Speaker 1: Hey, kids, this is Alan Sachs. If your parents are
Speaker 1: letting you listen to this show, tell him they shouldn't listener.
Speaker 1: Discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: It's late at night in nineteen eighty two. You're home
Speaker 2: in Los Angeles flipping channels, and you come across I
Speaker 2: guess you could call it like a variety show.
Speaker 3: Hi, welcome a new wave theater. Well you've arrived on
Speaker 3: time tonight. But that doesn't mean it's going to be easy.
Speaker 3: Slapping the back of an ox never was, especially one
Speaker 3: that's stuck in the mire of history that was never recorded.
Speaker 2: The host of the show slides into frame. He's wearing
Speaker 2: a pink sequin jacket, and as he starts to speak,
Speaker 2: he pulls out sunglasses and puts them on.
Speaker 3: If you want to be a sphinx, you must first
Speaker 3: be a sphinx.
Speaker 2: He's giving a strange monologue. It doesn't make a lot
Speaker 2: of sense.
Speaker 3: History shows us that if you've got the budget, you
Speaker 3: can sell a camera, toothbrush, or even make yourself the
Speaker 3: hero of your own version of the history of the world.
Speaker 2: The host screeches and vamps, then throws to the band
Speaker 2: over clips of a rat being stroked with a Barbie
Speaker 2: Doll's hand. This thing you're watching is a public access
Speaker 2: show called new Wave Theater. Imagine early MTV meets experimental
Speaker 2: film with a cocaine fuel director pulling the strings. It's
Speaker 2: hosted by a friend of mine, Peter Ivers.
Speaker 3: We're forcing new life into music and new wave music
Speaker 3: into life. New Wave Theater is fast becoming the ultimate
Speaker 3: underground alternative, and we thank you for your healthy response.
Speaker 3: Shows real health for.
Speaker 2: This genre of TV doesn't really exist anymore. Public access
Speaker 2: was like primitive YouTube. Almost anyone could get a thirty
Speaker 2: minute slot, usually late at night on local channels. The
Speaker 2: quality varied quite a bit, but every once in a
Speaker 2: while you could find something great. Public access gave us Alvira,
Speaker 2: Tom Green and even if you think about it, Wayne's
Speaker 2: World Gaily Reminder, Thursday purchased feeble public access cables.
Speaker 1: Show and exploit it. WHOA, I feel sorry for whoever
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 2: Let's look over here. Wayne's World is a film that
Speaker 2: I directed, but we'll come back to me later anyway.
Speaker 2: New Wave Theater was a public access show that showcased
Speaker 2: la punk bands in all their grungey glory.
Speaker 4: The Unknowns, the Street Cycle Jerks, one of the Five
Speaker 4: Blast Tribes of Punk Levi textor in the Tribe Cable party,
Speaker 4: Eat your Neighbor for Phoenix Arizona Chill her.
Speaker 2: Budday, which is why it was surprising to see Peter
Speaker 2: Ivers as the host in a spiffy pink sequin jacket
Speaker 2: and showing his three chest hairs. But he's adorable and
Speaker 2: very very sweet and kind of goofy. Definitely not a punk.
Speaker 2: Didn't have that each shit attitude. He was a cool dude. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was Peter Ivers.
Speaker 3: Elbarra and I make such a perfect couple. We may
Speaker 3: get married at a red wedding, so we make history.
Speaker 2: This story is about him, It's about the show he
Speaker 2: hosted New Wave Theater, but it's also about LA's underground
Speaker 2: music scene in the early eighties. It had punks and
Speaker 2: artists and comedians and TV celebrities all circling around this
Speaker 2: strange singular cultural moment. You'd walk into a scuzzy club
Speaker 2: and see John Belushi in a black flag, or David
Speaker 2: Lee roth yucking it up with me, or even Bruce
Speaker 2: Springsteen over there watching the band on stage. And there
Speaker 2: were some shady characters too, people you prefer not to
Speaker 2: meet unless of course you were looking to get high
Speaker 2: or get robbed, are both. It was a weird mix
Speaker 2: of people in a weird city at a weird time,
Speaker 2: and I was there. So was Peter. He was right
Speaker 2: in the middle of it all until he was murdered
Speaker 2: in March of nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 5: And I just remember falling to the floor, blood curdling scream.
Speaker 5: I just I couldn't stop.
Speaker 1: Peter Rivers is dead.
Speaker 2: It was like getting hit with him.
Speaker 6: It's not possible, all of that, Wow, We're going to
Speaker 6: live forever, anything can happen. All that youthful optimism suddenly
Speaker 6: went when Peter Rivers was murdered.
