Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  ULTRA POP TOUR - Phoenix, Arizona -Cupkake

  Ultra Pop was formed by Lizzie Grey, a guitarist who was well known in the Hollywood Glam/Metal scene, and also one of the stars of The Decline of Western Civilization Part II, The Metal Years. His band at the time, London, had a feature role in the flick. Vince Votel was the bassist, and it was he who really introduced me to live Rock N Roll back in my San Diego days. Votel was actually the one who first started calling me Cupkake. Our drummer was Ernie Machado and I had the coveted “lead guitarist” title, or “shredder” as Lizzie called me. We had quickly recorded an album, and were now on the road to support it. All this happened so fast that I could hardly believe it. I went from nobody to somebody lickity-split and would soon be a bonafide rock star. We were driving out to Phoenix in our poorly air conditioned vans, way over the speed limit, drinking beer, kicking back on a make shift bed that was Ernie’s prized feather bed he brought from home. Now remember, it was only 9:00 am when the beer started flowing. The road crew was driving, so we could relax. Yea! Right! Relax! Ha! I was so wound up, I was jumping out of my skin. The drone of the vans engines, the light whistle of a slightly cracked window, with some static filled car stereo playing Christopher Cross’ Ride Like The Wind... this is bitchin!

  We did not stop for restroom breaks, you had to work that one out on your own. Peeing into an empty beer bottle became very normal on this tour. Not more than two hours into this trip and we had already developed some very bad habits... throwing shit out the window of the vans as we traveled down the freeway. How did this begin? It is very easily. When you are peeing into a beer bottle, where is the urine going to be stored in a van full of equipment and people? The answer: it will not be stored anywhere in the van, it will be sent flying out the window. The first time this was done, I was sitting in the front seat of the passenger van with a hot, full beer bottle and I mean full of piss, to the top, slightly spilling onto my hands, pants and some even hit the floor. I did not think much of a bottle full of pee dripping onto my hands and feet, that was just par for the course. It seemed very simple, just pour it out the window and start the entire process over. I thought about throwing the bottle out the window, but I never liked a litter bug, and did not want to contribute to the tons of garbage that already lined the sides of the freeway.

  Well, with the window already down, I attempted my very first pour of urine out of the tour van. This plan completely backfired. The second that full bottle of urine was introduced to the high wind outside of the window caused by driving 80 mph, the bottle abruptly tilted back in my direction. At that moment, hot, salty urine sprayed my face. The rest of the urine entered the rear passenger side windows and sprayed Vince and Ernie who were riding in the back of the van. You want to see a bunch of guys get really mad? Spray them in the face with 98 degree urine! Ernie was yelling, “Dude, dude, dude, fuck, dude!” Vince Votel was screaming the loudest, “Fuckin’ asshole, what the fuck! Fuck! Cuppie! Fuck man! They were both wiping their faces and circling the edge of their mouths, wiping the urine spray from their lips, while calling me a dick. Vince Votel was livid; he lectured me that nothing like that was ever going to happen again, ever! Vince told me that you have to warn everybody before you are going to do anything like that so the proper preparation could be completed. Vince continued with his angry rants and said, “next time yell, blow-hatch!” Blow-hatch? Yes, blow-hatch! That will mean that something is about to be launched out the window and we can prepare for whatever may happen. Needless to say, I no longer filled the empty bottles to the top with pee. I always left a little space at the top. The bottles from that moment on were launched with an enthusiastic “blow-hatch” onto the side of the freeway for some unlucky broken down motorist to find while changing a flat tire on the side of the road. After a six hour drive and 15 beers later, we made it into Phoenix.

