ever properly appreciated for his great sense of rhythm and melody. So while everyone else praticed their hammer- ons and listened to “Eruption,” I just listened to Van Halen. I’ve always enjoyed individualistic guitar players, from Stevie Ray Vaughn to Jeff Beck to Jonhny Winter to Albert King, and while I’ve learned from observing their technique, absorbing the
In any case, things had changed by the time I got to high school. By 1980, English punk had found its way to L.A. and had become something utterly ridiculous that had nothing to do with its roots. It was a swift, impossible- to-ignore fashion statement: suddenly every older kid I knew was wearing torn-up shirts, creepers, and wallet chains made of paper clips or safety pins. I never understood what the big deal was; it was just another superficial installment in the West Hollywood scene that revolved around the Rainbow, the Whisky, Club Lingere, and the Starwood.
I never considered L.A. punk worth listening to, because I didn’t consider it real. Around then the Germs were the big band, and they had many imitators, all of whom I thought couldn’t play and totally sucked. The only bands that I thought were worth anything were X and Fear—and that was it. I respected the fact that the core of punk, from a musician’s point of view, was about not being able to play very well, and not giving a shit about it. But I had a problem with the fact that everyone in the scene exploited that aesthetic for all the wrong reasons—there’s a difference between bad playing and deliberately playing badly for a reason.
Coming out of London and New York, punk rock made an impression, and as much as it was misinterpreted in L.A., it did give birth to a bunch of great clubs, the Cafe de Grand being the best of them. That was the greatest venue at which to see true hardcore punk shows, but it wasn’t the only one—the Palladium put on great hardcore shows, too. I saw the Ramones there, and I’ll never forget it—it was as intense as surfing big waves. Other than a few exceptions, L.A. punk was as pathetic as the miles of poseurs lined up outside of the Starwood every weekend.
At that time, I had finally gotten to an age where I was the older kid. I had spent my life running around being the younger guy hanging with the older kids, getting into what they were into, always wanting to be a part of the cool stuff they were doing. Now I was that kid, and as far as I was concerned, the punk movement and this really horrible fashion thing that had followed it in the back door had ruined everything. I had just gotten old enough to appreciate and enjoy all the stuff that had gone on before that, and just as I had everything started to fucking suck.
From the time I was born up until 1980, everything was pretty stable. It was all sort of based on rock and roll, despite the pretty watered-down rock bands that came out: Foghat, Styx, Journey, REO Speedwagon, and many more. From ’79 and ’80 on, with the exception of Van Halen, everything went in a different direction, which instilled a whole different kind of rebellion, and what I was into more or less got phased out by trendiness.
I wanted to play guitar in a band that inspired that degree of devotion and excitement.
AFTER I WAS EXPELLED FROM FAIRFAX High for that social studies incident I found myself in high school limbo. Education has always been a priority for my mother; she let me live wherever I could, however I wanted, all summer long, as long as I agreed to move in with her, wherever she might be, come fall. She needed real assurance that I was going to school so nothing but my living under her roof would do. The summer after my expulsion, I enrolled for summer school at Hollywood High to try to earn the credits I needed to join Beverly Hills Unified High School with the rest of the class at the beginning of my sophomore year. But I also tried to get out of high school altogether by studying for and taking the proficiency exam. It didn’t go so well: during the first half hour I took a smoke break and never went back.
During this period, my mom finally left her boyfriend, “Boyfriend” the photographer. Once Boyfriend began to freebase away, literally, everything in the house (he eventually ended up bankrupt), my mom and my brother packed up and moved out suddenly. I wasn’t spending much time at home at the time, so I didn’t witness it all go down firsthand. But when I heard, I was relieved.
My mom, brother, and grandmother moved into an apartment together on Wilshire and La Cienega and, per Mom’s rules, I joined them there in the fall. Mom wanted me to graduate high school before I set out on whatever path I chose to follow, but I hadn’t left her much to work with. My grades, attendance, and behavior record were less than stellar, so she did her best: she got me enrolled as a continuation student at Beverly Hills High.
