Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A.
256
Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A.
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781556525865 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Chicago Review Press, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 09/28/2005 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.76(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City
A True Story of Faking It in Hair Metal L.A.
By Anne Thomas Soffee
Chicago Review Press Incorporated
Copyright © 2005 Anne Thomas SoffeeAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-55652-586-5
CHAPTER 1
"I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone"
King-Sized Beds and the King Himself on the Road to L.A.
Since I was in middle school, I dreamed of becoming the next Lester Bangs. Just in case you weren't greedily devouring music rags like I was in the 1970s, Lester wrote for everything I read as a teenager — CREEM, New York Rocker, Rolling Stone, you name it. He was gonzo and edgy and passionate about the music and the words he used to describe it. As close as you could get to being a rock star while still being an English nerd — as in the subject, not the nationality — Lester was just as likely to turn up in the gossip columns as he was in a byline. I hung on his every word, and when he died in 1982, I felt destined to pick up the mantle, as I'm sure plenty of other little punk rock nerds like myself did all across the country. I got a jump on the other would-be Bangses by getting my foot in the door at ThroTTle, where they published me far more often and with far fewer edits than they probably should have, subjecting Richmond readers to my teenage would-be gonzo musings on everything from MTV to Chick Tracts to Soldier of Fortune magazine. So when I graduate from William and Mary I already have a sizeable portfolio of press clips, some pretty damn good and some cringeworthy, but each bearing my name in smudgy black ink on the byline, which is what matters in the end, right? Clips in hand, I immediately begin searching for my jumping-off point to music journalism greatness, mailing my resume and portfolio to every single rag on the newsstand that sports a bare-chested guitarist on its cover.
Q:Lester Bangs. Lester Bangs. The name sounds familiar, but not being a punk rock nerd, I can't really place it.
A:I'll bet I know why. While checking some facts for this book, I was heartened — and actually a little misty — to note the number of teenagers and twenty somethings in the online communities who list "Lester Bangs" among their generally less cool interests. I was misty and heartened, that is, until I checked further into their little blogworlds and found that it wasn't the real Lester Bangs they admired, but the fictionalized portrayal of him — by a suave, unpudgy actor — in the movie Almost Famous. You know, kinda like all those kids who like "Lust for Life" because they heard it on the Trainspotting soundtrack. Only more horrible.
Even though my dream of being the next Lester Bangs is alive, the rock journalism industry is terminal, bordering on critical. Some of the magazines to which I'm applying are so poorly written I am almost ashamed to be seen buying them. "Vince Neil met his wife Sharise at the club she was a mud wrestler at," one caption in Metal Edge blathers, its preposition sticking out almost as far as Sharise's muddy tits. It makes me wistful for afternoons spent in my bedroom, poring — or "pouring,"as Metal Edge would say — over the latest issue of CREEM. Not just a music magazine, CREEM was challenging reading, stuff that made you think. Even the letters to the editor (mine numbered three, thanks) were filled with clever asides and obscure musical references that made you fairly tingle just by knowing you were one of the select few who caught them. You were as likely to find Miles Davis as Van Halen in Robert Christgau's record reviews, and irony was the order of the day. CREEM stopped publishing in 1988, leaving me high and dry when I finished college the next year. Ladies and gentlemen, Boy Howdy has left the building.
Naturally, when one's dreams are dashed by the newsprint gods, the only logical rejoinder is to gift wrap a ham. Allow me to clarify. At this point I have finished college, I have no plans for my future, no destiny to fulfill, and no money in my pocket. Figuring I can address two out of these three with a pick-up job while I ponder the third, I take a stylin' gig at the mall making gourmet Virginia gift baskets for people with a lot of money and a desire for more salt in their diet (a lot more salt — consider that the two main ingredients in the top-selling basket are Virginia Diner peanuts and Smithfield Ham). Living on sample peanuts and food-court lunches, I spend my spare time sending clips and queries to music magazines and drinking beer at Newgate Prison, Richmond's only metal bar — and the less said about it, the better. All of this excitement follows the year's main event, which was me following the East Coast leg of the Rolling Stones' Steel Wheels tour in a perfectly adorable used Hyundai my dad gave me as a graduation gift. I have a feeling if he'd known what was coming, he would have considered a nice savings bond or something.
