IF THIS IS ROCK ‘N’ ROLL, WHERE’S THE SEX AND DRUGS?
(Still in Holland and Belgium)
It might even be fair to say that I, and perhaps we, was/were getting into the groove/grind of it all.
Morning: up and at ‘em with a hotel-supplied Euro breakfast, which was usually a buffet with a variety of fruits, breakfast meats (if we were lucky), cereals, milk, juice, Euro coffee, maybe some pastries, and of course bread and cheese. Shower, if feasible, pack, and pile in the van.
The Rides: both long and short, were handled as best we could. Music from our limited cache (by this I mean Simon’s limited cache—we had tons of music between the band members), books, magazines, jokes, stories, sleeping.
Get to the Town: look for the gig, potentially get lost, look for the gig some more, find the club, load-in (frequently up or down a number of stairs), and set up. There was usually beer and snacks waiting for us. Good European beer, always welcome. Jeff asked for chocolate—good European chocolate (it is from the heavens). And, lest we forget, bread and cheese.
Sound Check: which could double as a rehearsal touch-up if need be. At this point, things could become more varied. Maybe we’d look around the town if there was time, maybe fall asleep somewhere in the club, or maybe take a look at the support band, or maybe walk or ride back to the hotel if they had a television or some other diversion.
Dinner: sometimes before our set, sometimes after, usually at the venue. The rider said no pizza, so we usually got a meal of some sort, with salad, bread, meat, and veggies. Fine and dandy.
Then: we rock, we pack, we split. Repeat.
Following our Uden blowout, I finally get my first full, normal night’s sleep. I wake up feeling alive, full of spunk and enthusiasm. The rest of the guys seem to be coming around as well. As we head back to Belgium in the Renault, I notice Z and Rat have mastered the art of sleeping in the crowded, four side-by-side backseats of the van, whether it be with a pillow between them, folded over their laps, across each other, against the windows, or a dozen other variations. They’re aided by a double-sized pillow, which they lifted from the Uden hotel. Dahl notices the extra linen.
“Hey, man. If I get back to the states and we get a bill for that pillow, I ain’t paying it.”
No one bothers to reply. I change the direction of the conversation. “So, Tim, how’re we doin’ on CD sales? We movin’ anything?”
“We sold two Jeff Dahl CDs last night, but we didn’t sell any of the others, none of your stuff.”
“That’s cool, of course people are going to buy Jeff’s first. Well, at least we have some sales, so we can split some cash up.”
“We’re not splitting up the sales of my CDs. That’s my money,” Dahl says without blinking.
“Hang on. We agreed that we’d take all of these CDs on the road and sell them for our per diem money, so that everyone would have some pocket cash.”
“That’s fine. That’s what you, Z, and Peter came up with, but this is my tour. I bring the crowds. I’m who they’re coming to see. When Sister Goddamn CDs are sold, you keep all of that money.”
“Frankly, when Sister GD CDs sell, I’d rather split the money with everyone, so that we all have money, like I said. That was the original idea, which was a good one, and a fair one. Why do you want to change it now—now that we’ve gone to the trouble of getting all of these discs over here?”
“That’s the way it’s gonna be. When you sell your CDs, you get the money. Rat gets Motorcycle Boy, you get Sister Goddamn, and Z gets The Ultras. I’m covering a lot of expenses on this tour, including hotels and food on our days off, so that’s the way the CD sales are going to work.”
From the get-go, we brought twice as many Dahl CDs as any of the other titles. We three were handicapped out of the gate. Z doesn’t say anything, but I know what he’s thinking. The Ultras, with their androgynous, glam-boy look are going to be the hardest to sell to the party-line punk rockers, which will make him the most cash poor. Of course, he doesn’t say anything about it out loud.
The band sits shoulder to shoulder in the backseat of the van. Simon has been the only driver so far, and Tim has managed to commandeer the double-wide shotgun seat. When we argue, there is nowhere for us to separate from one another, no way to put any space between us. This means that we all just clam up, look straight-ahead, and ride on.
Tonight is the night Rita will join our entourage, and Z is excited, though as is his style, he barely shows it. We are in a tiny but lovely old Belgian village named Kortrijk, which none of us can spell or pronounce, so we call it “Coat Rack.” Tim takes a nap at the hotel, Dahl stays in to write songs and brood, and the rest of us head out to the local pool hall to spend our downtime in this picturesque little town. We drink beer or cappuccinos, depending on whether we want to get wired or relax. I notice some handbills for an upcoming local appearance with Little Richard, so we at least can be confident that the Coatrackians know how to rock.
Our gig is again at a volunteer youth center, in what appears to be a church recreation room of sorts. Two hardcore punk bands open for us while we are more or less imprisoned backstage where it is pretty cold and pretty boring. Cold and boring is becoming the norm—beer to drink, cigs to smoke, bullshit to exchange. The performance itself is pretty lively, with Dahl really connecting with the crowd and Z getting those tempos up to and past their designated speed. Rat and I share stage left. (I’m actually in the middle, creating still more confusion as to who the hell Jeff Dahl really is.) The human rodent and I develop a stage rapport that relies as much on comedy, and some sort of latent sexual angst, as it does on cliché rock moves. Whatever. We become foils for each other, switching rolls as jester, straight man, fall guy, jealous lover, showboating upstager, whatever might or might not be appropriate and/or amusing to us at the moment.
