Chapter 49 - He Had the Knack

 

ONE DAY, AFTER coming back safe, sound and shirtless from Vegas, Robin Stewart, Stephen and I were in Licorice Pizza, a record store on Sunset and San Vincente, browsing through records we couldn't afford to buy (not many musicians can) when we saw a tall, skinny brown-haired dude behind the counter who looked a little familiar to me. Remember how I said that everyone stacks the deck when recalling the past? Well, Robin claims she said the following to the pale skinned cashier (Stephen says he said it): We had just bought a Rolling Stone magazine and the guy behind the counter asked if there was anything else he could help us with. She said, “Hey, you don’t know anybody that plays bass and sings real high, do you?” The dude smiled his cocky grin and said, “Yeah ME.”  

        He said his name was Doug and he told us he lived right down the street with his girlfriend Judy. He played a Gibson Eb-3 bass, just like the one Jack Bruce played in Cream, and he had a Revox two-track tape recorder so we could tape our practices. I said he would be a fantastic addition to Silverspoon if he wanted to join but he would have to be vetted by the rest of the band. I knew Stephen would have no problem with Doug—it was Blair I was worried about. My suspicions about Blair proved to be correct and even though he complained about Doug’s bass playing not being in the pocket, he admitted that his vocals were great and would be a fine replacement for Joey who was out there somewhere in motorcycle gangland with all the accoutrements that go along with the biker lifestyle.

We started a new incarnation of Silverspoon called The Doves with me, Stephen. Blair, Doug, Chas and Terry Rae on drums—it was a really good combination and Stephen was over the moon about how it sounded when we blended together in three-part harmony—sometimes even four parts. We got a gig at the Central (which is now called The Viper Room) on Sunset two doors down from Licorice Pizza, and it proved to be the only performance we ever did together. Doug and I were becoming fast friends and one day he and I drove out in his British racing green Triumph GT – 6 to purchase a Vox Super Beatle amplifier from an ad he saw in The Recycler. I told him that I doubted an amp so big would fit inside his two-seat sports car, but he said, “Sure it will Jimmy, I've gotten much larger things in the back. The seat folds down.”

Robin was becoming great friends with Judy too, and we spent many lovely days and nights on the white carpeted living room playing Scrabble and Dictionary (a game where you would look up an obscure word and try to guess its meaning) and painting watercolors. Judy was a fantastic cook and would make these gourmet dishes for us. One thing that always bothered me though was Doug’s fastidiousness. He always made us take off our shoes before we entered his and Judy’s humble abode— which usually revealed my holy socks. If I had had to take of my pants I’m sure it would have also revealed my holy underwear as well. I remember one watercolor Doug painted of me playing guitar and he named it, Rock out with Hamish. I wish I still had that painting— I wish I still had a lot of things from that era. Because we spent so much time with Doug and Judy, Robin and I decided to move out of Detroit Street and find a place closer to town. We found a nice one bedroom with slanted ceilings and off-white carpets (you didn't have to take your shoes off) on Clark, right across the street from the Whisky and from Doug and Judy. The four of us were inseparable. 

A few years before Robin and I were together, she used to date a drummer named Bruce, a guy I had seen around who had a decent reputation but was a bit of an egomaniac. I had seen some pictures of them together in her photo album and I used to tease her about him all the time, especially when we got in one of our rare fights. I would don a long scarf and prance around the room pretending to be Bruce. It really pissed her off which made me happy because it indicated I was doing a decent job impersonating him.

Well Doug did join Silverspoon in ’77, but he had ideas of his own. I knew he was as much, or even more of a Beatle freak as I was, and he had this concept for his own band that would be modeled after the Early Beatles. He got a group of guys together by holding auditions and general word of mouth. He had decided on a guitar player named Burton, who looked more like an accountant or a chess enthusiast then a musician, a Marc Bolan look-alike bass player named Prescott Niles and Bruce Gary, my old nemesis on drums.

It was almost 1978 now and Doug had sold his GT-6 and his father, living near Detroit, matched the three grand to invest in his project. He needed a demo recorded and I suggested Richie Moore as engineer who was living near San Francisco with his girlfriend Annie. He agreed that Richie was a genius and would give the demos that little extra Beatle touch. Richie, who looked like a choirboy with his medium length wavy, red hair and freckles and Poindexter glasses held together with white surgical tape, was flown down to L.A. to commandeer the session. Doug had asked Robin and I to keep an eye on him knowing full well of his history with drug abuse, especially downers. It’s funny, when Richie was up north and with Annie he could steer clear of the drugs—but not in L.A. I remembered that Al and Mary lived a block away and still sold Quaaludes by the barrel. It was our job to keep him straight and it would prove to be a daunting task.

One day when I was out rehearsing or writing with Stephen, Robin was flying solo. Richie had asked her if he could go down to the Catholic Church in West Hollywood and she honored his request even thought he was staggeringly high on something. She thought it was like an AA thing for him, so when they arrived at the church he stumbled out of her car with her following closely behind like he was a dog in an Alpo factory. Robin watched as Richie stumbled over to light a candle falling over and almost knocking all the candles off the shelf. All this in front of a priest looking on with disapproval. Richie was wearing a wristband from a hospital, so Robin who could always go with the flow, explained to the priest how he wasn’t high but suffering from asthma or dementia. From the corner of her eye, she thought she saw him picking something up from a candleholder but couldn’t be sure. When she drove him back to the apartment on Clark, she noticed that he was completely stoned out of his mind like he had taken more Quaaludes. She found out later that Al and Mary had made a drop and left the drugs for him in the candleholder at the church. The timing had to be precise—remember there were no cell phones in those days but Richie, as I said, was a genius especially when it came to scoring drugs.

He did manage to stay straight enough to record Doug and his band at John Thomas Studios in North Hollywood and the tapes were great. One was a song Doug had written with Burton about a girl he knew (who was his main groupie). By this time, he had broken up with, or was in the process of breaking up with Judy. The song sounded like a complete rip from Spencer Davits’ hit Gimme Some Lovin and I told him that. That’s when quoted Picasso and said, “Jimmy the good ones borrow but the great one’s steal.” The song later became a huge hit called My Sharona and the band was The Knack.

