Speaker 1: The content in this episode might be disturbing for some listeners.
Speaker 1: Listen to discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: It's early nineteen eighty four in a bustling television studio
Speaker 2: in LA. There's an audience of punks, just like New
Speaker 2: Wave Theater. But unlike New Wave Theater, this ain't hokey anymore.
Speaker 2: It's a big crew, a control booth. It's a real
Speaker 2: production coming to you from KTLA. New Wave Theater's gone
Speaker 2: corporate thanks to Harold Ramus. After Peter's death, Harold introduced
Speaker 2: David Joe to a TV exec named Bill Cameron. Here's Bill.
Speaker 3: So David came in and I found him to be enchanting.
Speaker 2: The devil is a brilliant prankster, but the greatest trick
Speaker 2: he ever pulled was making David Jove enchanting to some people.
Speaker 2: Definitely not to me, but I guess some people found
Speaker 2: him endearing anyway. David pitches Bill a TV show idea.
Speaker 2: It's a spin on the New Wave theater formula.
Speaker 3: What he was doing was something called the Top and
Speaker 3: it was an entertainment variety.
Speaker 2: Our Bill's interested, so he sets up a meeting for
Speaker 2: them at MGM. In the meeting, the Suits have a
Speaker 2: question for David.
Speaker 4: What's going to make your show different?
Speaker 3: Tell me what happens when the lights go up and
Speaker 3: the camera goes on. What do I see?
Speaker 5: Joe?
Speaker 3: And we hadn't rehearsed this, had and talked about it.
Speaker 3: David said, you see seventeen little ducklings and a lama
Speaker 3: on the set and they're running around and it's a
Speaker 3: set like Johnny Carson has on Tonight's show, but they're
Speaker 3: ducklings and a lama on there, and that's what you see.
Speaker 3: And it sold the show because it was so It's clever,
Speaker 3: it was clever, it was different.
Speaker 2: The Suit's green light a pilot. It's a huge break
Speaker 2: for David. Despite its roots in public access, new Wave
Speaker 2: Theater had been a real TV show on national cable TV.
Speaker 2: But the Top was going to be on a whole
Speaker 2: nother level.
Speaker 3: This was going up, upscaled quite a bit.
Speaker 1: This was going to be How big a budget was
Speaker 1: this going to be?
Speaker 3: This in those days? I think we were talking three
Speaker 3: hundred thousand.
Speaker 2: In other words, a good chunk of change, which brings
Speaker 2: us back to that TV studio in La David and
Speaker 2: Harold are filming the pilot for the Top and the
Speaker 2: pressure is on. Jove skulks around, creating tension, but Harold
Speaker 2: tries to bring a sense of calm. It's thanks to
Speaker 2: him that there's a level of professionalism on the set.
Speaker 6: So Harold raymis enters the scene. It's like, okay, this
Speaker 6: is going to be a real TV production.
Speaker 2: That's Michael Dare, a film critic for LA Weekly.
Speaker 6: This is no longer your underground new ad theater that's
Speaker 6: shown as part of Night Flight on the USA network.
Speaker 6: This is going to be on an actual television network
Speaker 6: that's going to have commercials, and you're going to be
Speaker 6: the director in the booth, and there's going to have
Speaker 6: to be a script that everybody's going to have to follow.
Speaker 6: You're going to hire a writer, and David says, well,
Speaker 6: I don't need a script, and Harold Reimer says to him,
Speaker 6: you're going to hire a writer. And so David Jove
Speaker 6: comes to me and says, will you.
Speaker 2: Be the writer, the head writer of the Top.
Speaker 6: And I said, well, sure, what do you want me
Speaker 6: to do and he says nothing, You're not going to
Speaker 6: write a single word. I'm going to write every single
Speaker 6: word that everybody says on the show. And I'm only
Speaker 6: hiring you because Harold Raimas says that I have to
Speaker 6: hire a writer.
Speaker 2: Now that he's got a writer. All Jovenies is a
Speaker 2: celebrity host. So Harold Ramis picks up the phone and
Speaker 2: calls it a favor from one of the biggest comedians
Speaker 2: in town, a guy looking to get back to his
Speaker 2: TV roots, a guy named Cornelius.
Speaker 6: Everybody knows Chevy Chase is one of the biggest assholes
Speaker 6: on Earth. You can't read anything about him without someone
Speaker 6: telling a story about what a fucking asshole he is.
Speaker 2: Nobody likes it except me.