Continuation is where they put kids with “adjustment” problems: learning disorders, behavior issues, and those who don’t otherwise sync with the standard curriculum. Whereas at Fairfax I thought this was a situation to avoid, here it was perfect for me; I was allowed to work at my own pace, and I could set my hours to suit my new place in the workforce. I’d arrive at eight and leave at noon because I had two jobs at the time; aside from the Fairfax movie theater, the fall was high season at the clock factory.
My classmates in Continuation Education at Beverly Hills High were a real cast of characters. There were a couple of full-on Harley-Davidson biker chicks, one that was a behemoth, whose heavy-set, fortysomething, Hell’s Angels boyfriend picked her up every day. He’d arrive early and just sit there revving his engine; the other chick had her own Harley. There were also three Sunset Strip rocker chicks in class; their Aqua Net hair extended in every direction and their ripped-up T-shirts and spiked stiletto heels spoke for themselves. All three were attractive in their own way… they knew how to use lipstick and eye shadow, put it that way. I knew this other girl in class: her name was Desiree, the daughter of one of my dad’s friends, Norman Seiff, a well-known rock photographer. We were playmates when we were little and we used to play naughty with each other back then. I had a crush on her all those years ago and I had so many more reasons to have a crush on her when I saw her again: she sat a row in front of me and wore nothing but loose sleeveless shirts and no bra. She had grown into a hot buxom punk rocker, who was still as cute to me as she had been when we were seven.
There was other riffraff in that class as well; we were a diverse and outlandish enough group that we could have been collectible figurines: there was the surfer-stoner Jeff Spicoli guy, the hot teenage mom-slut, the plump brooding Goth, the sad Indian kid who worked the night shift at his parents’ 7-Eleven; all of us barely clinging to the fringe of high school society. Looking back, I’d like to know how every person in the classroom ended up there, at the otherwise ritzy Beverly Hills High, no less. We were sequestered together for the benefit of our “progressive” education in one classroom with one coed bathroom that doubled as our community smoking lounge. That is where I discovered why those three Sunset Strip rocker chicks looked like they did: they were the unofficial presidents of the Motley Crue fan club. They did free PR as well: they turned me on to Motley during the first smoke break I shared with them.
I had known about Nikki Sixx, the bassist and creator of Motley Crue, since his first band, London, because Steven and I saw them play the Starwood one night when we managed to sneak in. London had true stage presence; combined with their low-budget pyrotechnics and Kiss-esque clothes, they were band enough to blow any teenage mind. I had no idea that Nikki had met Tommy and that they had found the other guys and evolved into Motley Crue; neither did I know that they were spearheading a movement that would displace L.A. punk overnight. Motley didn’t look like Quiet Riot, Y&T, or any other Sunset Strip band of the day: they were as equally over the top but they weren’t quite like anyone else. They were so into their own thing that there was no way that anyone, aside from me I suppose, could have mistaken these three girls for anything other than Motley Crue fans.
There are moments in life that only time can properly frame; at best you know the snapshot is special when you take it, but most of the time only distance and perspective prove you right. I had one of those moments just before I ditched education altogether: it was the day Nikki Sixx and Tommy Lee showed up outside of my school. Six years later I’d be doing lines with them off the flip-down meal trays on their private jet, but seeing them loitering outside Beverly Hills High is more memorable to me. They were wearing high-heeled boots, stretch pants, teased out hair, and makeup; they were smoking cigarettes; talking to girls in my high school parking lot. It was sort of surreal. I watched my newfound continuation friends, those three Motley look-alike chicks, stare at the two of them with glazed doughnut eyes as Tommy and Nikki nonchalantly handed them posters to hang and flyers to hand out on the Strip announcing Motley’s next show. I was in awe: not only did these chicks find this band so exciting that they chose to dress like them, they were also willing to be their volunteer street team. Nikki had given them copies of their new EP,
I was impressed and objectively envious: I could never be in a band that looked or sounded like Motley Crue,