For the first of two encores, Dahl somersaults back onto the stage from the side. Not to be outdone, I try this ridiculous move where I thrust myself back onto the stage using my bass as a sort of pole vault. Leaping over the headstock, and landing as if coming into home plate, I thought it was a cool idea. But I really didn’t execute it right, and as I land, the metal tuning pegs on the headstock grind into my rib cage. It must have looked pretty klutzy, but it seems our audience is looking at Dahl and ignoring the rhythm section, so I get away with it. As I check my Fender’s tuning, I notice that I bent my G-string tuner by attempting this stupid little stunt. It didn’t work, no one noticed, and I screwed up my instrument. What a fuck up! I can play “Dirt” out of tune and get by, since I have no other bass with me, so that’s just what I do. While Dahl and Rat are tuning, I take the mic.
“Like to send this one out to our tour manager, Simon. Simon is God!”
Simon really has been doing a bang-up job, keeping us a little under budget (so he says), driving all the time, playing table games with us, fixing things, telling us endless jokes that we can’t remember even five minutes after we hear them, but that crack us up anyway. Perhaps God is a bit much, but if someone has to fill those holy sandals, it seems like Simon’s the cat.
“Simon, bad news,” I say as I approach him after our last encore. “I fucked up my bass. It doesn’t tune anymore. Can you make it well again?”
“No problem. I’ll just get a pair of pliers from the sound man and put it right.” He does, and it is. All is well.
The hotel we’re staying in is really fancy: pillars, a huge ornate front door, fancy cable TV, twentieth century telephones all over the place, plush drapes, and unusually huge beds (for Europe) that make us feel like kings. Following our last four shows, we’ve been accumulating our rider beer and stashing it in the van, where, even during the day, it’s cold enough to keep the brew more or less refrigerated. It’s a Sunday night, and nothing sounds better than gathering up a few sixers and vegetating in front of the color TV.
As we enter the hotel Plasky, the night watchman stops us in our tracks. “What’s that, in that crate?”
“Just a spot of beer, friend,” says Simon, smiling ever so friendly.
“You can’t bring it in.”
“We can’t take beer into our own rooms for a nightcap?”
“You can’t bring it in.”
“Simon, the man says no beer,” I interject. “We’d better just take it back out to the van.”
Once outside, we fill our luggage bags with the bottles and head back upstairs, where Simon and I smoke cigarettes, drink ice-cold beers, and watch the European version of MTV’s Headbanger’s Ball, with tonight’s guests, everyone’s fave raves, Def Leppard. Z paces the floors, waiting for Rita. She should have been at the show but didn’t make it. Now, it’s hours later and she still isn’t here. My man’s getting a bit worried.
“Morning,” I say in my best Monty Python fake English accent.
“Morning,” Simon answers, ever cheerful, as he sits at the Plasky’s communal breakfast table.
“Have some bread and cheese, dude,” Dahl offers. Z is walking down the plush spiral staircase from our rooms with the lovely Rita in tow. She had gotten in after the rest of us crashed out.
“You can’t believe what I went through to get here,” she growls. Rita has the gruffest voice of any girl I’ve ever known. It was not very feminine, yet on her, with her bleached blonde hair, sarcastic wit, and jaded attitude, it was fitting and somewhat sexy.
“I guess I got on the wrong train at [blah blah blah blah] and no one would help me. I showed them my ticket but these people will deliberately fuck you over [yada yada wank wank blah blah].” As she talked, my mind drifted to the thought of my own girl back home. What was she doing? Was she missing me? Or was it actually better for her with me out of her hair? I’d left enough money for my share of our bills and then some. She had our huge Hollywood Hills apartment to herself. Was she lonely or finally free?
“...and finally I got someone to tell me where this fucking hotel was, and get me in a cab here, that must have been after two in the morning, and you guys were already all asleep. Are you rockin’ or what? What’s up?”
“We are a regular ticking time bomb,” says Rat, barely above a whisper, his first utterance of the day.
There are no shows for a couple of days, but we’re to go to Brussels for a Dahl acoustic performance and an on-air interview for BRT Radio. Upon arriving in Belgium’s capital we all agree on one basic thing: Brussels sucks. It’s ugly and dull, and since we’re here on a Monday, everything is closed. It takes forty-five minutes of driving up and down one-way streets and trying to extract directions from the locals to find the hotel, another half an hour to actually park. Our rooms are small and musty, it’s raining out, everyone is restless and antsy. Z and Rita are anxious to do something—anything—since their time together is limited. I take the opportunity to change my bass strings and practice a bit, Tim takes this opportunity to show me what an ass kicking, popping/slapping, super-funky bass player he is, naturally with my bass. This makes me want to cut practice short, even if it means walking around in the rain and going nowhere.
We all walk to the radio station, just for something to do, where we find there was no acoustic performance scheduled after all. We wait around for the interview to start. Jeff, Rat, and I will do it while Z and Rita wait in the station foyer. The interview girl shows up, an attractive redhead who seems to look down her nose at us lowlifes, anxious to get us in and out (of the studio that is). At the last minute before we begin taping, Tim asks if he can sit in. Rat and I look at each other with apprehension, but Dahl says it’s okay. We set our three chairs in front of the big interview microphone while Tim sits to the side. We clear our throats and wait for the red light to indicate taping has begun. Ms. Interviewer raises her hand to count us in, “five…four…” Then Tim starts asking questions.
“So, do you live around here?”
Dahl, Rat, and I stare in disbelief. He’s actually used this lame line on girls at the gigs, but now he’s interrupting our interview and wasting our time.
“Have you had this show long?” he continues.
“About three years. Ready…four…three...”