They did a showcase after the tapes were finished at Casablanca’s sound stage in Hollywood. They had a keyboard player who didn’t fit their image with long hair and wearing a black t shirt, while all of their hair styles were early Beatles style wearing black jackets and matching skinny ties. After the showcase, he asked me to join the band to replace the out of sync keyboardist and I agreed—even though I knew Doug would never let me co-write or perform any of my originals. I performed their first real gig with them at the Whiskey on June 1, 1978, and it was amazing. The next gig was at the Troubadour a few weeks later. It was the first time in my life I had glimpsed what Beatlemania must have felt like to the Lads. I knew it wouldn’t last.

 I never got along with Bruce Gary. It was ironic being in a band with someone I had been making fun of just a few months earlier. Bruce had it in for me because I was now singing the parts he used to sing and felt that the band didn’t need a keyboard player—The Beatles didn’t have a keyboardist and Doug was swayed by his salesmanship. I got a phone call from Doug a few days later. He told me they decided to continue as a four-piece band. I was fired. I don’t think I spoke to Doug for several months after that, knowing they were going to be huge, and again I was left holding the bag; the fifth wheel on a four-wheeler. 

We did re-connect later after the band’s debut album went gold and I was in the process of recording my own solo project at Electra Records with Chuck Fiore and Beau Segal. Doug Fieger was an enigma who had succumbed to the pressures of the rock and roll world by getting into drugs and alcohol. He did get sober and stayed that way for over twenty years until his death from brain cancer on Valentine’s Day of 2010 at the age of 57. I still look back with fondness on those amazing days. I miss him terribly. He had the knack.

Chapter 48 - Lost My Shirt in Vegas

AFTER THE DEBACLE with Bob Ringe at Mr. Chow’s in August, Blair was now living full time in Las Vegas with Caroleen Fisher, the heiress to the Fisher pen fortune. He would still drive in on the weekends to write and play music with Michael Japp, (who had just gotten a deal on Motown Records) and Stephen, (who was commuting from Santa Monica or staying on Michael and Ciri’s couch) on a part time basis. Robin and I felt like it would be a promising idea to get away from the hustle and bustle of Los Angeles and pay Blair a visit in Vegas. It would be nice to go out to the desert without having to deal with any UFO’s or channeling religious zealots getting inside information from the rings of Saturn.

 So early one late summer’s morning, we drove up to the ultimate American city of sin in my mom's Mercedes with no more than fifty bucks between us. Fortunately, my mom had lent me her Union 76 credit card for gas, which was about seventy cents a gallon. We had packed a puptent and planned on pitching it at one of the local campgrounds in the area if it wasn't too expensive— if it was, we thought we might set up camp in one of the empty lots next to a hotel on the Strip. We stopped at Bun Boy in Baker, California and we ordered the cheapest burger on the menu, then I went to a phone booth (remember them?) to give Blair a call. He said he would meet us at Cleopatra's Barge in Caesar's Palace, the place he used to play music with Bruce Westcott four or five years earlier. On the way there, we checked out some of the campgrounds, but they wanted too much money, so we decided we were going to find somewhere on the strip or nearby to camp.

We arrived in Vegas about three in the afternoon and the sun was blistering hot, so we thought it best to wait until dusk to make our camp We scouted out a place to pitch the tent in an empty lot between The Tropicana and some new hotel they were building that was about halfway completed. In the meantime, we would try to find Blair and maybe I would gamble a little, if he was late, and he usually was.

 We got to Caesar's Palace a little early, so I thought I would try my luck at blackjack. I promised myself I wouldn't gamble with more than twenty dollars—that would be my limit. I had envisioned making a windfall but the only way to do that was to win right off the bat. I went to a two-dollar table where there was an attractive blonde dealer who seemed to fancy me. It was all an act I realized, because after five minutes I had lost all my money. Robin was angry and I didn't blame her. Fortunately, she still had around twenty dollars left and we figured, if I didn't gamble that away, we would have enough for dinner and breakfast in the morning.

Blair was at his designated post at a table in front of the barge and we sat down, and he ordered drinks for all. His girlfriend Caroleen showed up fifteen minutes later and he bought her a gin and tonic. Caroleen was an attractive looking blonde, (Blair always had attractive women in his life) with big blue eyes and a toothy smile. She reminded me a lot of Cynthia but without the big Farrah Faucett hairstyle. We sat down and listened to Bruce Westcott (yes he was still there four years later) and his band and after a while Blair was asked to sit in. They sounded cool for a Vegas cover band. Soon, Blair wanted to do a little gambling and I was embarrassed to say that I couldn't join in because I had already exhausted my allotted funds. We figured it was best we parted company— saying if time allowed we would meet up again the next day, besides, it was around sunset, and we had a tent to pitch. We parked the Mercedes in the back of the empty lot behind a billboard sign so no cops would hassle us, and we made camp. It must have been a funny sight to see a small two-person puptent in between a luxury hotel and the construction site of a halfway completed luxury hotel. The ground was hard and rocky, and I don't think we got a minute's sleep; besides, the heat was unbearable, even at night.

The next morning, we woke just before dawn and the wind was blowing furiously like a gale, and it was difficult to break down the tent but somehow we managed. I knew gambling was out of the question, but we thought we had enough money to get one of those cheap Vegas breakfasts at one of the hotels. We found a place at the Denny's for $1.99— two eggs, toast and coffee. We even had enough to leave a dollar tip. We filled the tank at a 76 station and then headed out to Lake Mead where we figured it might be a little cooler by the water. It wasn't. The hot wind was blowing hard and when I put my blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt down on the sands then got up to go to the water's edge, I saw my shirt blow away. I tried to run after it but every time I got close it would blow further away. It was no use—it was gone—another artifact claimed by the age-old Indian Demi-God of the desert. I had literately lost my shirt in Vegas. After that, feeling totally despondent, me without a shirt and Robin without any sympathy, we drove straight back to LA without even stopping for food or drink. All we had left was a dollar fifty and a big jug of Arrowhead spring water.

