Retrospective

I turned 68 this year and it freaks me out!

I have wanted to start an online diary for years, and have tried a few times, but have always been too busy to add yet another time consuming project to my massive workload. This is the time. I am aging, and fast, and before it is too late, I want to start logging some of my lifetime experiences for prosperity.

Even tho I have also added some stories to the forum under sojournstar.com, I will spew my thoughts onto this blog at will. My thoughts will most likely not be in any cronological order, besides age is stealing my memory files, but the things I write here will all be fact. I write a lot like I talk and think, so get ready for the roller coaster ride.

Kevin Dubrow

A while ago (years) Kevin Dubrow of Quiet Riot died in his home in Las Vegas. I heard this fly by me on The Soup one night, Joel the host stated something to the fact that "Kevin Dubrow died this week, and to honor his passing we give you this" and he proceeded to show a riot, with silence on the screen. This freaked me, and unfortunately my pc had crashed in the previous Nov, and I could not search it down.

I thought this was kind of a rude way to state this fact, but my other half Stephen said "at least they said something" which is true. When I finally got a new pc and searched it down, it was then it became a reality.

Why did it freak me so much? Because Kevin was once a friend, altho not a very good one. He had a band in the 80's called DuBrow, and he played the Starwood frequently in Los Angeles where I once worked. He played the stages there with bands like Snow, (Carlos and Tony Cavazo, and Stephen Quadros) who are still good friends, and London, the Nikki Sixx band (still known as Frank then) that morphed into Motley Crue.

Kevin wasnt always the friendliest of the bunch, he had an ego as big as David Lee Roth and a way too bad ass attitude, but under all that he was still a nice guy. I hated to hear about his death, and it made me think, he is way younger than me, and so are many other of my old friends who are gone or have serious health issues now. We all get old, but it seems like the Rockers go faster and harder than any others.

Up until a years ago, I was still vital, energetic, and very active. I used to run around the venues I managed or worked in like they were little boxes of nothing. The last big venue I was in management with, the Floodzone in Richmond Virginia (the size of the Starwood), had these huge widely spaced stairwells, and I would run up and down those steps maybe 50 times a night if not more. It never phased me. Now I am lucky if I can walk up my porch steps.

I learned a few years back that another old friend from Motley, has a similair back problem as I do, and when I saw footage of him on a special about the band, I was shocked to find how bent over and in agony he looked. He had the same look of agony on his face that I do now on a daily basis.

I guess the bottom line here is, you never know what, or how quick life is going to hand you a bowl of lemons, and you cant always make lemonaid from them, so its best to try and live your life to the fullest you can before the lemons devour you.

And in the words of Cameron Crowes mother "Don't Take Drugs"!

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Come and Gone

Well another birthday has come and gone, and I have to add another year to forms I fill out UGH! It was pretty uneventful for the most part, but glad I made it one more year.

I have been slacking off a little on my regular work, as I have been both lazy and tired. Instead I have been looking thru old files, emails and accounts. Funny what you find when you do that. I fould some old pages that are actually still up on the internet from years ago, I had forgotton completely about. I even ran accross an old interview I took from the Project Object guys when they were touring playing all Zappas music with Ike Willis.

I was thrilled to see Ike again the few times P O did shows here, as I had not seen him in many years, not since many of us left Salt Lake City and the music department there, in search for wider more profitable music roads. I was living with my honey at the time, Tom, he and his brothers and his dad, Doc Fowler, were a huge force in music in any city, but they took over SLC. Tom and I broke up after a couple years, and he went off to play with Its A Beautiful Day, Santana, and then Frank Zappa. So did 2 of his brothers Walt and Bruce. We all stayed very good friends, and after many years on the road myself, I ended up in Los Angeles with the rest of them boys, and thats where I stayed for at least 13 years, and boy did I have a blast living there till I got stupid and married my 1st husband. Word of warning:: If you are a musician or entertainer, dont marry someone who doesnt even listen to music. Stick with your own kind, baby, trust me LOL!!

Anyway, during the SLC days, I had played in numerous bands in the area, an 8 piece horn band, a 6 piece horn band, various rock bands etc.. but then I hooked up with a dude looking for a female that really could sing LOL. I say really could, because it was he and his wife, and 3 musicians, and niether he or his wife could sing. He was one of those rich guys who had always wanted to be in a band so he decided he would put up the money, buy the equiptment, and hire his own people, and have him and his wife, and me, front the band. HA HA what a fiasco those 2 were. the band wasn't really too bad, but between the no talent duo, and the enormous fights the 2 of them had, (I wont even go into some of the stuff the rest of the band had to endure) it was not long before she left his sorry butt for some guy she met while we were on the road LOL. GOOD RIDDANCE I say!!

Now it's a 5 piece, and guess who is getting more requests for songs than the other, MOI!!
This band had a lot of good experiences, but I finally had to move on to a better band. I must say that for a cover band, that was getting too close to disco for my comfort, I sure was making some bucks and perks from the hotels and fans. Plus every where I went in those days, fans used to give me turquoise jewelry, Tons of it!! I used to wear some turquoise in those days, and I guess the more I wore the more I got for gifts LOL. It was insane! I am talking nice stuff too, not junk. Ahh, those were definately the days.

I also went to the most obscure place with that band. Yellowknife North West Territories. We arrived at the Edmonton airport in Canada, it was 30ish degrees out when we left the car in the airport parking lot for the month we were to be gone, I also left my favorite high heeled sandles in the back window. When we arrived in YK, it was -40 below, thats right, -40 below. We left the hotel every night after the gig to go get pizza across the street, and by the time we got inside our tears and snot was frozen to our faces WOW! It would get as much as -50 below there during the month we stayed, and I had a real nice cold the first week I was there. No one knew tho cause my mic only was turned up to like 9 or 10, because I had laryngitis and could only get a whisper out of my voice. No one knew tho, not until they tried to talk to me off stage. The bartender was making me flaming drinks and feeding me hot honey, lemon and whiskey.

We were there almost a month already, and never got to see the Northern Lights, which were dancing putside the hotel every night while we were on stage. then one night the hotel owner stopped the band and drug us all out to see the lights. It really was awesome, and they do sing by the way.

I was also having trouble with my balance and stuff while I was there. The Eskimos said it happened to everyone who visited there. it has to do with the magnetic pull. Sometimes I would feel like I was walking on 3 inches of air, and others, my knees would give way and I would buckle right down to the floor. Vey strange indeed.

Anyhow, as good an experience as it was, I was thrilled to see Edmonton and the car again. Funny tho, you know those shoes I said I left in the back window of the car, well the rubber souls on the bottom of them melted while we were away, because apparantly it was now 85 degrees in Edmonton when we returned AHHH... We left in March and returned in April and it was HOT!

Well I miss those shoes (frown) HA HA!!