“What do those switches do?”
“Tim, do you mind!?” cuts in Dahl, trying to save face. “Just be quiet, okay?”
She proceeds to ask unbelievably standard formula questions. The whole procedure takes five minutes. I say about five words and Rat says none. Tim talks more than the two of us combined, thankfully not on the air. We leave the station as quickly as we can.
“What a waste of a day,” Z says.
Rita chimes in, “You mean, that was it?”
“What can you do?” asked the ever-tolerant Dahl.
That night, all of us except Jeff, who chose to stay in the claustrophobic cubby hole of a hotel room, go get some grub in downtown Brussels, a sort of poor man’s Times Square. We get some good beefsteaks, which sort of makes the day seem better. Various members of the troop are beginning to catch colds. Z in particular is losing his voice, and he begins to sound as raspy as Rita, making them an almost comical couple.
Rita departs the next morning. We head back to Holland again, where we’re to record a live performance for a Dutch radio broadcast. She will hookup with us again in France, down the road a bit. Meanwhile, Rat is almost over his pink eye, but now has a bad cold. Z has completely lost his voice. Tim has the sniffles. Simon, Dahl, and I hold tough against the invading illness. Vitamin C and DayQuil packed from home, combined with Dahl’s trusty Fisherman’s Friend throat lozenges (used by all touring punk singers in the know) allow the three of us to stay well for the time being.
We show up at N.O.B. Studios, a big complex in the woods outside of Hilversum, a studio once favored by seventies progressive rock bands like Genesis and Van der Graaf Generator. We’re set to cut three live tracks in a room, mic’d with everything separated and mixed through a thirty-six channel board direct to two-track tape. I’m enjoying being in a pro studio environment with all the classic gear. It’s a nice diversion from our rock/rinse/repeat. Despite sniffles, scratchy throats, and cold medicine grogginess, we cut six songs in the allotted time. We are a rock machine.
Following the late afternoon session, we have to hightail it to Rotterdam, where we are to play that evening. Riding along in the van, I ask to hear the cassette of our afternoon session.
“Okay, this time, but I hate listening to live tapes in the middle of a tour. We’ll be getting tapes all over the place, and I don’t wanna hear them.”
“What are they for?” I ask. “Aren’t they made to be listened to?”
“Yeah, but not on the road, not in the van. When I get home, I’ll listen to everything and analyze it. I can send you out copies then, if you want.”
“That’s all well and good, but if we listened to the tapes now, we could hear how we’re playing, what we’re doing, and maybe improve right now, as we’re touring.”
The van grows quiet again. No one else has anything to add.
By the time we get to Rotterdam that evening, everyone is getting a bit edgy and bored. The club is downstairs below a bar, with a low ceiling and a P.A. that accommodates only one microphone. None of us seem too interested in the gig. Mostly, we just sit upstairs, look at the girls hanging out at the bar, and play foosball with the locals. We have no contact with these women. We just look at them. We’re not even working up to a good stare, that’s how lethargic we’re becoming. A pretty Indonesian girl parades around the bar like a regular baton twirler, causing Simon to fall madly in lust. The chase is on.
“Oh, I fancy her,” he smiles, then lowers his head back down to devote attention to the highly competitive foosball showdown he’s engaged in with Ratboy. “I’m getting a bit horny. Did I tell you my maximum? It was five girls in one week on the road with The Soft Machine.”
“That’s impressive,” deadpans Rat.
After the show, I’m standing alone in the bar, completely uninspired to do anything but stand around and wait, when Simon tells me we’re “all in,” ready to go. As I hop into the back of the van, I see the Indonesian girl is sharing the front with our fearless English navigator and Tim, who’s tired from a day of doing next to nothing. A girl who we don’t know is actually riding in our van, right alongside us, a band that has played mostly to guys and a few of their dates for the past six days. At the bar only fifteen minutes ago, Ratboy had chuckled under his breath,”We’re such losers.”
Back at our quaint, yet ornate, digs I’m sharing with Simon, Dahl is teamed with Tim. Z and Rat score the single rooms. We’ve been taking our turns with the singles so that everyone gets their fair share of privacy, allowing time for relaxation, reflection, meditation, or good old-fashioned masturbation. Simon and I are playing host to his new love interest, Vanessa, but when I walk into my room with my bass, Tim is already sitting—shoes off—on my bed.
Simon was correct in pointing out that the merchandise table was the hot spot to meet people. Whether just browsing or curious, whether true fans of the band or tourists, most everyone at a show drift by during the course of the evening. However, this was not helping Tim make friends and influence people. His pickup lines might work on the sixteen-year-old Valley girls he lures into his web of slacker-evil back at home, but here they just don’t fly. His oft-used Do you live around here? line has already become a comic catchphrase for the band. Rat, Z, and I would ask, straight faced, any pretty girl on the street or at a roadside stop if she “lived around here.” Now, Simon had made the effort to drag some ne’er-do-well vixen back to our micro-rooms, and, if at all possible, Tim was going to horn in on the action.
I sit in a chair, unable to stretch out on my own bed because of Tim. Seeing as entertainment is lacking and I’m reasonably bored, I decide to sit back and see what happens next. I organize a soundtrack for the proceedings by hooking up my two battery powered porta-speakers, which plug into my Sony Walkman. A compilation of funky seventies hits start making the air move a bit.
“Nice of you to drop by, Tim,” Simon says sarcastically.
“My pleasure,” Tim returns, equally mocking.
“So what do you do, Vanessa,” Simon offers as a combination icebreaker and timewaster.