Speaker 6: I had the best meeting I've ever had with Chevy
Speaker 6: Chase because Harold Ramos was in the room. Harold Ramis
Speaker 6: calls a meeting. He says, Okay, David, bring your writer,
Speaker 6: I'll bring Chevy Chase. We're going to sit together and
Speaker 6: figure out what this show is.
Speaker 2: So Michael's in the room of Chevy Chase, Harold Ramis
Speaker 2: and David Jove. Chevy stands up and starts talking, and it.
Speaker 6: Was hilarious and brilliant, and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: I'm going to be the head writer of the Chevy
Speaker 6: j Show.
Speaker 2: Except that's not what happens. Jove puts the kabash on
Speaker 2: every single one of Chevy's ideas.
Speaker 6: No we're not going to do that. Oh I don't
Speaker 6: want to do that. No we're not going to do that.
Speaker 6: Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna keep cutting back
Speaker 6: to the sound booth, and all the technicians are gonna
Speaker 6: be animals. And when we cut to the audience, it's
Speaker 6: going to cut to a bunch of baby ducks.
Speaker 2: Oh no, not more baby ducks.
Speaker 6: So we kept having meetings and meetings and meetings at
Speaker 6: which nothing was decided except that nobody was allowed to
Speaker 6: do anything if David Joe didn't tell him to do it.
Speaker 6: I wrote a monologue for Chevy, he turned it down.
Speaker 6: Chevy wrote a monologue for himself, he turned it down.
Speaker 6: Nothing happened, Nothing happened. It was all getting up to
Speaker 6: the first day of you know, the production, the live show,
Speaker 6: and not one word had been written for Chevy Chase,
Speaker 6: not one word. He didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: And now they're out of time. The audience is in
Speaker 2: the studio waiting, and Chevy Chase has no script. Backstage,
Speaker 2: Jove walks up to Chevy to give his host some
Speaker 2: words of encouragement.
Speaker 6: Jove went up to him right before the cameras went
Speaker 6: on and put a freightwig on his head and said, Okay,
Speaker 6: you're you're a You're a punk, You're a punk rocker.
Speaker 6: Just get out there and win.
Speaker 2: The show starts. Chevy Chase comes on stage in a
Speaker 2: shitty punk rock wig.
Speaker 6: Hollywood, California, the entertainment capital up the world.
Speaker 2: We walk on your tower, surrounded by real punks. He
Speaker 2: looks ridiculous. What happens next makes the news.
Speaker 7: Teddy Chase was taking a television show in Los Angeles
Speaker 7: last night before invited audience of punk rockers.
Speaker 3: Things seemed to get out of hand, and here's what happened.
Speaker 2: Chevy comes out on stage in his stupid wig and
Speaker 2: starts improvising. It's not too long before the punks in
Speaker 2: the crowd get restless. One of the people watching is
Speaker 2: my dear friend Dirf Scratch. DIRF played bass and Fear,
Speaker 2: the band that got kicked off of Saturday Night Live.
Speaker 1: DIRF to me was the punk post boy that's Alan Sachs.
Speaker 1: Dirf was a hard Dirf looked like a preppy. He
Speaker 1: wore saddle shoes, but he was a hard corere punk.
Speaker 2: I remember one time Dirf asked me to go to
Speaker 2: his apartment and he gave me some couple of lines
Speaker 2: of speed and it burned my nose so bad that
Speaker 2: I never did speed again. So God bless Irf and
Speaker 2: thank you man. Anyway, Dirf is in the crowd for
Speaker 2: the taping of the Top and he starts hackling Chevy.
Speaker 1: Dirf was yelling you homo, you homo, and Chevy said,
Speaker 1: who said that? Come on up here? Tell that to me,
Speaker 1: and Dirf didn't wait a second and went running up
Speaker 1: to the stage. He ran up to the apron, pushed
Speaker 1: himself up on the riser, and ran over to Chevy
Speaker 1: and kicked him in the nuts.
Speaker 2: Apparently Chevy had just had a asectomy, so this kick
Speaker 2: was particularly unwelcome. Other punks jump on stage two.
Speaker 1: Pandemonium broke loose. I mean, I produced many television shows
Speaker 1: I've never been involved where a fight like that broke
Speaker 1: out in the audience.
Speaker 2: And then Chevy Chase leaves and never comes back. Normal
Speaker 2: people would give up after a shit store like that,
Speaker 2: but not David Jove. He badgers Harold Ramis to help
Speaker 2: him make another pilot. Harold reluctantly agrees, but with a
Speaker 2: new host and some conditions.