Q:Did the Stones tour come as a result of some great journalistic opportunity? Was this not the assignment of a lifetime?
A:No, it was not. It was the culmination of a decade of fandom bordering on sick obsession. Not that I didn't try to get some kind of sponsorship, press credentials, something, anything — but come on. These are the Stones. Even magazines like Rolling Stone itself reserve that assignment for the big names and celebrity guest writers, the Dave Marshes and Stanley Booths, not peons like me with a few local bylines and a deep and abiding love for side one of Exile on Main Street. But yeah, I came, I saw, I sang along. It fucking rocked.
As if it isn't demeaning enough to be a shop girl instead of a jet-setting rock journalist, I have to swallow the bitter pill that is the fact that my William and Mary nemesis, the director of the college radio station, is now writing for Rolling Stone. Even though I know that she had to pay her dues at Wenner-owned US magazine before cracking the RS nut, just seeing her byline rubs three hams' worth of salt into my Rolling Stone-byline-less wounds — and it stings. Honestly, I don't even like Rolling Stone; it's too mainstream and dry for my journalistic taste, and probably sour to boot. My resume has been sent to the smaller, more creative rags, like Alternative Press, Spin, and, of course, Rip. And I haven't gotten so much as a form letter back from any of them. Eventually I grow desperate and start sending resumes to every music magazine on the stands (except Rolling Stone, of course, not that I'm bitter).
I lower my goals, informing Metal Maniacs that I counted no less than twenty-seven spelling and grammatical errors in their latest issue and, for a small fee, I'd be glad to make myself available for copy editing. Go figure why they didn't hire me right away.
And so it goes, letter after letter, beer after beer, and gift-wrapped ham after gift-wrapped ham, until the fateful day arrives when I finally receive a hand-addressed letter from the imaginatively titled Metal magazine. I tear it open, hoping to see the typewritten equivalent of hosannas and heavenly choirs — here she is to save rock journalism, come on out, your corner office is waiting. Instead, I'm greeted not with the usual form letter, but with a personal note from editor Steve Peters relaying the noncommittal but not entirely discouraging news that Metal works mainly with freelance writers and I'm free to stop by their Hollywood office if I'm ever in the area and see about open assignments.
Well, a nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, and a maybe's as good as a yes to a ham-wrapping would-be rock writer. Before my parents have even had a chance to recover from the Rolling Stones tour, I'm loading up the car to make my fortune as a freelance heavy metal journalist in Los Angeles. It's been almost a year since I finished college, and all I have to show for it is a folder full of tearsheets from the same free local weeklies I was writing for when I was in high school. If I'm planning to follow in Lester Bangs's footsteps, I only have a decade to get famous before my untimely death from mixing cold medicine with Darvon, so I'd better get cracking. Nobody ever hit it big reviewing Holiday Inn lounge bands in Richmond, Virginia.
Q:Didn't Pat Benatar get her start singing for a Holiday Inn lounge band in Richmond?
A:Yes. Remember all of those great reviews she got that catapulted those writers to journalistic stardom? Neither do I.
Inasmuch as one can "plan" a move to a city three thousand miles away where one has no friends, no job, and nowhere to live, I start planning the move. By this I mean I map out the route that will take me past the greatest number of my faraway friends, friends who understand why this is a perfectly sensible plan, that will allow me to visit the most cool places, and, naturally, the route that takes me past Graceland, because what rock 'n' roll pilgrimage would be complete without a trip to Graceland? In a well-worn Rand McNally atlas that already bears the thick neon-green paths I followed on the Rolling Stones tour, I map my desired stops — Graceland and Sun Records, then down to the Blues Archive in Oxford, Mississippi, and William Faulkner's grave right down the street (I may have a rock 'n' roll heart, but my brain is pure English major), across the bottom of the country to New Mexico and Arizona, two states where I've got buds who will put me up and put up with me, and then on to Los Angeles. Much to the shock of my rivethead friends, I plan to make the first stop on my pilgrimage in Athens, Georgia, of all places. Athens, home of REM, Pylon, and enough paisley shirts and pegged pants to fill every overpriced thrift store in Georgia, represents everything I hate about music and, more important, music journalism. Rock journalists like Athens bands because Athens bands are basically rock critics with guitars. Nerds and outcasts with too many albums. I should know, I am one. But I also know that I would make a really lame rock star. Apparently no one told Michael Stipe.