“I’m a student here in Rotterdam. I hate it. School is so stupid and pointless, but what would you expect in a town as boring and ugly as this.”
“You’re a regular ray of sunshine,” I impose. “What are you studying, if I might ask?”
“Religion and Philosophy.”
“That figures, I suppose.”
“That’s great,” Simon says with a smile, trying to salvage a quickly backsliding situation. “School can be such a great time, all your chums, hanging out and getting abuzz everyday. Just a big party, can be.”
“Not here. The people are so stupid, these are the descendants of those who nailed Christ to the cross.”
“The Dutch did that?” Tim sincerely inquires.
“Not literally. Figuratively.”
“Religion and Philosophy, Tim,” I point out.
“The Bible tells you one thing but means another. It tricks you into thinking everything’s all right, but it’s not. Between the lines, it’s telling you, We will get you. We will kill you in your sleep. All religions do that, they wrap you in a blanket of security while sneaking up behind you with a dagger. Remember the Manson murders in California?”
“These guys grew up there. They can probably tell you all about it,” Simon motions toward Tim and me.
“Not me, I’m too young,” lies Tim.
“Spare me,” I say, hoping Vanessa will resume her paranoid tirade. She does.
“They took Charlie as a religious leader. Followed him and killed for him. They’d all still do it, too. They’re not reformed. His followers are like sheep; in a way, it’s the perfect religious sect. The Catholics would kill for that kind of control. But few Catholics would kill like Charlie did.”
“Remember,” I say, starting to get interested, “Manson didn’t kill anyone. He went down for being a ringleader. He didn’t really kill anyone personally. Just like Hitler.”
“They’re sensitive about Hitler around here, McGruff,” says Simon, referring to the fact that Rotterdam was leveled during the war.
“I’m not. You could blow this place up again, for all I care.” A brief silence hangs in the room like musty air. How in the world is Simon gonna turn this mess around? Does he even want to, with this sullen Indonesian Squeaky Fromme? Our Lady of Hopelessness and Despair continues.
“That music you play, that punk rock, I remember when it first came out in the seventies, and we called it New Wave. Some of the New Wave bands were definitely trying to achieve that level of mind control, to harness an army of marauding killers.”
“Like who, Kajagoogoo? The B-52s?” I ask.
“This chick’s whacked, man,” figures Tim.
“Now, c’mon. Everyone’s entitled to an opinion,” defends Simon.
“Yeah, especially if they kick down a little trim in the immediate future,” countered Tim, visibly riling Simon, who was looking less likely to succeed with every passing moment.
“The German industrial bands, they had their audiences turning into the new Hitler Youth.” This girl is relentless. Our door flies open to reveal our leader, Mr. Dahl, slightly pissed off.
“You idiots have woken the whole floor up. You can hear your bullshit about Manson and Ohio Express all the way to the lobby. Cool it!” He shuts the door and shuffles back to his room down the hall.
“Well, that’s put a damper on things. Goodnight, Tim,” Simon says without a smile. After Tim departs, Simon goes out somewhere with little Miss Medusa, and I just go to sleep.
Following one of the best days of being a happy-go-lucky tourist in the beautiful town of Utrecht, hosted by our tour guide, Simon, we end up at Tivoli, a big ballroom with full concert sound and a full lighting system. The show is crowded. Apparently, there is a Dutch equivalent to the previously referenced Guitar Institute in this town. A large percentage of our audience happens to be guitar students who stand with their arms folded and stare at our fingers. Not too inspiring. They all have that familiar deadpan I can do better than that guitar player look.
After the show, the place turns into a big dance hall, cranking out everything from old disco to new rock to some pumpin’ R&B. Simon, Rat, Z, and I make regular pilgrimages from the dressing room, where the supply of free beer continues unabated, to the dance floor, where the supply of girls increases exponentially with the amount of time our show has been over. As I dance, I become aware of a sharp, nagging pain in my rib cage. It’s been bothering me off and on all day, and the only thing I can figure is that I must have bruised or cracked a rib doing my aborted bass pole vault routine in Coat Rack. Even though it’s unabashedly un-punk rock, the dancing is a nice release, a bit of exercise, a way to clear my head, something mindless to do.
After a few twirls to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive,” I head back for what must be my tenth or eleventh beer. Seated on the folding chairs, amongst a few other hangers-on, are the two girls Z put on the list back in Uden. Z, seemingly aware of this, is nowhere to be found. I chat with them for a minute, and the shorter one, whom Z had made lip contact with a few days earlier, asks me if I might like to score some hashish. Given that virtually anything that is fun and illegal in the States is legal here, and that I’ve had absolutely no recreational drugs yet on this tour, I decide that this situation has got to be turned around immediately, certainly before we get stuck in France. Dahl glances over at me with a look that says, “Hash sounds like a good idea.” So it’s on a hash pilgrimage I’m a-goin’.
“It’s really close by,” says the short, slightly plump brunette whose name is Joannie.
“Let’s go, then.”
Utrecht is a toned-down, prettier mini-Amsterdam, with winding stone streets flanked by parallel canals and canal walkways. Like a lot of European towns, it all spirals out from a cathedral located in the center of town. Leaving the club, we start walking uphill a bit.
“It’s about a block and a half,” says Joannie, who I notice is having more than a little trouble coordinating a smooth walking style, although she insists on moving along at a quick clip. Four blocks later, I ask if we’re almost there. “Almost, but I really gotta pee. Let’s go down here, to this club that’s going on. We’ll get a beer, too. I know everyone there. It’ll be free.”