Speaker 2: For the punk scene and for Hollywood, his death was
Speaker 2: a sobering moment, and it raised a question that forty
Speaker 2: years later, we still don't know the answer to who
Speaker 2: killed Peter Ivers. I'm Penelope Spheris, and this is Peter
Speaker 2: and the Acid King. Peter Ivers is a hard guy
Speaker 2: to sum up. He was the host of New Wave Theater,
Speaker 2: but also a film composer and a Harvard graduate. He
Speaker 2: practiced yoga and mindfulness years before it became Hollywood bullshit.
Speaker 2: He had a black belt in karate. Believe it or not.
Speaker 2: Peter was also a fixture on the la night life scene,
Speaker 2: flitting from a punk show to a party in Laurel
Speaker 2: Canyon to an after hour's joint in Hollywood and everywhere
Speaker 2: in between. But maybe most importantly, people loved Peter. He
Speaker 2: was attractive in all senses of that word.
Speaker 5: I don't know if I was like physically attracted, but
Speaker 5: just I found him his mind and his spirit and
Speaker 5: his depth. He had a lot going on.
Speaker 1: Peter was the fulfillment of one of the ideals of
Speaker 1: that period, which was the Renaissance man. Peter was mister
Speaker 1: Kundalini yoga sex god.
Speaker 4: So he had all.
Speaker 2: These women losing their minds over him.
Speaker 7: He was very comfortable in his own skin and seemed
Speaker 7: like he really had a vision for things which could
Speaker 7: be kind of intense. Also, was just so playful and
Speaker 7: silly and sort of game to try anything, just you know,
Speaker 7: sort of boundary pushing and fun.
Speaker 2: That last voice you heard was Violet Ramis. She's the
Speaker 2: daughter of Anne and Harold Ramis. He directed movies like
Speaker 2: Caddie Shack and Groundhog Day. Harold and Peter were friends,
Speaker 2: and Harold introduced Anne to Peter.
Speaker 8: He came over to our house.
Speaker 2: We were going to do yoga together.
Speaker 7: All of a sudden, you know, here's this new character
Speaker 7: teaching me yoga and some karate moves and then asking
Speaker 7: me if I wanted to sing in his show at
Speaker 7: the club Lingerie. Okay, yeah, I'm five years old. I'd
Speaker 7: love that.
Speaker 2: Even though Peter was in his thirties, he had this
Speaker 2: Peter Pan quality to him.
Speaker 8: He was such a mischievous kind of fellow. And I
Speaker 8: remember his mother used to always send bigger shirts than
Speaker 8: he was. She just thought it was bigger than he was.
Speaker 7: When he came into the room, everyone looked. Everyone wanted
Speaker 7: him to notice what they were doing. He was small,
Speaker 7: but he took up a lot of space.
Speaker 2: Peter's relationship with the Raymonds family shows how unique he was.
Speaker 2: Harold liked Peter's counter culture cred and liked Peter's softer
Speaker 2: spiritual side. And Violet like having a friend who treated
Speaker 2: her like a person, not just a little kid.
Speaker 8: He played the harmonica for violent and she was spellbounbed,
Speaker 8: you know, because it was something that she could do.
Speaker 8: We got a little harmonica for her that she would
Speaker 8: wear on a chain and she would play it all
Speaker 8: the time.
Speaker 2: So I liked that.
Speaker 8: I thought it would be a good way for her
Speaker 8: to be able to express herself.
Speaker 2: The point is, Peter met you where you were. He
Speaker 2: came to your window and whisked you away to a
Speaker 2: land of fun and excitement of being in the world.
Speaker 2: Attracted many people, and I was one of those people.
Speaker 2: So you may ask yourself, who is this bitch?
Speaker 7: Ron?
Speaker 8: Please?
Speaker 7: You mean like specifically, like where I sleep?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm Penelope Spears and I'm a filmmaker. That clip
Speaker 2: is of me forty some years ago interviewing Black Flag
Speaker 2: out of vacant church they lived in.
Speaker 7: It's not exactly when you were calling penthouse or anything
Speaker 7: like that.
Speaker 8: This is why this is where all the action.
Speaker 2: Goes, all right, it's definitely not a penthouse. Ron Ron
Speaker 2: lifts a curtain in front of a tiny hole in
Speaker 2: the wall, like where Harry Potter sleeps, but with graffiti,
Speaker 2: empty forties and some girls raggedy fishnets.
Speaker 8: Let's say a bad.
Speaker 2: How much is it got?
Speaker 7: Uh, sixteen dollars a month?
Speaker 8: How much do you make per month when you when
Speaker 8: you as a performer?
Speaker 9: Oh?
