Friday, April 06, 2018

Blind Item #8 - A Reader Blind Item

I just came across a recent interview with a member of an iconic group (we’ll call him “D”) which reminded me of a memorable situation I once found myself in. Everyone has always seemed to think of this guy as the epitome of cool, and he’s admired by many men of a certain age group.

When I was a teenager in the 80s, I hung around with some much cooler, older people, who lived in a decent sized east coast city. Many of these people were in bands or friends with people in bands, so they were familiar with touring bands from all over, mostly on the club level and punk rock in nature. As time went on, a handful of these bands went on to be wildly successful. This story involves one such trio.

My friend K knew these guys and asked me if I wanted to go see the trio in another east coast city, about an hour away, where they were scheduled to play a large venue. I said ok and we drove out there. I was almost 17 and had a junky car. This was long before cell phones, so we just hung around outside the venue before the concert until we ran into someone he knew. This guy, I’ll call “C” (who actually went on to be a fairly well known artist) asked me if I would help him find a girl who would be willing to be a part of the “stage show”. I obliged, and we had a very rough time finding a girl who was old enough (around 18+), not with her parents, and not attached to a boyfriend. Basically, she had to be willing to let go of her inhibitions, in front of thousands of people.

Finally, we found a girl who looked to be college aged, dressed scantily, and seemed up for anything. C quickly gave her the spiel and she agreed to be a part of the show.

C then invited us all back to the hotel to hang out with the group.

So, there I was hanging out with two of the three members of this group in the hotel room, post soundcheck, at around 5pm.

When I entered the room, the nicest guy in the group (who was wearing a hipster cowboy hat before they were hip), I’ll call him “B” (who is sadly now deceased), greeted me with “Howdy, dude!” and tipped his hat my way, which I thought was very sweet, given that I’m female. I’m sure I blushed.

Sitting by the window was their traveling photographer friend “R” (also a pretty famous artist and character) who was studying his slides of the band. Other people in the room were deep in conversation. I was trying to act like I belonged, even though I felt awkward and didn’t really know anyone, and had no one to talk to. The girl C found for the show was no longer in the hotel room and I didn’t know where she went. There were some other girls in the room too and I didn’t know her anyway, so I wasn’t really thinking about it too much.

One guy from the group, I’ll call him “H”, grabbed the phone in the room and dragged it out into the hall and closed the door. The cord was really long. Someone said he was on the phone with his at the time A+ movie actress girlfriend, “S”, whom everyone knows and loved back then (she doesn’t work as much as she used to but at that time, she was a superstar).

A few minutes later, band member three, “D” came bursting into the room. He was very sweaty in a panic. He looked at me and the two other girls sitting on the bed and yelled “HEY! I need one of you girls to get me ready. I’ve got this chick in the next room waiting, so who’s going to help me out? Huh? I need one of you to get me ready! NOW! WELL?”.

I sheepishly looked around for help and said “not me” and the other girls said some version of the same and he promptly said “then what the fuck are you doing here? get THE FUCK OUT!” and ran and opened the door and pushed us out. I had no idea I was going to be required to be a “fluffer”,  so I left, feeling awful about the whole experience. As I walked out, I saw A sitting on the floor down the hall, still on the phone, looking distraught.

Group:
B (Nice band member):
H (Band member on phone):
S (A+ list GF on phone):
D, (Band member needing fluffer):

Bonus:
Friend C:
Friend R: 

70 comments:

Tricia13 said...

Stray Cats?
Brian Setzer-B?

Tricia13 said...

H-Slim Jim Phantom(or Jonny Rocker(both hipsters)D one or other
A+GF?

ladybugmo1 said...

Nice one is MCA, on the phone is Ad Rock and fluffer is Mike D

T. W. said...

I thought of Bon Jovi or Guns N Roses.

T. W. said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tricia13 said...

The beasties good one-Molly Ringeald for Actress(Dated Adam I think)

ladybugmo1 said...

Ad Rock on phone with Ione Skye.

A number of years ago my kids went to the same school as Mike D’s kids. He hasn’t become any less of an asshole since the 80’s.

Tuesdi said...

BEASTIE BOYS

Tuesdi said...