Speaker 6: And this time with Andy Kaufman instead of Chevy Chase,
Speaker 6: And this time Jove isn't allowed to write anything, isn't
Speaker 6: allowed to direct, it is allowed to do. I mean,
Speaker 6: Harold actually did handcuff him to a chair in the
Speaker 6: director's booth where he had to give directions to the
Speaker 6: cameraman to do what they were going to do.
Speaker 2: Even with Joe physically restrained, things go off the rails,
Speaker 2: although this time it's not completely his fault.
Speaker 8: Now, let me tell you a little about this video.
Speaker 8: It's called by Randy Newman, and it's called I Love La.
Speaker 2: And now it.
Speaker 8: Starts off with a bum. You see a bum, and
Speaker 8: it's all in black and white. So you think the
Speaker 8: whole thing's going to be black and white, right, But
Speaker 8: it turns out that then the for a few minutes
Speaker 8: of this, the thing turns to color. Okay, so that's
Speaker 8: a surprise. That's a surprise.
Speaker 2: Now, Andy Kaufman is a comedic genius. Have you ever
Speaker 2: seen him do Elvis Presley? It's fucking hilarious. But on
Speaker 2: this taping of the Top he was not at his best.
Speaker 2: The audience might have assumed he was having an off night,
Speaker 2: but in reality, Kaufman was dying of cancer. Here's Ken Daw,
Speaker 2: a New Wave theater fan who was at the taping.
Speaker 9: It was obvious he was so far I'm sick. He
Speaker 9: shouldn't have been there at all. I don't know why
Speaker 9: he's ready to do it, just because he wanted to
Speaker 9: do one last performance or something.
Speaker 10: And you know, a week or two weeks later, he
Speaker 10: was gone.
Speaker 4: He was dead.
Speaker 2: It was Andy Kaufman's last ever TV appearance. He died
Speaker 2: in May of nineteen eighty four, and The Top, such
Speaker 2: as it was, ended with him a pilot that never
Speaker 2: went anywhere. By the time they started filming The Top,
Speaker 2: it had been almost a year since Peter Iver's murder.
Speaker 2: No arrest had been made, no one had been charged.
Speaker 2: Across the city and the scene, those who loved Peter
Speaker 2: began to move on, some reluctantly, some angrily. But one
Speaker 2: person who couldn't let things go was David Jove. With
Speaker 2: The Top, he tried to revive New Wave theater but
Speaker 2: couldn't make it work, and all the while he was
Speaker 2: literally living in the cave surrounded by Peter's stuff, grizzly
Speaker 2: souvenirs he had stolen from the crime scene.
Speaker 11: He was obsessed with the murder.
Speaker 10: He would answer the phone who killed Peter Ivers for
Speaker 10: at least a year after Peter's death, so it was
Speaker 10: like he was on this crusade to find out who
Speaker 10: killed him, and obviously that was the cover up.
Speaker 12: He grabbed Peter's quilt out him. It was green and
Speaker 12: had bloodled it, and he kept it. He kept and
Speaker 12: he slept with it in his bedroom.
Speaker 2: All of this fed into the gossip. Could David Jove
Speaker 2: have something to do with Peter's death? Today we try
Speaker 2: to answer that question head on and pay tribute to
Speaker 2: our friend Peter and the musical legacy he left behind.
Speaker 2: I'm Penelope Spheris and this is Peter and the Acid King.
Speaker 2: Sometime after Peter's death, David Jove invited Don Bulls over
Speaker 2: to his place. Don was the drummer in the Germs. Anyway,
Speaker 2: here's where things get a little creepier. I'm going to
Speaker 2: hand it over to Alan Sachs for this part, because
Speaker 2: y'all know I don't do creepy.
Speaker 1: So when I talk to Don Balls from the Germs,
Speaker 1: he told me a story about David Jove that I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about and seeing as clear as day.
Speaker 11: He invited me to come over and he played me
Speaker 11: these cassettes and micro cassettes of psychics who to whom
Speaker 11: he had sent Peter's watch, the one that Peter had
Speaker 11: been wearing at the time of the murders.
Speaker 1: Apparently, along with the bloody blanket and sequin jacket, Jove
Speaker 1: also took a watch that belonged to Peter. So Donna
Speaker 1: is sitting there across from David Jove. I could see
Speaker 1: that so clearly. Jove talking to Don showing him the watch.
Speaker 11: And he kept looking at me, just like really staring
Speaker 11: into my face.
Speaker 6: I see his face.
Speaker 11: He's like yeah, he was like, you know, vains are
Speaker 11: coming out. You know, the coke had obviously gone in,
Speaker 11: and he's going, you know, and well, what do you think?
