Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  My favorite beach to hang out at was Torrey Pines where highway 101 rode right alongside the shore for about a mile and a half. The only thing separating the road from the beach was a long breakwater style jumble of huge rocks and chunks of concrete that came from god knows where. Everybody would park their car along the road with their doors open blasting rock music from their car stereos. You could walk along the sand and hear all sorts of different songs while budding drummers would do their “air

  drumming” silhouetted in the glow of 10 different bonfires. San Diego’s station were kind of lame, so you’d have to sit through Journey’s Wheel In The Sky, and Jethro Tull’s Aqualung to finally hear some Ozzy. There was nothing around the beach for miles, so we never got hassled. This haven was up north, about 15 miles outside of San Diego. Most people liked party in the parking lots of Mission Bay or on Fiesta Island, a man made pile of sand in the middle of the bay. But the cops were always there and this led to a nightly cat and mouse game of trying to stay one step ahead of “the man”.

  Mission Bay is a big place, so we used to stake out places like Mariner’s Point or Bahia Bay as the unofficial rocker party areas. Mariner’s Point made more sense because it was a dirt road that ran along the channel and was off the beaten track. As for Bahia Bay, forget about it. That place wouldn’t last 15 minutes before the police showed up. Fiesta Island should have made the most sense, I mean think of it, it’s called “Party Island” in Spanish! It seems to me that this place was created to be a place to raise a ruckus and not disturb anybody in the process. After all, there was nothing but sand out there. So why on earth the San Diego Police felt the need to roust everybody out of there every night was beyond me. In San Diego, the police treat all it’s citizens like little kids who need stern lectures from Dad. And everybody in San Diego is so compliant, that nobody raises a fuss. Before any big three-day weekend or even important Charger games, the police are on TV telling everybody “We’re going to be out there, so if there’s any trouble you WILL be arrested,” while a reporter nods her head in agreement with a furrowed brow. Then the anchor taps his script and announces to his partner “Well there you go, we’ve all been warned, no excuses now” with more nodding and paper fumbling. So I spent my time at Torrey Pines until I started to try and break into the Clairemont music scene.

  The Clairemont Scene - Vinnie Vegas

  I grew in Mira Mesa, so Torrey Pines was the closest beach to go to when I was in school. For some reason, Clairemont seemed to be the hot-spot for Rock N Roll, and I moved there in ‘86. Clairemont was the scene of a Rock N Roll house party just about every weekend. San Diego really had no decent clubs, so these parties took their place. To find out where the party was, you’d have drive around to the various liquor stores until you saw somebody you knew. The house parties proved to be a more stable environment to hang out with fellow musicians and scam on girls. There were 2 or 3 places that were notorious party houses and became icons in our little rock scene. For some reason, the neighbors never called the cops on these houses, no matter how many people were swarming in. Two bucks at the door got you all the beer you could drink from the keg in the backyard, and still it amazes me how many people bitched and moaned about digging into their wallets. “Yeah I heard there’s a party on Marlesta, but they want two bucks at the door.” Where else were you going to get that kind of deal? Besides, it was obviously the place to be, everyone was there. A lot of cheap-asses would offer the guy at the door a buck instead of ponying up the full amount. So right off the bat, the people at the party know you’re a cheap-ass! How do you think that imbecile did with the girls that night? If any of my friends ever pulled that, I never brought them along again. Seeing a lot of the same people every week meant that you could cultivate a relationship with a girl you liked as opposed to jumping in blind. I liked that a lot. Chances are there would be a band playing in the living room or the garage. Some bands you could tell would be playing in the clubs soon, while others you could tell were not going to survive. A lot of times the band didn’t have a PA, instead the singer would be shouting through a Fender Twin Reverb guitar amp set up on a chair. To see a band disintegrate right before you was always a spectacle. If a band sucked, you’d see the guys sulking and shooting each other dirty looks as they played while more and more people headed for the back yard. The way that fellow musicians could watch the carnage unfold before them, then go back to pumping the keg and shooting the shit reminded me of wildebeasts in Africa after one of their buddies go down to the lions. You shrug your shoulders and move on, nobody entertained the idea that it could be them. But these house parties turned out to be a proving ground that produced some future Hollywood stars.