Leaving the main street, we walk down a stairwell to a path that runs along the canal. There is a whole separate series of shops, bars, and whatnot along this lower level. We enter one that is an all-ages rave—a techno dancing, strobe light flashing, bass-speaker booming, shoulder-to-shoulder happening. The air is laden with tobacco and hashish. The floor is wet with beer. She heads for the toilet while I think to myself: Damn, look at this crowd, young crowd, mixed crowd. This is what’s happening. Rock ‘n’ Roll is dead here, these kids want Techno. They want to shake ass, get high, get laid. The same things rock fans wanted before they had to veg out in the retirement home.
Oh well. I try to figure out how to get a beer. I line up at the bar, but learn I need a beer ticket purchased from a booth at the far end of this sardine can. My thoughts return to hash, and when Joannie emerges, I grab her, and we head back to the street.
After five long blocks, the pain in my ribs evolves from creeping ache to sharp, stabbing pain. “I thought you said it was nearby. We’ve walked half a mile…make that three-quarters of a kilometer”
“Right up here, don’t worry.” Three more blocks, over to a side street, up an alley, and around a bend. Wherever we are, there is no sign of human life. We approach a metal garage door, chained and bolted from the outside, and Joannie starts pounding it with her fist.
“Call it a hunch, but I would say no one’s here.”
“No, no. They’re here. I promised you some hash.”
“Yeah, but it’s bolted shut. There’s no one here.” I lean against the wall and let her pound for a few more moments. Then, we begin our half-hour hike back to the club.
“I hope you know how to get back. I’m completely lost.” I’m one of those people who can get lost anywhere. I can get lost a few blocks from my home. She starts walking faster and faster, meaning, I suppose, she’s gotta piss again. Long city blocks are flying by, and sure enough, she starts moaning about her bladder.
“We must be almost back to the club, just go there,” I instruct. “You can make it.”
We turn a corner and see the Tivoli marquee. “Let’s run!” I shout, trying to garner some excitement from all of this. We start running, and within ten strides, Joannie trips over her own feet and hits the concrete, hard. I turn to look at her sprawled on the sidewalk, seemingly unconscious.
“Shit!” In no time, a crowd gathers. Great, I’ve killed someone on foreign soil. The authorities will haul me off to some underground dungeon at any moment now. I can foresee it: endless days of dark cells, ambassadors, arguing diplomats, and quagmires of red tape. I bend over Joannie, not wanting to say anything out loud, and give myself away as a slimy American in front of this mob who’d love to lynch me just for the hell of it, American or not. I get her on her feet. Her head is reeling; a sizeable golf ball begins to emerge from her forehead.
“Wow…” she finally says, looking up at me as I try to steady her. “Good thing I’m very drunk right now, this is going to hurt tomorrow.”
“Okay, folks, show’s over. The little lady’s just fine.” She heads back into the club, as I remain outside for a minute to catch my breath and make sure the lynch mob disperses. I turn and notice two drop-dead knockouts standing by me, smiling, appearing as if by magic or hallucination. What on earth do I have to lose?
“Excuse me, but you girls wouldn’t know where to get some hash, would you?” They nod, each grabs a McGruff arm, and it’s off on a wild goose chase, number two. I can’t believe my fortune. Unlike Joannie, they speak virtually no English. I’m unable to negotiate anything from them—hash, romance, ménage à trois, anything. I merely get led around by them as they hang onto my arms. It’s fun for a while, but by the time I get dropped off back at Tivoli, I’ve spent an hour walking around the city in search of hash and am empty-handed. I’ve probably gotten more exercise than I’ve had in months, though.
Back in the dressing room where the endless flow of fine bottled beer—Oranjeboom, my favorite—continues unabated. Joannie’s tall friend with mousy brown hair and pointed features, looks bored and fed up with her drunken comrade. Z still avoids the two of them like the plague. I grab the tall one, “Let’s hit the dance floor!”
Her name is Martie. She talks about her job as a bookkeeper and her upbringing in, of all places, the Inland Empire area of Southern California. I’m amazed to meet a local who has spent time in the same part of the world as me, and we hit it off pretty well. At least she’s smart, friendly, speaks so I can understand her, and doesn’t act like she’s roaring drunk. We hit the floor where we are dancing next to Ratboy and our agent’s girlfriend, Daniella. Those two are getting oh so cozy, dancing something like Lambada, “forbeedin” dance of Brazil.
Dancing is great, and proves to be a dependable outlet for the boys in the band—get the show over with and get the hell out and dance. Though I never spend that much time dancing at home, and probably won’t spend that much time on the dance floor when I get back to the U.S.A., here it proves to be my one reliable release. Dancing becomes the physical expression of all that is pent up inside me—the day after day on that damn bench seat in the back of the Renault.
Our Utrecht hotel is an Ibis, the European equivalent of a Holiday Inn. It’s nothing fancy, but you know you’ll get a tub, shower, toilet, two beds, a TV, a phone, and room service if they take your credit card. Jeff loves the orderliness of it, the fact that all Ibis’ are essentially identical, and wants to return to it now. He has been tolerant of us wasting time and having fun, and now we got to get moving. None of us, including Simon, want to go. We’re all just having a blast. This is probably the first opportunity we’ve been afforded to really let loose and party with the locals. Only Tim, who’s getting nowhere with the girls and who can’t hold any more beer, is in agreement with Dahl. Still, he’s the boss, so we do the usual gear hump to the van. Once we’ve loaded the equipment, I perform the nightly ritual known as the Idiot Check, one last pass is made over stage, wings, and backstage, to see if we’ve left anything behind. When I get back outside to the van, Joannie and Martie are rammed in the backseat along with the band. I hop up front with Tim.
