A Stray Cat Struts Read online

  This time, I was staying at the hotel because I had nowhere else to go. On a number of nights during this stay, true pal and character Michael Corby would crash out in the extra bed in the room after a night out in the clubs. There were always more or less harmless rock-and-roll hijinks going on around me. Corby founded the glam rock band the Babys and was a real rock star whom I had numerous adventures with. The hotel had given me the small room behind the front desk that really just consisted of two single beds and a bathroom. One funny side story involves Corby waking up in the middle of the night after thinking he heard something outside our door. He went out to check, and the door closed and locked behind him, stranding him the hallway. I was passed out and didn’t answer the door despite his urgent whispering. He decided to sneak out to the front desk and look for a spare key. He, of course, slept naked and picked up a large potted plant to hold in front of his privates while he roamed the hall. After a minute or so of looking through the drawer and cubbyhole slots behind the desk, he looked up to see the two girls who acted as night managers quietly sitting on the couch in the little lounge, right next to the desk, watching him and giggling. One of them walked him to the room and let him in with the pass key. Corby, once the game was up, probably walked back to the room with his head held high like Charles I on his way to the chopping block.

  It’s funny how random people can play such huge roles in a life. A friend from LA was in town and got in touch with me. It was Roger Klein, the manager of the Roxy. He was a good guy, and I had hung out with him a lot when the Cats had been in LA in 1981. On that first West Coast visit, I had pretty much made my camp at the Rainbow, and Roger had shown me around some cool, historic, under-the-radar spots around Hollywood. He was one of those Anglophile types, friends with a lot of the English bands, but he had never traveled to London before. This was his first trip there, and he called me when he arrived. I asked him to meet me at the hotel for a couple of drinks and we’d go out from there. He asked if he could bring another friend of his who lived in London, and I said, “Sure. The more the merrier.”

  The friend he was talking about was Britt Ekland, who would turn out to be one of the most important people in my life.

  Being the manager of the Roxy meant Roger also worked directly for the club’s owner, Lou Adler. I had met him when the Cats played the Roxy the year before. Lou is a music mogul and cool guy who had dozens of hit records as both manager and producer starting with Jan and Dean and the Mamas and the Papas through Carole King and Cheech and Chong. He put on the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and was also a partner in the Whisky and the Rainbow. He’s famously the guy with the beard and hat who sits next to Jack Nicholson at the Lakers games. In the years to follow, Lou and I would become part of what I call “an LA extended family” and hang out on many, many occasions. I got to sit in those Lakers seats a few times—there’s nothing like it; if you’re any kind of sports fan, it’s the best thing. Thanks, Lou. I like the guy, still see him, and am happy to have known him. I had also met Jack, briefly, after he danced throughout that whole LA show and came to the dressing room after the gig to say hello. It was another one of those “I was in Massapequa High School a year ago” pinch-yourself moments.

  Britt and Lou had been together in the 1970s and had a son, Nicholai, who was nine years old when we met. So Britt knew Roger, and he knew me, and we would all become very close.

  I don’t know if I believe in love at first sight, but I definitely believe there is connection at first sight. When Britt came down the stairs and we were introduced, I knew something was different about her. We had an immediate, deep connection. She was older than I was, but I was only twenty-two, so most everybody was older than I was, it seemed. I didn’t notice this immediately. She looked like what she was—a glamorous European movie star. I have always said and still say now that our age difference was never a factor until much later. She was stunning, gorgeous—I remember she was dressed in elegant, trendy, but still rock-and-roll clothes that suggested the classier end of the Kings Road. She spoke perfect English with a Swedish accent and got things slightly wrong in translation. I had no idea who she was, just that she was a movie actress, and she had no idea who I was, just that I was a guy in a band. It was supposed to be a regular night out. It turned out to last a lot longer.