  We did not drink any water or eat anything along the way. Uh oh! I was already drunk and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. We finally made it to the Mason Jar, another one of those little “hole in the wall” places that most people enjoyed to visit and watch live music. I remember the outside thermometer at the liquor store down the street read “119 degrees.” Crap! this was hotter than I was use to! The club had us sound check at around 4:00 p.m. I was feeling sick. The owner of the club was too cheap to turn on the air conditioning, so it was hotter than hell inside the club. During the sound check, I walked behind a bunch of stage gear and threw up all over a bunch of wiring. I could not believe nobody saw me blow chunks onto the stage equipment. I was so sick, I thought I was going to die. I started to get the chills and was turning ghost white. I put my guitar down, shut my amp off and curled up on the dirty bar floor. It was nice and cool, so I kept my face firmly pressed against the cold tile. Lizzie came over and pushed his foot against my back and told me to get up. I just wanted to go lay down somewhere and sleep for a day or two. Lizzie yelled at me for a few minutes and finally left me alone. Shit, the second day of the tour and I am already sick. I needed to pace myself if I was going to be on tour the entire summer. I must have drank a few gallons of water to help dilute the alcohol and hopefully re-hydrate me before the show. I recovered from the morning beer-fest We played the show that evening to a door busting, max-capacity crowd. The band had an awesome show and a great crowd of people that had bought our album a few weeks prior. Guys were kissing our asses, buying us beer and telling us how great we were and the girls were grabbing our asses telling us how cute we were. I could get use to this lifestyle very quickly. I met my future girlfriend/sugar-momma Lauren that evening. Lauren was a typical stripper that had lots of cash. She always wore tight black spandex pants, and a top that looked like a bra, wasn’t a bra, but should be a bra, attempting to cover her phony 36 D boobs. Her hair was dyed platinum blonde and full of hair spray and glitter. I knew nothing about this woman, and didn’t want to learn about her personality. Lauren took me back to her place after the show. She had a really nice condominium in the north part of town. I was in heaven. I was pampered with ice cold air conditioning, great food, awesome drink, and a cool swimming pool. I was in heaven. The rest of the band came over for a quick midnight swim before heading off to the hotel room. Back on the road. We had a long, long trip ahead. We would spend the next 25 hours on a non-stop drive to Dallas, Texas.

  Leon -Vinnie Vegas

  Hollywood was full of characters roaming the streets that you’d just as soon avoid if you saw them before they saw you. There were the people who embarrassed you in front of your friends, the people who never left, or the people who just didn’t have the social skills necessary to interact in public. Leon was all three of these.

  Leon was a little troll of a man who haunted us in Hollywood like the Ghost of Christmas Present. He hung out with Cupkake’s clique of Madison High seniors in ‘87 back in San Diego. Leon stood about 5’ 2”, had the same fried black hair as Liz-Bone, and sported a mini beer-gut at 19. He wore LA Guns concert t-shirts with the sleeves cut off, bullet ammo belts and cowboy boots stuffed with his midget jeans. Kind of a heavy-metal Quasimoto with a mess of black cobwebs for hair. His eyes were far apart, drooped down at the sides and he lived in filth. His parents had lots of money and sent him up to Hollywood to attend Musicians Institute. This was no doubt a way to get him out of the house, because there was no way he could ever hold a job. Plus, while living at home, he was also verbally abusive towards his mom. As a kid I always ran into trouble girls who would call their mom’s bitches or worse to their face, but I never heard of a guy being that way. Especially one who had nowhere else to go! Somebody explained to me that Leon’s mom was an alcoholic who drank while she was pregnant, and that’s how he became that way. To be fair, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it would explain a lot. There is a kind of down’s syndrome type of look that your child will have if you were drunk through your pregnancy and Leon had it.

  Because Leon already had his own pig-stye... I mean apartment... Cupkake and I stayed with him one wee
kend so we could hunt for an apartment in Hollywood. He had moved to Hollywood earlier that year and was one of the few people we knew up there. Leon was incapable of cooking, so dinner was always either pizza, chicken wings or ribs from Raffalo’s down the street. Actually, I think most of the time it was all three. Leon did not throw away the trash, he simply flung the empty debris in the corner of the room. At any given time there were easily 6 or 7 empty pizza boxes strewn about in a cloud of beer gnats. Empty bottles were tipped over, and Burger King wrappers were wadded up in piles all over the place. Now like I said, his parents had money so the apartment itself was actually quite posh, but he ruined that early and it never got any better. Leon smoked Marlboro Reds like a chimney, so there were empty cigarette boxes and spilled ashtrays everywhere. Grey splotches and black cigarette burns completely dotted the white carpet and the place smelled like dirty socks and rotten food. Scattered about this squalor were a few top-notch Charvel electric guitars and a couple of Marshall amps. Leon played guitar like shit.