“These girls insisted on coming back to the hotel and partying with you, McGruff,” laughs Simon.
“They want Z,” I counter. “I’ll sell the fucker into white slavery and turn a profit on this expedition yet.”
“This is a nice hotel we’re going to,” said Dahl. “We don’t need another loud party to get everyone else in the hotel pissed off at us.”
“Don’t worry. I’m going straight to bed. It’s been a long day, and after my mile hike, I’m knackered,” I say, truthfully.
Tim doesn’t miss a beat when it comes to honing in on girls, once they’ve been rounded up. Back at the hotel, he heads straight to the elevator with them, leaving the rest of us with tons of luggage and all of our guitars. “Where are those chicks ending up?” I ask Z and Rat. “Not in our room, I’ll tell you that,” Rat assures.
“That one Joannie has been bugging me about you all night, Z. You gotta be the one to get rid of her.”
“Nope.” Z was traditionally a man of few words.
“I just really want to get some sleep. My fucking ribs are killing me, especially after that walk. I swear, I think I’ve got a cracked rib.”
“Get that tall girl to give you a back rub, McGruff. I’m sure she’s got something good for all your aches and pains, and I don’t mean Advil.” The Rat had spoken.
As fate would have it, I was rooming with Tim tonight, and to little surprise, a mini-soirée was underway as I arrived. Even more beer was a-flowin’, and Tim was trying his best to get close to Joannie. He peeled off his shirt for added sex appeal, which gave me a sudden, queasy, claustrophobic feeling. From the bathroom, I heard water running.
“What are you doing in there?” I yell through the door. Martie replied she was taking a bath, and suddenly I could see a light at the end of the tunnel.
“Well, you better let me in so I can make sure you’ve got everything under control.”
“She’s fine. She doesn’t need you,” snapped Joannie.
“C’mon in, the water’s fine,” I heard from the other side of the door. Joannie suddenly jumps up and stands between the bathroom door and me, arms outstretched. “Where’s your drummer? I want your drummer.”
“He’s gone to beddy-bye, like a good little drummer boy.”
“Well, you can’t come in here until your drummer comes over here.”
“Look, this is my hotel room. I can go anywhere I please. I’m sorry our drummer doesn’t want to visit with you at the moment, but I have no control over that. Now, step aside.”
“No!” was the petulant reply.
“Alright then,” I pick her up and throw her over my shoulder. As she pummels her fists against my back, and aggravates my aching rib cage, I toss her on one of the single beds, and instruct Tim to deal with her as he sees fit. I go into the bathroom and lock the door behind me.
There is one obnoxious, florescent light that glows overhead. Martie has hung her black dress over it to tone it down. Admittedly, I’m drunk and exhausted. She looks pretty good amidst the bubbles (where did she get bubbles?), smiling and winking at me. I take my clothes off and slide in behind her. The water is warm and perfect. She leans against me gently, and we just sort of drift off. For a moment it’s quiet: no music, no talking, no van engine running—just dim light, steam, and two bodies clasped together in warm water. We scrub, play, fondle, kiss, and all the other things drunk people do when they’re naked together in a tub. Eventually we tire of all this. When she stands up to grab her dress, it falls off the light into the draining tub, soaking it. She hangs it up, puts a towel around herself, and goes out to the bedroom. I stay behind to clean my contact lenses, brush my teeth, and shave.
A few minutes later, feeling relaxed and very unwound, I walk over to my bed, where Martie is sitting and watching Tim fuck Joannie in the other bed. They don’t make much of a show of it, trying to be subtle as it were, but the fact that they’re about eighteen inches from us makes the act difficult to conceal. Martie is visibly excited. Her nipples look like they’re about to explode under her black bra, her sole item of clothing besides the towel loosely draped across her lap.
“Ho Hum,” I yawn, pulling back the covers. I’m very tired, sobering up a bit, and not really feeling like going the distance with this girl, who, truth be known, wasn’t even invited here by me. Wearing my sweat pants, I climb into bed with the intention of getting some sleep. Martie throws the towel aside and snuggles beside me, wearing only her bra. Shoving her tits into my chest, she grabs me hard and starts kissing me. I’m not very responsive, as if to say, whatever special something we had in the tub is lost in the bed.
“Duff, Duff, I love you,” she babbles drunkenly.
“Shut up. You don’t even know me. You’re wasted. Go to sleep.”
“No, Duff. I’m serious. I’ve never met anyone like you before. I love you. I really do.”
“If you say that again, I’m going to hurt you. Now, shut up and go to sleep.”
She grabs my cock through the sheets and gives it a few strokes. She then drops off to sleep, almost instantly, and snores loudly. Hmm, guess that doesn’t say a fuck of a lot about my cock, which even by the strict standards of American hussies had always been well received.
DREAM SEQUENCE
I’m looking in the mirror, and I’m fully made-up, drag queen style, with rouge, lipstick, eyeliner, and mascara. Wearing Martie’s soaking wet black dress, with my leather jacket draped over my shoulders and my untied Doc Martins, I head down to the Ibis lobby, where Rat and Z await.
“Dig your makeup, man,” says Rat.
