Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A.

by Anne Thomas Soffee

  “That’s why I want to meet him,” I say evilly. “I want to tug it.” My metalhead friends and I had laughed hysterically when Slaughter was being interviewed on Headbanger’s Ball and told their Vinnie Vincent wig story. Former members of Vinnie’s band, Dana Strum and Mark Slaughter, told host Riki Rachtman about the night they taunted Vinnie mercilessly, hoping to start a fight so they would have an excuse to quit the band. “But he wouldn’t fight,” they complained. “He just stood very still so his wig wouldn’t fall off.” The visual image of a beleaguered Vinnie Vincent standing like a statue to preserve his phony ’do was too much for us. It’s still the first thing I think about every time I see his picture.

  “And what did you say he calls you?”

  “I’m Francine and Renee is Claudette,” I sigh. “He said he wanted his publicists to be named Francine and Claudette.” I’ve had stranger requests. I have no problem accepting a pseudonym, especially not at this late stage of my soul selling. Now that I am no longer doing any journalism and have resigned myself to my position as a whore of the industry, I’ve embraced the nature of the beast and given myself completely over to the dark side. I’m sporting crimson acrylic nails on my fingers—painful, and near impossible to type with, but de rigueur for industry schmoozes. Raelynn and I plopped down three hundred dollars apiece for lifetime memberships to Jenny Craig, and thanks to horrible powdered food and TV dinners we’re down ten pounds each and shrinking. We’d probably shrink faster if we swore off the hard stuff, but you need something to drown your conscience when you are recommending that aspiring seventeen-year-old drummers get hair extensions. In life you have to make allowances.

  “You really are Bobbi Fleckman now,” Stacey marvels when she hears about my latest exploits, referring to Fran Drescher’s pushy A&R rep in This Is Spial Tap. The reality is that I am worse: blithely telling musicians to lose twenty pounds or bleach out their hair without the first thought to the quality of their playing or the originality of their songs. Indeed, why should I encourage anyone to be creative or original when it’s not going to get them half as far as a good dye job and a tight ass? I may not agree with the rules, but now that I know how the game is played, I owe it to the bands I work for to give them advice that will advance their careers, not their esteem in my eyes. Unfortunately, my esteem in my eyes is what’s taking the beating, in spite of all of my cosmetic improvements. I am contributing to the downfall of the thing that has always meant the most to me—rock ‘n’ roll. I’m Brutus in a bustier.

  Q: So what makes you abandon your artistic integrity in favor of acrylic nails and Jenny Craig?

  A: Hey, I’m just doing as the Romans do. See also Stockholm Syndrome and/or Stanford Prison Experiment. In short, I’ve been in Los Angeles for a year and I’m starting to forget that the rest of the world does not require acrylic nails and powdered food. It seems normal to me.

  Heather and Morgan couldn’t be happier. I wish that I thought it had anything at all to do with my talent or intelligence; in truth it has everything to do with my growing nails and shrinking ass. In addition to giving me the Vinnie Vincent account and sending me out on look-sees for upcoming local bands, they send me to a weekend workshop put on by two major-label publicists to learn the tricks of the trade and garner inside tips such as the following gems:

  • If your artist has to cancel a show or an interview because, say, his father is dying or his wife is in labor, plant a rumor that he OD’d or is in detox. It will sound more rock ‘n’ roll.

  • Speaking of wives, they officially do not exist. Wives and girlfriends are not to be present at meet-and-greets or interviews because it projects an air of unattainability that turns off the all-important female fans (and female journalists, who publicists see as nothing more than female fans with press credentials and the potential to give good or bad press depending on how much the artist flirts with them).

  • If your artist meets a young lady at a show and wants to stay in touch with her but he’s married, it is your duty to relay messages back and forth without informing his wife. Your loyalty is to your band and their fans, not their wives.

  And my favorite:

  • Encourage your bands to bathe before interviews.

  Good-smelling bands always get better press.

  We’ve come a long way from the days when Jim Morrison wore the same leather pants until they could walk on their own, but whether we’re traveling in the right direction remains to be seen. I find myself wistful for the days when I was back in Richmond, writing honest reviews about bands that nobody was being paid to groom. Besides, if I’m not writing, what am I doing here?

