Hollywood: Rock Of Ages

by Chris Solberg

  Michelle was a girl I got to know from walking past Las Palmas every night on my way home from work. I guess all the girls on the streets came from households with intimacy issues because across the board, they all loved to hug. The girls found a family of sorts out on that boulevard which I really found odd, considering where we were! If that’s what you’re looking for, then I guess you can create it anywhere you want. Michelle was a really quiet girl with a precious smile and the softest, whitest skin you ever saw. She was one of three sisters who had their own ready self made pack, and she kind of reminded me of Cinderella in a way. Her other two sisters were pretty loud and forward as many of the chicks were, but Michelle preferred to sit in the background and simply watch the happenings from a distance. She never looked you in the eye, instead looking past you as she spoke, and she usually didn’t speak up unless you asked her a direct question. It was hard to tell how old she was because she looked all of 11, but she was older than her sister Julie who looked 14. I don’t remember the oldest’s name but she seemed to be in charge most of the time. These three were always together and had a fetish for wearing really stylish hats. That’s how I got to recognize them amongst the regular crowd out on the Boulevard. You’d see them out there in these wide brimmed velvet hats, complete with netting and floral arrangements like three starlets from the silent movies of Hollywood. Julie had flaming red wavy hair like Billie Burke, and usually did the talking for the three of them. She was the type who had no problem hopping off the hood of a car, and grabbing a flyer from you, then grilling you about it. Michelle was more the Mary Pickford type who’d sit quietly by herself and smile all night. The older sister was a little plump and not so cute, but it seemed like it was her job to look after the other two like a surrogate mom. You’d see a lot of that in LA, where the oldest sister gets the responsibility even if she’s only 15 or 16. It really amazed me that these sisters would be out there at all hours, but there they were and a lot of the bikers looked out for them so nobody gave them any crap. In Hollywood, nobody told you their real last name, but I found out that these girls lived in The Valley on a street called Rose. So from then on, I knew them as Michelle & Julie Rose.

  THE HOOLIGANS - Vinnie Vegas

  After almost a year of auditioning, I finally hooked up with a band that was later to become the infamous Hooligan Stew. Matt was the singer, and looked like Dave Mustaine’s little brother with curly light brown hair. He was still riding high from his appearance in The Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years. Everybody featured in that movie acted as if they had earned a gold record. Matt had a bit of a Southern drawl in his voice, and for the life of me, I don’t know where he got it from because he grew up in Downey. Downey is one of those indescript towns around Disneyland, not quite LA, yet not quite OC. These towns are famous for their kitschy architecture and huge flood control canals running through them. All the houses are painted pastel shades with alpine-style molded wood trimming. I don’t know who’s idea that was, but it sure looks out of place in Southern California! These houses are the birthplace of shag carpets and faux wood paneling. From what I understand, he grew up the typical skater punk with Van’s shoes and Dogtown stickers. Matt used to brag that the first ever McDonald’s was there in Downey and actually drove us there one time just to see it. Apparently in Downey, it was a revered shrine. I pointed out that there are a few McDonald’s out there who claim to be the first, but Matt always insisted that they were bogus.

  Bobby was the guitarist and our drummer went by the name of Perris. These two came as a team as they both grew up in The Valley. Together, they played in a band called “Angeles” which was a Motley Crue clone like every other band in The Valley in 1986. Everybody assumed Bobby was Italian, and he even had an Italian last name. However, if he was from Italy, he must have come from the part closest to Turkey because he was dark and hairy! Gene Simmons is supposedly Jewish, but he looks Lebanese, and that’s what Bobby looked like with the same fucked up hair from dying it black year after year. Bobby would roll down the drivers side window of his Black Ford F-150 and bellow past your face at whoever he decided was driving like shit. This always scared the fuck out of me so I usually rode with Perris. Bobby would hear and see things that I never noticed that would set him off. One day while talking to me in our living room, he marched out on the balcony and shouted “How many times are you gonna slam that muther-fuckin’ trunk asshole?!!” to some poor sap down below on the street! Bobby was the Dad of the band who gave lectures about respect and put the kibasch on any shenanigans he deemed below us. He was a smart guy and had the most business sense of any of us and seemed to be the most stable as far as having it together. Perris one the other hand, was the typical male bimbo.