  After we found our apartment, there was really no need to involve Leon anymore. But we kind of felt bad for the sorry little beast, so we tried having him over a few times. Somehow Leon thought that the chicks were really hot for him, and this would invariably lead to trouble. The girls from San Diego already knew about his crap so they laughed it off, but we were meeting new people and Leon would embarrass us constantly.

  Now you’ve got to get this visual imagery in your head to get how funny it would be. You see, Leon constantly had the shakes (why, I don’t know) and his voice was quavery when he spoke. Plus he tried to speak in the Jeff Spicolli “California dude talk” where you half laugh the words and say “man” a lot. He’d always say “oh” before he said “man” so whenever he came up in conversation, you would say “Oh, man!” in a shaky voice to imitate him. But he’d be in a roomful of chicks he never met before and say “Oh man... which one of you bitches is going to suck my dick?” And he was serious!

  He pictured himself as a rockstar who could get away with that kind of crap. Half the time it was annoying, but the other half, it was funny. I guess it depended on how drunk you were at the time. Plus, he’d treat your house like it was his by ashing his cigarette on the rug. To be fair, most of the time he had the shakes so bad that when he tried to smoke a puff, the cherry would just shake loose and hit the deck. Either way, it would get him

  banished. But the next weekend, he’d call up and promise to be good this time, so if we were short of money, we’d make him promise to bring beer over before he could come in. Lot’s of beer, because we knew he had tons of money. Not that he would ever admit to it, he always pretended to be broke and didn’t want to pitch in to buy beer. We knew he was lying so we would demand that he open up his wallet and show us how much money he had. He would open his wallet and say “Oh man, I only got a couple of bucks and I need that for tomorrow.” With his shaky hands, he would try and show you only the ones in his wallet, but then he would slip and you would see about fifteen 20’s and a couple of c-spots. At that point, Cupkake would usually snatch a 20 right out of the wallet and pull it taught over his head in triumph. We had to do this every time with Leon, he was loaded, but never wanted to pitch in.

  Our apartment had a big security gate and since we were right up front, you could look out the window and see who was there. The intercom would ring your phone and then it was up to you to buzz them in or not. After a month of Leon bringing beer over, one time he tried to pull a fast one by showing up empty handed. We were very disappointed in Leon which led to a new policy. We would not buzz him in unless we saw that he indeed did have beer. There were no exceptions. This led to the front half of the apartments always being able to hear some troll shouting at the gate. If Leon had no beer, it went like this:

  “Oh man...

  let me in guys...

  I know you’re in there...

  I can see the blinds moving...

  And I can hear music!”

  Even if he had beer, we’d still torture him a bit. Then it would be:

  Let me in man...

  I got beer...

  I’m not spouting!”

  Spouting is a word I came up with because he was always full of shit. He’d start telling stories about how he had four girls, or he was kicking somebody’s ass, and you knew there was no way this happened. I told him that he spouted lies so much that I compared him to Mt. Vesuvius. We actually started calling him Vesuvius for a while but it never really stuck. But the term spouting did.

  “Stop spouting Leon!

  Oh man... I’m not spouting Vinnie!”

  Ultra Pop-Cupkake

  In the fall of 1988, I was playing with a band named Slapkat. Slapkat was formed by Vince Votel whom I had played with in Street Angel back in San Diego. Street Angel was my first real band which became the biggest act in San Diego during the 80s. Actually Slapkat was Street Angel minus Mike Kiner on drums. Our guitarist, Dave Angel, was still living in San Diego, but drove up on weekends to either play a gig or rehearse. I wouldn’t call it a serious band; in fact, we were up to the same shenanigans that Street Angel was famous for. Everybody in LA took their bands so seriously, that we couldn’t help but razz Hollywood with our antics. First off, we wore jackets with huge plumages of feathers on the sleeves like Cuban Fandango players. Next, we claimed to hail from Palm Springs which actually ended up helping us secure tough gigs. We grabbed the first drummer we could find, who was a guy who lived in our apartments who was Ernie Machado.

