to a certain kind of person, if you

1402
01:16:42,000 --> 01:16:44,400
Speaker 1: like the Beatles, you are another kind Like it defined

1403
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:47,559
Speaker 1: who we were everything. Now people don't need that sense

1404
01:16:47,600 --> 01:16:50,280
Speaker 1: of identification. It's not so cut and dry. It's not

1405
01:16:50,320 --> 01:16:52,840
Speaker 1: a world of strays and heads is that you know?

1406
01:16:52,880 --> 01:16:55,080
Speaker 1: That term used to be too. So I think that

1407
01:16:55,160 --> 01:16:58,040
Speaker 1: there's other ways that people pick up who they are

1408
01:16:58,080 --> 01:17:01,520
Speaker 1: the persona and if there's anything and people are more gamers,

1409
01:17:01,560 --> 01:17:05,160
Speaker 1: you know, and music has just fallen out. It's kind

1410
01:17:05,200 --> 01:17:08,960
Speaker 1: of background music. And I think it's really a disservice

1411
01:17:08,960 --> 01:17:11,840
Speaker 1: because I still think that somehow musicians are tapped in

1412
01:17:11,880 --> 01:17:13,719
Speaker 1: and they hear things that the rest of us don't.

1413
01:17:13,760 --> 01:17:16,840
Speaker 1: They just get some kind of message, some kind of

1414
01:17:17,560 --> 01:17:19,920
Speaker 1: enlighten it, some kind of way to live. And maybe

1415
01:17:19,960 --> 01:17:23,559
Speaker 1: I'm putting too much on a musician, but I've I've

1416
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:25,920
Speaker 1: found out a lot of things that I know, I

1417
01:17:25,960 --> 01:17:28,479
Speaker 1: find just by probing a musicians brain. I mean, I

1418
01:17:28,479 --> 01:17:31,080
Speaker 1: don't know you interview musicians, I mean, do you know?

1419
01:17:31,160 --> 01:17:34,040
Speaker 1: I mean I find that you know, you talk about

1420
01:17:34,160 --> 01:17:37,479
Speaker 1: being in a club and being different. The only people

1421
01:17:37,520 --> 01:17:39,560
Speaker 1: I tend to be able to relate to our musicians.

1422
01:17:39,640 --> 01:17:43,639
Speaker 1: They have the same attitude. They're outsiders. They can laugh

1423
01:17:43,680 --> 01:17:47,080
Speaker 1: at life, They're gonna go whereas everybody else you know,

1424
01:17:47,200 --> 01:17:50,240
Speaker 1: is following the buck and checking off the boxes whatever,

1425
01:17:50,680 --> 01:17:55,559
Speaker 1: which is just not who I am. And uh, I'm

1426
01:17:55,560 --> 01:17:58,000
Speaker 1: gonna ask you a very standard question. But you have

1427
01:17:58,040 --> 01:18:00,479
Speaker 1: so much experience, I think people want to know, Oh,

1428
01:18:00,640 --> 01:18:04,120
Speaker 1: you've been to so many concerts. What are the handful

1429
01:18:04,160 --> 01:18:08,840
Speaker 1: of best concerts you ever saw? Prince at Radio City

1430
01:18:09,240 --> 01:18:11,799
Speaker 1: back in the eighties, maybe eighty one, that was probably

1431
01:18:11,880 --> 01:18:15,960
Speaker 1: number one. The Stone Roses actually at the fillmore Um

1432
01:18:16,040 --> 01:18:19,280
Speaker 1: when they came back for their second coming album. That

1433
01:18:19,400 --> 01:18:24,240
Speaker 1: was transformative led Zeppelin the second time I saw them

1434
01:18:24,280 --> 01:18:29,680
Speaker 1: in nineteen um the Beatles in sixty six, even though

1435
01:18:29,680 --> 01:18:31,640
Speaker 1: I couldn't hear them, It's it was like one of

1436
01:18:31,640 --> 01:18:36,640
Speaker 1: those life changing and um Connor Oberst when he was

1437
01:18:36,920 --> 01:18:39,439
Speaker 1: just when he was Bright Eyes around two thousand four,

1438
01:18:39,640 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 1: that one just really spoke to my core. There's something

1439
01:18:42,320 --> 01:18:45,000
Speaker 1: again he something in his voice, something in his expression,