As I had already mentioned before, Larry’s lady-friend Christa was brutally murdered in February of 1977, and he was really shaken up about it. Now living in Boulder City, Nevada with Caroleen secured a promising future for the young man. I believed her really loved her and seemed fantastically happy with Caroleen, but I don’t know what happened, maybe it was his frequent trips back to LA to play music with Mikel Japp or that he wasn’t marrying material (being a musician which were deemed or doomed to be rather flaky) for the Fisher family, but they eventually broke up later that year. Sometime in 1980, Caroleen had gotten into a horrendous car accident which ended her life way too soon—she was only twenty-seven years old. This is the second tragedy of the heart Blair had encountered and I am sorry to say there would be others in the future. He may be blessed with talent, good looks and a great sense of humor, but I am afraid he is cursed in the love department. But there always is hope that things will turn around. Ah yes, HOPE…the most effective stimulant in this game we call life.

 

Chapter 47 - JET

JOEY AND JEFF Hamilton had met Dave Arden at the Rainbow and started talking about Silverspoon. They had played him the tapes and he was interested in presenting the band to his father, Don Arden, who owned a new record label called Jet Records— their only signed band at the time was ELO. I was still living with Robin Stewart on Detroit St. and really didn't get involved with any Spoon activities anymore. I had had enough, or so I thought. I heard from Stephen and Joey about pending contract negotiations with Don Arden and Jet Records, but I told them: “I don't want to hear any bullshit. When you have a contract for me to sign in black and white, I will look it over but until then keep me out of it.” I had heard too many promises and seen too much to get my hopes up only to be let down and every time it was getting harder and harder to deal with, besides, I had resigned myself to the fact I was now a solo artist, and I was relishing the idea. Life without Silverspoon was feeling mighty good to me although I knew the door was not completely closed if something substantial came along.

Joey, Jeff, Stephen and Blair were dealing with the negotiations and had even retained the services of a lawyer, Barry K. Rotgutt. I heard through the grapevine that there were meetings happening on a regular basis, maybe once a week and an actual contract was prepared with a clause that stated Barry K. Rotgutt was representing Silverspoon and Jet Records, which is highly unethical if not illegal. He waved the pen under the collective noses of the Spoon sans me. When Joey saw this clause he was livid and stormed out of the office. There was another contract, one with Jet Records, but it wouldn't be considered unless the contract was signed with Rotgutt first. Joey was appeased and calmed down. They called and told me of the situation that they had two contracts to sign— real typewritten pages that I could look over. I was slightly impressed. It was the first time I had seen Joey take the reins, really try to do anything but score drugs. Maybe he was changing, growing up? 

What about the unscrupulous Don Arden? The following is an abridged version of Don Arden’s obituary: “He was the most notorious of all British pop-rock music managers had a career that spanned 60 years. He promoted and managed some of the biggest names in pop music. His ruthless business dealings and willingness to intimidate both his charges and his competitors earned him the nickname the Al Capone of pop. Arden was born Harry Levy in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. He would describe the neighborhood as a Jewish ghetto. He left school aged 13 and adopted the name Don Arden to avoid encountering anti-Semitism from bookers. During the WWII, the teenage Arden found work as a stand-up comic and singer on the vaudeville circuit, entertaining the troops before he was drafted. In 1959, Arden promoted the first UK tour of American rockabilly singer Gene Vincent, who was so impressed by his British following that he shifted to the UK, employing Arden as his manager. Arden kept Vincent busy touring Western Europe, but the two men parted in 1965 amid much bitterness, so setting a pattern for Arden's working relationships. By then he had begun to earn substantial sums by promoting package tours of American 1950’s rock'n'roll artists, yet he lost a ton of money from the onset of Beatlemania and British teenagers declared US artists passé.”

Arden set off in search of young British talent and met the Newcastle-based band the Animals, whose manager, Mike Jeffrey, was looking for an agent—one who had a lot of influence in the industry. Arden brought the band to London and helped secure them a recording deal. Their huge immediate success benefited Arden - now their worldwide agent - but he soon fell on bad terms with Jeffrey, so sold his rights to book the band and began managing the Nashville Teens. Arden offered little artistic direction to the Teens, instead keeping them on a grueling tour schedule.

In 1965 he signed the Small Faces and guaranteed their debut single would be a hit by laying out several hundred pounds to chart fixers. Arden kept the successful band on a £20-a-week salary. When the band demanded to see their royalty statements in 1966, he countered by informing their parents that the band were drug addicts. Hearing that Australian entrepreneur Robert Stigwood was interested in the band, he dangled Stigwood off his fourth-floor balcony as a warning. The Small Faces eventually won their freedom, but all attempts at retrieving royalties due from Arden found them locked in court battles, finally receiving payment in 1977.

Arden then took over managing the Move, and out of this band came the Electric Light Orchestra, which went on to sell millions of albums internationally, generating huge wealth for Arden. He settled in Los Angeles, purchasing Howard Hughes' mansion in 1972. Again, the relationship ended bitterly. By 1980 Arden was managing Ozzy Osbourne after the singer's split from Black Sabbath. Osbourne left his wife to marry Arden's daughter Sharon - she, having worked for Don since her teens, had inherited his tough management skills - and when the couple left Arden to go it alone in 1982, Don ensured that much litigation would follow.

In 1986 Arden and son David were charged (as Harry and David Levy) with blackmailing and imprisoning an accountant with whom they had fallen out. The sensational court case found a jury declaring David guilty, while Don was acquitted. Osbourne had told her children that their grandfather was dead, and they first saw him when she began screaming abuse at the elderly Arden upon encountering him on a Los Angeles street. In 2004 Arden published his autobiography, Mr. Big: Ozzy, Sharon and My Life as the Godfather of Rock, to modest interest. Sharon Osbourne's 2005 autobiography Extreme sold two million copies. They eventually reconciled but he was portrayed as a villainous, if occasionally generous, man. His wife Hope predeceased him. He died July 21, 2007, and is survived by Sharon and David.