  “You’re going to love them,” I enthuse on the phone to a journalist I’m inviting to see one of our bands. “They’re young and grungy. Think New Kids meet Nirvana.” New Kids meet Nirvana? Did I just say that? It’s no wonder I’ve moved on from Raelynn’s Valium to everyone else in the office’s everything else. Xanax, Darvocet, Percocet, anything with the familiar “no cocktails” symbol on the side, I’ve got an open call in the office for any old prescriptions that anyone has lying around. I rationalize my new pastime with the comforting notion that somewhere, a doctor prescribed these to help someone, so they must be inherently helpful and therefore good for me. It keeps me from feeling like an after-school special waiting to happen.

  As Halloween draws closer, I realize that I haven’t run into Glenn Danzig in weeks. He’s become something of a Kilroy in my Fellini-esque Hollywood life, popping his head up unexpectedly everywhere from the taco place on the corner to the bookstore five miles down the road. Preparing for Halloween is probably a major undertaking for Glenn Danzig, I figure, like Christmas for Santa Claus. It occurs to me that my newfound schmoozing skills might be just the thing I need to scare up some memorable Halloween fun. In the break room at my day job, I place a quick call to Def American records and put on my best Bobbi Fleckman voice.

  “Yeah, hiiiiiiiiiiiii, this is Anne over at Around the World. We’re just putting together our October schedule and we need to know if Danzig has any special appearances planned for Halloween.”

  “They sure do, they’re playing at Riki Rachtman’s Halloween party at Club Spice.”

  “OK, got it! Thanks so much!” Hmmmmmm. A private party. Tough, but still doable. At least it’s Riki Rachtman’s party and not somebody utterly untouchable like, say, Axl Rose or Tommy Lee. In spite of his tattoo sleeve and his famous friends, Riki Rachtman is enough of a nebbish that I might be able to swing this, even as an assistant intern. I make a quick call to Around the World and, through one of the naive and eager-to-please new interns, am able to round up Riki Rachtman’s phone number with a minimum of fuss. The next call deserves an audience, so I knock on Andrew’s door to make sure he’s not firing anyone and invite myself in.

  “You’re gonna want to see this. Give me your phone.” Andrew doesn’t ask questions but slides his phone across the desk and leans in. I dial the number and become Bobbi again.

  “Hi! May I speak to Riki Rachtman, please? It’s Anne from Around the World.” Andrew stifles a snicker. Riki Rachtman is high camp, right up there with Poison. The fact that his number was dialed from Andrew’s phone will be a great story for the Dresden Room tonight. I hold for a minute and then I’m on the line with Riki himself.

  “Riki, hi, it’s Anne from Around the World!” The first rule of schmoozing is to act like you’re following up on an earlier schmooze. The schmoozee will assume his memory is faulty and will be too embarrassed not to go along with whatever you’re saying. Riki plays into it like a champ.

  “Hey, look, I’m just checking up on the guest list for the Halloween party. You’ve got me covered, right? Yeah, Anne with an E. S-O-F-F-E-E. Uh-huh. No, I totally understand, yeah, it’s late and I figured your list would be pretty full. One is fine, yeah. Really. And thanks again for everything! Catch you later, Riki!”

  “Wow.” Andrew has never seen me schmooze before. “How much did you get for it?”
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  “For what?”

  “Your soul.” I start to get indignant but realize that I did, in fact, just kiss Riki Rachtman’s butt for Danzig tickets. I don’t have a leg to stand on. I settle for flicking a paper clip at him and head back to my desk. I want to celebrate my score, drink to my superior schmoozability, and bask in the thought of being on the guest list for a private party with Danzig. Unfortunately, though, there are gardeners and truck drivers out there waiting for their workers’ comp. Rock ‘n’ roll will have to wait until after five o’clock.