Speaker 1: So David wants Don to listen to the tape with him.
Speaker 1: Donn's like, okay, put a little creep down, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean.
Speaker 11: There was this one where the guy sounded like Peter,
Speaker 11: and he's like living a moment in time when this
Speaker 11: watch was last worn by the person, when they were alive.
Speaker 11: He's like in a chance, right, and he's channeling this.
Speaker 11: He's like, oh, hey, how you doing? What's what? What
Speaker 11: what are you doing?
Speaker 13: Oh?
Speaker 11: Hey, oh my god?
Speaker 2: No, oh no god, are you killing me?
Speaker 11: It was the most horrifying death shrieks of a person
Speaker 11: being killed that I have ever in my life heard.
Speaker 11: And it sounded like Peter. And David didn't tell these
Speaker 11: people whose watch it was or anything, or that there
Speaker 11: was a murder world or anything. Right, it sounded like Peter.
Speaker 11: This person didn't know who Peter was. This was like,
Speaker 11: it was the most blood curdling stuff you could even
Speaker 11: imagine hearing. It's like watching someone you love die or
Speaker 11: something in this agonizing, awful leg There's nothing you could do.
Speaker 11: It was that bad. And David is just like looking
Speaker 11: at me, like, love, what do you think. I'm like, well,
Speaker 11: David sounds like he knew the person, and he's like, yeah, anyway,
Speaker 11: check this out.
Speaker 1: This is shocking and freaking weird. But Don told me
Speaker 1: that David was totally calm.
Speaker 6: Think about that.
Speaker 1: The tape of pits to capture the moment his friend
Speaker 1: was killed seemingly by someone he knew, and Jove seems
Speaker 1: fine with it.
Speaker 2: There was nothing incriminating about Jove's behavior that day with
Speaker 2: Don Bowles. To some extent, it was just Jove being Jove,
Speaker 2: an average day in the life of an occult obsessed
Speaker 2: drug but it definitely wasn't normal. And it's the kindest
Speaker 2: story that explains why some of us suspected Jove from
Speaker 2: the very beginning.
Speaker 1: David Jove had motive, means, an opportunity. He was angry
Speaker 1: Peter quit a new wave theater. He was already known
Speaker 1: to have been violent and an unpredictable cat, and he
Speaker 1: knew whe Peter was going when he left the cave
Speaker 1: that night. He was also the guy who many say
Speaker 1: was first at the crime scene. He chimed his way
Speaker 1: past the cops, and he was the guy that took
Speaker 1: a bloody blanket, a watch, and a peak Sinkuin jacket
Speaker 1: as though they were trophies.
Speaker 2: Given all of this, you'd think the cops would have
Speaker 2: picked David up and questioned him, but actually they didn't
Speaker 2: have to. Here's that Oaks.
Speaker 14: David walked into the police station, you know, the next
Speaker 14: day voluntarily. He asked to meet with a detective on
Speaker 14: the case. He told the detective that he was in
Speaker 14: the country illegally, and he told the cops that he
Speaker 14: didn't do it.
Speaker 4: The cops took.
Speaker 14: Down his statement and they, for whatever reason, they discounted
Speaker 14: David as a as a person of interest.
Speaker 2: On the day after Peter's death, David Jove, who was
Speaker 2: apparently a fugitive from Canada living under a pseudonym, walked
Speaker 2: into a police station to chat with the cops. He
Speaker 2: told them he had nothing to do with Peter's murder,
Speaker 2: and they sent him on his way. It's so ridiculous
Speaker 2: to those who knew Peter and David that it's laughable. Literally,
Speaker 2: here's Alan talking to former rocker and current addiction counselor
Speaker 2: Bob Forrest.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to the cold case cops.
Speaker 11: It's not in the kitchen, not in the.
Speaker 4: Casebook that they spoke to David.
Speaker 1: They didn't interview, they didn't He was never of suspicion.
Speaker 2: That is even more faith in cops, doesn't it. Some
Speaker 2: people say that the cops did question Jove and that
Speaker 2: he was later dropped as a suspect, But Alan asked
Speaker 2: the LAPD directly and they said they never took a
Speaker 2: serious look at Jove.
Speaker 1: The real mystery to me isn't why the cops dropped
Speaker 1: Jove as a suspect. It's why Jove went to the
Speaker 1: cops in the first place. He had spent decades being
Speaker 1: paranoid about people finding out who he was. Then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Pete is dead and he feels the
Speaker 1: need to reach out and tell the authorities his secrets.
