Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  I took Cupcake to Las Vegas for his 21st birthday. You can imagine the time we had there! We asked around for a place to hang out at and somebody suggested a club that was a few blocks down. So after a couple of 99 cent beers, we headed off for the club. I kid you not, we hadn’t been walking for more than 30 seconds before a VW bug flew across all three lanes of traffic, and stopped right in front of us. Out hops this drop dead gorgeous blond in a leather jacket, black spandex pants, the highest pumps you ever saw with a big mop of Lita Ford hair. She pointed at us and told us “Get in the car!” Hey! That was our move! So yeah, we hopped in a they drove us to the club. The other girl was not as cute so I had to pull a wingman. Later, the girls took us to a country bar called “Sam’s Town” where we made a spectacle of ourselves trying to line dance. Two long-haired glam rockers in a bar full of cowboys was quite the sight I’m sure. Then,

  Cupcake told everybody we were in the band Santana which they bought hook, line and sinker. After that, they quit laughing at us and treated us like stars. Later, we took the girls back to our hotel where the blond immediately pulled Cupcake into the bathroom. As for me, I sat on the bed talking to her friend the whole time because that’s what wingmen do. Keep that girl from trying to pull a “lifeguard” and start banging on that door! She looked at me and asked “I could be anybody right now, and you’d still be hitting on me wouldn’t you?” I answered “yes” and left it at that.

  The next night we got tossed out of Circus Circus for being too drunk. Not that we were doing anything, it’s just that security took one look at us and could tell that we were in no shape to be in their fine establishment. We were confronted by two guards and asked to show ID. I cheerfully complied because in my mind we were behaving perfectly and there was no problem here at all. I put my bottle of Hieneken between my legs to grab my wallet, and it began pouring out on the floor like a Sparklet’s bottle. I was oblivious to the beer spilling, so I continued to try and fish out my ID while I smiling politely at the stern men. The guards had enough and escorted us to the giant revolving door and stood guard so we wouldn’t come back in. A wise decision, because that’s exactly what we were going to do. So we high-stepped it next door to Slots O’ Fun were such behavior is tolerated. God knows why we were in Circus Circus to begin with!

  Sidenote: As I write this, I know how to spell Hieneken because I’m currently drinking one!

  The Phoenix Incident - Vinnie Vegas

  Cupcake hooked up with a chick in Phoenix while he was on tour with Ultra Pop. She was a bit older than the usual girls, and had the worn look of a jaded stripper. But she had tons of money and her own condo, so she would fly Cupkake out there all the time for the weekend. If asked what she did to get all this money, she’d give a vague story about private lingerie showings. Somebody pays you a bunch of money, and you strut around in different outfits... at their home or hotel. OK... sure, nothing nefarious going on there. We also saw her picture on one of those cheap porno rags in the machine on the sidewalk, so we had no illusions.

  One weekend Cupkake called me up and told me to get my butt out to

  Phoenix. His sugar-mamma was going to be gone all week, and had agreed to fly me out there to hang with him. Big mistake. He knew a few other people in Phoenix, so he had some friends pick me up at the airport and take me to a motel where a small party was going on. Both Cupcake and I loved Phoenix because it was hot as hell during the day, but at night you could be out at 1 am and it was still 85 degrees outside. You could go swimming and not even need a towel when you came out. My family used to take vacations every summer and we stay at the little roadside motels along the way. I guess that’s how I fell in love with the buzz of the neon lights and the hum of air conditioners droning on in the thin desert air. Being in Phoenix or Vegas always took me back to those trips which I loved. After a few drinks, I was determined to take a skinny dip in the hotel pool, so I nuded up and got ready. It was well after pool closing hours. so this was going to be dicey. Security was on to us and no matter how patient I was, they seemed to always be right around the corner. Far enough to tell I was not in the pool, but not close enough to see that I was naked. I never did get to jump in that pool.

