“How tall are you?” he asked. He didn’t have a threatening tone; he just seemed puzzled.
“I’m six two,” I replied.
He took a breath before responding, “That’s very tall for a jockey.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “I’m actually a disc jockey.”
He looked at the paperwork he was holding and burst out laughing,
“My mistake. I didn’t read it right. Never had a disc jockey in here before, ” he said. “And how old are you?”
“I just turned twenty-five in May.”
“Really? That’s funny; you’re the same age and same height as my son. Sit down, I’ll be right back.”
He put the paperwork on his desk and I watched him unclip my two small headshot photos from the stack of forms and take them out to his secretary. In seconds he was back.
“Okay. Let’s get into it.”
He asked me about coming to America and finding my job, and then said he had to go through a list of required questions that he read verbatim from an official document on the top of the pile. They included if I had been on unemployment, committed a felony or was planning to overthrow the lawfully elected government of the United States. He seemed happy that I answered no on all counts. Within ten minutes the interview was over and he left the room again for a moment. He returned carrying a small newly laminated ID, barely bigger than a business card. I could see that my photograph was on it. He handed it to me.
“Here’s your Green Card, son. Welcome to the United States.”
Wow, I had been accepted. This was not something to be taken lightly. I had a new country. As someone who loves history I appreciated all who had come before me to build America, to pave the way, to make this possible; I hadn’t done it alone, I understood that I was standing on the shoulders of giants. I actually felt different inside, the best way I can explain it is by saying that my English blood still flowed through my body but now it was pumped by an American heart. That day I found my home.
Now I could really make plans. I could buy furniture and just like every good American consumer, go into debt. I had been told again and again that you need credit to get anywhere in the States but getting credit without having credit first was almost impossible. My answer to this Catch-22 was Montgomery Ward.
I bought a seventeen-inch TV there for $299. I put $190 down and financed the remaining $109. I could have bought it outright but that wasn’t the plan. In America you had to owe money to prove that you were creditworthy. Try explaining that to a visitor from outer space. But for me it worked!
Within four months I was inundated with “you are pre-approved” credit card applications from Master Charge and Visa. Soon I would be able to owe everybody money and that was the surefire sign of success!
In September I rented my own place in Redondo Beach. It was at 107b Paseo De La Playa, just three buildings from the Esplanade and the sand. The two bedroom, one bath plus fireplace, enclosed garage and private courtyard unit was $275 a month.
Over the next weeks I slowly furnished the place by using my credit cards to buy an inexpensive couch and table set that I would have rather paid cash for, but I was getting established and trying to do everything “the right way.”
I put together a home studio using an AKAI reel-to-reel tape recorder, a cassette deck, two Garrard turntables and a Shure microphone and mic mixer from Radio Shack. I was determined to use any free time I had to break into the closed shop that was the LA radio market.
In my first year at The Plankhouse there were many memorable female encounters including one with a Playboy model who came to the club wearing tight white jeans with unique embroidery on the back pockets. On one pocket it said “USDA” and on the other it read “CHOICE.” For once there was definite truth in advertising. We had an unforgettable night together but when I asked if she wanted to meet up again she said no. It turned out she was using me for “revenge sex” against her cheating husband and was just looking for one wild night to pay him back for what he’d put her through.
It was during this time that I met a great girl, Katy Manor. She was pretty, sexy and made me laugh. We started dating on and off, then quickly became exclusive. A couple of months later she moved in with me.
I received a letter from Mum and Dad letting me know that Mum had finally given in to my father’s pleas and was willing to make the eleven-hour flight from the UK to California. They would be coming over to stay with me in mid-January for two weeks to escape the British winter. I was ecstatic that I would get to see them again and soon!
Just days before Christmas a tall, good-looking gentleman approached me in the DJ booth at The Plankhouse.
“Would you like a request?” I asked.
“No, you’ve been playing everything I like,” he said. He passed me his business card. “Call me. I might have a job for you.”