  We decided to go to the Camden Palace. Roger had some other people to see in town, so he left us at the hotel, and it was just Britt and me. She had a tricked-out MINI Cooper from the 1960s and wanted to drive. I don’t think I had ever known a woman who had a car before, and certainly not one like that, so the adventure was getting better all the time. The Camden Palace is a well-known old venue in Camden, London, NW1. It’s been there for fifty years and has seen every type of event imaginable. I think it’s still going as a dance club and occasional live venue. The neighborhood has become trendy, but back then, it was still a bit rough.

  My friend and superstar scene maker Steve Strange promoted a club at Camden Palace, and when Steve did a night, it was always the best thing going on in town. Steve was a flamboyant, genuinely original character who just about single-handedly invented the new romantic movement. He was the singer in the band Visage and always looked fantastic—he took the hipster alien look as far as it could go. He ran legendary clubs—Blitz, Club for Heroes, and many others. His nights were always the place to be on any given week. I knew him very well from around club land, and he was thrilled to meet Britt. Steve Strange recently passed away, and there’s been much outpouring from everyone who was around London in those years. I really cared for and tried to stay in touch with him. He really liked to party and had trouble getting away from certain behavior. He would become good friends with Britt, too, and we’d hang out every time we were back in London. Steve thought it was “fucking brilliant” that she and I were together, and it always helps a club promoter when famous people turn up together on their nights.

  Another small-world part to this is that the Camden Palace was the first place that the Stray Cats had ever appeared on a stage in England. We had come to see a band called the Fabulous Poodles in June 1980. We had met them in New York City when they played CBGB and befriended them. They said, “If you’re ever in England…” We actually turned up. They invited us to play a couple of numbers with them; it just so happened to be at this same place.

  The night that Steve Strange put on this time at the Camden Palace was the best nightclub I ever remember going to. It took place right smack in the middle of the new romantic era; punk and rockabilly influence was still lingering, and this made for an eclectic mix of music and especially fashion. Everybody got dressed to the nines to come out to Steve’s clubs. Some of them looked like they had been getting ready all day to come to the club that night. The girls were dressed up like a cross between Marie Antoinette and Anne Boleyn, with a little Debbie Harry thrown in for good measure. The boys were in full-on Beau Brummell–meets–Adam and the Ants gear. Again, rockabilly and especially the Stray Cats were accepted by all the different tribes. On one occasion, I remember standing in the top-floor bar with Joe Strummer, Simon Le Bon and Nick Rhodes of Duran Duran, and most of Spandau Ballet—everyone was tooled up all the way, respected each other, and was having fun. I was a little surprised to hear the Spandau guys with regular North London accents. In those new romantic outfits, I always expected to hear a posh, Oscar Wilde accent coming out of whoever was wearing it. We were all pretty friendly. I recall a girl walking by looking like Madame de Pompadour with punk rock–style makeup and Joe scoffing at her, which sent her away in quiet tears.

  Steve treated us like royalty that night. There were a few paparazzi normally camped out there, and I think there are some early photos of us going in and out. We were wined with champagne and me with whiskey and beer. Everyone took turns going to the bathroom for powdered refreshment.

  Sometime around closing, we decided to leave. I would get dropped off at my hotel, and Britt would carry on home to her house in Chelsea. There was n
ever a feeling of a one-night stand here. It was more serious and felt like it was a buildup toward the inevitability of getting together. On the way back, we decided to try to find a place to eat something. While slowing down to look for a certain street address, we were pulled over by the police. The cops made us stand out in the pissy London rain while they searched the car and took us both in. Britt was in more trouble than I was because she was driving. We rode together in the back of the police van like a couple of prisoners. At the end of the day, Britt is actually very old world, and I’m sure she was mortified by this whole thing. It was happening quickly in that slow-motion way. She was led into the back of the station house in Camden; I waited in the lobby like Paul’s grandfather in A Hard Day’s Night. She was booked for driving under the influence. The car had been towed to the station by then. In an odd twist, the cops told me that I could drive her home. I had been holding a packet the whole time and was totally wasted, but they never searched my person, and I must have looked well enough to drive but couldn’t imagine how. I was wearing fuzzy leopard-skin boots, a black bowling shirt with the sleeves cut, a red cowboy scarf around my neck, and a black leather jacket. I told the sergeant that I had left my international driver’s license at the hotel. I of course didn’t have one, but I had to say something.