1440
01:18:45,360 --> 01:18:49,080
Speaker 1: something in that that stream of consciousness words. It's almost

1441
01:18:49,080 --> 01:18:52,759
Speaker 1: like like deciphering cave dwelling. Like I feel like again

1442
01:18:52,800 --> 01:18:57,080
Speaker 1: he's tapped into something and I relate to that. And

1443
01:18:57,400 --> 01:19:00,519
Speaker 1: I always think that arts, amir like the bands, you

1444
01:19:00,640 --> 01:19:04,200
Speaker 1: like the artists, you like they reflect something of yourself

1445
01:19:04,840 --> 01:19:08,040
Speaker 1: and you see that in them. And obviously something I

1446
01:19:08,120 --> 01:19:11,040
Speaker 1: see in myself I see in him. Maybe not Liz

1447
01:19:11,120 --> 01:19:14,559
Speaker 1: Up when that's just pure like m Bass. I don't know.

1448
01:19:14,640 --> 01:19:18,160
Speaker 1: I think I think I have like an incomplete theory

1449
01:19:18,200 --> 01:19:21,920
Speaker 1: about that. But those are my five. Okay. At the time,

1450
01:19:22,000 --> 01:19:24,200
Speaker 1: you know, the Stone Roses only had one album. They

1451
01:19:24,200 --> 01:19:27,439
Speaker 1: were legends in the UK, really didn't have impact in

1452
01:19:27,439 --> 01:19:30,200
Speaker 1: the US. Why was the show so great? You know,

1453
01:19:30,439 --> 01:19:33,080
Speaker 1: I came to light I missed in the first time around,

1454
01:19:33,120 --> 01:19:36,080
Speaker 1: and it was really an assignment, like I had to

1455
01:19:36,120 --> 01:19:38,040
Speaker 1: cover it for I was working for a news magazine

1456
01:19:38,040 --> 01:19:40,519
Speaker 1: Addicted to Noise that um I did back in the

1457
01:19:40,720 --> 01:19:44,360
Speaker 1: early nineties with Michael Roberg, one of the first online

1458
01:19:44,560 --> 01:19:47,120
Speaker 1: music magazines, and it was one of those things which

1459
01:19:47,120 --> 01:19:49,000
Speaker 1: always works for me, Like you said, just go cover

1460
01:19:49,120 --> 01:19:53,519
Speaker 1: these guys, so I um I started writing news about

1461
01:19:53,560 --> 01:19:56,320
Speaker 1: them and I did an interview with them, and when

1462
01:19:56,400 --> 01:19:59,439
Speaker 1: they came out for that second tour after that second

1463
01:19:59,439 --> 01:20:02,559
Speaker 1: album Electra, I don't know, there was just magic. It's

1464
01:20:02,600 --> 01:20:07,040
Speaker 1: just something in that kind of like Shoegazer tonality. It's

1465
01:20:07,120 --> 01:20:10,200
Speaker 1: just really like sound. Like Braceleck said that God is

1466
01:20:10,360 --> 01:20:13,720
Speaker 1: energy and and you know, music is vibration and that's

1467
01:20:13,760 --> 01:20:15,680
Speaker 1: where the Holy list. And there was something about that

1468
01:20:15,760 --> 01:20:18,760
Speaker 1: Stone Roses concert that I saw the film were not

1469
01:20:18,920 --> 01:20:23,320
Speaker 1: technically wonderful. Ian Brown's voice was flat, but there's just

1470
01:20:23,439 --> 01:20:26,960
Speaker 1: something in that whole experience of that that blast of sound,

1471
01:20:27,040 --> 01:20:29,840
Speaker 1: that way it goes into your body and the viscual

1472
01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:32,680
Speaker 1: reaction to it. They just strike a chord with me,

1473
01:20:32,760 --> 01:20:35,519
Speaker 1: and that's really what it is. Did you keep the

1474
01:20:35,560 --> 01:20:40,160
Speaker 1: records in the ephemeral Yes, no, not not, not any

1475
01:20:40,200 --> 01:20:42,439
Speaker 1: of it. I had the Stone Roads and stuff. I

1476
01:20:42,479 --> 01:20:46,080
Speaker 1: have a Gold Fool's Gold album. But no, I gave everything. Wait,

1477
01:20:46,200 --> 01:20:49,439
Speaker 1: I even gave my last cream T shirt to Joey