  The girls loved this tall, blond, blue eyed drummer and he knew it. Perris had stoned eyes and a constant smirk on his face. He was also as dumb as an ox. He tried to cop an Andrew Dice Clay persona, but was too blond to pull it off. His interests were equally as shallow as his personality; rap music and porn. He loved to yell out “Boieeeeeeyyyy!!!!” and I had no idea at that time he was doing Flava Flav. His outfit of choice was a t-shirt, leather jacket, ripped jeans and Converse shoes. He never wore anything else. Whenever you saw Perris, that’s what you’d see, it never failed. Perris drove a suped up red Camero with black racing stripes and fat tires. He used to get girls in his car, pull over, and whip out his dick without saying a word, and they’d suck it! That ‘s how he rolled. He never went on dates, he just got his dick sucked. The girls would come clamoring back for more, I never understood it. Between him and Cupkake, they got the lion’s share of the chicks. The girls loved the blonds, and as a brunette bass player living in Hollywood, boy did I know it. But you know, even if gentlemen prefer blondes, and apparently so do the chicks, everybody knows that brunettes are better in bed. Besides, in Hollywood, there was plenty to go around for everybody.

  The way I joined the band is a story within itself. I answered an ad in Music Connection which said something fairly generic like “hard rock band looking for bassist”. It said nothing about “label interest” or wasn’t specific about looks. I do remember it listed Motley Crue, Def Leppard and Ratt as influences so I figured that was right up my alley. It gave two numbers, one for Perris, and another for Matt. Something about the ad seemed promising so I called right away. I got a hold of Perris who told me to meet them at a rehearsal studio in The Valley called “Hot Dog Studios”. Now everybody knew where that was so I had no problem with that. When I showed up, there was nobody there, so I packed my rig and went back home figuring I had been flaked on again, which happened about 25% of the time. The next week the ad came out again and I called Perris back. He told me they weren’t looking for a bass player anymore and hung up. Normally that meant they just weren’t into you for whatever reason and you left it at that. But they had never met me before, so I couldn’t figure out what was going on. After that, I decided to call Matt instead, and he told me that they were indeed still looking for a bass player. I told him what Perris had done and he didn’t seem surprised, nor did he seem disturbed. Well, by then they had switched to a new rehearsal studio in Hollywood by my house which obviously used to be a cheap motel. I played three songs with them, talked a bit, and went back home. They said they were going to try a few more guys and let me know. I liked the feel and sound of the band so I crossed my fingers and waited for the call. I remember for some reason I wore a leather biker-style hat which would be considered pretty gay nowadays. That ended up paying off because they all remembered me as the “dude with the hat”. I waited for a week and finally called Matt back again. Later I found out that Bobby and Perris were holding out for somebody who they must have already pictured in their minds as the “perfect guy”, but Matt wanted to get going and kept telling them that he liked the “dude in the hat”. Somehow they came to an agreement and invited me to join the band... and I did.

  ULTRA POP TOUR - Milwaukee, WISCONSIN - Cupkake

  Thi
s was an interesting part of our nation. This was not a place for a Hollywood glam-rock band to arrive and play. We pulled into Milwaukee after several fantastic shows in Chicago. How could this city be so different? I am not sure either, but it is. I loved pulling into this city, because I usually don’t enjoy sniffing city air, but Milwaukee was the exception. The moment we pulled into Milwaukee, I could smell the intoxicating scent of chocolate. As we drove down Main Street, the roads were very clean for a large city, and all of the little shops were buzzing with people shopping. Every third business was a restaurant, candy store or pub. The summer air was filled with the wonderful mixtures of various foods.