Speaker 1: Why is that. Maybe he was worried about his dead
Speaker 1: friend and wanted to help with the investigation. Or maybe
Speaker 1: he wanted to stay close to the cops so he
Speaker 1: could stay one step ahead of him.
Speaker 2: That's one possibility. Or maybe Jove was trying to get
Speaker 2: ahead of any questions by acting like he had nothing
Speaker 2: to hide. Whatever the reason, it was an odd thing
Speaker 2: for him to do, but was capable of murdering someone.
Speaker 2: According to some people, maybe he was rumored to have
Speaker 2: a very violent past.
Speaker 12: He'd also in the past when he was raving back
Speaker 12: in the Cave days, he used to hint that he'd
Speaker 12: somehow accidentally killed somebody.
Speaker 2: That's Maggie Abbott, the agent who brought Mary Anne Faithful
Speaker 2: to the cave. She was Jove's friend. According to her,
Speaker 2: Jove told her straight up, I killed a guy. No,
Speaker 2: not Peter, a different guy before that.
Speaker 12: It was tied in with the fact that he'd taken
Speaker 12: a huge overdose of LSD because he had it in
Speaker 12: the fridge and the bottle tipped over and it dribbled
Speaker 12: down into a cake, and he hit the cake, chocolate
Speaker 12: keate at the cake.
Speaker 2: And when the cops apparently questioned him about the crime,
Speaker 2: he had been too high to answer.
Speaker 12: He allowed the cigarette to burn down and burn his fingers.
Speaker 12: He sat there and it was burning his flesh and
Speaker 12: they were so it persuaded them, or convinced them that
Speaker 12: he was too high to make any sense.
Speaker 2: Well, that's one way to get out of jail.
Speaker 12: And that's how he got away with whatever it was
Speaker 12: he got away with.
Speaker 2: The idea that Jove would have confessed something to Maggie
Speaker 2: is interesting because to confess implies that you think you've
Speaker 2: done something wrong, that you have a moral code. Here's
Speaker 2: Nicholas Shrek, a friend of Jove's. He and Jove both
Speaker 2: shared an interest in the teachings of Aleister Crowley, and
Speaker 2: according to Crowley, killing someone wasn't necessarily something to feel
Speaker 2: guilty about.
Speaker 4: I also think, and this is more of an intuition
Speaker 4: that Jove, like Crowley, and other people of that elk
Speaker 4: would think that taking a life would be like a sacrifice,
Speaker 4: and in almost like an ancient Gemanic tribal way, that
Speaker 4: he would be taking power by taking a life.
Speaker 2: Crowley taught that power was assumed through the exchange of energy,
Speaker 2: but he also taught that taking power wasn't immoral. In
Speaker 2: Crowley's view, there was no difference between consensual sex and
Speaker 2: sexual assault, or natural death and murder. In my view,
Speaker 2: Crowley had his head up his ass so far he
Speaker 2: was looking at brown wallpaper.
Speaker 4: I think that this is the way Jove thought about things.
Speaker 4: I to think whatever it was, it probably wasn't strictly
Speaker 4: impulsive hatred or criminality. It struck me when the murder happened,
Speaker 4: that he would be more than capable of doing it,
Speaker 4: because I don't think he had any moral sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2: On the night before his death, Peter Ivers quit New
Speaker 2: Wave Theater. It was a major blow for the show,
Speaker 2: but was bad enough to cause Jove to murder his friend.
Speaker 2: Maybe Jove was so spased out on drugs and Aleister
Speaker 2: Crowley that he wasn't thinking straight that he followed Peter
Speaker 2: back to his loft, broke in and killed Peter in
Speaker 2: his sleep. Then, in an effort to cover his tracks,
Speaker 2: Joe ran to the cops and offered to help find
Speaker 2: the killer. At the end of the day, it's just
Speaker 2: another theory of the case. No witnesses have ever placed
Speaker 2: David Jove at Peter's loft that night. Maybe the biggest
Speaker 2: reason to doubt Jove as the killer was that Peter's
Speaker 2: death was a huge blow to Jove's creative aspirations. It
Speaker 2: put a definitive end to New Wave Theater, and Jove's
Speaker 2: career never recovered. In any event, If David Jove did
Speaker 2: kill Peter, he never confessed or did he. Here's some
Speaker 2: clips from the last episode of New Wave Theory. As
Speaker 2: you'll hear, Jove edited audio from news reports about Peter's
Speaker 2: death into the episode. Meanwhile, what's playing out on screen
Speaker 2: is creepy as all hell. What's the meaning of life?