  The local music scene in ‘87 was loosely divided into a triage of camps with blurred divisions. Most guys were playing the metal style made popular by Judas Priest & Iron Maiden. Another “new wavy” kind of camp existed with the Duran Duran look of mullets and shirts tied in a knot. Cupkake’s drummer Ernie Machado and his roommate Dave Chapman came from that crowd. The last was a new breed of “glam dudes” who were into the rising bands like Poison or Warrant. We all had one thing in common, we all played Gibson guitars and big bad Marshall amps, and we ALL played REALLY LOUD!!! The guys came for the music, then the girls came for the guys. This in turn brought more guys after the girls in a coed feeding frenzy worthy of National Geographic. At first, the musicians used to copy their favorite bands. If a guitarist liked Van Halen, then he looked like Eddie and wouldn’t play with anyone else unless they were into David Lee Roth. All singers had to wail like Bruce Dickenson, guitarists shredded like Randy Rhoads and drummers had to make the Tommy Lee faces while spinning their sticks. There really was no exception to the rule and failure to do so could keep you out of the band scene for good. Later on, bands like Ruby Slippers, Faster Pussycat and L.A. Guns would come down from LA, and soon the local bands were imitating them. The holy grail of local bandom was to play at a show opening for one of these bands. San Diego really had no clubs to speak of, and the few that came and went would only sponsor a show if one of the LA bands headlined. This did not help the little sister ego any! These shows had the most glamour, the most chicks, and the most fun.

  Down here, there were a pack of bands who rose from the house parties and began to play these coveted slots. Bands like Suspicion, Assassin, American Steele and Street Angel became almost as popular as the headliners. Of these bands, Street Angel became the undisputed kings of the scene, or queens, depending on who you would talk to. Vince Votel was the leader of Street Angel and everybody knew who they were. And more importantly, everybody knew who he was. Vince Votel became famous in the house party scene by playing in a band called Side FX. Somewhere along the line, he decided that he’d rather be a front man rather than a side dude and broke off to form his own band Street Angel. Vince intentionally hand-picked hot looking blond dudes that would guarantee the biggest chick following. Now remember, where the chicks go, the guys go. Although I doubt that part ever really entered into Vince’s plan. He acquired Dave Angel on guitar and back-up vocals, and recruited two 15 year-old high school dudes for the rhythm section. The young guitarist was called Cupkake, a name given to him by Vince, and the drummer was Mike Kiner who later went on to play in Asphalt Ballet. Vince created this band with the genius of a Hollywood producer, aiming for maximum attention and envy. Vince played bass, but took the lead singer role, picture the band Winger in drag and you’ve got Street Angel. In a year and a half, these guys went from house parties to opening up for Warrant at a 1000 seat theatre. Now, all four guys had rock star status, but Vince Votel was still on top.

  Anytime there was a Street Angel party, everybody was buzzing about it. Because it was the hot ticket, a lot of times people tried to keep the location a secret by acting like they weren’t sure where it was. Oh, everybody knew there was a party, but nobody knew where it was. Yeah right! The girls were never a help. You’d see them all decked out scoring their wine coolers so you
knew they were going somewhere, but they wouldn’t budge. I’m sure that many a girl ditched their boyfriends to go to these parties. As for guys, they didn’t give a fuck so they’d cough up the locale. I remember cruising around on Saturday nights on a bizarre scavenger hunt, hitting up all the Ralph’s and Von’s parking lots looking for people who could tell me where the party was. When I look back at some of the old Street Angel pics, it occurs to me how much of a genius Vince was. It wasn’t easy to get young guys to dress in something other than the generic rock outfit of the time. Vince had Dave dressed in a sports jacket and slacks, while Mike had a Palm Beach style beach look. Cupkake wore a white dress shirt, black vest and bow tie like a Rock N Roll valet. Somehow together, it all worked. Don’t ask me how, but it did. To this day I don’t know why some A&R guy didn’t scoop them up. Of course, we were in San Diego so...