I'm going to Athens to bury REM, not to praise them. I'm planning to visit three of my old Deadhead buddies who moved to Athens for college and never left. Chris got a job working for Coca-Cola, James is moving toward a career in political lobbying, and Dave, though none of us know it yet, is changing the face of the Athens music scene playing bass in his new band, Widespread Panic. Everyone's been humoring Dave for the past few years, figuring he'll outgrow this long-haired hippie phase and get a real job, but not me. I know what it is to want to spend the rest of your life on this stuff because nothing else makes you feel like yourself. I'll say it again — the men don't know, but the little girls understand. Even though Widespread Panic's meandering jams have little to do with loud, fast rules, Dave is following his musical muse and that makes me more than happy. For Dave and the guys, I will tolerate much paisley. I plan to stay in Athens for a week.
Q:OK, hold the phone. You were a Deadhead?
A:Although I do have dancing skeletons in my closet, it would be more accurate to say that I went through a period in which I ran with Deadheads, and availed myself of their, uh, generosity. In short, when I was in high school, I had older friends with IDs and connections who were Deadheads, and so, yes, I did travel to some Dead shows, and I did do some noodle dancing, although I did so in an Agnostic Front T-shirt. Patchouli was worn. Mistakes were made. You would be fair to think less of me for this.
To my surprise, my plans are not met with the celebration and rah-rah knock 'em dead spirit I expected from my friends. There is a lot of grumbling from my metalhead buddies about upcoming shows I'll miss, never mind the plethora of shows I'll be able to see on any given day in Los Angeles. My old Deadhead buds humor my hair-metal fetish as a crazy phase I'm going through and seem almost worried that I'm serious enough about it to relocate. The only one of my friends who is behind my plans is Stacey, who can't wait for updates on my upcoming brushes with cheesy greatness in the form of all of the hair gods and has-beens who populate the Sunset Strip. We have our own double feature movie night, Foxes and Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years. I can't decide who I want to be more, Lita Ford or Cherie Currie. Stacey is just happy that Poison is in Decline, and she cheers when C. C. DeVille says if he weren't a rock star, he'd be a shoe salesman. Stacey is inordinately amused by Poison.
Pity my poor parents, who pepper me with foolish questions like where are you going to stay when you get to L.A.? and what if you don't get enough work to make a living? I know it is the job of parents to be sensible, but maaaaaaaan, what a buzzkill. I am resolute in the face of reason and logic. I am moving to Los Angeles and that's all they need to know. My father's steadfast sense of denial works in my favor; after about half a dozen "why-in-the-shit" questions go unanswered, he clicks over into pretending I'll change my mind and leaves me alone. My mother is a bit more problematic, demanding TripTiks, bank statements, and backup plans. I'm not sure why she's even bothering; we've already seen this movie anyway, and we know how it ends. Just like the year that I traded the colonial confines of William and Mary for Bejing Linguistics Institute, just for a change of scene, they know I'm prone to rash decisions and hastily packed suitcases, and that nothing they say or do will change my mind when I decide there's somewhere else I need to be. They know that I'm going and I know that they'll pretend I'm not until the day I leave. I put in my notice at the mall and prepare to hit the highway.
Q:Beijing? As in Beijing, China?
A:It sure wasn't Kansas, Dorothy. Yeah, weirdo that I was, I took Chinese for my foreign language requirement, and one thing led to another, and well, Beijing. That's a whole 'nother story and not a particularly rocking one, but I will share with you one glimpse of my efforts to bring Lou Reed to the masses of the People's Republic. I call it Scene from a Taxicab, and it has been translated from the Mandarin by yours truly.
