Running with Monsters

than a kid. I had heard a demo of a song of his that had the funny title “MTV Makes Me Want to Smoke Crack.” I had been given a copy of it when I had been on tour, and I loved it. I couldn’t stop playing it. When I got back into town, I saw Johnny. “You gotta have this kid Beck play here. He’s great.” Johnny, wired into the music scene like always, was aware of him, so we booked him. It was Beck’s first important gig in his hometown. He had a prime slot, ten o’clock on a weekend night. L.A.’s music scene at the time was not all that receptive to a solo neo-folk singer, and Beck knew he had to sell himself as something unique. He was also something of a performance artist. He had a crazy gimmick. In addition to his acoustic guitar, he would wear a gas-powered leaf blower on his back, just like the ones every landscaper and maintenance guy from the Hollywood Hills to the Malibu canyons strapped on as they did their magic on the homes and estates of the rich and pampered for whom they sweated and slaved. While a DAT machine played prerecorded music, Beck would dump a trash bag full of dried leaves, twigs, and yard clippings all over the stage; crank up his blower; and scatter-shoot the audience with vegetable debris. It was weird and it was goofy, but it was just the kind of thing that could help a fledgling folkie get some attention in ’93.

The night Beck took the stage at the Viper Room, Johnny was out of town. Beck did his act, complete with the leaf blower. Sal was going nuts, and not in a good way. I was watching the show and Sal was practically pop-eyed. “What the fuck is this kid doing, Bob?”

“Sal, he’s the guy that sings that song about MTV and crack. He’s great, isn’t he?”

“Get him the fuck off my stage!”

Poor Beck. The audience was hostile. They booed him. It was a train wreck. Here’s this twenty-three-year-old guy onstage who looks like he’s about fourteen but sings in the voice of a seventy-year-old black man from Arkansas … all while he blows trash and leaves into the audience. Some people tossed the trash back at him. Others yelled, “You suck!” Sal was livid. I said, “You have to wait until he sings the song about MTV!” Sal told the sound guy to shut down the PA.

“Sal, you’re a dick,” I said. “I’m telling you, this kid is great.”

Sal responded, “That kid ain’t fucking shit. And you’re not booking things here anymore, Bob.”

I went outside after and found a dazed and confused Beck on the sidewalk. “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I thought it was a great show … but maybe the leaf-blower thing is too much. Just play your songs.” Beck was concerned. “Am I still going to get paid?” he asked. He was disappointed, but within the year, he was a local hero. He made the Mellow Gold album and you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing him. Now that he had made it, every hipster in town claimed to have been at that show and they all testified how weird, chaotic, and mind-blowing it was. The truth is, there were only thirty-eight people there that night, and they all booed because they didn’t understand Beck at all.

Despite that misstep, I remained part of the club’s inner circle.

Because everyone had such high profiles in those days, we knew we were being watched and we tried to be careful. The paparazzi were constantly skulking around and the supermarket tabloids paid big bucks for embarrassing photos of young TV and film stars. They didn’t seem to care about rock musicians as much. There was constant back-and-forth between Frusciante’s place and the Viper Room. His home wasn’t more than two minutes away from the club, and we’d all make these mad dashes over there.

“Hey, we’re going to Frusciante’s,” I’d say.

“Aw, man, there’s some creep with a camera out front,” Johnny might answer.

“Look, just lie down in the backseat. I’ll drive. They won’t follow me.”

I’d grab the keys and pile everyone in the back. Then I’d blast out of park and jet down Sunset.

“Turn right at the next light, Bob!”

I’d spin the wheel.

“Christ, Forrest, I’m getting seasick back here! Take it easy.”

“I think someone’s following us,” I’d say.

“Can you tell what kind of car?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a Benz.”

“Aw, fuck, Bob. Those photographers all drive crappy cars. Ease up.”

It was real cloak-and-dagger stuff, and kind of fun. We all lived close to one another. Johnny only lived a couple minutes’ drive from Frusciante’s house and the apartment I kept nearby. The Butthole Surfers’ Gibby Haynes, when he was in town, mostly stayed with Johnny. Sometimes I’d stay there or at Frusciante’s. I was hard to pin down. River usually stayed at St. James’s Club on the Strip, a flashy, high-end art-deco luxury hotel, also known variously as the Argyle or the Sunset Tower. The Viper Room was our headquarters, but Frusciante’s place saw almost as much use, although things had started to take on a dark and forbidding atmosphere there. It still didn’t stop anybody from dropping by. If any of us were working or out on tour, Frusciante’s house was the first stop as soon as we arrived back in town.

Frusciante’s place offered something the Viper Room had in short supply: privacy. But that also made it a liability. What had started out as a party place had devolved and spiraled into some dank drug den. Walls were covered with graffiti. Furniture was damaged. Walls and doors had huge, gaping holes. There was a current there—bad vibes and degeneracy. It was out of control and the kind of place that could make the hardest of hard-core junkies blanch and run in the opposite direction.

A few days before Halloween, Abby Rude, the wife of actor and writer Dick Rude, was set to celebrate