  We arrived at our destination. It was a very large two story Irish pub. The interior was rich with European culture and the bar top was 100 feet in length, and comprised of a solid copper top. I was really excited. It was only 2 p.m. and we were not due to play until 10:30 that evening. The club owner was extremely polite and escorted us to the bar, handed us a ten page menu of just about everything you would ever want to eat. He asked us what type of beer we wanted to drink. We usually told the owners that anything is good. This bartender served us all Bass Ale in a big frosty glass. We sat back with all the local people of the city and had an absolute blast. This bar was hopping and it was only a Tuesday afternoon. There were at least one hundred people in this place. I smiled and said, “We are going to pack this place tonight!” We kept our drinking to a good cool buzz, nothing more, had some of the best food I have ever ate in my life, and had great conversation with great people. As the night moved on, the club became packed to capacity. I would estimate that by 7 p.m. there was approximately three hundred buzzed and happy people. This was going to be a good night! 8, 9, 10:00 p.m. all is good, full house, made lots of new local friends. Everything seemed to be going very well. We got on stage right on time. We were the only bands scheduled for the entire evening. It was our night to shine. A few tests of the guitar amps, a few taps of the drums, a few microphone checks later, people started to leave the area. We looked at each other... confused. We were completing the final stage preps so we could begin playing.

  I swear to this day, I had never seen a mass crowd exit like this one! The club completely emptied by the first note of the first song. With the exception of a few local town drunks, this place was empty. This seemed like a joke. Something else must be happening. Lizzie actually stopped the first song and walked off the stage and located the owner of the club. It did not matter that we stopped halfway through our set, because nobody was watching us anyway. The owner came over the the side of the stage, with a grin that was very erie. He told us he was not sure what was happening. After five minutes of apologies from the club owner, the club was finally, completely empty. The club owner was not mad at all. In fact, I think he felt sorry for us. He had already paid us in full and kindly asked us if we would play at least a few songs for him. We agreed. There I was, on a large stage, full stage lighting, giant club playing for the owner and his janitor. To this day, I can picture in my head, the owner standing behind the bar, leaning on his left arm drinking a beer and his janitor sweeping the floor with a large push broom, just feet from where I was standing. I felt like a jackass. We never knew what happened that evening to have all three hundred people leave the club prior to us even starting the show. I guess I will never know.

  1800 El Cerrito - Vinnie Vegas

  When Cupkake left for his tour with Ultra Pop, I needed to find another roommate. Our old drummer from Point Blank had wanted to move up to LA, so he moved in for awhile. But things weren’t the same, because the first thing he did was to take our cool colored light bulbs out of the panty chandelier and replace them with 100 watt white bulbs. It was so bright that shafts of light actually beamed out to the front gate making it easier for people to find their keys at night. I’m not kidding.

  One morning I woke up to find his girlfriend sleeping on out the couch. That was strange, but she looked asleep so I was quiet as I headed out the door to go to work. She then lifted up her head and said, “Good-bye Vinnie”. It caught me off guard, but I smiled and said good-bye. When I came home that night, I noticed a lot of stuff was gone including the TV. They had brought a bigger nicer TV because Cupkake and I had a crappy TV that we didn’t watch much. I looked in his room and everything was gone except for a note on the bed. Of course I was dying to read it, but I knew what it said. Instead I sat in the living room with the Lighthouse of Alexandria guiding home the mites, and no TV to watch, waiting for Curtiss to cruise in. He didn’t recover from that blow, so a month later I moved across the street to my very own studio apartment, 1800 N. El Cerrito, #18.