As he left the club I glanced at the card. It read, “Ron Newman,
President, The Red Onion.”
Due to a complicated legal settlement there were two chains of restaurants in California both called The Red Onion, Ron Newman was the owner of one of those chains with three existing locations and two more about to open. When I met with him at his offices in Carson, California on December 22, 1977 he told me of his intended expansion and introduced me to his entertainment coordinator, Gary Gunn.
The bar business for The Red Onion was already huge and growing exponentially, and now with Saturday Night Fever having just opened in the theaters they were jammed to capacity every night with long lines of new customers waiting to get in as everyone wanted to go out to a club and experience what “disco nights” were really like first-hand. Walk into any of The Red Onions and you would see a dozen wanna-be Tony Maneros begging the DJ to play “Stayin’ Alive.”
Gary oversaw all the entertainment at The Red Onion including booking the live bands that now alternated with the DJs he’d brought in to keep the music going non-stop and the dance floor packed. With the upcoming expansion it was going to be too much work for just one person to coordinate so when Ron saw me DJing he figured I was the one to step in and help.
The offer was for me to work directly beneath Gary. I would be program director of The Red Onion in charge of the recorded music and DJs. I would oversee the schedules and music for all five locations, Redondo Beach, Canoga Park, Mid-Wilshire, Beverly Hills and West Covina.
Gary wanted the clubs run like a radio station; we would supply all the records and give the DJs promos to read twice an hour—food specials, drink deals, shots, upcoming bands, etc. I would DJ four nights a week on the days and at the locations of my choice and make sure the rest of the nights were covered. The salary was huge, $500 a week plus an additional $600 in vouchers that I could use to comp food and drinks for regulars and for any visiting celebs that might come to the clubs.
This was a deal I couldn’t turn down, so I gave my notice to The Plankhouse and after a final New Year’s Eve party I bade farewell to my friends and the employer who had helped me come to America, and started 1978 with a new job and new responsibilities.
Thanks to John Travolta and The Bee Gees, disco was now breaking all over the world and I continued to ride that wave. Ron Newman wanted his largest club, The Red Onion in Canoga Park, to be a showcase so he and I flew out to New York to check out the mecca of disco, Studio 54. It had taken a number of cross-country calls but the owners finally placed us on their VIP list for the time we were in the Big Apple and each night the velvet rope was opened for us and we were escorted past the throngs of would-be dancers outside, desperately clamoring to get in and become a part of the legend on 254 West 54th Street.
Everything you have heard about Studio 54 is true. It set the standard for sound and lighting in clubs that is still hard to beat. Nudity and cocaine were everywhere in the club. Topless girls danced with ripped black guys wearing only thongs and a horse would suddenly appear from nowhere and be led across the floor. It was an acid trip come to life. Nothing made
any sense but somehow it all worked. While the lights flashed and Donna Summer’s disco beat pulsed, everyone there became a star even if in reality they had to suffer through the routine drudgery of a nine-to-five workday.
We returned to Los Angeles energized and Ron Newman and I conjured up a lighting design for the club that would be unique. Ron had his crew, including technical engineer Bill Motley, make our fantasy become reality and within two months they had taken our pencil sketches and put together a special-effects rig which included a neon lightning storm that crackled around the dance floor and four motorized towers filled with strobes and beacons that descended from the ceiling to illuminate the dance floor from all angles.
If you were in southern California in 1978 and wanted to go out to a disco then The Red Onion became number one on your list. All of the locations were packed seven nights a week with people looking to drink, dance and hook up. Guys with hairy chests and shirts open to their waists busted out their best disco moves with girls in halter tops and tight, shiny Spandex pants that left nothing to the imagination. The staff would joke how only carnivores came to The Red Onion because we were a total meat market, and the very lyrics of the songs encouraged the sexual atmosphere. When I put on Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls” or pumped The Andrea True Connection’s “More, More, More” through the speakers I could spot from the DJ booth just who would be going home with whom. And often these eager couples wouldn’t even make it back to their apartments; every night you’d walk through the parking lot and see people going at it in their cars. The security were told to turn a blind eye to it; after all, this was the disco era and sex had never been freer or more available.