  The night of Riki’s party, I leave work early to prepare. I do my makeup flawlessly, don my best seamed fishnets and my pointiest boots, and tease out my hair even bigger than usual. I pull on my requisite leather biker jacket and chase down two Valiums with a bottle of Budweiser to take the edge off my nerdiness. I’m not thrilled with the results of my metal makeover; I never am, really—all the hairspray and Wonder bras in the world don’t change the fact that I am shorter in the leg and fuller in the face than I need to be to really hold my own in Hollywood. I used to think that a high IQ, quick wit, and general rocker chick attitude helped my case; I mean, come on, Joan Jett, Lita Ford, right? This is where the Runaways made history! Hollywood’s gotta love rocker chicks who are more smartass than sexy, right? It was, cheesily enough, an interview with Vince Neil that made me realize how times have changed in Hollywood. “The perfect Hollywood girl,” he opined, “can party all night and still get up at six A.M. and go to the gym!” In other words, keep up with me at the bar, baby, but don’t let it go to your ass or you’re outta here! Today, the perfect Hollywood girl has less in common with Lester Bangs than she does with Suzanne Somers, and that disheartens me enough that I chug one more beer before leaving the apartment, which would make me a little more perfect in Vince Neil’s eyes were it not for the fact that I have no intention of getting up at dawn to Stairmaster it off. After a quick call to leave a message on Stacey’s phone—“I’ll tell CC you said hi”—I’m off to Club Spice to party with the lesser gods of rock ‘n’ roll.

  As promised, my name is on the list and I have no problems getting in. I take this as a sign that it’s going to be a good night. Even back in Richmond, when having my name on the list meant little more than getting a free show from guys my brother hung out with after school, there has always been something ego-boosting about watching the doorman scan down the list for my name, find it, and wave me in. Maybe it just makes me feel a little more like Lester Bangs for a second. Tonight the victory is extra sweet because not only is it a private party, but it is being hosted by someone my friends at home have heard of and I successfully crashed it. Not to mention the presence of Danzig, which makes me feel just almost too cool to comprehend. Glancing around inside the club, I see a few Halloween costumes but mostly a lot of black leather and jeans, typical Hollywood. Everyone is too cool to be bothered to dress up, present company not excepted. I grab a drink and look around for Riki or any of the guys from Danzig; spotting neither, I make myself at home at the bar to wait for the show. It’s times like this I wish I smoked, just to give me something to do between drinks. I chat with the bartender instead, trading nerdy bar jokes for drinks and asking after Riki—after all, beneath the leather, fishnets, and Valium I am a good southern girl and a good southern girl always thanks her host.

  “He’s somewhere around here,” the bartender says, peering through the crowd. “He’s dressed as Michelangelo.”

  Points for Riki fucking Rachtman! I didn’t know he had it in him, though I should have. Short, semitic, and chubby, he always did set the nerd-o-meter off just a little, all those nights on Headbanger’s Ball. Surely if he were truly cool he’d be in a band instead of hosting a show about bands. Michelangelo! I can’t wait to tell Stacey and Andrew that Gabba Gabba, Riki is one of us, as evidenced by his appreciation for the fine arts. Only a nerd would dress up as a famous artist for Halloween.

  My nerd pride moment is interrupted by the familiar thud of mikes being checked, so I bid the bartender farewell and slide down the wall to the front of the room to get a good vantage point for the show. The stage is set up with a drum set and three wooden stools surrounded by jack-o’-lanterns; odd, but it is Halloween so anything can happen. From the wall, I move to the side of the stage, and then to the stage steps, where I squeeze myself up against the side of a Marshall amp, my black leather jacket camouflaging me nicely against the watchful eyes of the bouncers. From my seat, I have a great view of the stage and a not-bad view of the audience. Clearly the best seat in the house. As I sit behind the amp congratulating myself on my good fortune, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle takes the stage and fumbles with one of the mike stands, trying to get his giant green turtle hands around the mike.

  “Happy Halloween, everybody!” Riki Rachtman’s muffled voice comes out of the Turtle’s huge green head, and suddenly I feel incredibly nerdy. That Michelangelo. Oh well. I should have known it was too good to be true. The turtle yells a few excited but unintelligible phrases and then claps his big green hands together and stumbles off the stage. Danzig comes out carrying, improbably, acoustic instruments. Glenn Danzig, for all his fishnet-shirt wearing, buff-Jersey-metal-guy posing, is still just about the hottest thing since Atomic Fireballs in my Halloween book. After thanking the now not quite so cool Riki and wishing the crowd a happy Halloween, the band launches into an acoustic version of “Killer Wolf.”