  Street Angel was light years beyond the other local bands and Vince’s unorthodox approach to rock style surely played a part in their success. They caked on the make-up and piled their hair up with cans of Aqua Net. I remember one party where they were playing in a garage dressed up like Disneyland cowboys. This led to many under-breath fag comments from some of the guys, but in the most brutal of house party scenarios, they pulled it off and actually gained more status to many a person’s chagrin. There was nothing they could do wrong, even though it seemed almost as if they were quietly mocking the entire situation. And now that I think about it, I think that’s exactly what they were doing.

  Many a career died right there in those house parties, because when things went wrong, it could be horrific. Many a melt-down occurred in the glaring light of a living room. Sometimes guitar players would go beyond the sulking and dirty looks and actually throw down his guitar is a hissy fit and leave. This usually earned you instant ostracizing, you just can’t recover from that. Guitarists were usually the more volatile of the bunch. You see, a guitarist’s reputation was totally reliant on how well he could pull off Eddie Van Halen’s or Randy Rhoads’ licks. If he ran into technical speed bumps, he’d make it obvious to everyone by angrily kicking his foot petals around, least anyone think it was his fault. Much the same way a baseball player will stare at his mitt after a heinous error. This wasn’t limited to the greenhorns, I once saw Craig Goldie of Rough Cutt do this at a Fox Theatre show where his band opened up for Dio. So these house parties really became such a make it or break it situation, that a lot of guys were terrified to even attempt it, and were resigned to noodle through scales in their bedrooms forever. But as much as some people crashed and burned, some bands rose above to shine, and once you achieved that level, you were golden.

  Yes these parties could be brutal, but on the other end, stars were born as well. People like Vince Votel and Cupkake rose to stardom overnight because of these shindigs. I can understand how girls would flock around these guys at parties, but to see guys do it... well that was really weird. But it happened all the time. As a matter of fact, some girls became downright unapproachable because they decided to go after these guys exclusively and ignore anybody else. It was funny because while the hot girls could pull this off, some girls over-estimated their hotness and were rebuffed. This turned out to be a worse social suicide than any bad gig a guy endured! And so, San Diego began to turn out it’s own stars who ruled the kingdom like royalty. Indeed some people started throwing house parties where only select “A-listers” were allowed in. This was the beginning of a time in San Diego that was actually instrumental in spurring me to leave.

  From these humble house party beginnings, San Diego was producing a crop of young guys who started achieving success in bands like Ratt, Bang Tango, Rough Cutt and Faster Pussycat. The lead guitarist was always at the top of the totem pole and our town was producing names like Robin Crosby, Craig Goldie, Tommy Asakwa and Jake E. Lee to add to the rock scene of Hollywood. Who’s Tommy Asakawa you say? Well yeah, I guess that’s one name that will be familiar only in San Diego, but in the 80’s he was right up there among the best. After these guys left for Hollywood, it left a void in San Diego in which the only guys left were the ones who really didn’t have the ability to create. These were guys who survived the house party gauntlet, and rose to the elite status, but could not write songs. And with their insecurity, (and watching others leave to the North without them) they created a new party tier and tried to convince themselves they were above it all. It worked because they are still around to this day. These are the guys who abandoned trying to create music and formed tribute bands. They created their own submenu of “stars” that only associated with each other and excluded anyone else. Some wouldn’t even acknowledge you when you spoke to them, save for a half-hearted sneer. All the talented guys had headed north and were creating magic in Hollywood, while all that was left in San Diego were a tribe of pompous hacks and the people who kissed their asses. This led to a real stagnation of the music scene in San Diego that was glaring to me. With the magic gone, I really felt as if there was nothing to be gained if I stayed in this town. I really wanted to head out to my city in the North, but how... indeed... how?