  We had just finished playing a great Saturday night show at the Whisky-A-Go-Go when we were approached by a Hollywood legend named Lizzie Grey. Vinnie Vegas liked to call him “Liz-Bone”. Lizzie had just watched the show and was out looking for band members to join his new project called Ultra Pop. We were very curious as to what type of project Ultra Pop was and why Lizzie wanted us to complete his band. We met up with Lizzie at his apartment the following day. At this point, I was unclear who Lizzie was or why he was so popular in Hollywood. I would soon find out Lizzie’s long history in the Hollywood rock scene. While we were getting to know Lizzie at his North Hollywood apartment, we all seemed to get along extremely well. Lizzie was very easy to hang out and party with and seemed to enjoy the new, fresh blood from San Diego that was so eager to tear up the rock scene.

  After a few hours of drinking beer on a warm lazy Sunday afternoon with Lizzie, the band Slapkat decided to give the Lizzie Grey project: Ultra Pop, a chance. It was official, and we were now known as Ultra Pop. I knew nothing about Lizzie, nor did the rest of the band members. That following Monday, I was hanging out at the El Cerrito apartment talking with some of the other bands in the building. The second I mentioned the name Lizzie Grey, just about everyone said, “The Lizzie Grey from the band London?” I told them I was not really sure. The gang continued to tell me that Lizzie had played with such legends as, Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue, Izzy Stradin of Guns N Roses, Fred Coury of Cinderella, Blackie Lawless of W.A.S.P., and Nigel Benjamin of Mott the Hoople. They named more bands and famous people, but after awhile, I just tuned everything out and stopped listening. I thought these guys were all full of shit. I did not say much that evening regarding Lizzie. The following day, I decided to ditch work and go hang out with Lizzie and find out if all of this rock history was true.

  I met up with Lizzie on that Tuesday and began my investigation regarding his previous history with famous rock legends. It was not long before I learned that Lizzie was indeed associated with all of the mentioned rock stars in his past. Lizzie seemed pretty cool about talking about all the stars he has recorded, and or played with in the past. As the day went on, and the alcohol began to weigh on Lizzie’s brain, he became agitated and you could tell that his sordid history bothered him. A good percentage of his band members had gone off and become great rock stars and were rolling in dough. I don’t think this sat very well with Lizzie. He continued to show me old rock photos and movies that he was apart of just a few year prior i
n 1986. While we were bullshitting about the past, Lizzie’s mail came to his mailbox downstairs. For some reason, he ran to the box and checked it as if he was expecting something very important. Well, while I was with him that day, something very important did come in the mail. A check from Warner Bros. record company. A very large check from Warner Bros. Records. Lizzie quickly opened the envelope and checked inside. A big smile filled his face and he said. “This is when all the hard work and bullshit is worth it.” I had no idea what he was talking about, until he showed me the check. The amount seemed incredible to me. It was a check for $2,200 and in the memo section read “Royalty payment: Public Enemy #1-Motley Crue.” Well, that convinced me! I asked Lizzie what the check was for and he explained that the royalty check was for co-writing the song Public Enemy #1 on Motley Crue’s first album “Too Fast For Love.” I immediately thought, Holy shit, this guy has some experience in the Hollywood scene!”.

  ULTRA POP TOUR - Dallas, Texas - Cupkake

  We made it approximately five miles out of Phoenix, when the equipment van busted a water pump. Lizzie and Pops went to work right away. They both crawled under the van and began removing the water pump. The temperature was around 120 degrees outside and I have no idea how they could work on the van without burning their backs on the sizzling hot asphalt. After almost three hours of those two sweating it out underneath the truck while the rest of us supervised with beer in hand, and mumbling smart ass remarks, Somehow in that heat, they managed to fix the water pump. Lizzie was dirty, sweaty and frazzled, but determined to make the Dallas show on time. After all, we were getting paid quite a bit of money to play Dallas.