Speaker 7: Lez are still looking for Leeds and the murder of
Speaker 7: thirty six year old musician Peter Ivers. I'll go then,
Speaker 7: Amber talks about that case now and gives us this
Speaker 7: portrait of Ivors, who was a pretty interesting man. Peters
Speaker 7: was the irreverent, zany host of New Wave Theater.
Speaker 4: On Cable.
Speaker 5: US.
Speaker 1: In that last episode of New Wave Theater after Peter died,
Speaker 1: Jove is fucking creepy. He's wearing this rubber mask, just
Speaker 1: staring into the camera. He cries, but the mask distorts
Speaker 1: his features. I don't know what he was thinking doing this.
Speaker 1: It's really disturbing to look at now. He wore the
Speaker 1: mask outside for like a week after that, but eventually
Speaker 1: the mask came and David went back to the cave.
Speaker 1: He never made another TV show after the Top. David
Speaker 1: Jove died in two thousand and four of cancer.
Speaker 2: If there's any hard evidence that he killed Peter, it's
Speaker 2: lost to history or hidden inside the LAPD's case file. Today,
Speaker 2: many people who know Peter Ivers know him through New
Speaker 2: Wave Theater. There are hours of footage of Peter hosting
Speaker 2: the show, performing those weird monologues, interviewing the bands, but
Speaker 2: all the while he's playing a character, a version of
Speaker 2: himself filtered through David Jove. Peter's music, on the other hand,
Speaker 2: is an expression of his true self. Way back in
Speaker 2: episode two, we played a clip of him singing in
Speaker 2: Heaven at a party. This is how I remember Peter direct,
Speaker 2: sweet confident. Here's Mark MOTHERSBA of Divo, who used to
Speaker 2: perform in Heaven at their shows.
Speaker 15: I think he contributed to the part of music that
Speaker 15: was forming in our community in LA at that time.
Speaker 15: He was into pure art and pure ideas, and I
Speaker 15: think LA was lucky to have him when we did.
Speaker 15: He was very artistic and his ideas were very artistic,
Speaker 15: and you know, I think he wasn't like tied down
Speaker 15: by trying to make a hit record or trying to,
Speaker 15: you know, see if he could get on the radio.
Speaker 2: Jello Biafa of the Dead Kennedys agrees a lot of
Speaker 2: that had to do with the uniqueness of Peter's voice.
Speaker 16: As long as you're when the minute you open your mouth,
Speaker 16: people know who it is. And one way to do
Speaker 16: that is if your voice is incredibly and possibly even
Speaker 16: deliberately obnoxious. And it's not as though Peter's voice was
Speaker 16: that different from mine either, so I would say he
Speaker 16: was actually crept in there as one of the formative
Speaker 16: influences of my own voice.
Speaker 17: My sentense in retrospect is that Peter represented something and
Speaker 17: kind of an intersection between popular entertainment, a new kind
Speaker 17: of creative energy. It wasn't copying things but was actually
Speaker 17: using the tools to make things that were fresh, yet
Speaker 17: not being a kind of snob about trying to reach
Speaker 17: an audience.
Speaker 2: That's Ron Howard. Peter wrote the theme for Ron's first movie,
Speaker 2: Grand Theft Auto.
Speaker 17: The mere fact that he was there kind of writing
Speaker 17: the theme on a harmonica just tells you that he
Speaker 17: had confidence that these things could be approached in a
Speaker 17: new way. There was a dimension to what he was
Speaker 17: offering popular culture that was suddenly a bit limited.
Speaker 2: His music was hard to define, sitting somewhere between genres.
Speaker 2: It was cool and strange and experimental. During Peter's life,
Speaker 2: that limited his commercial appeal. But a funny thing happened
Speaker 2: between nineteen eighty three and now, the culture caught up
Speaker 2: with Peter. You can hear Peter's influence everywhere. That's partly
Speaker 2: because many of the people he touched went on to
Speaker 2: have towering creative careers of their own, and they have
Speaker 2: kept his memory alive. One of Peter's early credits was
Speaker 2: in Heaven, a song he wrote for David Lynch's film Eraserhead.
Speaker 2: Now Here's a song from Lynch's TV show twin Peaks.
Speaker 2: It aired almost ten years after Peter's death. Sounds like Peter,
Speaker 2: doesn't it. Here's film critic and writer Kayla Denise.
Speaker 18: Peter Ivers was an incredible creative influence on everybody he
Speaker 18: ever met when he moved out to La originally to
Speaker 18: score Tim Hunters AFI movies. Tim Hunter who was a
Speaker 18: writer director who would end up writing the great film
Speaker 18: Over the Edge and then directing River's Edge in the eighties.