  The next stop on our late night desert tour was the Mason Jar. This was a little hole-in-the-wall rock joint, but it was where all the LA bands came to play when in Phoenix. The bar’s owner was named Bruno or Bluto or something like that, and was the stereo-typical club owner. This meant that he never delivered what he promised, and blamed everything on the band. There wasn’t a lot of people there, but we found a couple of chicks in full rocker regalia so we sidled up to them and acted like we knew them for years. We chatted for awhile, had a couple of drinks and then right before midnight, they turned on the lights and started shooing people outside. I was mortified to learn that because we were in Arizona, it was actually 1 am instead of midnight. But that wasn’t the worse part, the worse part was that in Arizona, cut-off time for buying booze is 1 am, not 2 am! I had to sprint down the pebbly road, slipping and sliding in my rocker boots to a yonder liquor store in the desert heat to score more booze at 12.59. Well I got there in time, so it all ended well. The next day, we called the two girls to find out what was going on. They told us about a giant music festival that night at the Polo Grounds. There were 5 bands playing including Ted Nugent and Icon. Man, we hit the jackpot, so later that night, they picked us up and we headed off to the show. Cupkake was proud of his new “blowhatch” routine that he learned on the Ultra Pop tour, and was tossing everything not nailed down out the window into the desert.The show was fantastic, it was a carnival atmosphere with a huge stage in the middle of a grass field. The night was warm and the beers were cheap, plus we were able to sit down on the grass pretty close to the stage and had a great view. It reminded me of being at the drive-in theater when I was a kid, but this time I had a girl to make out with. Now that’s summer fun!

  Cupcake’s girl was one of those girls who could always get backstage no matter what. She was really cute, but her body (especially her ass) was absolutely flawless so I’m sure that had something to do with it. She got us back to where the trailers were, and it seemed like everybody back there knew her. We found Ted Nugent’s trailer where the wives were outside in a group smoking cigarettes. They were having no fun at all and didn’t look very happy to see us. I began to haggle the wives by saying “What’s with the long faces? What is this?... the no fun zone?” Clearly, we were too drunk to be back there and the wives were growing more annoyed by the minute. The last straw is when I drew a line across the dirt with the heel of my boot. I stood on my side off the line and said, “This is the fun zone.” Then I’d hop over the line and say “This is the no-fun zone.” Then I’d repeat the dance. “Fun zone... no-fun zone... fun zone... no-fun zone” They began craning their necks around like they were looking for security, so we took the hint and got the hell out of there.

  Back out on the grass with the rest of the crowd, we came across a miserable looking guy sitting down alone staring at the ground. This man was clearly trying to fight the urge to hurl. In my mischievous state I told the others, “Oh man, who wants to bet I can make this guy hurl?” The girls weren’t to enthused, but Cupcake had my back and egged me on. I explained my devious plan; I told them: “I’ll bet if I buy that guy a beer, even though he’s on the verge of blowing chunks, he’ll drink it and blow.” The girls were sceptical, but I knew better, so I bought a beer. I ran up to the guy and yelled “Dude...rock n roll...I bought you a beer...chug! chug! chug! ...Ted Nugenttttt!!” Sure enough, without hesitation, the guy grabbed the beer and chugged it. I’m sure it was just against his code to ever refuse a drink. As we walked away, we turned around just in time to see him start to hurl into the grass. We laughed the entire way home about that!

  Like idiots, we took the girls back to the condo Cupkake’s girlfriend owned. To this day I can’t believe we had the nerve to have girls spend the night in that place, what a recipe for disaster! But
the next morning we hustled them out and cleaned up good so no one was the wiser. Well, so we thought. Later, when Cupcake flew back to LA, he told me that his girl had found a cigarette with lipstick in one of the ashtrays. She let him know this by flinging the said ashtray full force at his head. Luckily it missed and shattered against the wall. I guess that was that. I felt bad. but in all honesty, she was up to some sort of hijinx herself by being gone for a week. My guess is that there was a convention in Vegas but that is only speculation on my part. She actually got a hold of me about a year later because she was in LA for the weekend. I was busy with Hooligan stuff so we never hooked up. I never knew why she wanted to get a hold of me. Weird.