  In silence, Britt and I took a taxi back to my hotel. Britt had her girlfriend staying back at her house and didn’t want to bring this whole scene back there at 4:30 A.M., so we each crashed out in one of the two tiny twin beds in my little room, off the lobby of the Portobello Hotel. That had been quite a first date.

  The next day, we went back to retrieve the car from the Camden Town police station. On the way back to my hotel, we stopped off to have something to eat at the same place we had been looking for the previous night. Anyone who lived in and around Kensington or Chelsea at that time will remember Witchetty’s on Kensington High Street, near the corner of Earls Court Road. It was a trendy restaurant that was missing the roof off the top floor. The roof garden part of the restaurant was built around the rubble. The story I had always been told was that it was bombed during World War II; I’m not sure if this was true, but the place was missing a roof. When it rained, they moved the tables inside, but when it was nice out, it was a fun place with a great atmosphere and good food. That day, my plate was too close to the edge of the table, and when I put my fork into the lamb chop, I springboarded the whole meal onto my lap. I just salvaged what I could off my pants and ate the rest of my lunch. There was no way to look cool after that. The situation was already way beyond that; we’d already been through a memorable, embarrassing adventure and had only known each other twenty-four hours. We spent the rest of the day walking around Kensington High Street and in Chelsea. She showed me her house in a cul-de-sac next to the Stamford Bridge soccer ground, where Chelsea played its home games. I was going to New York City the next day to meet the band and start the American conquest. We made some type of plan to see each other again, but I don’t remember exactly how we left it. I didn’t have a place to live, let alone a phone number. I think we both knew this wasn’t the end of our association. I spent my last night at the Portobello alone, packed my extra pair of boots and hair grease, somehow got to the airport the next day, and went back home to the USA.

  The next few weeks were very busy and hectic. We started on the East Coast and worked our way west. It was the first time we’d ever had a tour bus, and I loved every minute of the whole rolling circus of characters. We were all working for the same goal and truly thought we deserved all the success. I still do. We were playing every night; at one point, we did eleven straight overnighters with shows and partying every night. We were doing clubs, every show was beyond sold out, and it was the hottest ticket wherever we played. There was genuine excitement for the music and the band. I found the after-hours clubs and punk rock strongholds in every town. When it got too crazy in some places, I brought the party back to the hotel. We did interviews and visited all the independent-leaning radio stations that were playing us in the afternoons most days before the gigs. It was the first time I’d ever traveled in the USA with the exception of the 1981 trip to LA and the shows with the Stones the year before. I’d been to Paris but never Pittsburgh, Tokyo but never Topeka.

  The real game changer had been MTV. The Stray Cats were tailor-made for it. Rockabilly and the Cats were still too weird for the FM stations of the day. No matter what they say now, most radio station program directors across America in the early ’80s were still stuck in the lame parts of the 1970s and did not embrace punk or new-wave music until MTV made it safe. We had a couple of videos that we had made in England with genre-defining pioneer filmmaker and friend Julien Temple in the late part of 1980 and early 1981. The “Stray Cat Strut” video still stands up; there is a lot of charisma in that little film. Early videos were made for pop music–type programs and shown when the band couldn’t make the appearance at the station. It was a way to be in a few different places at once. They had been around for years but never had a platform like MTV. I believe that Ricky Nelson had the first one with “Travelin’ Man.” His father made it to be played at the end of their 1950s TV show. Believe it or not, in the early days MTV needed content. Luckily, we had two excellent videos in the can, ready to go. They got on heavy rotation, and it put us on the map. Music plus images really came together in the world of early MTV. We had had both since the beginning, and now the world was coming around to our way of thinking. We were perfect for MTV and it for us. Radio followed when it could no longer ignore the popularity of this new music. We would go to the studio and go on the air spontaneously. It was a fun time but changed very quickly. Everything at some point becomes political, and MTV was no exception. I’m very happy and proud to have been there at the start of it all.