  When I went to that Danzig show in Arizona, I’ll admit, I went as a scoffer. I was there to be ironic and snigger behind my hand. Danzig is a little over-the-top with their inverted crosses and horned skulls, n’est ce pas? They lend themselves to the ironically superior. But this? This is fucking great. This rocks in a completely not ironic and down-in-the-gut fuck yeah way. Atta boy, Glenny-boo. I knew you had it in you. After all, you were the man behind the Misfits, no matter what Jerry Only says. Electric, these songs are cool and all, but acoustic, the blues influences shine through in spades. They don’t even sound like the same songs, just a lot of thumping and twanging and evil Mississippi growls—never mind that Glenn is from Lodi, New Jersey. He must have met the devil at the crossroads after all. I lean back against the amp and feel the chords vibrate through my bones. This is why I stay here. This is what makes it all worth it. Nothing like this in Virginia, that’s for damn sure.

  Danzig rolls through acoustic versions of a bunch of their songs, bass-thumping, twangy-stringed versions that rock harder than the electric versions ever dreamed of rocking. Just when I am about to throw irony to the wind and declare Danzig my favorite band of all time, they launch into “One Night with You” with Glenn Danzig doing a spot-on Elvis Presley that turns me into Shelley Fabares right on the spot. When Glenn curls his upper lip and howls, “Now I know that life without you/has been too lonely too long,” no amount of Valium can make me cool. I melt into a quivering puddle of nerdiness. That’s how cool this is. Heavy metal Elvis. It’s like a great dream I’m having, only I’m really here!

  While I am still recovering from the Elvis—and by recovering I mean planning the Danzig shrine I am going to build in my apartment when I get home—Glenn Danzig announces in his hoarse Jersey growl that he wants to do some of his favorite songs for us. I brace for maybe Misfits, New York Dolls, or if God is truly good, more Elvis, but even that can’t hold a black candle to what I get. Blues. Real live Mississippi motherfucking blues. “Seventh Son.” “Spoonful.” “I’m a Man.” My nerd rating is off the meter now, because I am singing along with all my heart and grinning like an idiot. Who needs the Blues Archive when you have Danzig? I should have saved myself the trip. The points that Riki Rachtman got for being a Michelangelo fan are paltry compared to the points Glenn Danzig is racking up tonight. He can wear all the silly satanic jewelry and black fishnet he wants and he’s still the king of cool in my book. It’s not just anybody who will get up in front of a Hollywood hair crowd at Riki Rachtman’s party and do Willie Dixon songs as they ought to be done. I want to have his evil
little children.

  Only because this is shaping up to rival the Rolling Stones concerts on the Best Nights of My Life roster do I commit the ultimate act of mojo selflessness. While the band is tuning up and drinking up after their blues set, preparing for the encore, I reach into the left pocket of my leather jacket and take out my John the Conqueror root. Still wrapped in the dollar bill that I twisted around it the day I got it, it has seen me halfway around the world and all the way across the country, keeping more kinds of bad mojo at bay than I will ever know. With the root in my fist, I reach over and tap Glenn Danzig on the thigh.

  “Hey,” I say, almost as hoarse as he is from all the singing along.

  “Oh, hey,” he says back. We run into each other so often that he legitimately does recognize me now, if only as that nerdy girl who may or may not be stalking him.

  “Here.” I hand him the balled-up bill with the root inside. He looks puzzled, unwraps it, and pokes at the shriveled root. “It’s a John the Conqueror root,” I say quickly, because I want to believe that he already knows this, so I can’t give him a chance to ask what it is.

  “Oh, man.” He wraps the dollar back around it and shoves it down into his left pocket—I knew he’d know what to do with it. “Thanks,” he says sincerely and leans over and says something to Eerie. I lean back against the speaker, content that I have done my part to protect Glenn Danzig from bad mojo as an act of gratitude for what has turned out to be the greatest Halloween ever, bar none.

  Q: So where the hell did a nerd girl like you get a John the Conqueror root?

  A: I bought it at a place called Ye Olde Mystique Shoppe in downtown Norfolk, Virginia, when I was in college. I dragged Stacey there one Saturday when I was in the throes of a blues-induced need for a mojo of my very own. The front room is all tarot cards and numbers books, Fast Money Bingo Powder, and Love Come Quick Floor Wash—the bread-and-butter hoodoo stuff. Behind the counter, though, there are rows of unlabeled jars with creepy dry things rattling around in them. Of course, after I bought my root, I wanted to browse the cheese factor stuff, maybe pick up some lotto candles, or Bring Him Back soap, but because I’d bought the root, the spooky little proprietor thought I was hardcore and kept sneaking up behind me and offering me bulk deals on eye of newt and black cat bones.