  The way it was

  THE HOLLYWOOD SCENE - Vinnie Vegas

  When we got to Hollywood, we discovered that KNAC Radio was the undisputed king of heavy metal radio in LA and there was no reason to listen to anything else. KNAC was the official soundtrack of Hollywood in the 80’s and one in every 5 guys playing on stage in any Hollywood club had a black t-shirt with a white KNAC logo across the front. W.A.S.P., Kix, Motley Crue & L.A Guns were played in heavy rotation that summer. Because it was a small station with a weak signal, it didn’t reach The Valley, so it had a very localized feel to it. Just hearing the voices of KNAC DJs Long Paul or Tawn Mastrey aka “The Leather Nun”, gave you a unique local Hollywood vibe that I remember to this day. If you faxed in a flyer by Friday afternoon, KNAC would add your band’s show to a list that they would read off throughout the weekend. Something about hearing your band’s name read over those airwaves really made you feel like you made it in Hollywood.

  While KMET and KLOS introduced me to the LA sound back in San Diego, they had wussed out by the time we got there. KLOS had become an embarrassment with their lame Mark & Brian morning show. KNAC was blasting out of every stereo in Hollywood including our own, and a few new bands like Autograph and Slaughter were showcased. Queensryche had released Operation Mindcrime and “I Don’t Believe in Love” was played incessantly which annoyed Cupkake because he hated Queensryche. I loved them and would crank the song because I dug it, and and also to razz Cuppie. Two other songs on heavy rotation that summer was “Ring Around Rosie” by Kix, and She’s only 17, by Winger. I hated Kix, so Cupkake got his revenge. There was also a god-awful song by some hick band where they revved up a chain saw throughout the track that was heavily promoted, but that never really caught on thank god. That song sucked bad, almost as bad as Salty Dog’s ode to the Hot Dog.For bands in Hollywood, it was impossible to simply enjoy yourself and listen to the radio. Instead, we studied every song, picking it apart and critiquing it to yourself or with other people. You did this while sipping a beer by the pool in the 95 degree heat of that 1988 Summer. That summer there was a band called The Zeros who’s gimmick was all things purple. They had purple hair, purple clothes, purple guitars and even drove around in a suped-up purple Chevy Impala station wagon. Or was it an Oldsmobile Cutlass? I don’t remember, but these guys had a Zeromobile! The Zeros were all over Hollywood, and all over Rock City News. Rock City News was the official publication of Hollywood, and to be featured in it was golden. The Zeros epitomized what Hollywood was all about at the time... image, image, and more image. Even though these guys didn’t have a record deal, they were legitimate rock stars and I learned a lot from them. They had the biggest ads, the purplest hair, the most press, and absolutely the coolest car in Hollywood. I realized like so many others that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore, I was in Hollywood dude, and I needed to get on board or miss the boat.

  Auditions - Vinnie Vegas

  As soon as we hit Hollywood, it was time to audition for bands. Call it naivety, but the reason we moved to LA was because we considered it to be the major league of Rock N Roll. Playing in San Diego, we felt as if we were wasting out time in the minor leagues. The thinking was that if you were a good enough musician, you could cruise up to LA and join a happening band where the veterans would have all the right connections and a well thought out game plan. This turned out to be a total fallacy, and we eventually found out that the players in LA were actually bigger bone heads than anyone we met in San Diego. Oh they would tell you how they held the key to success, but some of the things that came out of their mouths would leave you shaking your head in disbelief. But we didn’t know that at the time, so Cupcake and I began the audition circuit agreeing that it would be cool if we could somehow end up in the same band, but realistically, we would probably end up in separate acts.