Speaker 18: So these really iconic and important teen youth in Revolt
Speaker 18: or teen Angst films. But when he moved out to
Speaker 18: Los Angeles, he had a girlfriend for many many years
Speaker 18: named Lucy Fisher, and she, you know, as Peter's pursuing
Speaker 18: his sort of independent musical projects and stuff like that,
Speaker 18: she got a job originally as a script reader at
Speaker 18: United Artists and then quickly sort of rose through the
Speaker 18: ranks as a film executive.
Speaker 2: Peter's girlfriend, Lucy Fisher has played an important role in
Speaker 2: cultivating Peter's legacy.
Speaker 18: And as she progressed in her field, she started hiring
Speaker 18: all of Peter's friends. So basically, all these musical influences,
Speaker 18: all these filmic theater influences. Basically she has admitted this
Speaker 18: herself that she knew everything because of Peter. She knew
Speaker 18: all about music because of Peters and was able to
Speaker 18: use her position to give opportunities to a lot of
Speaker 18: these people that kick started their own careers or gave them,
Speaker 18: you know, gave us movies like Caddie Shack, you know,
Speaker 18: like Harold Ramis and Doug Kenny from National Lampoon and
Speaker 18: Saturday Night Live. Even when Lucy Fisher was heading up
Speaker 18: Zoetrope Studios and she arranged the private screening that eventually
Speaker 18: got David Lynch the job to direct The Elephant Man.
Speaker 2: A few years ago, the record label RVNG got the
Speaker 2: rights to Peter's music and released the compilation Becoming Peter Ivers.
Speaker 2: Here's Jello Biafra.
Speaker 16: Now that I hear Becoming Peter Ivers, all those demos
Speaker 16: are much more smooth and honing his voice more to
Speaker 16: make it more accessible to a top, if not even
Speaker 16: middle of the road audience. I don't know. Which makes
Speaker 16: me wonder all the more why when he had his
Speaker 16: big chance to make a Warner Brothers album he made
Speaker 16: Terminal Love first instead of what became the second Warners
Speaker 16: album first.
Speaker 2: All of it makes you wonder what could have been.
Speaker 16: I also wonder what might have happened with him as
Speaker 16: far as people not just looking at him as this
Speaker 16: goofy guy they had to put up with for new
Speaker 16: wave theater, although a lot of people who tried to
Speaker 16: dial in on those wraps at the end realize, my god,
Speaker 16: this guy is a heavy dude, and he's more than
Speaker 16: a little brilliant too. I wonder how things might have
Speaker 16: gone for him if he had start putting out his
Speaker 16: own records himself, or gone with an independent or something
Speaker 16: who wanted to present him as he was, you know,
Speaker 16: whether he might be more remembered or remembered differently and
Speaker 16: more in depth. Today.
Speaker 13: I was delighted that there was some things out there,
Speaker 13: but I wish that there were more. And I know that,
Speaker 13: you know, some people, including my mom, have these old
Speaker 13: VHS tapes and probably audio tapes and archives that they
Speaker 13: don't really know what to do with.
Speaker 2: That's Violet remis Harold and Anne's daughter.
Speaker 13: You know, I would love to see all of his
Speaker 13: archive out there and made public so people could not
Speaker 13: only you know, understand and experience his music, but just
Speaker 13: really see who he was as a person, because he
Speaker 13: was involved and interested in so many things, and he
Speaker 13: really you know, studied and just seemed passionate about, you know,
Speaker 13: everything he was doing.
Speaker 2: If you're interested in exploring Peter's full artistic legacy to
Speaker 2: an extent, you can. Lucy Fisher donated Peter's personal archive
Speaker 2: to Harvard. It makes you wonder what would Peter think
Speaker 2: of all this? Here's Mark mothersbaught again.
Speaker 15: I think if Peter was still here right now, you
Speaker 15: would be looking back at him and saying, my god,
Speaker 15: that guy blew don Hoe out of the water. He's
Speaker 15: the best performer we've ever had here in Las Vegas.
Speaker 15: And he would everything from circusole to the Prey.
Speaker 2: This is right.
Speaker 11: He would have.
Speaker 15: Pulled in every piece of high end lower art and
Speaker 15: exhibited them and celebrated them.
Speaker 2: Some of Peter's biggest commercial successes have happened after his death.
Speaker 2: Here's his songwriting partner, Franny Goldy.
