Some people follow rock and roll artists to bask in the warm glow of the stardom. Others look for ways to have that glow rub off on them and monetize it. For me it would appear that I follow rock and roll artists to give them a chance to cuss me out or steal my weed or in the case of Johnny Thunders both.
April 2, 1986 one of my guitar heroes Johnny Thunders who emerged on the scene in the glam garage band the New York Dolls was playing at Mississippi Nights.
I had seen the New York Dolls as a teenager at the American Theater, October 19, 1973. I went with a conglomeration of my past and future buddies. Dale, Bob Krohn from South County and Chuck Declue from the city. Sitting next to us in the balcony was another buddy Jim T. who would later join me in the Camaros band and his older brother from the city. The opening act was a local outfit Pavlov’s Dog. They had a mellotron so I took an instant liking to them. The roadie for the Dolls did not and cut their power line halfway through the set.
The Dolls came on and while they were ok I wasn’t getting the groove that I wanted. Chuck and me decided to go down to the floor to watch from close up. This was a game changing move. This was still a time when people would yell if you were standing up grooving to a band or god forbid dancing in the aisle. Years before mosh pits came into being. I had acquaintances with some of the St. Louis Glamsters at the time. Paul S. and Mike T. and Tommy Gunn. I had also met David Y. Who looked like a Bowie clone. I had met him at his apartment to pick up some weed with Mike. He lived above his father’s paint store in the Cherokee area. We entered his apartment and Barbara Streisand was on the stereo at ear splitting decibels. He was sitting yoga style in the middle of the floor in a multi-colored kimono rolling joints off the Streisand record. But I digress from my digression.
He was at the show in a full black cape that would make Frank Costanza’s lawyer jealous. The thing is even though I knew or had met a lot of the people who were at this show there were not many others. Possibly the whole crowd was no more than 150 people.
In a situation like this Chuck and I were able to find seats in the second row. But we didn’t sit. We rocked. And we rocked hard. I was standing on my chair dancing. The rush of adrenaline was intense. The band was rocking out. Johnny was killing it. There was a monitor right in front of me and when he would take a solo he would put his 8 inch glitter heels on that monitor and I could look him right in the eye and what I saw was a total emptiness of soul within. For some people this might’ve been unnerving but my teenage self was very impressed and thought it was cool. And from that show onward I never again sat compliantly in my seat like I was at fucking church. I was determined from then on that rock and roll concerts would be an interactive participation endeavor indulged with complete abandon.
Now where was I???
Oh, back to our regularly scheduled story.
At the venue to see Johnny play solo with my wife to be, Laura and her friend Johnna when out from the artists area comes my old friend Debby asking if anyone has some weed for Johnny. Seeing how the last time I shared weed with an artist at Mississippi Nights ended up I might have chosen another option than what I did, which was to say I had some. We went back to the artists area and I started rolling as fast as I could. His band for this show were two black cats who had dreadlocks who were the rhythm section and a white guy in a leather jacket who was the second guitarist. We had about 3 spliffs going around and I look up and Johnny has my bag rolling some more for himself. I explained that I was a working man and couldn’t just provide everything I had and asked for my bag back. At this point Johnny started cussing at me, “get the fuck out, leave, I don’t want you in here get fuck out.” He then stormed out of the the room while the band signaled for me to stay put. Awkward!
We finished up the rolled joints and I went out. Now I doubt that it was me being stingy with my weed that was the cause but Johnny went on to put on a dreadfully miserable show. As one of the legendary guitar players of glam and punk for some reason he felt that he really needed to showcase his singing. In fact for the most part not even wearing his guitar. Now on record he has gotten more than passable vocals onto vinyl but in person he was just awful. To make matters worse he kept spraying Chloraseptic into his mouth.
Years earlier when I was in the Camaros the singer Mark and myself having sore throats attempted to calm them with this product. While it provided pain and relief of scratchy voice it also deadened the throat so that you had no control over your vocal cords and thus stay in pitch and would take all the high end off the voice. Suffice to say it did not work any better for Johnny. In the respectable manner I always handle myself in these occasions where I’m unhappy with a performance I started heckling him. Since this show was very sparsely attended it did not take much for me to stand out of the crowd in my rudeness. To his credit he did not grimace at me like Lou Reed or attempted to have an ongoing insult fest from the stage like Alice In Chains.
Because of this I went up the bar to get away from this horrendous spectacle. Eventually he did pick up his guitar and the sound was beautiful to my ears and I rushed up to the stage Because almost no one was there it was very easy I started bowing with my hands over my head in the “I’m not worthy” posture. He’d play his solo then put his guitar down and go back to singing and I went back to the bar.
This went on till the set was over. I was disappointed because my friends did not see the concert that I was hoping they would. So we headed on out of the club and as we were driving down the street we saw Johnny hanging out front, alone. No fans, no groupies. And this was the person who had sooo many groupies back in the day. Sad.
But that was the way, in the rock and roll days.