GODDAMIT TRICIA!!!! How do you sneak in ahead of me like that?

Tricia13 said...

Molly R dated him 87-88 could be either?

Tricia13 said...

No lady killed it-vaporized this blind!! Lol
Maybe my Stray Cats was just me still secretly loving them 😂

Tricia13 said...

*ladybugmo1

Tuesdi said...

It has to be them. Everything fits.

Tuesdi said...

Oh - I missed that. Now I don't feel so bad.

ladybugmo1 said...

Could be. They were both very popular in the 80’s.

Tricia13 said...

👍👍❤️

ladybugmo1 said...

Can someone tell me where I would leave a reader blind? I have been trying to figure it out for awhile.

Dena said...

Ad Rock's Down With The Ione
Listen To The Shit Because Both Of Them Is Boney
Got To Do It Like This Like Chachi And Joanie
Because She's The Cheese And I'm The Macaroni
(although I think Molly was more of a superstar than Ione)

LucidDreams said...

The body of the cdc employee was found in a river

Dena said...

@ladybug: I think you can email it to entylawyer90210@yahoo.com

Brayson87 said...

Summary:

Underage groupie travels to nearby city to help recruit 18+ year old girl to be exploited on stage by random band. Groupie then hangs out in hotel room with band, but is kicked out when she refuses to give handies and bj's. Apparently she thought she was there for her personality. Groupie notices on her way out that one band member is having a distressing phone call. The end.

Sign Name Below said...

You guys are amazing. The only trios I thought of did not work as East coast band--The Police and Rush. Never thought of Beastie Boys.

Who are the friends?

HoneyRyder said...

In an earlier blind someone mentioned Facebook?

IanPhlegming said...

Was leaning Stray Cats until we got to the "dead" part. Then knew it was the ridiculously over-rated Beastie Boys. They tell you who they're there to serve in their name, btw.

Sara, Making It Work said...

Beastie boys all the way
Who are the friends? Let me think about that. ...

I actually hung out with their keyboard player Money Mark after one of his shows. He's an awesome musician in his own right and a seriously cool guy. My boyfriend at the time knew him through a friend who was a photographer.
We smoked down, had a great time... ah, youth.

Sara, Making It Work said...

You must only be familiar with their early stuff. They evolved, big time. Musically and consciously.

Markerbox said...

Photographer: Ricky Powell

Brian said...

In no universe would anyone ever have called Ione Skye an A+ list superstar.

Virginia Mayer said...

BOOOOOO-RING.

Tricia13 said...

Beasties are pretty awesome and always will be(☝️NYC:)
MCA was an amazingly nice dude I hear. He left his group(including Adam/douche Mike D) to help my sister in LA once. She had passed out with heat stroke/sun poisoning and he was Uber sweet❤️

Bill Philly said...

The Beastie Boys were geniuses on absolutely everything except, ironically, the first album that everybody knows. You could throw on Paul's Boutique right now (a critical failure and yet one of the top 10 albums of the 80's) and be blown away by it.

I couldn't even imagine how much of a dick I would have become if I had that fame at 19 years old.

Nubian princess said...

I read it as Beastie Boys. Ione Skye was big deal for a hot minute. "Say Anything" was huge.

IanPhlegming said...

I don't know the Beasties' later material. I was involved in radio when the first album hit and I was mystified by its massive success, other than it's rare to lose money when your demographic is teen idiots. If some of their members were good people and their material matured and improved as they grew up, so be it and thanks for the insight.

Bill Philly said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill Philly said...

Group:
B (Nice band member): Adam "MCA" Yauch - initial probably from *B*eastie Boys
H (Band member on phone): King Ad "Adam *H*orowitz" Rock
S (A+ list GF on phone): Molly "*S*ixteen Candles" Ringwald
D, (Band member needing fluffer): Michael *D*iamond

Bonus:
Friend C: *C*ey Adams (total and complete guess!)
Friend R: *R*ick Rubin OR less likely *R*ick Menello

Sara, Making It Work said...

So true.
I'd have to say my favorite is Check Your Head.

Kendrick Schroder said...

Anyone read S's piece in the New Yorker just now? Enteresting...