There was a social gathering in one of the massive bungalows at the Beverly Hills Hotel hosted by Don Arden. His son Dave was present, but Sharon wasn’t—I had heard that they hated each other. I went there with Blair and Joey and couldn't believe the spread of food, wine, booze and a small amount of drugs, anything and everything you could want. I only wanted a record deal, but Blair convinced me to be patient and play this little Hollywood game a little longer. It seemed this time things were on the level and a deal would be forthcoming. But as usual negotiations came down to the eleventh hour and Jet Records had passed on the deal.  Stephen believes the reason why is another one of his conspiracy theories. He thinks that Don Arden wanted to get his unknown band, ELO, on the Carol Burnett (Joey's stepmother) Show, but when ELO started to gain a little notoriety he didn't need Carol Burnett anymore and subsequently didn't need Silverspoon. I don't go along with this theory because it is filled with too many holes; it sounds like we are the victims of some elaborate scheme. What it came down to, I believe, is that it was just another deal that went sour. Was it our immaturity or our reputation that preceded us, or the fact that Jet Records had a band now that needed their full attention? I think it was the latter. If they really wanted to sign Silverspoon, an appearance on the Carol Burnett show wasn't going to be a make it or break it thing. Joey was devastated having spent so much time and energy on the deal and now it had all blown up in his face. He retreated into his comfort zone with hard drugs and alcohol. For me, it was another carrot that was being dangled in front of my nose but this time I wasn't as invested in the race as I was before, so I took it all with a grain of salt. I had my solo career to look forward to, but it wasn't over for Silverspoon, not in the mind of Stephen Adamick-Gries anyway; he was hatching another plan with The William Morris Agency that I mentioned in Chapter 46. We shall see, said the blind man, we shall see.

In his book, Gods, Gangsters and Honour, Stephen Machat has a chapter called, Who’s Afraid of Don Arden, where he talks about how he and his father had taken over the legal proceedings for Jet/CBS Records. As he writes in the book: “CBS would offer the management a second deal: a co-production deal for other artists. Let’s say those other bands flop and flop some more. They almost always do. Well, all the losses incurred by those “loser bands” will be set against your one hit band (ELO). Pretty soon, you could even find yourself owing money to the label and unable to pay your one successful band. CBS had to approve all subsequent contracts with artists if they were to be released on Jet/CBS in the United States—but not if they were released in the UK. So, in the future all I did was write contracts that CBS could not approve.” A light in my head illuminated. Could Silverspoon have been one of those so-called “loser bands”?

When I called Stephen Machat the other day, he told me that the first thing Don Arden did when they hired Machat and Machat was to fire Barry K. Rotgutt. (Rotgutt is if you haven’t figured out is an alias. If I mentioned his real name he would sue the ever-loving crap out of me). He said that their law firm didn’t get involved until after Silverspoon had come and gone in the lives of the notorious Arden clan. It was all Rotgutt. He screwed thing up so badly in the contract negotiations that CBS had no choice other than to drop us. It would have been a legal nightmare for them. It was unsalvageable.

In Machat’s book he describes how Jeff Lynne was terrified of Don. In contract negotiations with ELO, CBS required what is called an inducement letter—which confirms that the individual will look only to the production company for the money and not CBS. Everyone was terrified that the deal was going to go south. The problem was the insurance clause that stated that in the event of Lynne dying, Don would get the insurance pay-off. Jeff was convinced this would encourage Don to kill him off. Only when the clause was altered, so that CBS became the beneficiaries, would Lynne finally sign on the dotted line.”

Knowing now what I didn’t know then, I could see that not signing with Don Arden and Jet Records a real lifesaver—a blessing in disguise. We would have been either killed or had our legs, arms or fingers broken and Joey, with the way he was acting at the time would have had his vocal cords slashed. Sour Grapes? Maybe—maybe not; I guess we’ll never know.

Chapter 46 - Secret Agent Man

SOMETIME IN THE middle of 1977, thanks to help and some timely promotion by Maria Corvelone, (in 1980 Maria would procure a gig for me at F. Scott’s in Venice which proved to be more than interesting) Silverspoon signed a contract with The William Morris Agency and the agent assigned to us was an up-and coming hot-shot named Bob Ringe. According to Stephen, it was the first time William Morris had signed an act without a recording contract. We had weekly meetings at the office on El Camino Drive in Beverly Hills, but I can't for the life of me tell you what went on at those meetings. Did they get us any gigs? No. Were any promotional pictures taken of the band? No. Did they look over any contracts the band had pending? No. Were we wined and dined at the expense of the agency? Once or twice. Did they listen to all the songs to determine which were the most commercial or saleable? Not really. What did they do, you might ask? Nothing really. As I said, we did have weekly meetings with Bob which were nothing more than extended lip service—flapping lips moving nothing but stale, putrid, hot air. It stunk. Having an agent served no purpose other than bragging rights at The Rainbow, or at parties. I think it got Stephen and Blair laid a few times and people might have bought us a few drinks— that's it!

Almost a year had gone by since the movie Helter Skelter was released, and there was no talk from Bob or anyone else outside the band about a soundtrack album; we all thought this was a huge mistake. There was a meeting set at the Chinese restaurant, Mr. Chow's I think it was called, right down the street from William Morris. That was on August 16, 1977. Bob, Robin S., and the rest of Silverspoon all sat down at the table for lunch, had a few drinks and we pleaded our case. Bob seemed like he was leaning our direction and was about to get the ball rolling when the waiter came over and announced to everyone at the table that Elvis Presley had just died. We were all devastated. After that nothing got done. The whole industry just closed shop. It was like: “So Bob, I know Elvis just died but don't you think you should get on the stick and make some calls?” 