Speaker 19: Every song that we wrote, maybe minus one or something,
Speaker 19: something happened with it, whether it was recorded. I went
Speaker 19: to two major song festivals, one in Korea and one
Speaker 19: in Japan, and I won awards for both songs. I
Speaker 19: sang them live. One of them I sang with a
Speaker 19: fifty piece orchestra. He would have just been blown away
Speaker 19: to hear his song, his words, and every you know
Speaker 19: sung with this fifty piece orchestra in the Buddha Khan
Speaker 19: in Japan. I mean, he would have been over the moon,
Speaker 19: over the moon, and I remember, like instinctively. It didn't
Speaker 19: even I didn't even have to think about it when
Speaker 19: I finished the song, and here I was like, I
Speaker 19: don't know how many thousands of people that place holds,
Speaker 19: and it was for me an amazing experience that I
Speaker 19: would never have had. I finished the song and I
Speaker 19: looked up and I said, love.
Speaker 5: You, Pete.
Speaker 6: Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: I spend forty years wondering who killed Pete Rivas? And
Speaker 1: I talked to everyone I could think of about it.
Speaker 1: I was hoping there was something someone would say that
Speaker 1: that would be the smoking gun. It's hard. David Jove
Speaker 1: was such a big character and Penelope and I would
Speaker 1: not have done this at all if he was still around.
Speaker 1: It's one of the first conversations we had about this show.
Speaker 1: You said to me, is David still alive? And I
Speaker 1: said no, And you said, do you remember what you said?
Speaker 2: I probably said good.
Speaker 1: You said, okay, I'll do it. Is that right, I'll
Speaker 1: do the show? If when you knew he wasn't alive.
Speaker 1: You said, you said, I'll do it. And do you
Speaker 1: remember what you what you said about him that I do.
Speaker 2: I know what I think about David, but you go
Speaker 2: ahead and tell me what tell me you Tolmer, Well,
Speaker 2: you told.
Speaker 1: Me he was one of the scarce.
Speaker 20: First of all, you said, you know who I've met,
Speaker 20: who I've been around where I grew up, and that
Speaker 20: guy is one of the scariest fuckers I've ever met.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say the scariest, the scariest. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: a good I'm scared.
Speaker 6: That's what I say.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I know, yeah, yeah, no, And you were scared of
Speaker 1: him too, So it's pretty fucking crazy. I was too
Speaker 1: close to all of this. I really cared about Peter,
Speaker 1: and cared about Jove and about the scene. Maybe I
Speaker 1: was too close to see what really happened. And maybe
Speaker 1: I just like hanging out at the cave too much
Speaker 1: guvasia and blow. After all these years, this mystery remains.
Speaker 1: I think what this case needs is fresh eyes, fresh perspectives. Regardless,
Speaker 1: I think Peter would just want people to appreciate his art,
Speaker 1: So go out and listen to his music. I think
Speaker 1: you'll like it. I know you'll like it. There's something
Speaker 1: in there for everyone. Go watch New Wave Theater. It's
Speaker 1: weird as hell, but it's a piece of history.
Speaker 2: I mean, look, I'll just say it. For years, I've
Speaker 2: been absolutely certain that David Jove killed Peter Ivers. Now
Speaker 2: that I've learned all the availables, I'm not so sure anymore.
Speaker 2: But maybe there's someone out there listening who does know
Speaker 2: the truth. If you have information on Peter ivers homicide,
Speaker 2: please reach out to the LAPD. The tip hotline is
Speaker 2: one eight seven seven lawful. That's one eight seven seven
Speaker 2: five two nine three eight five five. This is Peter
Speaker 2: and the Acid King by Peter We Miss You. Peter
Speaker 2: and the Acid King is based on interviews recorded and
Speaker 2: researched by Alan Sachs. It's produced by Imagine Audio, Alan
Speaker 2: Sachs Productions and Awfully Nice for iHeartMedia. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Penelope Speerris. The series is written by Caitlin Fontana. Peter
Speaker 2: and the Acid King is produced by Amber von Schassen.
Speaker 2: The senior producer is Caitlin Fontana and the supervising producer
Speaker 2: is John Assanti. Our project manager is Katie Hodges. Our
Speaker 2: executive producers are Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carra Welker, Nathan Kloke,
Speaker 2: Alan Sachs, 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 Studios Bob Emmer. Sound design and
Speaker 2: mix by Evan Arnette, fact checking by Katherine Barner. Original
Speaker 2: music composed by Alloy Trax, Music clearances by Barbara Hall.
Speaker 2: Voiceover recording by Voice Tracks West Show artwork by Michael Dare.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Annette van Duren. Thank you for listening.