Chase said...

@Dena-This email doesn't work.
@ladybug: I think you can email it to entylawyer90210@yahoo.com

WickedBee said...

Group: Blink 182
B: Travis Barker
D: Tom DeLonge
S: Skye Everly (although not A list)
H: Mark Hoppus

Timeline doesn't exactly fit but...

Lunchpaillefty said...

The Mentors, Il Duce is dead. Or g.g. Allen for the nice one

WickedBee said...

Sorry, I'm dumb.
So much wrong with this guess! The most glaringly obvious being that Travis Barker is alive.

AlleyKat said...

I always really liked money mark...he was v cool!

El Roy 13 said...

LOL. I can see that. But she was to us tweens, in the late 80's for the mothers milk album cover, and then in the 90's for say anything.

cheesy said...

If he has the girl in the other room waiting for him, why would he need a fluffer?

Dusty Fairy said...

Ummmm.... maybe because she wasn’t EXACTLY what he had in mind, but she was ready and willing and the lights were off... he just needed a better “visual” to get him going...

Dusty Fairy said...

GG did like those cowboy hats...

Drumstixx said...

@ladybug- you got it! I saw them when I was a teen and they got arrested after the concert for breaking our cities "ludness law" . They had topless girls dancing in cages and a huge gigantic dick hanging down as a stage prop.

Kno Won said...

Poison (Harrisburg PA)
Show in Philadelphia, 90 minutes away.
Don’t care about the rest.

apple_seed said...

Yauch was wearing a cowboy hat sometimes during Paul’s Boutique era... so makes sense.

AMA said...

If EVERYTHING is going to be sexual harassment now, then nothing is...

Leave Hughes alone FFS. He’s not even around to defend himself.

Sara, Making It Work said...

She makes some interesting points. Very thought provoking, thanks 🙂

Hanniam said...

@Drumstix Ahh, NOW I remember why I thought they were so gross and creepy when all the girls in my grade school started obsessing over them.

Thanks for that. I think.

Is This It said...

Mike D had an interview in Vulture recently, so that could be the Interview they speak of that brought the memory up.
Also notice that the initial for the person on the phone switched from ‘H’ to ‘A’ at the end.

I’m glad that the band evolved as much as they did in the 90s.

More Cowbell said...

Tricia is right. Molly Ringwald for the at tim A+ actress girlfreind. Adam H dated her in the late 80's. He got with Ione Skye in the early 90's.

Sara, Making It Work said...

He's still out there doing his thing. Most recently with Claypool Lennon Delirium. He's so low key and shuns publicity. I admire that.

Puddy said...

Thank you, I was scratching my head to figure out what the point of this blind is. That is to say there really isn’t any.

Puddy said...

Licence To Ill is my favourite. I still long for a remastered version so I can bang Paul Revere as loud as I can and still maintain that sweet sweet bass 😍

Cheese Louise said...

LL 'C'ool J for friend C?

Raddddd said...

For sure The Beastie Boys and it was the "Get Off My Dick" tour. Great concert and very fitting title! Saw it back in the 80's and a girl I went to school with was the one brought up on stage to dance in my city. She was not 18 - still in high school. After the concert she ended up hooking up with one of the guys from the opening band - not one of the Beasties.

Court b said...

At the time she was, and dated quite the list. Anthony keidis, all sorts of A list celebs. She was huge.

Court b said...

I was at what was supposed to be at the last show, but they cancelled a few days before when they announced yauch was having surgery for his cancer instead that day. The yeah yeah yeah, covered the spot, but they were a mess. Karen was so drugged out she forgot the words, like all of them, to one of their biggest hits "maps" which doesnt even have very many words...she really ruined it, like ridiculously so.
I was lucky enough to catch the beasties at the Tibetan freedom concert though. And that is how I prefer to remember them anyway. That concert was their everything,their concert for their cause, not like your average tour show. They were fucking amazing!!! It was also the comeback debut for RunDMC before dude got shot. Blondie was there, I ran into a blond haired vedder, and Tom Morello was lost in conversation next to me as the band was about to start without him. They played a note, he freaked out, ran like lightning to the stage, and the roadie tossed him his guitar. It was an amazing set with a vertical mosh. So many amazing acts. The Roots were a standout. So many years later, still one of my favorite shows.

