Chapter 23 - Michael Kennedy

CHRISTMAS OF 1974 arrived as the dust was settling from the Record Plant debacle. While staying on a cot in my famous back room (long time evicted from the Clooney guest quarters), BJ had played me a tape of his guitar player's old band called Positron. Michael James Kennedy was the original guitar player in Rock Island, a Philadelphia based rock and blues band with BJ Taylor singing lead vocals. There must have been some bad blood between the two of them because BJ never liked to talk much about Michael but did admit he was a brilliant guitarist. The minute I heard that song on the tape, Look What a Fool You've Been, with a McCartneyesque vocal and Harrison-like guitar solo, I knew that we had to get this guy in Silverspoon. The main problem was that Mike was in Philly and we were here in LA, dead broke.

          It was now 1975 and after a non-eventful January, things were beginning to pick up. As fate would have it, Tom Gries just happened to have this little film he was directing called Helter Skelter which featured four songs by The Beatles. He also just happened to have a son who had a band that sounded a bit like the Fab Four themselves. When Stephen told us of this amazing opportunity we wanted to pinch ourselves, but in the back of my mind I felt that we shouldn't count our blessings too soon. It seemed that Tom had changed his mind about auditioning our band, not wanting to be accused of nepotism. The final decision was down to one man who was hired to write the score for the film, Billy Goldenberg.

Ric Green the original drummer, was back in the picture again. We may have had our differences in the past, but I must admit, Ric could sell a hot fudge sundae to a diabetic or leather shoes to a Hindu. He set up a meeting with Mr. Goldenberg in the privacy of his Toluca Lake home, then he and Stephen drove out there in his white 1966 Lincoln Continental with the suicide doors. The car was so top heavy and in dire need of a tune up it barely made it over Mulholland. They had to get out and push the beast over the last rise and then cruised down Laurel Canyon in neutral until it hit Ventura.

Sitting in the living room of one of the greatest musical minds of television, Ric gave Billy the tape with You Hurt Me So and Shades of You. As the last note faded, he dialed Tom Gries. “We have got to use your boy's band for the movie, Tom, unless you can come up with another band in the next two weeks that sound like The Beatles.” He couldn't, and we were in.

This was around the time when the band secured a financial backer in the person of Bruce Golden. Bruce is the older brother of Jon Golden who was a good friend of Stephen's younger brother, Jon Gries. Bruce was having some difficulties coping with reality and had spent most of the early seventies in and out of institutions. He was now living back home in his parents’ palatial mansion in Beverly Hills and was being encouraged to find something to do with his time and money. Silverspoon was more than happy to serve as his pet project. Now all the cards were falling into place, and it was time to make that call to Philadelphia.

With a recording session already booked in Munich to record another album, Mick Taylor quit the Rolling Stones and they were actively looking for a new guitar player. Michael had just finished the Nicky Hopkins record, No More Changes, and was in line for an audition. He chose instead to accept an all-expenses paid trip to Los Angeles and play lead guitar for Silverspoon on the movie soundtrack and, as we all hoped, on our record. (Maybe he should have chosen option number one.)

          BJ, going over-the-top and well beyond the call of duty, hired a limousine to pick Michael up at LAX. In those days you could wait for arriving passengers at the gate and when we saw this skinny English-looking kid scuffling along in a long silk scarf wrapped around a black velvet jacket carrying two guitar cases, we knew it was him.  Stephen and Robin (Olson) had recently moved to an apartment in the Palm Plaza on the second floor. It was a one bedroom with a large living room that had a Mediterranean feel to it. The kitchen looked out to the south and you could see down Larrabee almost as far as The Village where all the magic started. if you walked 100 yards north up the hill you were on Sunset Blvd. near where Tower Records used to be. On the south side of Sunset where Holloway starts was a restaurant called the Old World. Every morning Stephen would have his typical breakfast there, two eggs over easy and home fried potatoes with enough coffee to drown Juan Valdez. I would meet up with him some mornings and we would discuss the day’s activities and admire the scenery, especially the female anatomies surrounding us. Some mornings I would notice his gold ring would be missing from his finger. He explained that the concierge of the establishment was keeping it in the cash register until the tab was paid, which was usually after an advance from Bruce. Blair was living on the couch at Stephen's while leisurely perusing the area for a place of his own.