Speaker 6: Pretty much.
Speaker 2: Nothing That clips from my documentary about La Punk the
Speaker 2: Decline of Western Civilization. I shot The Decline back in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine and eighty, before New Wave theater even existed,
Speaker 2: and later I sold out and directed some Hollywood movies
Speaker 2: like Wayne's World.
Speaker 9: It's like people only do things because they get paid,
Speaker 9: and that's just really sad.
Speaker 2: But the reality is I'm a punk at heart. There
Speaker 2: was a specific moment in my music video career because
Speaker 2: I had a music video company in Los Angeles called
Speaker 2: Rock and Reel and I was putting some equipment back
Speaker 2: in the equipment house and standing at the counter and
Speaker 2: this dude next to me says, have you ever heard
Speaker 2: of the sex Pistols? And I said no, and he goes,
Speaker 2: listen to the sex Pistols? So I did, and it
Speaker 2: was really a life changing moment for me. I think
Speaker 2: what made me fall in love with punk rock, if
Speaker 2: you can do that, is I totally related to the
Speaker 2: people that were in the scene because they were a
Speaker 2: bunch of rejects. I always felt like I was a
Speaker 2: reject too. You know, I had a really difficult upbringing,
Speaker 2: and you know, four kids living in a trailer with
Speaker 2: a drunk mom and dad, and everybody's bloody every week.
Speaker 2: That's why being in a mosh pit didn't bother me,
Speaker 2: you know, because I mean I was like mashion every
Speaker 2: week in my family home, you know, And that's what
Speaker 2: made me get on the on the pulk rock trail.
Speaker 2: These stray dogs banded together and loved each other in
Speaker 2: a way that they didn't have that kind of love
Speaker 2: in their own families, and so they formed new families.
Speaker 2: These people are very honest and giving. They're good people.
Speaker 2: But not the posers, you know. The posers can kiss
Speaker 2: my ass. Peter Ivers wasn't a punk, and he wasn't
Speaker 2: a poser either. He was something else. As for new
Speaker 2: wave theater, it always rubbed me the wrong way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it showcased punk bands, but at his core I thought
Speaker 2: it was total jive. Part of the problem was right
Speaker 2: there in its name new wave. I don't know if
Speaker 2: it's legit or cool to quote my own movie, but
Speaker 2: Claude Bessie gave the best definition of new wave and
Speaker 2: how it fit into the scene.
Speaker 1: There's no such thing as new wave. It does not exist.
Speaker 1: There's new music, there's new underground sound, there's noise, there's punk,
Speaker 1: there's power pub This god is Rocketbillye. But new wave
Speaker 1: doesn't mean shit.
Speaker 2: The tension between punk and so called new wave made
Speaker 2: new wave theater an uncomfortable thing to watch. Why are
Speaker 2: people so afraid today?
Speaker 3: What do you think is the ultimate reason? Watched the
Speaker 3: film You don't want to give me clear answers to
Speaker 3: a question about how to change things haven't flipped yet.
Speaker 2: Still, the show attracted attention, so much so that it
Speaker 2: got picked up by a real TV company, the USA Network.
Speaker 2: By nineteen eighty three, it was becoming Peter ivers claim
Speaker 2: to fame, and then it all went to hell.
Speaker 1: The first time I met Peter, he was wearing a towel.
Speaker 1: Was he was? He was in the baths. I was there,
Speaker 1: I was wearing a towel. Were both wearing towels.
Speaker 2: That's Alan Sachs. He may be best known for co
Speaker 2: creating the show Welcome bat Cotter, and he discovered John
Speaker 2: Travolta back in the eighties. He was a big deal
Speaker 2: TV executive by day and by night. Alan was a punk.
Speaker 2: In another place, in another time, someone like Alan Sachs
Speaker 2: would never have known someone like Peter Ivers. But this
Speaker 2: was LA in the early nineteen eighties. So here they
Speaker 2: are sitting in a sauna together, and.
Speaker 1: I was happy to meet Peter. I always wanted to
Speaker 1: meet Peter. He was a center of a lot of
Speaker 1: people around hearing his stories, and he always had great stories.
Speaker 1: I liked the yet a certain sarcasm about him, and
Speaker 1: I liked his sense of humor. I liked his intelligence.
Speaker 2: Alan and Peter would go to dinner talk about meditation
Speaker 2: and the TV business. Sometimes they would part together. Cut
Speaker 2: to the morning of March third, nineteen eighty three. Alan
Speaker 2: had stayed up all night partying before flying to New York.
Speaker 2: By the time he arrives, he's hungover and bleary eyed.
Speaker 1: I had stayed up all night, flew to New York.