“Nah,” he said. “I don't feel like it now, and I don't think anyone will be in the mood to discuss business at a time like this.” How many more opportunities would Silverspoon be exposed to only to have fate, or whatever you might call it, slap us in the face just when we thought we were going to be on our way to the big-time—the Valhalla, the pinnacle of rock ‘n roll glory. I guess the Rock and Roll hall of fame was going to have to wait a few more years than we expected. It felt like we were a cursed band, a real hard luck bunch of Beverly Hills brats. For me, I felt like I didn’t need to be a star—I wanted to be a working musician and respected songwriter. The only other member of the band who felt like that was Blair—the Baltimore Kid. The only thing was, Blair was living in Las Vegas commuting to LA on the weekends. I needed something a little more permanent and less transient than that.

Getting back to Bob Ringe, he had problems of his own to deal with at the time. He was going through a bitter divorce and was starting to abuse drugs and alcohol, and I guess I could hardly blame him; his soon to be ex-wife was a beautiful blonde form Sweden or Norway and had left him with a big house in Encino Hills with mortgage payments, car payments and God knows what else. I don't think there were any children involved.

I found out later Bob had regretted signing us to William Morris. He thought we were a bunch of spoiled brat, dilettante, ego maniacs who were strung out on drugs and booze. That was the pot calling the kettle black, or it takes one to know one, or any other expression you could name indicating someone who was just as, if not, more abusive than we were. 

After that horrendous week, we knew in our heart of hearts our contract with The William Morris Agency wasn't worth the paper it was printed on. With no agent, no Jet Records contract (which I will go into later), not much of anything going for us, I retreated to the security of my solo career and my Robin, although in a week or so we would meet a musician that would change things in mine and Robin's life forever. But at that moment I felt like I had some serious drinking to do—so did the rest of Silverspoon.

Chapter 45 - Dreamers

STEPHEN WAS NOW living at the El Cortez with Jon Marr who had gotten engaged to the red-headed Carol. Stephen disliked her immediately and immensely. In fact, Carol would refuse to go into the apartment if Stephen was there with a girl, which was most of the time. He would traverse the city on the bus and stay on the couch at Michael Japp’s, then go back to Santa Monica on the weekends without a female companion, as not to rock the boat with Carol. Jon did end up marrying Carol and Stephen was soon completely out of the picture at the El Cortez apartment. He would be spending more time now in West Hollywood on the weekdays and on the weekends he would hang out with Michele Hormel (chili heiress) who also had an apartment in the El Cortez.

There was a scene between Stephen, Mikel and his wife, Ciri. Mikel and Ciri had lent Stephen some money, I think it was $500—and they took his prized vintage Telecaster as collateral with the stipulation the money had to be paid back by the first day of spring. Stephen had gotten a job in a restaurant, or more of a sandwich shop, where the owner was a narcoleptic. He was seeing a beautiful French model at the time by the name of Stephanie who moved to Las Vegas. I don’t know how Stephen got together with her, but for a guy who is marginally good looking but extremely talented he had some of the best-looking girlfriends I ever had the pleasure of knowing. Stephanie would come visit him one weekend and the next weekend he would take the bus to Vegas while his guitar lay in waiting for the spring equinox. The owner of the restaurant had a daughter who was being advised by the same psychic that Nancy Reagan used. While Stephen was in Vegas, the restaurant or sandwich shop was robbed, and a piece of crap stereo was stolen. After consulting the psychic, the daughter was told Stephen was the thief and he was fired on the spot. He tried to plead his case telling them the psychic was full of shit and besides, he wasn't even in town. They were adamant about it, since Nancy Reagan's psychic couldn't be wrong, or at least that's what they thought. He said good riddance to bad garbage and went back to Mikel and Ciri's on the twenty-first of March with five hundred bucks in his hand. When he got there Ciri took the money and Stephen stood in the doorway waiting for them to retrieve his guitar. Ciri said that spring in 1977 fell on the twentieth of March, not the twenty-first and he was a day late. They kept the guitar.

 Not too long after that Mikel would divorce Ciri, or she divorced him, and it was all for the best. Personally, I never liked the woman and was appalled that a person could be so unscrupulous as to steal a guitar on a technicality. She was only interested in (it appeared to me) money and status. Mikel was too sensitive a guy to be involved with a barracuda like Ciri. It was the booze and drugs that were clouding his judgment.

 Mikel got sober a few years later and remained that way until his untimely death in 2012 from the dreaded disease of brain cancer. He was one of the best singers I had ever heard, and it really is a shame that he never realized his full potential. He did have a few songs covered by The Baby’s (one co-written with Chas Sandford) and another tune or two recorded by Paul Stanley from Kiss. He released an album called Dreamer, the year before his death, which can be found on I tunes—it is a darned good record. Go buy it.

 

 

Chapter 44 - Joshua Tree

I DON’T KNOW how or why it happened. The day we ventured out to the high California desert hearing stories about Gram Parsons going out to there looking for answers and truth and inadvertently stumbling onto things not expected. In fact, after he died in 1973, his body was stolen from the LA airport by a good friend, Phil Kaufman, and brought back to Joshua Tree to be cremated. There is a 2003 film, Grand Theft Parsons, with Johnny Knoxville as Kaufman, which tells the story, well most of it anyway.

Joshua Tree is a beautiful place in the high desert of San Bernardino County in California located between Twentynine Palms and Landers. It has a population of roughly seven thousand now, but in 1977 it had one fourth of that number. That’s when Robin Stewart and I went out there to see what all the fuss was about – there were reports of UFO sightings in the area and we wanted to see for ourselves.

We heard that George Van Tassel (an American ufologist and metaphysician) had built a geodesic dome in Landers called The Integratron, a device constructed for scientific research on rejuvenation, anti-gravity, and time travel. It was made from wood, fiberglass, various non ferromagnetic metals, glass, and concrete. He built the structure in as a “rejuvenation machine” supposedly following instructions provided by visitors from the planet Venus. The structure was financed predominantly by donations, including funds from Howard Hughes. Van Tassel started hosting group meditation in 1953 in a room called Giant Rock excavated by Frank Critzer, a prospector. In August 1953, in the middle of the night a spaceship landed from the planet Venus, and an alien pilot woke Van Tassel, showed him the spaceship and invited him on board where he gave him the technique for rejuvenating the human body.