1478
01:20:49,560 --> 01:20:52,800
Speaker 1: Ramone like no, nothing, Well that makes a story that's

1479
01:20:52,800 --> 01:20:55,919
Speaker 1: worth So why did you mean to get the records

1480
01:20:55,960 --> 01:20:59,840
Speaker 1: for free? That was one reason you became a rock critic. Okay,

1481
01:21:00,280 --> 01:21:03,800
Speaker 1: so you gave them away later in life or during

1482
01:21:03,800 --> 01:21:06,040
Speaker 1: the era? No, you know, I have so I could

1483
01:21:06,040 --> 01:21:09,160
Speaker 1: get everything back, Like I als was traveling light, like

1484
01:21:09,240 --> 01:21:12,040
Speaker 1: when I moved to California. I was thinking about this

1485
01:21:12,080 --> 01:21:13,720
Speaker 1: because my daughter was moving to l A. And I

1486
01:21:13,760 --> 01:21:15,840
Speaker 1: was thinking about how much stuff I put on that

1487
01:21:15,960 --> 01:21:19,640
Speaker 1: Mayflower truck. And did I take my records? Yeah, just

1488
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:22,000
Speaker 1: to select few. I found them when my father died.

1489
01:21:22,040 --> 01:21:23,639
Speaker 1: I found the rest of them and I just sold

1490
01:21:23,680 --> 01:21:26,559
Speaker 1: them and um and like in a state sale. But

1491
01:21:26,640 --> 01:21:29,000
Speaker 1: you know, the other fact was they weren't in good shape.

1492
01:21:29,040 --> 01:21:32,839
Speaker 1: My parents living in Michigan, they would have annual floods,

1493
01:21:32,880 --> 01:21:35,000
Speaker 1: so they weren't in great shape. But I just think

1494
01:21:35,040 --> 01:21:37,160
Speaker 1: I was always going to be able and pick up

1495
01:21:37,200 --> 01:21:39,080
Speaker 1: that stuff. Again, I think it was always going to

1496
01:21:39,160 --> 01:21:42,240
Speaker 1: go on forever. I said that in the Cream documentary.

1497
01:21:42,280 --> 01:21:43,880
Speaker 1: I'm not sure it made it into the film, but

1498
01:21:44,240 --> 01:21:46,200
Speaker 1: they asked me if I kept anything. I said no,

1499
01:21:46,280 --> 01:21:48,880
Speaker 1: I didn't keep anything. I really thought it would go

1500
01:21:48,920 --> 01:21:50,639
Speaker 1: on forever and I can go and get my Cream

1501
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:54,120
Speaker 1: T shirts later. I know. Okay, if you have to

1502
01:21:54,120 --> 01:21:57,120
Speaker 1: do it all over again, the same path, same path,

1503
01:21:58,080 --> 01:22:03,519
Speaker 1: you well that you know this is about you. I mean, uh,

1504
01:22:04,080 --> 01:22:07,479
Speaker 1: I would say I don't have any regrets, but there

1505
01:22:07,479 --> 01:22:11,599
Speaker 1: are choices I made that I question, okay, in terms

1506
01:22:11,600 --> 01:22:14,960
Speaker 1: of dedicating myself to rock and roll, not that it

1507
01:22:15,000 --> 01:22:18,760
Speaker 1: was consciously that. You know, it's kind of like Godfather

1508
01:22:19,240 --> 01:22:21,280
Speaker 1: three and he tried to leave. It just pulls you

1509
01:22:21,360 --> 01:22:26,400
Speaker 1: back in. And uh so what did we learn? You

1510
01:22:26,439 --> 01:22:31,040
Speaker 1: know all this? You know, this journey of decades. I

1511
01:22:31,080 --> 01:22:33,519
Speaker 1: think that, um, I mean, it's a thing that keeps

1512
01:22:33,560 --> 01:22:36,080
Speaker 1: going back to that there's something holy in the sound.

1513
01:22:36,200 --> 01:22:38,680
Speaker 1: It's like it's like the tribe speaks to each other

1514
01:22:38,800 --> 01:22:41,400
Speaker 1: through music, and I like to be part of the tribe.

1515
01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:43,320
Speaker 1: I mean, I really did grow up in that Hipper

1516
01:22:43,320 --> 01:22:48,920
Speaker 1: era and I feel completely dedicated to preserving that group.