Speaker 1: The next day, I was at my friend Ratso was
Speaker 1: working with John Cale from the Velvets. Brought me over
Speaker 1: to Cale's place. He was going to play me some
Speaker 1: music that Cale and Ratso were working on. And answering
Speaker 1: machines were a new phenomenon then people are always checking it.
Speaker 2: Back then, an answering machine was this thing on the
Speaker 2: desk and you would call yourself and press a button
Speaker 2: and listen to your messages. So Alan calls to check
Speaker 2: his messages. Even though he's a party monster, he's still
Speaker 2: a TV producer. Maybe something important's going on.
Speaker 1: And I had a message and it said Peter Ravis
Speaker 1: is dead.
Speaker 2: Peter Ivers was dead, not just dead, murdered, which was
Speaker 2: crazy because Alan Alan had just seen Peter alive at
Speaker 2: the spot. Alan had been partying at the spot they
Speaker 2: all partied at.
Speaker 1: I had literally just seen Peter before I got on
Speaker 1: the plane. We had been hanging out at the cave.
Speaker 1: And he got into his little sports car, which I
Speaker 1: believe was a Fiat, a little beaten up, and he
Speaker 1: drove off and I never saw him again. That was
Speaker 1: Mark Second, nineteen eighty three, forty years ago, forty years wow.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Mark Third, he was found by his neighbor,
Speaker 1: Jim Tucker. He walked into Peter's room and Peter was
Speaker 1: lying there in bed, covered with a bloody blanket. And
Speaker 1: when Jim got closer, he could see that Peter's head
Speaker 1: had been bashed in.
Speaker 2: And this news is shocking, and said O, of course,
Speaker 2: but it's also frightening because now there's a murderer among us.
Speaker 1: And that was really scary because I was going to
Speaker 1: be going back. I didn't want to come back to
Speaker 1: La I don't want to be back back in that scene.
Speaker 1: If there's a murderer of walking around.
Speaker 2: The News of Peter's death spread fast. The punks, the artists,
Speaker 2: the film people, everyone was talking. I honestly don't remember
Speaker 2: how I heard it.
Speaker 1: I mean, but word.
Speaker 2: Went around really super fast. Everybody knew, like right away.
Speaker 6: We were at Elle's bar, we were in the little
Speaker 6: coffee shops at the Atomic Cafe, and suddenly.
Speaker 2: It was like, did you hear Peter Rivers got murdered?
Speaker 2: He told me that Peter died, said murdered.
Speaker 4: This isn't some kind of joke, right, I'll never forget it.
Speaker 2: We had already had a couple of people die of drugs,
Speaker 2: but to be murdered, it's like, holy fuck.
Speaker 1: People started showing up and Peter's loft to see if
Speaker 1: the roomors were true, to see if he was really
Speaker 1: This was before the cops even got there. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they had been called and just were slow
Speaker 1: getting to the scene or what. But by the time
Speaker 1: the cops did actually arrive, the loft was full of
Speaker 1: people looked like a cocktail body, Peter's friends, some people,
Speaker 1: maybe even just random people who wanted to see what
Speaker 1: all the excitement was about. I mean, people like Harold Ramis,
Speaker 1: the guy who wrote Animal House. He ended up there.
Speaker 1: It was a total madhouse. People walking everywhere, running off
Speaker 1: with Peter's stuff, which is not great if you were
Speaker 1: a detective and were trying to preserve.
Speaker 2: Evidence outside the scene. Not many people knew this unique,
Speaker 2: charismatic guy, but for those around him, like Anne Ramis,
Speaker 2: Peter's death changed everything.
Speaker 8: I can't remember how unreal it all seemed. I mean,
Speaker 8: later on it became more unreal. I wasn't even sure
Speaker 8: that it was true.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 8: I would be riding my bike and think, well, I
Speaker 8: what if I'm on the AFTRA level and I'm you know,
Speaker 8: passed over. I mean, this can this does? It just
Speaker 8: didn't feel real. You know.
Speaker 2: I have this concept that maybe certain people are just
Speaker 2: too good to be on the face of this earth.
Speaker 2: And my brother was like that. My brother was killed
Speaker 2: by a drunk driver in nineteen eighty four, and he
Speaker 2: was just too good to be here.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: My daughter's father died of a heroin overdose when she
Speaker 2: was four years old. He was too good to be here.
Speaker 2: And that's the way I think about Peter. So I'm
Speaker 2: not going to talk graphically about Peter's murder. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: let other people handle that part. I almost didn't take
Speaker 2: this gig because of the whole idea of turning murder
Speaker 2: into entertainment. It's just it's not my thing anyway. After
Speaker 2: Peter's death, the police started an investigation, but forty years later,
Speaker 2: no one's been charged or even arrested. For all of
Speaker 2: us who loved Peter, the lack of answers really hurts.