Word of the huge success The Red Onion discos were having spread, even outside of America, and I received a call from Jerry Gilbert in the UK. Jerry was the Editorial Director of Europe’s, and the world’s, best-selling disco publication, Disco International. This full-color monthly magazine was the bible of the disco industry and Jerry wanted to know if I would like to be the American editor and writer for it. The answer to that was a no-brainer and thereby began a long relationship with Jerry, writing for that London-based magazine.
As the American editor it fell upon me to cover the stories from this side of the Atlantic along with all the major interviews with artists breaking out of the US and Canada. Within just a few months one of my interviews hit the cover of the magazine when I sat down with the queen of disco herself, Donna Summer. For me personally it was a landmark moment; it was not only my first big celebrity interview but it was with the artist who had never been off my turntables since that chilly night in Horsens, Denmark three years before.
Disco International exclusive with Donna Summer
I started to get requests from some of our regulars to DJ private parties at their houses. As I was in charge of booking my own nights I tentatively agreed to do a couple of these events and cleared my club schedule to make myself available.
Gary Gunn let me borrow some of the old sound gear from The Red Onion including a power amp, two speakers and a Meteor Clubman mixer which he pulled from their trash and gave me to keep.
“It’s too small for our clubs, so you might as well have it,” said Gary.
That little unwanted mixer became the heart of my mobile DJ system for the next two years!
I had to rent a van to lug all the heavy gear to the parties but despite the back-breaking load in and load out and a three hour set up time, the gigs went fantastically.
As the second party wrapped up, the caterer asked me for a card and said she had a client whose son was having a Bar Mitzvah and was looking for a DJ. I said great and handed her my Red Onion business card and scribbled my home number on the back. What I didn’t tell her was that I had no idea what a Bar Mitzvah was. I came from a community that had a very small Jewish population so I wasn’t exposed to that ancient culture growing up. For all I knew a Bar Mitzvah could have been something that happens at a NASCAR race. But whatever it was, I was ready to learn about it and do my best to make sure that everyone there had a great time. The word bar was in the name so how hard could it be; I’d worked at plenty of bars all over the world in the last eight years.
I met with the caterer in Malibu and we caravanned to her client’s house, just inland on a private road above Paradise Cove. The property was a gated compound of three homes that she had acquired over a period of time to protect her privacy. All three houses had spectacular views of the Pacific. She was waiting to greet us as we parked our cars. The caterer spoke first.
“Dick, I’d like you to meet Miss Streisand.”
“Please!” The music and film star offered me her hand. “Just call me Barbra.”
At the time I was not a huge fan. Of course I was aware of who she was. I would have had to have come from Siberia instead of Torquay not to have heard of Barbra Streisand, but her music was not what I related to. To me she was just another popular singer and actress. It was only later that I realized the magnitude of her success and what an icon she was. So instead of standing there, speechless, I took her hand, shook it, and said, casually, “Hey, Barbra.”
She turned out to be so down to earth. Those stories I heard later about what a bitch she could be held no truth with me. She was simply a loving mother who was planning a party for her son, Jason, and wanted to make sure he had the best night possible. And making sure you had a good time was my specialty so I was all confidence and no nerves. Sometimes being ignorant of your surroundings can actually be a benefit.
Her plans included bringing in a real three-ring circus tent to enclose the paddock that lay between two of her houses. The dance floor would be in the middle of the tent and around each of the three massive supporting poles would be food stations; one Mexican, one Chinese and one French cuisine. She would have the sound system provided for me to plug my turntables into. I just had to let the coordinator know how many speakers and where they should be placed and it would all be taken care of. I only had a couple of questions, how many guests—500—and when would it start—6pm until whenever.