Michael stayed a couple of nights on the couch at Stephen and Robin's apartment at Palm Plaza, but his nerves were starting to wear thin. Being high strung, he took refuge in Wendy Villa's large walk-in closet on the third floor of the building after dosing himself with a few valium trying to escape the day-to-day soap opera downstairs. Michael and BJ had known Wendy from the late sixties in Greenwich Village all being part of the Rock Island crowd.

    There was this strange couple, Al and Mary, who lived down the hall on the second floor and were always high on Quaaludes. They would even give some to their 12-year-old son. This is probably where we met Richie Moore, the great doctor of musicology and recording engineer who was zoning out there. When Richie was a kid of twenty he had a job at Abbey Road Studios in London working with Geoff Emerick and was privy to some classic Beatle sessions (they all were classic in my opinion). Dr. Moore was famous or more likely infamous for his “nod-off” mix, where he would be sliding the master fader down, his face hitting the console just as the song ends. He always used to say that LA brought out the demons in him, but when he was in San Francisco with his lady Annie, it seemed to be no problem staying sober. Later in 1978 I brought him down from the bay to record the demos for the Knack but that is a whole other story I will go into later.

Michael and I had many things in common but the one driving force in both of us was to write and play music. We were determined to get started and play somewhere and we still hadn’t determined if things were going to work out musically between all the members of the band. I wasn’t worried. I knew it would be great. We rented Magic Wand Studios in Burbank and we all drove out there in my mom's Mercedes with all the gear we could hold. Michael even brought the black Rickenbacker that was given to him by Nicky Hopkins who received it as a gift from John Lennon. Back then it wasn't that big a deal to have a famous guitar and play the hell out of it. Today that thing would be locked in a glass case and never see the light of day.

    The instruments were all set up and we tuned. The minute we all hit that first A chord on Floating On A Cloud we knew. It was magic and I did everything I could to stop myself from bursting out with laughter. It felt and sounded that good. We then went over the four songs by The Beatles. Revolution, Piggies. Long, Long, Long and Helter Skelter and sorted out who would sing and play what. Michael didn't have the most powerful voice but insisted that he sing on something, so he was designated the middle eight in Piggies, and I must say he did an exemplary job.

Blair in the meantime was still seeing Cynthia but they were beginning to have problems mostly over the green-eyed monster of jealousy. Stephen and Robin were also having the same dilemma. Maybe it was contagious, and I felt fortunate to be single at that time. All I wanted to do was concentrate on the music, especially for the upcoming movie. It was a unanimous decision that Michael and I should share a place because we were both single, for now, and it might spur us on to writing some more rock songs because I already had my fair share of ballads. We found a two-bedroom place at the Courtney Manor apartments, on the second floor of a two-story stucco 1930s or 40s building on Hollywood Blvd furnished in an Art Nouveau style, something that my Grandma Betty or Nanny would like. As for me, I didn't have to worry about schlepping all my furniture around which was minimal then, but as the years went on it began to pile up.

          When he unpacked his guitar in the tweed case I saw that it was a 1951 Broadcaster and then he took the cover off the amp, it was a 1959 four-ten Bassman, the holy grail of guitar amplifiers. It sounded amazing even at low levels and I couldn't wait to get those puppies into the studio in a few weeks. Little did I know of the craziness and strange energy that would surround and engulf almost everyone involved with the movie Helter Skelter. There was a light and the end of the tunnel, but the ensuing darkness would prove almost impenetrable before we stood a chance of reaching that glorious true light.