1517
01:22:49,040 --> 01:22:51,439
Speaker 1: Think that that we're in it together and we can

1518
01:22:51,479 --> 01:22:54,799
Speaker 1: make this a better way. And I got those messages

1519
01:22:54,840 --> 01:22:58,120
Speaker 1: in the music. Like I remember this Lester quote. It's

1520
01:22:58,120 --> 01:23:02,480
Speaker 1: something like like he he listened to black bands obsessively

1521
01:23:02,560 --> 01:23:05,679
Speaker 1: because in some flash flight moment he saw he saw

1522
01:23:06,080 --> 01:23:08,960
Speaker 1: hope of a better world, a better society, saw prophecy

1523
01:23:09,000 --> 01:23:13,439
Speaker 1: in that. And that quote always got me because that

1524
01:23:13,560 --> 01:23:15,680
Speaker 1: was it. It's like I saw some vision that I

1525
01:23:15,720 --> 01:23:18,400
Speaker 1: wanted to be. Do I want to date rock Star's

1526
01:23:18,400 --> 01:23:20,400
Speaker 1: note I want to be them? No, I just wanted

1527
01:23:20,439 --> 01:23:23,479
Speaker 1: to explain them to myself and then exclaim to other people.

1528
01:23:23,920 --> 01:23:26,600
Speaker 1: It was just fascinating to me. Well, Needles say, the

1529
01:23:26,640 --> 01:23:30,519
Speaker 1: ethos has changed. When we were growing up, if there

1530
01:23:30,520 --> 01:23:33,080
Speaker 1: were any Republicans, you literally knew who they were and

1531
01:23:33,120 --> 01:23:37,840
Speaker 1: you hunt them out. Okay, and certainly remember after Ken

1532
01:23:37,920 --> 01:23:41,719
Speaker 1: State we had Ohio. We also remember listening to the radio.

1533
01:23:41,880 --> 01:23:43,960
Speaker 1: The radio gave you everything, gave you the music, gave

1534
01:23:44,000 --> 01:23:49,160
Speaker 1: you the news, whatever. But it doesn't seem to be

1535
01:23:49,280 --> 01:23:52,720
Speaker 1: that way. This just going to the ultimate question. Is

1536
01:23:52,800 --> 01:23:56,080
Speaker 1: there hope? You seem to be an optimistic person in

1537
01:23:56,200 --> 01:23:59,000
Speaker 1: a nation full of turmoil? Is their hope? And what

1538
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:02,360
Speaker 1: role does music I have to play in that, you know.

1539
01:24:02,560 --> 01:24:04,720
Speaker 1: I think it's more like artists or maybe actors. There

1540
01:24:04,760 --> 01:24:07,640
Speaker 1: any kind of artists. You know, it's like if you

1541
01:24:07,720 --> 01:24:10,519
Speaker 1: can make enough of a statement in people who follow you,

1542
01:24:10,920 --> 01:24:13,599
Speaker 1: which that's what it is, you know that they will

1543
01:24:13,640 --> 01:24:16,920
Speaker 1: follow you anywhere kind of thing. I mean, I don't know.

1544
01:24:17,120 --> 01:24:19,280
Speaker 1: I mean I think that there's always room for the truth,

1545
01:24:19,840 --> 01:24:22,439
Speaker 1: and you know, sometimes it's listened to and sometimes it's not.

1546
01:24:22,640 --> 01:24:25,200
Speaker 1: Do I feel pessimistic about the future. I still feel

1547
01:24:25,200 --> 01:24:27,400
Speaker 1: like it's going to readjust things get so bad that

1548
01:24:27,439 --> 01:24:30,240
Speaker 1: the pendulum has to swing swing the other way. So

1549
01:24:30,320 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there hope for music. I want

1550
01:24:33,200 --> 01:24:36,519
Speaker 1: to say yes, but not in the part it doesn't

1551
01:24:36,560 --> 01:24:38,720
Speaker 1: occupy the same place in the culture and it may

1552
01:24:38,800 --> 01:24:43,640
Speaker 1: never again. Well, you've certainly laid down some truth and

1553
01:24:43,800 --> 01:24:46,960
Speaker 1: inside here, Jan this has been wonderful. Thanks so much

1554
01:24:46,960 --> 01:24:49,559
Speaker 1: for fearing the time. Oh thank you for maowing me

1555
01:24:50,439 --> 01:24:52,639
Speaker 1: until next time. This is Bob left us