(DEVO)
As front man for DEVO, Mothersbaugh introduced flowerpot hats and janitorial jumpsuits to the post-punk, New Wave scene of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Too arty for the punks and too weird for lasting mainstream success, Mothersbaugh has always been an oddball in a weird, beautiful world.
I’ve got a good drug story involving Andy Warhol. This goes back to 1977, prior to DEVO’s first album recording. That whole summer we had been playing our first gigs at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB, so things were starting to heat up for the band. This woman that was an A&R rep at Columbia called me and introduced herself. Her name was Susan Bloom, and I knew who that was because that summer in New York, after the gigs, I’d just watch TV. The only thing that was on late night in those days, before cable, was UHF, which was public access. Al Goldstein, the owner of Screw magazine, had a show called the Blue Channel. It was pretty wild and weird, with porn stars and underground New York celebrities.
The host of the show was Susan Bloom, who had this really sexy Brooklyn accent, big, beautiful curls, and large, pendulous breasts. I was in my early twenties and had only lived in Akron, Ohio, so she was the epitome of beauty and celebrity. She called up, and after inquiring if I had any plans that night, asked if I’d like to double date with her, along with Andy Warhol and Michael Jackson. I agreed to it, and she picked me up at my hotel room. She changed into this amazing dress and left her clothes, so I was thinking, “This is gonna be a great night.” She immediately tried to find something for me to wear. After picking through my suitcase, she reluctantly decided the nicest thing I had was my janitor’s uniform, which DEVO always wore on stage.
She took me to Studio 54, which was my first time, and I wasn’t familiar with it at all. There was the big dance floor and another room where they served drinks. They had a little VIP section, which was like a sunken floor below a couple steps. It was roped off, and that’s where we met Andy and Michael. Warhol had also brought this young man that looked like Li’l Abner. He was this shiny, buff kid wearing OshKosh B’Gosh overalls with no shirt. Andy was rubbing the kid’s chest under the overalls, and the kid kept whispering to me, “Andy’s gonna make me a star.” Michael Jackson was very quiet the whole time. He was still black in those days and had a big Afro. He had just done The Wiz and was wearing a suede, Big Apple cap with patched, bellbottom pants, and enormous shoes. I wasn’t into the outfit, but I loved his music.
I was wearing my stupid janitor outfit and looked like the custodian that had come to clean up vomit. I was feeling really self-conscious because everyone had these flashy disco outfits. All the music sounded like Donna Summer, and I couldn’t differentiate one song from the next. Everyone in the VIP section was famous except me, and all these people keep rushing over to fawn all over Andy and Michael. They had all kinds of drugs, and cocaine vials were being passed around. The coke never made it down to me, but I wouldn’t have known what to do with it anyway. I might have eaten it off the spoon.
A joint started going around, and Michael was sitting next to me. The joint came to him, and he just held it for a few seconds, staring at it quizzically. He handed it to me, and I’m from Ohio, where we didn’t have any money. If someone had marijuana, it was a big deal. We’d go over to the house of the person with “killer weed,” and there’d be a joint the size of a toothpick. We’d all drink a bunch of wine first, so when we’d get this tiny little joint, we’d be “enlightened.” You’d take a hit, and someone would say, “Are you feeling it?” I’d be like, “I think so? Pass me some more wine.” When the joint came to me in the VIP section, I hit it like I would have that tiny joint. I started coughing like crazy, and it was clear I was a total rube.
I tried passing it to Susan, but she was talking to someone really passionately, and I didn’t want to interrupt. I took another massive hit and started coughing and drooling all over again. I tried to pass it to Michael, but he just waved me off. Susan suddenly wanted to dance. I said, “Oh, wait a minute. I don’t know how.” She tried telling me that I dance on stage, but I had to tell her that I was just making up all those moves in the moment. Gerry [Casele] and I did make our own choreography, but it was all rigid and stiff. It looked nothing like what everybody was doing on the dance floor. They all had these rubbery, liquid movements and looked great. It all looked very determined and professional, and it made me feel like an alien.
Susan grabbed my hand anyway and led me to the dance floor. I stood on the edge of the floor, and she went ahead and started doing all the disco moves with her friends. The lighting systems in those days were still really rudimentary. While this was one of the world’s preeminent clubs, it still looked kind of ramshackle. They had this thing that was a cow jumping over a moon, a huge coke spoon, and all this crazy stuff. Above the disco floor, they had strobe lights and these big, colored light bulbs that looked like the signals at the start of a drag race. There were about a dozen of those rigs in the ceiling, and they were motorized so they could turn or lower toward the dance floor in a circle. They were rotating right over the heads of the dancers.
It was as cool as it got in the world of light shows back then. The light guy was really going at it, and making the lights do crazy stuff. He was spinning them really fast, and they were only attached by a thin wire to the ceiling. It started to look like a giant, multi-colored weed whacker was spinning just above everyone’s heads, and I was starting to get very nervous. He brought them so low at one point, that I noticed people were getting whacked in the head. Blood was flying everywhere, and people were screaming. It was complete pandemonium. The song was playing way too loud, and I just stood there frozen on the edge of the dance floor. Susan was looking back at me smiling, just dancing like crazy. She was reaching out to me and wiggling her fingers, trying to coax me onto the floor.
She kept motioning for me to come out and dance, and I thought because she was in the middle of the floor, she couldn’t see all these people getting clipped with the lights. People were slipping and sliding in all the blood, doing these crazy dance moves. I screamed out to her, “Get off the floor! It’s a bloodbath!” She finally came over to me, asking what the hell I was screaming. I blurted out, “A bunch of people just got hit with those light fixtures and everyone’s bleeding!” She seemed confused, and when I looked back out at the dance floor, everything was normal again. All the blood was gone, and there were no corpses on the floor. People were just dancing to some stupid disco song. She looked at me and said, “You didn’t smoke any of that PCP, did you?” I said, “What’s PCP?” She groaned, and hurried me back to the VIP section.
She said to Andy, “I think he smoked PCP. I better get him back to his hotel room.” Andy just said, “Oh. How interesting.” She got me in a cab and back to the hotel. She pushed me into my hotel room, screaming, “Good luck! I’ll be back tomorrow for my clothes!” I just laid in the bed, completely rigid, frying. That was my first date with Michael Jackson and my only date with Andy Warhol and Susan Bloom.