  In 1954, Van Tassel and others began building Integratron structure to perform the rejuvenation. Van Tassel told us that the aliens had given him plans for the machine --- and that a small one had been built in Chicago. When they put rats through the small one, it increased their lifespan 200 to 300%. When I asked him about the '"time machine", he said it wasn't a "time machine per se", but that it increased the life span. But they were acting very mysteriously when I asked them that -- he and his wife...looking back and forth, at each other and then back at us.

           Van Tassel had written a few books about alien abduction and contacts made by aliens and humans. He was a good friend and colleague of George Adamski, who claimed to have photographed ships from other planets, met with friendly Space Brothers, and to have taken flights with them. The first of the so-called contactees of the 1950’s, he was called a “philosopher, teacher, student and researcher of saucers”, though his claims were met with much skepticism. He had written a bestselling book entitled Flying Saucers Have Landed detailing his experiences, co-written with Desmond Leslie.

            We were both amazed and fascinated by the perfectly round structure and wanted to go in and see for ourselves but at that time the Integratron was not open to the public or you had to have special permission to enter. Just being on the premises was enough to inspire some inspirational thought and actions. Robin had a friend in LA, Marlene, a feisty little ball of fire, and she told her of our adventures in the desert. She wanted in. Marlene was an only child who sold real estate and lived on Sweetzer Avenue in west Hollywood. One day when Robin was moving into the building she had set a chair down by her front door. When she came back upstairs with another load of her belongings, the chair was gone. That’s when Marlene came out of her apartment and Robin asked her if she knew any of the other tenants, someone who might have kleptomaniac tendencies. She didn’t have a clue about the theft but after a few minutes of gabbing they realized they had hit it off quite well. Marlene said she was a professional astrologer and invited Robin to a party that evening where there would be various professionals from the world of the occult. There were psychics who worked with the police, cosmic ministers, and a range of garden variety palmists and card readers from the local psychic fair, and the very short, well endowed, strident, and excitable Marlene was waving her arms and offering everyone snacks and encouraging them to read Tarot cards and interpret astrology charts for each other as the party went along.

When I finally met Marlene I told her in passing about the trip Robin and I had made out to the desert and her eyes lit up. She brazenly rented the most expensive video and still photography equipment and the three of us headed down to Joshua Tree with the intent to find aliens and film them, hell, even interview them. Early one spring morning in 1977 we were sitting at the local coffee shop on Joshua Tree’s Main St. or whatever the name of the main drag was there in the small desert community. Marlene draped in the poundage of gear that almost outweighed her stood up and announced to the patrons in a loud voice. “Does anyone here know anything about the UFO’s that have been sighted here?” I was embarrassed and so was Robin. What was Marlene thinking? Did she think that these humble folk were going to speak to her (a city girl and no doubt a spoiled member of the Hebrew tribe with nail extensions and tons of make-up) about such things? I thought not. After the meal a tall rugged blonde-haired man named Eric Short approached us. He whispered that there was a special meeting tonight at his father’s church that had to do with aliens. His father, Robert Short, had what he called “visitations” from beings that lived on one or more of the moons of Saturn, We were invited by Eric and his red-headed wife Jody to come along and see for ourselves—he indicated that he didn’t go in for all that stuff, but his father was dead serious about it. 

We entered the home of Robert Short at seven pm and were led downstairs to his church by his wife. Robert was sitting on the pulpit with his eyes closed apparently waiting for the “voice” to come through. I noticed before I sat down there were pamphlets stacked on a wooden bench that were the chronicles of his monthly service. I knew I was going to pick up a few of these pamphlets on the way out but what happened next was beyond belief. I saw Robert Short transform himself into a channel from another dimension. He didn’t physically change as much as his voice changed. He started clicking in staccato rhythm with his mouth and soon after a voice that sounded like a combination of Don Pardo and ET emerged. “Welcome visitors, I am Vorton, representative from what you call the rings of Saturn. I have come forth to give warning to the people of planet earth which is in great peril.” The voice went on predicting world events that were going to happen. Was this really happening? Was this guy for real or was he just another crazy cultist trying to make himself a household name? I thought I’d better wait and see before passing any judgments. On the drive back to LA, Robin, Marlene, and I tried to make sense of what had happened in the desert. No, we didn’t get any photographs of aliens, but we got something else—a channel of information from beings who he claimed lived in our solar system and were monitoring us. It made me think of that Twilight Zone where aliens come down to Earth to save mankind with a book called How To Serve Man. It turned out to be a cookbook. I prayed it wasn’t going to be the same kind of thing as I thumbed through the pamphlets of past “sessions” (which were called The Solar Space-letters) from the church of the “Blue Rose Ministry” Reverend Robert Short and his family now live in Cornville, AZ., and he is still a spiritual counselor, and what some refer to as a “UFO contactee and channel.”. Since moving from Joshua Tree, Robert and his family have all undergone UFO second, third, and fourth-type encounters. 

I made several trips to Joshua Tree after that and introduced most of the friends I had who were willing to experience this odd ministry for themselves, just as I had. Chas had come down a few times and others too that I can’t remember. Before we went to Joshua Tree, Chas and I would stop at his retreat in the mountains of Idyllwild located in the San Jacinto range not far from Palm Springs and Tahquitz Canyon where I some spent time before. He called this special place deep in the forest “Studio A”. More about this later.