Though it’s daytime, a scythe that is the moon hangs surreptitiously above our huge, deluxe tour bus. As I climb onboard, I notice Simon is handcuffed to the steering wheel, his mouth sewn shut with big, metallic wires. “I’m feelin’ funky, baby,” says Rat, as he turns on the radio. It blasts some heavy, nasty rap.
“Didja fuck ‘er, fuck that skanky bitch/ Didja ram ‘er, Didja scratch that itch/didja plug ‘er, then leave her in a ditch...”
“Rat, turn that off. It’s awful. Do we have any Ramones? Where’s Dahl?”
“We killed him, and Tim is no more. It’s our tour now.”
Rat is suddenly dressed in a toga with a laurel leaf headpiece. He dances up and down the aisle of the bus, which seems to stretch for miles. The miles of aisles are lined with barnyard animals—pigs, goats, cows, chickens, and what have you—like a rock ‘n’ rolling Noah’s Ark. Rat babbles in tongues. Z follows him around with a fruit basket, as he tells everyone to bow to the great Caligula, though no one else is on the bus.
I take off my leather jacket, unzip the proper zippers, and it turns into my overnight bag. I open a side pocket, and pull out Martie’s head, which someone has neatly severed and packed away for me.
“Oh, I’d like some head,” laughs Z, followed by Rat. Soon all three of us are chortling uncontrollably, save Simon, whose mouth has been sewn shut.
END DREAM SEQUENCE
The phone rings loudly, it seems to literally leap into bed with me. Simon’s cheerful limey accent chirps through the receiver, awakening me from my death sleep. “We’re leaving in five minutes. Cheers.”
There’s a knock on the door. “Boy, a hot dog stand would clean up around here,” I say to no one in particular, remarking about the sudden traffic. “Tim, be a guy and get the door.” I roll over, notice I’m alone in bed, and scream as I’m reminded of the pain in my ribs, which now really, really hurts like a motherfucker. Tim answers the door and it’s the two girls, with tea, coffee, rolls, toast, and jelly. “How nice,” I say, as I dig in. Small talk is exchanged, Tim is still even feigning romance, but I want to eat, pack, and get moving. Joannie mentions she saw Ratboy in the hall. “With his hat and sunglasses,” she opines, “he looks like a real pop star.” An amusing comment, I make a mental note of it, though I’m not sure why. Perhaps it will be of some use in the future.
Down in the lobby I say goodbye to Martie while the rest of the band has their eyes glued to me, grinning. I walk out to the van past their snickers, while Tim stays behind and milks a long goodbye out of it. We load the van, climb in, and Simon backs the Renault right into a BMW parked next to us.
“Simon, what the fuck are you doing?” shouts Dahl.
“Let’s just get the fuck out of here,” I suggest. “Hit and run, it’s an American tradition. No sleep ‘til Lieden.”
As we pull out, Martie and Joannie are walking across the street to the train station to get back to town, the opposite direction from where we’re going. We never offered them a ride anyway. “Look at them,” chuckles Dahl. “Talk about going home with your tail between your legs.”
“So, McGruff, did you fuck her?” inquires Rat.
“No, I didn’t. Besides, a gentleman never tells, so don’t ask again.”
“Oh, you fucked her. You dog, you McGruff.”
“No, I really didn’t. We just took a bath. Very therapeutic, like you suggested.”
“Well, I fucked mine,” boasts Tim. “And I’ll tell you what, when you were still in the bathroom after yours came out, she walked up to me while I was laying in bed. I pulled her towel off and gave her pussy a lick.”
“Man, you don’t know where that pussy’s been,” admonishes Dahl, who was beginning to take more and more of a fatherly tone with Tim. “I hope you at least wore a rubber.”
The van got very quiet, and Tim failed to respond.
Next we arrive in Leiden. Leiden, Uden, Eeklo, all these towns are becoming difficult to differentiate from one another. We get to the hall, and despite a crippling hangover, I settle in for a few hours of Funhouse pinball with Simon, who brutally beats me every time. A friendly blonde girl who books the venue walks up to me, and asks: “Are you the bass player for Jeff Dahl? You’ve got a phone call, a Dutch lady.”
What the hell? I pick up the office phone. “Duff, it’s Martie. Duff, I hate to call and ask you this, but I honestly can’t remember. I must have blacked out. Did we, uh, well, you know...?”
“No, we didn’t. Do you still love me?”
“What about Joannie? Do you know?”
“That depends on how much anyone cares to believe Tim. I would say the answer in that case is a probable yes. You may have done things with him for that matter, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Oh, my God.”
“Look, don’t worry about anything. You just got a little drunk. You’re fine. Watch what you drink, and don’t go to see any rock bands for awhile, okay?”
I hang up the phone, notice my trembling hands, and wonder how on earth I could give advice to anyone about drinking.
The Leiden gig is succumbing to a stronger punk vibe then the previous few nights. The band plays with extra venom. Following the gig, Simon and I are hanging out at the T-shirt stand, rapping with a guy named Big George who is, once and for all, going to score me some hash. I get a sizeable bag for ten gilders, about seven and a half bucks. Meanwhile, a tall, very politically correct Leiden punker is scrutinizing our shirts and caps, which, unfortunately, haven’t been selling well. The Iron Cross insignia is used quite a bit in Dahl’s design. He always liked the look of it, and felt it gave the merchandise an American biker feel. The Leiden punk is not in agreement.
“This is very bad. You’ll see. These symbols still carry a lot of weight, many bad feelings.”
“I just sell the shit. I don’t design it,” Tim says with his usual lack of eloquence.
“This is very bad. The Germans are not going to like it. You play Germany?”