  I was spending a lot of time trying to find a decent band to play for. Up until then, I had played in several bands that practiced a lot, but never made the jump to actually playing live. I guess it was the spectre of the house party curse that loomed in these peoples heads. I jammed with a lot of the bedroom noodlers who hid in their lairs like moray eels. I met a lot of talented guitar players who could’ve been huge stars if not for their fear. I met with a lot of bands who wanted to be carbon copies of existing bands. More than a few designed their flyers in the Poison motif of four symmetrical pics. One guy looking over his sunglasses, one guy making the kissy face, and finally, one guy saluting with the big navy hat. Boy I wasn’t asking for much, but a LITTLE originality would have been nice. When I first started playing, most of the bands played copy tunes. I had already decided that I wanted to write my own songs; after all, I figured I could write as well as the next jackass. Plus, the thought of writing really excited me. I had a need to flex my creativity and doing that really seemed to make more sense if you saw a future for yourself. So now, I needed to find a band that wrote their own songs. That Summer, all I heard was Street Angel... Street Angel... Street Angel. They were playing at all the cool parties. I would talk to girls, and that name would come up. I would see Cupkake and his Vietnamese girlfriend Denise at the AM/PM by my house. I talked to a local producer named Vince DeSanti, because I wanted to explore the idea of recording once I wrote some tunes. DeSanti was recommended to me as someone I’d want to work with if I did any recording. So I met with him and he tells me, “Yeah I was just in the studio with a bunch of cool guys, Street Angel.” It was getting to the point where I could not get away from them and it was starting to get under my skin. These guys were doing everything I wanted to do, they were writing songs, they were recording, they were moving forward, while I was spinning my wheels. The last straw was when I was driving back to my apartment, getting off the 805 when Pat Martin, the biggest radio DJ in San Diego at the time, starts introducing a new band on the radio. “These guys are from San Diego and they’re called Street Angel!” He proceeds to play two of their songs back to back in the prime-time drive hour. I was about to jump out of my skin! What is with this band?! Later that October, I did my weekly ritual of scanning the musicians wanted section of the Reader which was the local music scene bible of the time. To my surprise, I read an ad that stated “Street Angel seeks bass player and drummer with back up vocals.” I didn’t waste any time and jumped on it immediately. Obviously something had transpired, but that would have to be explained later. I thought to myself, “Well, if you can’t beat ‘em...join ‘em!” And I did.

  Apparently, Vince Votel and Mike Kiner had been lured away by an LA band called Ruby Slippers leaving Cupkake and Dave to pick up the pieces. Ruby Slippers came down from LA every couple of months and always packed the house. They were ultra glam with a semi-chubby guitar player
who looked like Wynnona Judd. I guess Street Angel had landed one of the coveted opening slots and the singer liked what he saw. In those days, there was a lot of this type of cannibalizing going on, especially in Hollywood. Being in a big band was by no means a secure thing because you might be booted out and replaced by a younger or cooler you! Indeed, I don’t think many bands had the same line-up for more than six months or so. Throw in the lead guitarist/lead singer friction and that just made the environment that much more volatile. But Dave and Cupkake didn’t wallow in their sorrow, instead they wisely decided to get back on their horse and strike again while the iron was still hot.

  I answered the ad and talked to Cupkake on the phone and he seemed pretty down to earth. I didn’t have to sift through the bong-hit coughs or the Spicolli dude-talk that I was used to hearing. He lived about 2 miles away, so he volunteered to bring over a cassette of their demo so I could learn the songs for an audition. It was about a week before Halloween when he walked through my door. In those days, we used to get all decked out anytime we left the house, and this was no different. He looked like Randy Rhoads’ kid brother, and what impressed me was how adult he behaved. I mean this kid was still in high school, but he had more poise than most of my friends. I was six years older than him, but I was able to talk to him on equal terms. Guns N Roses had just recorded Appetite for Destruction and I had a cassette playing which I had played non stop for weeks. At that time, nobody knew who they were, much less liked them. This band flew in the face of all the Ratt and Dokken on the radio, but I liked them and considered them my own private guilty pleasure. I saw Cupkake had his cassette in his hand, so I asked him if I should throw it on. He told me, “Actually, I would rather listen to this first!” It turns out that somehow he had discovered Guns N Roses as well, and was as big a fan as I was. Within the first 10 seconds, I knew we’d be great friends.