 

Chapter 43 - BJ 'S Exodus Part 2

WHENEVER I FELT lost or frustrated with the Spoon, there was always good old Beej to wield his special brand of BS to make me feel better. I remember one time when BJ lived on Larrabee with Mike Sheehy and his girl Schotzie, a little ball of fire waitress from the Rainbow. He lived in the converted attic upstairs and you had to climb up a ladder through a small hole in the ceiling, which was also his floor, as Paul Simon said, “one man's ceiling is another man's floor”. It was around five or six in the morning, and I was pretty loaded. I didn't want to go back home so I went over to BJ’s. The front door was unlocked, and I gingerly snuck past the sleeping roommates climbed the ladder and woke up the Beej. He didn't mind even though he was sleeping with some gorgeous blonde and her knockout mother. It was a tag team. I sat down next to him and proceeded to call information which was the numbers 411. When the operator came on the line I asked her for the number of God. I guess I was putting on a pretty good show, I always loved a good prank, and I was pleading with her to connect me to God. I guess she must have thought that I was suicidal or something because I had her on the phone for more than an hour, I could see the sun's golden rays shining through the eastern window in the loft. BJ was laughing his ass off and so were the mother/daughter act. Unfortunately, I never did get that number—I guess it was unlisted.

      I guess I was always a little jealous of him for the way he could pick up women. Blair was the same way, but I later realized that I didn't want to be that guy. There was this model, Jean Manson that BJ was going out with, and I guess I fancied her, who wouldn't, she was beautiful and funny. There was this charity softball game in Griffith Park to benefit Viet Nam vets or something like that and we were invited to play in the game. Well as I said, I wanted to be a ball player, so this was a win-win situation for me. The game proceeded along nicely until the players started to drink a little too much beer and soon it turned into a football game. I knew I was in trouble at that point since some of the guys on the other team were huge, freaking monsters, but I stayed in the game trying to impress Jean. The ball was hiked, and I was on defense and this bearded goliath of a man with a football in his hand came running toward me. I stuck my right arm out like one would stick a toe in a cold pool of water and it bent the elbow backwards, not it's natural way of moving, and I knew I was hurt badly. It wasn't broken I found out later, but the ligaments were badly stretched and torn. I did get some attention from Jean later that day, but BJ went home with her. Moral? Never reach out for something that is not meant to be yours, like Jean Manson or the behemoth of a running back. It took me a few months to heal myself from that faux pas.

      To BJ, I was like his little brother, and he was the big brother I never had. Forgiveness is the name of that tune, but after a while I saw too many promises broken, too many lies told to women, to bill collectors, to everyone in general and it was taking its toll. He knew it was time, so he left LA and headed back home to Philadelphia with his tail between his legs. He was out of money and had exhausted all his connections. I guess BS can only go so far if there isn’t any substance behind it. It’s not that he wasn’t talented, he is a great singer and interpreter of a song but the promises he made to the plethora of people in Los Angeles never came to fruition. We did write a few great songs together especially one called Sequins and Rhinestones about how the glitter movement taking over the biz from the singer/songwriter. Even though I love artists like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and Ian Hunter, I didn’t like the direction that music had taken, and these artists were somewhat responsible for that—although I did wear those blue platform shoes with the stars on them but there was no way I was going to wear make-up, unless I was in a stage play or film.

      Anyway, BJ did have a place to go back to on Oakmont Drive in Philly where his elderly parents lived, and he felt it was time to pay them back for all the years they had taken care of him. He did wait on them hand and foot and it was a mitzvah, a good deed done. He changed his name to Brian Taylor and got signed to RCA Records and released a self-titled album in 1977 with a bunch of songs written by other competent writers. One song, Lovestruck was a catchy little ditty that did well in the local charts. In the back of his mind, BJ was charting his triumphant return to sunny California which would come to fruition a year later with his partner in crime, Walter Hallanan.

Chapter 42 -BJ's First Exodus part 1

 

SOMETIMES I WONDER why people pick the friends they do in life, or maybe life picks them for us. Some people believe that we pick our own parents before birth indicating that we have all been here before and we're trying to work out ours, for that lack of a better word, karma. I think about these kinds of things a lot these days. People sometimes say that I have too much time on my hands to contemplate these things, but I wish I had more time. Wireman, a character in a Stephen King book says that when it comes to the past people tend to stack the deck, which means to arrange the cards in a way that you will always win. Wouldn't it be nice to stack the deck in your present and future too? Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe that would take all the karma and fun out of it. Everybody can't win all the time, I guess, and they say losing makes you stronger. If that is true then I must be one strong-ass mother. Oh, it’s not that I have lost all the time, I’ve had some major wins too, like the day I met my beautiful wife in 1988 on the Fourth of July and the births of out three amazing sons, but when it comes to Silverspoon it seems the losses far outweigh the wins. What was my karma then to pick the friends that I had? It seems once I called you friend, I would put you on a pedestal and you could do no wrong in my eyes. I did it with Blair, Stephen, Chas and especially with BJ. I am beginning to see that now.

People like them, (except for Stephen, we are very much alike in some ways - idealistic dreamers) have qualities that I lack, and I have qualities they lack. For instance, I am not too comfortable with selling myself or putting myself out there, as my dad used to say. I would always find it very un-humbling and downright conceited, but these friends of mine had no trouble with that. I guess I thought I could let them do the selling and I would just do what I do best, writing songs. Nearly every experience ended up in my spiral notebook. Sometimes they became songs and other times they sat there waiting for it to become a song or a story. Songwriting was my solace; it was my retreat like that back room was on Oakhurst. What did they get from me? Loyalty, creativity, honesty and maybe a song written about them.

Like I said before when I met BJ he that silken silvery tongue that could sell sandcastles to an Arab and in the back of my mind I thought that he might be able to sell my music. That is also why I thought I needed a band, strength in numbers and all that jazz. Of course, strength in numbers also comes with everyone else's weaknesses and faults. It's only natural. Another one of my flaws was that I was loyal to a fault even when I knew deep down that I should run away as fast as my feet could fly - I would stand firm and stick up for people I loved. This happened in 1973 when the rest of my band cornered me in Rosemary Clooney's kitchen with forks and knives demanding to know what BJ was doing to solidify a deal for us with Warner Brothers. There are too many examples of these kinds of things to count. No matter what my friends would do short of murders, rape, or anything as sinister as that, I would stand up for them.

When BJ first asked me to write a story about him and paint him in a good light so his friends would be able to see from someone other than him that these things really happened, and I was more than willing to do so. As time went on, I realized that it was not all wine and roses and there were some less than stellar memories that would surface. If it were fiction (sometimes it seems like it was), it would be much easier to tell these stories and still protect the guilty, but it is not fiction and I have to be careful not to offend or incriminate any of these real and living people in my life. 