“Yeah, we’re going to Germany, for quite a while,” I answer.
“No, the Germans won’t like this. They might get violent. They’re Germans. They will get violent. Maybe you should not sell these things in Germany.”
“We’re in business here, friend. We’ve gotta pay the bills all the way across the continent. We have to try and sell these shirts everywhere we go.”
“Very bad. The Germans will be angry. I see bad things ahead for all of you. The gutters of the streets will run red with your blood.”
It suddenly grew silent. I looked at Simon. He looked at me. We both looked at Tim. The gutters of the streets will run red with our blood. Darkly poetic, yes. Exaggerated? One would hope so. Food for thought nonetheless.
We go from Leiden to Goes, pronounced “goose,” where we play another small hall to an enthusiastic audience of guys and a few of their girlfriends. The only girls who approach us are very homely and seemingly desperate, so obviously the pseudo-orgy in Utrecht was an isolated incident. At the club, we get an excellent home cooked meal of Indian food that at least makes the night worthwhile. Leaning back, full, content, and picking my teeth, I look over at the dressing room wall and notice some superb graffiti that says, “We have ways of making you rock.” Clever, four stars.
Simon relays the details of an adventure he has kept under wraps. “You know that blonde booking agent at the club last night in Leiden? She met me back at my hotel room after you lot were safely in bed. She was hot and ready to fuck, no doubt about it.”
“How’d you get her in and out—of the room that is—without any of us seeing her, especially in the morning?”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t let her sleep through to the morning. I had a go at her then told her to leave. Must’ve been about four in the morning by then. She didn’t want to go, and tried everything to get me to let her stay. When I finally got her out the door, she suddenly went down on me, right there in the hall outside my room. I went, ‘alright, fair enough,’ leaned back, and let her blow me.” Road romance, the stuff dreams are made of.
We end up extending our stay in Holland with a visit to Apeldoorn, a bigger, college town, meaning people under thirty and even some girls might be at the show. The gig is more or less the same as any other, except that tonight the soundman has some sort of deep-seeded grudge against music and takes it out on us with an offensive monitor mix.
Tim has been imbibing on the backstage beer a lot. No one’s really keeping an eye on him. Following our rockage, Rat and I stumble to the club’s bar to hang out and see what the available girls look like. Rat’s funny about girls. He talks about how he’d like to get some attention, how he’s not used to being in a band like this with virtually no female appeal, and so forth. Should a girl actually go after him, it becomes instantly obvious that, despite the talk, his girlfriend is first and foremost on his mind. Nonetheless, a cute, bespectacled brunette resembling a young Diane Keaton is chatting up Rat. She asks him about Tim, of all things.
“Is that blond surfer guy with you guys?”
Rat confirms that he indeed is.
“He’s really revolting. He was following me around, a footstep behind, leering and drooling. He comes up with these horrible lines to try and talk to you.”
“Let me guess, are you from around here?” laughs Rat.
Some guy walks up to me, dragging behind him a girl with short, curly, brown hair and a moronic smile.
“My girlfriend, very naughty!”
“Well, spank her once for me, pal.”
“No, really naughty!”
What is this leading to, something sacrificial?
“Her name is Hette.”
“That’s Naughty Hette, I presume.”
She hands me a Jeff Dahl shirt, which means they actually bought one. In sign language, she asks me to sign it. Having no marker, I invite her backstage for the ritual. Another couple and Hette’s bragging boyfriend follow, but only Hette is brave enough to cross the proscenium into the musician’s netherworld: the backstage. I locate a marker and sign the damn thing, while her boyfriend keeps peeking through the door to see what’s going on.
“Christ, he tells me your naughty, sends you off alone with me, then watches us like a mother hen.” She smiles, but I can tell she has no idea what I’m saying.
Back at the bar, Rat says the poor man’s Diane Keaton wants to go dancing, which is quickly becoming our pastime of choice. We plan to go to the center of town, actually a pretty happening little strip for Holland, when we suddenly realize how much tension is in the air amongst our provincial six man society. Dahl is uptight, worried about getting back to the hotel, worried about the equipment in the van, worried about whether his troops are getting too out of control. Tim is drunk, woozy, and looking to vomit at any moment. Simon and Z are playing it cool. They tell us to head to the disco, and that they’ll catch up in a taxi after they put Tim and Dahl to bed.
Flashing lights, drinks clanging, an evenly mixed crowd. Here we go, now we’re having fun. The four of us guys and this girl hit the dance floor. We’re now at a point where dancing is just a physical release. We don’t need to be dancing with girls; we’re just as happy dancing with each other, giggling and drinking. Z busts some killer moves. Simon does the James Brown shuffle. I show off my locker-funk steps. Before we know it, we’re in the middle of the dance floor with the remainder of the crowd spreading away from us, as if we are diseased or something. We don’t care. The more they react, the more we overdo it, making rude faces and doing outrageous moves.
Soon enough, we’ve worn this poor girl out. She can’t keep up anymore, and bids us farewell. We stay on. Just before the joint closes, the DJ plays the original Stooges version of our encore blowout, “Dirt.”
“Yeah!!!” we all shout in unison, hitting the floor, doing the slow motion Iggy snake dance in a tribal circle. By now we are the only ones left dancing. The groove trudges and lurches along. His Majesty Iggy Pop coos, “Can you feel it, can you feel it when you touch me? Can you feel it when you cut me? I’m alive, I’m alive.”
For just a lightning’s flash of a moment, we do feel it. We’re alive.