Me:Could you play this while you drive, please? Thanks. (I hand the cabdriver a Velvet Underground cassette to replace the European synth-pop mix that all cabdrivers in Beijing have been issued.)
Radio:Opening strains of "Sister Ray," Lou Reed moaning about hitting his mainline over screeching guitar feedback.
Irritated Chinese Cabdriver (ICC): Is this what people listen to in America?
Me: Yes, it is.
ICC:No, what I mean is, do a lot of people in America listen to this, or do just you and a few other people listen to this?
Me (grumbling): Well ... me and a few other people.
ICC:Aha! That's what I thought. How about One Glove Black Man? Everybody likes him, right?
Just like when I left for Beijing, and when I left for the Rolling Stones tour, my impending departure is ignored until the eve of the very day that I leave, and then I am suddenly a horrible, horrible daughter, causing heartbreak and anxiety, and I eat dinner by myself, because everyone has locked themselves in their room so as not to see my soon-to-be-leaving face. I season my lonely meal with tears of remorse and guilt, guilt that I know I deserve every gut-wrenching bit of, but that I also know I must bear without crumbling, because the only way that I could ever possibly please my parents would be if I live in my childhood room until I'm fifty and spend every waking hour eating and appreciating their food, and I'm sorry, but this ain't that kind of party.
Q:Surely you don't mean your parents would really have you cloistered for life if they had their way.
A:Listen. The ass-kicker is, something like buying a can of peas when he thinks I should buy green beans upsets my dad just as much as me taking off on some half-cocked globe-trotting adventure. So I've learned that sometimes you've just gotta buy the peas and pay the piper. I love my dad with all my heart, but sometimes you need a can of peas.
So after a festive solitary farewell dinner of Fruity Pebbles, I spend my final night in my bed at my parents' house and roll out the next morning to head for Athens completely without fanfare — true to form, my parents have gotten up extra-early for work so they wouldn't have to see me leave. Unfortunately, the most haphazardly laid plans are almost guaranteed to go awry, it seems, and Dave is on tour in California of all places when I finally roll into Athens in mid-August. I'm sorry not to see him, but on the upside it leaves me quartered in high style in the "rock star suite," as Chris and James jokingly call Dave's room. Small, shabby, and humid, just like their rooms, Dave's bedroom is set apart only by the presence of a giant waterbed, purchased with real rock star dollars! Never mind the crumpled copies of Relix and dirty socks that Dave has left in his wake — this is still big luxury. I stretch out on the bed my first night in Athens, my toes not even beginning to reach the end of the mattress, and sway back and forth with the motion of the water. I know that it is not the lot of the rock 'n' roll journalist to ever see even a fraction of the money that a musician sees, but I feel hopeful that maybe a king-sized waterbed is somewhere in my future. In an interview with CREEM in 1981, Rick James told Dave DiMartino that his goal was to make "Paul McCartney White Boy Money." I may not be able to aspire to that as a gonzo journalist, but I think that Dave Schools Rock Star Money may be within my grasp. Visions of waterbeds and bylines dance in my head as I drift off to sleep.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City by Anne Thomas Soffee. Copyright © 2005 Anne Thomas Soffee. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,PROLOGUE "That Girl Has a Ring in Her Nose" Hipster Backlash and Metal Without Irony,
1 "I'm Left, You're Right, She's Gone" King-Sized Beds and the King Himself on the Road to L.A.,
2 Confessions of a Reluctant Danzig Bimbo "Sorry, Kid, We Don't Speak Irony",
3 Strippers, Clown Rooms, and Danzig Among the Mangoes Day Jobs and Night Moves on Hollywood and Vine,
4 Payola Means Never Having to Say "You Suck" Where Everybody Knows Your Name Except for the Girl in the Leather Bra,
5 Idle Worship Getting Punk'd Ten Years Before Ashton Kutcher,
6 I, Industry Weasel Gabba Gabba, We Accept You, We Accept You, One of Us,
7 There Goes the Neighborhood The Smell of Hairspray Gives Way to Teen Spirit,
8 Last Call L.A. Throws Me the Least Festive Farewell Party Imaginable,
EPILOGUE Tattoo Me What the World Needs Now Is Olallaberry Pie,