Having said that, I want to bring 'ole BJ back into the picture. He, as I said, made a lot of promises that were never kept but he also did some wonderful things too. I remember when my parents friend, Mickey Meltzer from Sarasota by way of Long Island came out to LA to visit. When I was a kid I really looked up to him, but he never knew about my musical endeavors since I left Long Island when I was twelve and a half. He thought I was going to end up playing baseball for the New York Yankees or Mets because I talked, walked, and dreamed about nothing but baseball. So, when he came to LA in '74, my dad wanted to show him some of the sights of Hollywood and BJ invited my parents and Mickey to the Rainbow. Well let me tell you BJ not only put out the red carpet for Mickey, but he also had that carpet steam cleaned and the doorknobs polished and shined like the midday sun in the Sahara. He made sure the waitress smiled more brightly and he told the cooks to make sure the food looked and tasted exquisite - he even told the bartenders to spike up the drinks with extra alcohol. After dinner we all went upstairs to the Crow’s Nest where BJ made sure that Frank Sinatra's New York, New York would be playing as Mickey walked through the door. No stone was left unturned, and he was over the moon with joy and appreciation.

          After a while the broken promises and his classic line, “don't worry about it, I'll take care of it,” seemed to lose its rosy glow. I'm sure it was demeaning for him to go from the big Kahuna to the lowly peasant serf working for five bucks and hour spinning records at the “Bow”. It was a long way down and there was nothing or no one to break his fall but the people who loved and trusted him. You must keep in mind that everybody gets something from the people they choose to be with, some of them are positive and some are negative. The women he slept with, the friends he partied with, and the investors and lawyers he did business with, all got something in return. He made the women feel loved and appreciated, the friends shared the booze and drugs and the investors got to be a part of the elusive thing called show business, at least for a little while.

Chapter 41 - You Can Call Me Al

THERE WAS A recording session at Larrabee Studios which was being produced by Al Schwartz, a wannabe music aficionado who lived across the street from the Red House on Kings Road. He was a no nonsense craggy faced, bald dude with a take no prisoners attitude that demanded respect — this is what Silverspoon desperately needed. We were still under contract with Larry Gordon, and we were trying our best to get out of it. Al was trying to help in that area, but Larry was being obstinate ever since we decided to leave his imperial domain in favor of Mal. He and Mal had a split because Larry's partner, Jim Nash, had him convinced that Mal was only a figurehead not being able to produce his way out of a paper bag. Nevertheless, Al felt confident that Larry was a non-issue, and we were heading into the studio anyway.

Three songs were picked, Everything's Gonna Be Fine, Cornerstone and Give Me Back That Love, all three of which I had penned. While Stephen and Blair. were busy going through their traumas, I was going through some of my own. The only difference was instead of hanging out at the Rainbow or chasing alcohol, drugs, or pussy, I would write songs. By this time, I had compiled a list of songs that numbered almost 600. I wish I still had that list but alas it was lost over the many moves I made while living in LA. I made a list of that as well and came up with thirty-three different apartments and houses from birth until 1979. I am happy to say now that I am not quite the gypsy I was back then.

Joey was out of the band now, but Jon Marr was back in and was designated to sing lead vocal on Cornerstone, a song I had written while I was living with Debbie Taylor on McCadden Street in 1971. Al had a nephew named Evan who was slated to play drums but as usual Blair. thought he wasn't cutting the mustard, neither did the rest of us for that matter and Al got Beau Segal to replace him. He had a bass player, Chuck Fiore, who he worked with on earlier sessions, but was out of town so instead Peter Freiberger filled in. These guys were professional musicians with a capital P, and it felt awesome to finally be playing with LA's best. A few years later Chuck and Beau would go on to produce and play on my Electra Records demo in 1979 and I would reacquaint with Peter in Nashville when we both had an interest in playing the pedal steel guitar, probably one of the toughest string instruments there is on the planet.

These sessions went on without much of a hitch and Al did his best trying to promote them to a few of the top record companies in LA— unfortunately without success. He started to lose interest in us, not only because we were constantly bickering over nonsense, women, Stephen showing up late for rehearsals or not showing up at all and Blair could never decide on arrangements or musical parts. I was getting a bit cynical which I'm sure didn't help matters either. Al was now focusing his attention on screenwriting and was working with Jon Voight on a project that later would be sold and released in 1982 called Looking To Get Out starring Mr. Voight and Ann-Margaret. After a few months of this, Al had had enough and gave us the boot; at least we had to tapes to try and do something with and there were plenty of people, or at least we thought, who would pick up the slack. Stephen and Blair. had moved into the Red House to collaborate with the disco queens, Patty and Christa and Robin Stewart and I moved to Detroit Street near La Brea and 6th Street that October.

After quitting my job with the Hungarians, I got a job at Mr. Coney Island across the street from the La Brea Tar Pits slinging New York style hot dogs for ninety dollars a week while Robin tried to get work as a back-up singer while working temp job as a secretary. I will never forget the acrid smell of grease and smoke that clung to all my clothes and was impossible to wash out. The place on Detroit was a large one bedroom with wooden floors but the neighborhood was a bit funky and far away from where things were happening especially without a car. It only took me half an hour to walk to work and that seemed to be my life, work then coming home and drinking beer with the neighbor across the hall, a guy named Walter Ferguson who was an aspiring actor that looked a cross between Jack Lemon and Buddy Holly. My best friend was this feral cat I called The General because he had half of his left ear missing probably from a fight with a rival alley-cat. He was tough as nails, and I could only imagine how the other cat looked. The landlady, Mrs. Lambert, was this real piece of work who reminded me of Mrs. Peenman, the landlady from the movie, The Mask with Jim Carrey, and I couldn't wait to move out of that place and dreamed of the day we could own our own home; a pipe dream that wouldn't come true until 1991 and it wouldn't be with Robin.