Barbra told me that she wanted mostly disco, to please not play any of her songs and that of course, at one point, they would do the Hora.
She turned to the caterer, “And make sure that we have a chair for Jason when Dick plays the Hora.”
As Barbra Streisand was saying that, Dick was making a mental note to self: “Remember to find out what a Hora is and why Jason is going to be sitting down when it’s playing!”
As I walked back to the car with the caterer she asked me, “How much do you need to DJ the party?” I thought for a moment; Malibu, Barbra Streisand, 500 guests . . . I figured shoot for the moon, a dollar per guest. “Would $500 work?”
The caterer nodded. “I think we can handle that.”
The party went perfectly. Dancing started almost immediately and there was no stopping for dinner as all three stations featured continuous buffet service. I had read up and asked two of my friends at The Red Onion who were Jewish about Bar Mitzvahs and Horas, and armed with “Hava Nagila” and the Fiddler on the Roof soundtrack—when I brought Barbra out to dance with her son to “Sunrise, Sunset” I had nearly everyone in tears—you would have thought that the Rabbi himself had instructed me in how to put together this classic rite of passage.
Around eight o’clock Barbra approached me in the DJ area.
“Have you eaten yet?” she asked.
“No. I don’t like to leave the DJ console in case a record skips or something.”
“Let me get you some food. What would you like?”
“Chinese sounds good, but really you don’t have to bother . . .”
“It’s no bother,” Barbra replied. “I’ll be right back.”
Less than five minutes later my famous singing waitress returned with a plate of Chinese noodles.
“Just let me know if you need anything else.” Barbra Streisand handed me the haute cuisine Chinese food and returned to her Bar Mitzvah boy. And I had
just been served dinner by perhaps the most acclaimed singer in American music history. Bitch? No way; I would defend her reputation until my dying day.
Our hostess was not the only famous person at Jason’s Bar Mitzvah. The guest list read like a who’s who of Hollywood. Along with her ex and Jason’s father, Elliott Gould, Donna Summer was there, Neil Bogart of Casablanca Records, Larry Hagman, Neil Diamond who had just recorded “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” with Barbra, Donald Sutherland and Ryan O’Neil. For this kid from a little town in the south of England it was an extraordinary night.
And suddenly my home phone was going crazy. All of Jason’s classmates who were planning their Bar and Bat (What’s a Bat Mitzvah? I thought.) Mitzvahs and their parents wanted the DJ who had played for Barbra Streisand’s son. I had booking after booking coming in. And Lorimar Television called. Larry Hagman was throwing a wrap party at his beach house for the first season of his new TV show that had debuted on CBS to massive ratings and wanted to celebrate. Did I know who J. R. Ewing was?
I needed a mobile DJ setup fast but there were no stores in Los Angeles at the time selling DJ gear and most of the clubs were using big, cumbersome mixers that had been designed for bands and not disco DJing. But I had that little Meteor mixer from England that Gary Gunn had given me; I could use that!
I sketched out a DJ console similar to the ones I had used at mobiles for Soundwave in Devon but decided I would build in switches to control any lights I wanted to use. That would make it look clean and elegant for my higher-end gigs. I pulled the two Garrard SP 25 turntables from my home studio and removed them from their bases. I took their measurements and had the design ready to go.
It was off to the hardware store to buy a jigsaw, drill, screws, particle board, wiring, switches, plugs and corner brackets and then to a fabric shop for faux leather and glue to stick it down and cover the console.
The beach was forgotten. Every afternoon I shut myself in the garage of my apartment measuring, sawing and building my console. The tenants in the neighboring units must have wondered what was going on; I would emerge after a couple of hours covered in dirt and sawdust and behind me, on the floor of the garage, lay a partially assembled custom “coffin.” (Yes, that’s what the hard shell for a DJ console is called!) But I was on a schedule. Just four days to build and test it before my first gig!
World in My Eyes: The Autobiography Page 17