Speaker 1: I just couldn't understand why anyone who wanted to kill
Speaker 1: someone like Peter rives. Everybody loved Peter.
Speaker 2: One guy who never forgot Peter was Alan Sachs. A
Speaker 2: few years back, Alan decided to start his own investigation
Speaker 2: to try and make sense of this terrible thing. He
Speaker 2: started talking to people, pulling theories together, and so it's
Speaker 2: mostly his interviews you'll hear in the episode to come.
Speaker 1: And so I just started looking into it, and fuck,
Speaker 1: I almost wish I hadn't, because I became obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: For forty years, I've been obsessed with it and still,
Speaker 1: although maybe it was cathotic, and maybe this is cathotic
Speaker 1: that I did this and I'm talking about it, it
Speaker 1: became a release because people you walked around this world
Speaker 1: and suddenly one of the more innocent people in the
Speaker 1: world is dead in a gruesome, gruesome way.
Speaker 2: The more Alan learned, the wilder this story got.
Speaker 1: I learned that everybody wanted to talk about Peter Rivers.
Speaker 1: People were lining up to come and talk to me.
Speaker 2: Over the rest of this series, we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about what he found and more. We're going to talk
Speaker 2: about the punk scene and the nightclub scene. We'll talk
Speaker 2: about David Lynch and Colts and the Occault and guns
Speaker 2: and drug gangs and record deals and Saturday Night Live
Speaker 2: and the National Lampoon and how they're all intertwined around
Speaker 2: Peter Ivers. And we're going to do it to celebrate
Speaker 2: Peter's life, to try and shed some light on what
Speaker 2: happened to him and hopefully bring him some peace. Oh
Speaker 2: and one last thing, we're going to at least try
Speaker 2: to find that shithead that did it.
Speaker 9: I used to manage OJ Simpson, and I didn't think
Speaker 9: he did it until I did think he did it,
Speaker 9: And it's a little bit how I feel about I
Speaker 9: think that possibility is strong that he went over the
Speaker 9: top oto.
Speaker 1: I was terrified that if had killed Peter and thought
Speaker 1: that I was suspicious of him, that it could be
Speaker 1: bad for me. He liked to fool around with other
Speaker 1: people's wives, which was very dangerous.
Speaker 2: He was having an affair with the people shouldn't be
Speaker 2: messing with. I'm sure it was questioned a lot.
Speaker 1: Sounded to me like he owed people money.
Speaker 2: I mean literally, since a week it happened. I thought
Speaker 2: we did it.
Speaker 1: They didn't interview and they didn't. He was never suspect what.
Speaker 2: He was never of suspicion. That is even more faith
Speaker 2: in cops, doesn't it. Hey look at that a little mystery.
Speaker 2: This should keep all of you deviate oddballs satisfied for
Speaker 2: a bit until the next episode anyway, later days in
Speaker 2: better lays. All right? Can I go now?
Speaker 3: In the silence you can hear your thoughts, choose among
Speaker 3: them and design of future worth living for on behalf
Speaker 3: of our producer all World stage. This is your bell,
Speaker 3: Captain b Boy Ivers, wishing you a fitful sleep in
Speaker 3: the arms of Morpheus till next week.
Speaker 2: Peter and the Acid King is based on interviews recorded
Speaker 2: and researched by Alan Sachs. It's produced by Imagine Audio,
Speaker 2: Alan Sachs Productions and Awfully Nice for iHeartMedia. I'm Your
Speaker 2: Host Penelope Speerris. The series is written by Caitlin Fontana
Speaker 2: Peter and the Acid King is produced by Amber von Shassen.
Speaker 2: The senior producer is Caitlin Fontana and the supervising producer
Speaker 2: is John Asanti. Our project manager is Katie Hodges. Our
Speaker 2: executive producers are Ron Howard, Brian Grazier, Alan Sachs, Kara Welker,
Speaker 2: Nathan Kloke, Jesse Burton and Katie Hodges. The associate producers
Speaker 2: are Laura Schwartz, Dylan Cainrich and Chris Statue. Co producer
Speaker 2: on behalf of Shout Factory is Bob Emmer. Sound design
Speaker 2: and mis by Evan Arnette. Fact checking by Katherine Barner.
Speaker 2: Original music composed by Alloy Tracks, Music clearances by Barbara Hall.
Speaker 2: Voiceover recording by Voice Tracks West. Special thanks to Annette
Speaker 2: van Durin. Thank you for listening.