CC, talking to Mac & Kenny at their hotel.
My little cassette recorder, into which everyone spoke, is on the floor.
I saw The
Faces at the Hollywood Palladium on October 18, and while the group was in town
interviewed Ian McLagan and Kenney Jones at the Century Plaza Hotel where they
were staying. The schism between the group and their singer Rod Stewart had yet
to explode into hostility but Mercury Records, to whom Rod was signed as a solo
artist, didn’t help matters by throwing a party for him – not the group, which
was signed to Warner Brothers – at the posh Greek Café. The rest of the Faces
were present but didn’t seem pleased that the spotlight was on Rod.
Because my new girlfriend Christine was required to stay
home with her young charges that night, I took along the lovely Victoria, more
as arm candy than in hope of third time lucky, and when Rod walked in wearing
an all-white outfit, his tinted blonde rooster-cut shimmering beneath fairy
lights, it was like he was luminescent, a sparkling jewel amidst a throng of
devoted sycophants. I’d met Rod once or twice back in the UK and thought he was
a bit of a cocky bugger, which I suppose he had every right to be, but I adored
his first three solo LPs and loved the Faces as a group.
Victoria simply melted when I
introduced her to Rod, not one of my better moves. Her eyes were like saucers
and from the salivating smile on her face I thought for a moment she was going
to grab hold of him and not let go. She had long blonde hair and was wearing a
very short dress, just the kind of thing Rod liked, and when he smiled back at
her I felt sure he was tempted to make a pass at her. Either way, I’m convinced
that if he had she would have followed him anywhere that night, done absolutely
anything for him, if only he’d asked. I lost her in the crowd and never asked
her out again.
By this time
I was getting to know my way around The City Of The Angels, driving here and
there and even taking my chances on to the absurdly complex freeway system that
cuts across this sprawling conurbation. I was also getting used to the idea of
having someone park your car for you when you rolled up at clubs or
restaurants, and one night as I left a club with Christine – I think it was The
Troubador – a man in an open-topped car mistook me for the parking attendant.
“Where shall I park?” he asked me.
“Over there. It’s one buck,” I replied.
He handed me a dollar bill just as the
real parking attendant emerged from behind another car. Christine and I lost no
time getting into my car and as we headed for the exit too quickly for comfort the
driver and attendant were both shaking their fists at me. I gave Christine the
dollar bill and told her never to spend it as it would bring bad luck, and she
promised not to, giggling all the way home.
I don’t think she was with me on my
only other car-related incident involving, of all people, Iggy Pop whom I
watched performing with his group The Stooges at the Whiskey one night in
November. Mildly shocked by a show that degenerated into a free-for-all between
Iggy and the audience, I wandered out into the night at the close and
accidentally drove the wrong car home.
While to innocently drive the wrong car
home might seem more than preposterous to most ears, the Whiskey was one of
those places, quite common in LA, where when you arrived at the front door a
car hop gave you a ticket and drove your car to a private car park within easy
reach. When I left that night the car hop wasn’t around so I walked to the car
park at the rear of the club and got into what I thought was my car – same
make, same model, same colour, same rental company – found the ignition key
beneath the seat and drove it home.
The
following day I was due to interview Iggy and on my way to his hotel in what I thought was my red
Ford Pinto I noticed my map of LA was missing, as was a carton of Marlboros I’d
left in the glove compartment, and on the back seat was a pair of blue jeans that
weren’t mine. I found a hotel room key in the pocket and when I got to Iggy’s motel I asked him if I could use the phone in his room. No problem, he said. I
called the hotel, the Hyatt House, got put through to the room on the key fob and
asked the guy who answered if he’d lost his jeans. “Yeah… and I lost my fucking
car too!” It was only then that I realised what I’d done.
So,
with Iggy and his girlfriend Corel in the back, I drove to this guy’s hotel and
we swapped cars. Turned out he was a roadie for some band or other and he’d driven
off in my car, albeit after I’d driven off in his. They were, of course,
identical. Iggy just accepted this strange business as if it were commonplace.
Iggy
suggested that we go to the beach to do our interview, which was a great idea
as, naturally, it was a lovely sunny day. Corel was an incredibly beautiful
girl with hair down past her ass, spray on faded jeans and a loose white shirt.
I drove the two of them to a seaside suburb south of LA, and when we got to the
beach Iggy stripped
down to his underwear and swam out to sea, his wiry frame floating over the
waves, dyed blonde head bobbing along the ripples, his strong arms and fluid
crawl easily coping with the choppy Pacific. Soon his head was nothing more than a tiny dot in the
grey-blue ocean. Corel began to look concerned. She gazed out to sea, shielding
her eyes from the sun’s glare with her hand, letting her waist-length hair
catch the breeze and form a billowing mane. I thought she looked like a mermaid.
“He's crazy. He always has been,” she said.
“He's always after a challenge of some kind. It doesn't matter what it is, and
today he’s challenging the sea. Will you swim after him if he gets into
difficulty? Please!”
Fortunately for me Corel had underestimated
Iggy’s swimming skills and ten minutes later he was back with us, towelling
off. He’d brought a couple of golf clubs and some old balls with
him and while we chatted he stopped every now and then to hit the balls into
the ocean. He had a fabulous swing, and he whacked these golf balls way out
into the water, looking well pleased with himself. I was amazed that Iggy, the
wild man of rock, played golf which is a bit of a pedestrian sport, but he told
me about his dad and how he was a sports freak and how he’d been brought up
real healthy.
“You know if I had never been into music, I'd
have liked to be a professional golfer,” he told me. “Some years ago I was
pretty good at golf, playing off around four handicap, but I haven't played for
two years now. One of my roadies took my clubs to a pawn shop because I owed
him money. I think I'd
have been good at anything I tried. Maybe I could even have been the
president.”
Corel,
sunbathing alongside us, nodded in agreement.
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