Unknown said...

Molly Ringwalds character in 16 candles was Samantha "Sam". Maybe that's where the S comes from?

Tricia13 said...

Good catch Remie:)

Dusty Fairy said...

From Murphy’s Law or PE? Lucky gal :)

Someone Else said...

I was not a fan of early Beasties, but came to love them after they released the all instrumental album "The In Sound From Way Out". After that they had my full respect as musicians.

Ann said...

It fits for the B.B. Cey Adams was the artist friend and Ricky Powell or Glenn Friedman was the photographer. All of the guys were/are nice. The whole License to Ill schitk was conceived by Russell Simmons and was always meant to be a parody of frat boy culture with a poke at the L.A. metal attitude. Fight for Your Right was a parody of those metal anthems that were big at the time. There were some very good songs on the album though. The one thing That album did was break down the barrier MTV had to playing rap videos. The videos were huge and MTV wanted them but Russell was going to yank them unless MTV played other black artists besides Michael Jackson. MTV agreed to play Run DMC videos (I don’t remember if they played Public Enemy It Takes a Nation during prime time but shortly after Yo MTV raps came into being). This is how rap came to suburbia. Oh, and Adam H was seeing Molly Ringwald in the late 80s and Ione Skye probably around 1990.

I could fill up about 100 blinds from that era, but that’s all I’m giving.

Brian said...

By the time Fight For Your Right was released, MTV was playing plenty of black artists. And Walk This Way came before Fight For Your Right, that's the song that is usually credited with crossing rap over to pop. https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/jul/04/walk-this-way-run-dmc-aerosmith

Ann said...

I was working at one of the companies involved at the time. Walk this Way was an anomaly because it was a rock and roll song with a white band in the video. It wasn’t considered straight rap. And while MTV did play some rap previous to WTW, they relegated rap to late night. My Addidas didn’t get the same play at the same times - at all. So yeah, Rock Box was played on MTV in 1984 -I think The Message was totally ignored - but not during a time the children could see it. It wasn’t until Russell Simmons threatened to pull FFYR that they would even consider playing black rap in primetime (as one song on Public Enemy's album It Takes a Nation of Millions alludes to). Once white kids in the suburbs got on board then came Freddy and Dre and Yo MTV raps. So child, you go read your Guardian article and let some random Brit inform you of what it was like back in the day and I'll refer to my memories as I was there.

Brian said...

I graduated high school in 1987, so I'm well aware of what the pop music scene was at that time.

And child, you said "The videos were huge and MTV wanted them but Russell was going to yank them unless MTV played other black artists besides Michael Jackson." Now you're tweaking it to talking about them not playing rap music, which is accurate enough, but by 1986 they were certainly playing a hell of a lot of black artists on MTV, not just Michael Jackson.

And if Walk This Way hadn't happened, it's pretty unlikely the Beastie Boys success would have happened as quickly as it did, if at all. They were a beneficiary of Walk This Way's crossover success, as their guitar heavy rap single came out 6 months later, just as Walk This Way was winding down, so the timing was perfect for programmers looking for something similar. If they had released something that sounded more like My Adidas instead of Walk This Way, nobody would have cared.

Ann said...

Ok, so when you graduated high school in 1987, I was already into my sixth year of working in the music industry. I was in publicity because not many women were able get A&R Jobs back then. But I was in the department that drove the narrative. Walk this Way revived Aerosmith's dead career and was groundbreaking as it cemented Rick Rubin's career as an innovative producer (which has served him well after the big blow up), but Licensed to Ill was going to take off whether WTW came about or not (and it almost didn’t). License to Ill was one of the most coreographed albums/videos/fashion aesthetics I’ve ever been witness to. It did what it was intended to. It also ended up killing the friendships of the major players.

Your assertion that the Beastie Boys wouldn’t have happened in the same way if not for Walk this Way is silly, and based on what? Anyway, I have no idea why I’ve wasted so much time arguing with some random person who watched MTV in the 80s. Have a good day.

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