  We were socially friendly with every one of the original veejays—JJ Jackson and Martha Quinn, especially, but at the time, I considered Nina Blackwood, Alan Hunter, and Mark Goodman all to be friends. Martha’s boyfriend was true tragic pal Stiv Bators, singer in the Dead Boys and Lords of the New Church. Punk legend Stiv had stayed a lot with Lee and me in our crazy punk rock flat on Gloucester Terrace in Bayswater, London, W2, in late 1980 into 1981. We were close friends.

  Even small towns that didn’t have national cable TV had local after-school video programs. We went to every one of these Wayne’s World–style little shows to be interviewed and then to the local radio station. Rock video was now a household term, and the Cats are a part of that story. We worked it every day and then did a full-on rocking show every night. We were the hardest-working, best rockabilly band ever. Anyone who was at a show on that first Cats tour remembers it; I still hear it all the time. I know it was historic good and am not shy anymore about saying it.

  By the time we hit LA, it was really taking off. We were extra popular there; the Built for Speed album would go gold in California. After the show in San Diego, I had the bus drop me off at the Roxy while the others went to the Sunset Marquis to check in. It was already late. I was stoked to be back in LA and wanted to see if there was any action on the Strip. We had a three-night, sold-out-in-advance engagement at the Hollywood Palladium starting the next night. I rang the buzzer for On the Rox, an intimate, very small, very private club located on top of the Roxy Theatre on Sunset and was let in. When I got to the top of stairs and looked in, I was a bit disappointed. On first glance, there was nobody there. After adjusting my eyes to the darkness, I focused in, and there she was, standing right there, talking to Louis the bartender. Our paths had crossed again. After a little small talk, we drove back to Britt’s house on Stone Canyon Road, Bel-Air. My life was never quite the same again.

  I woke up the next day in the later part of the afternoon. I was in a beautiful Victorian bedroom in a large brass bed with art nouveau paintings and furnishings. There was a deck that looked out over a yard and pool. I had never been in a place like this before. It was Lou Adler’s house, where Britt lived in LA with th
eir son, Nicholai. It’s a historic rock-and-roll house: Lou’s friend John Lennon lived there during his famous “lost weekend” year in LA until he had to move out to make room for Britt and Nicholai. She had split up with Rod Stewart and needed a place to live. I made my way downstairs and met a housekeeper and two large Norwegian elkhounds. Everyone got along. Britt was out, and I needed to get to the gig. Fortunately for me, the Cats rarely sound checked. All my luggage had gone to the hotel, and I had no clothes. Britt came back, and we quickly did my laundry so I had something to wear at the gig. It was late at that point, and I was starting to worry about the gig. The others had no idea where I was. We all partied, things were always kind of loose and anarchic with the Cats, but we always made it to the show, sometimes cutting it very close. All bands want to make every gig a special occasion and want to think each one is just as important as the next, but this one really was a very important one. As a rule, shows in LA, London, New York, Paris, and Tokyo have a little extra pressure; everybody feels it.

  Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Stone Canyon, we couldn’t wait for the dryer to finish, and my black Johnson’s zipper jeans were still damp. So I sat in the front seat of Britt’s 1977 Porsche Turbo Carrera with a towel around me while holding the pants out the sunroof to dry while we drove. I borrowed a shirt from Britt and, as always, had my punk rock, standard-issue trusty Schott Brothers Perfecto leather jacket. Britt knows how to drive a sports car, and we were speeding down Sunset Boulevard, then screeched up to the stage door, and I made it to the backstage of the Hollywood Palladium for the first time, with Britt Ekland in tow.