  Music Connection was the weekly bible of “musicians wanted” ads. Everybody in Hollywood looked through that magazine even if they were already in a band. You never knew what you would end up getting yourself into by answering one of these ads. Most ads used the phrase “label interest” and “serious label interest” which implied that a major label was considering signing them. That turned out of course to be a huge self-serving lie, but you’d be amazed at how many people believed their own lie. A lot of ads emphasized demands such as “must have decent equipment.” I remember answering an ad like that and driving up to North Hollywood for an audition. It was one guy and two girls and one of the girls was the drummer. These three looked more like the cast of a church play than a rock n roll band and the drummers “set” consisted of a motley collection of phone books, pots and pans laid out on the floor. She explained that she was getting a drum set soon but this was just for practice. Luckily I left my amp in the car so when I went out to get it, I simply hopped in and drove back home. This led to my first revelation about auditioning in LA. Don’t unload your gear until you check out the band first.

  Hollywood was the center of the universe and we lived right in the middle of it. How many bands today who are busting their butts traveling around the south would love that? There was nowhere else to play BUT the Sunset Strip. That’s not totally true, but figuratively it was. And why not? People came from all over LA and indeed, all over America to see you play. On any given weekend there would be 3000 kids walking back and forth on the Sunset Strip, flirting with the opposite sex and collecting flyers by the hundreds from the different bands. Girls would take copies of Rock City News back home to Illinois along with a purse full of flyers and tack them up on their walls. All flyers would have the bands phone numbers on them, so they would keep in touch and return next summer with new recruits. And to have a name like Vinnie Vegas insured instant rock-star status. There were names like Marky or Traci, and it seems like every band had at least one guy who’s last name was either Roxx or Foxx. In fact, there was a Poison Clone band from San Diego who called themselves Foxy Roxx.

  Hair was the absolute king and if you didn’t have any, you could just forget ever playing for any Hollywood band. When auditioning a guitarist, it was never an issue of what style he played or how good his equipment was. The first question was “Do you have long hair?” If not, the phone was hung up. Ads in the Rock City News read in bold, “MUST HAVE LONG HAIR”. Indeed some bands took it further, you see, there was zero originality at the time. All the musicians had a favorite band, and these guys wanted to be that band. They would copy the look, sound and style of that band, and if you didn’t have it... see-ya! This lead to a Sunset Strip with 20 Motley Crues’. 20 Poisons’, 10 LA Guns’ and about 200 Guns N Roses’.

  The pressure to have long hair was so intense that many guys went to extremes to achieve it. Hair extensions were a new thing back then and a lot of guys had them, especially singers. Nobody admitted that they had them, and honestly I could never tell. But if people somehow found out, then you’d be ridiculed behind your back. I think the feeling was that if you had real long hair, that meant that you had been growing it for 3 years or so. This said that you were a real rocker and not some Johnny Come Lately poser. Being a poser was the worst insult you could get back in the day and the reason was just.

  Hard Rock had been very unpopular at the end of the 70’s and beginning of the 80’s. New wave and Disco had taken over and I remember that a lot of m
y high school friends who had strutted around with long hair, cut it off and started wearing skinny ties and sport jackets. These people ridiculed the rockers as dinosaurs who were stuck in the past. But in 1984 when bands like Motley Crue and Ratt burst on the scene, a lot of short haired guys tried to jump back on the metal bandwagon. Of course the problem was that they had already cut off your hair and now had to sew some horse hair on to their scalp in order to fit in. This may be the key to why hair was such a big deal in the 80’s to all of you who never got it. Well, don’t feel bad because I never got it either until just now. Funny how actually writing something down can suddenly make things clear! I guess the guys with real long hair were the guys who had been into hard rock from the get-go and not someone who just decided to go that way because it was big on MTV. We were the real deal, the ones who stuck it out in those dark awful New Wave days. How soon we forget! Personally, I can thank Def Leppard and Iron Maiden for helping me keep the faith.

  In the beginning, I used to plead my case on the phone when being grilled about the quality of my equipment or the length of my hair. After a couple of episodes like the North Hollywood incident, I quickly developed a belligerent attitude at the first sign of grilling. I soon found out that if the band raked me over the coals about the length of my hair, it would turn out that these guys didn’t really have long hair themselves. If somebody harangued you about the size of your amp, these guys had crappy equipment. It got to the point where after being grilled over and over about the length of my hair, I would make a challenge once they asked me that overused question.