  When I first joined the band, Hooligan Stew had recorded a three song demo that sounded exactly like Motley Crue, and we were considering calling the band “Dirty White Boy”. Matt came up with the idea because he wanted to go in a different direction visually than the other bands in Hollywood. In Hollywood, every band within it’s genre looked exactly the same. By 1989, Guns N Roses had just exploded on the scene and a lot of bands ditched the Motley clothes in favor of their look. The band Warrant were the ultimate keepers of this outfit. Every rocker, and I mean EVERY rocker in 1989 wore cowboy boots on stage. There was no exception. Matt in his old band did as well, but aside from being over the whole boots thing, he said he felt like Frankenstein clomping around the stage in those things. Bobby and Perris were both creatures of habit and like so many LA rockers at the time, were terrified at the thought of going against the grain. This was not sitting well with them, because they had already had their hearts set on us hitting the stage in our cowboy boots. Matt wanted to model our look after and old movie he used to watch called “The Bowery Boys”. To this day, I have never seen it, but from what I understand it was about a bunch of street punks running around in Brooklyn back in the 30’s. I guess it was a darker version of “The Little Rascals”. He figured we should abandon the Guns N Roses clones and wear ripped up denim with Converse sneakers. Add some leather jackets, and suddenly we were rock and roll glam version of “The Lords of Flatbush” . Matt took it a step further and said he wanted to wear overalls, a backwards baseball hat, and even a slingshot in his back pocket like Dennis the Menace. This sent Bobby and Perris into a panic because NOBODY wore overalls on stage in Hollywood. Nobody! In time they agreed, and to this day I don’t know where it came from, but the band was named “Hooligan Stew”.

  Hooligan made sense to me, but I don’t know where the “Stew” came from. My only guess is that it conjured up the same visual as “Motley Crue” which is the second coolest named band ever only behind “Quiet Riot”. Cool name... too band the band sucked! As for me, I was ecstatic to finally be in a band that was actually going somewhere. We were rehearsing, doing photo shoots and hanging out on the weekends, and I couldn’t be happier. Matt wanted a 60’s looking band logo to contrast against the very metallic look of everybody else’s, so somebody came up with the very psychedelic logo that became our famous icon. Psychedelic... when’s the last time you heard that word? The logo was bright blue and red on a white background which would inspire a later turn of events.

  Soon, I started to get into the whole street punk image. I mean we still poofed up our hair and caked on the eyeliner, but the look gave us a chance to come across as more edgy which I liked. I always thought it was a stupid idea to look like all the other bands when you were trying your hardest to get noticed. I remember thinking that I would know for sure if we were on to something if people began to copy our look. No doubt, Matt going out there as the lead singer in overalls was definitely a giant leap of faith. I told myself that if in 5 or 6 months down the road, I start to see people one by one starting to hit the stage in overalls, then I’d know that we were innovators in a clone community. And six months later, I saw the first guy do it! We kicked it up a notch to stay ahead of the game by wearing flannel shirts tied around our wastes like the guys in Anthrax. Now mind you, this was 5 years before the flannel shirt became the de fa
cto official symbol of the grunge movement which ended up destroying our glam nation. The ironic thing is that Slash himself soon discarded his boots for the converse and flannel look. Because of him and his bandmates, every person in Hollywood was clomping around in cowboy boots. Ironic. I always thought it was bizarre for people in California to be clomping around in those things but the later wave of fashion was to make worse sense. Doc Martin boots and heavy wool hats in the California sun! For all the original look, Hooligan Stew’s music was pretty basic. We wrote high energy rock with catchy hooks and driving bass. If you dropped one of our songs into a Warrant or Poison mix, a lot of people would not have known the difference. The music of our day was always positive. Fast cars, fast women, movie stars, it was all about partying it up and having a good time, so that’s what we were all about. We’d decorate the stage with balloons like a birthday party and toss handfuls of confetti in peoples hair. The LA crowd didn’t know what to make of this new band, but as for the glam fans that came to Hollywood, they ate it up and had a blast.

  When I first joined Hooligan Stew, I was still living at our original pad, but moved across the street shortly after that. This was a time when both Cupkake and I were enjoying new found success with our bands and this led to a really happy time. We came there to play the strip and now that we were finally doing it on a regular basis, the world felt right. There was an excitement in the air that was contagious and this led to fun parties where we got to revel in our fun new situation.