Stories From The Road: Deborah Frost and Metallica

By Deborah Frost

I once walked into the dressing room of a very huge metal band — well, they were not quite as huge then as they are now, oh what the hell, they are probably the biggest band in the world — Metallica (and they didn’t get that way without airing their own dirty laundry very publicly from revealing in various cover stories tales of the drummer being fellated under the stage nightly during the bass solo to the somewhat drippier venereal complications).

Metallica in the late 1980s.

Anyway, they were somewhere in the middle of the bill on one of those late 1980s “Monsters of Rock” concerts at RFK Stadium in Washington, I think it was. There was a lot of waiting around in the days they were all lumped together without their own private jets or drivers and everyone seemed to be in a grumpy mood, particularly James Hetfield, who was sitting next to two fairly unattractive girls who could have been models — only for one of those “BEFORE” acne-medication ads.

Instead of his usual warm greeting, James barely grunted at me that he was doing an “interview.” Which was a little strange, given that he was not really even having a conversation with the skinnier one of the two girls, who was not equipped with any of the usual tools of the trade, like a tape recorder or pencil or piece of paper, only a flimsy little sun-dress which was only remarkable in its cheapness and that it was fairly inappropriate for the weather but did reveal all of her other lack of equipment in every other department.

James suddenly got up, jerking her by the wrist, and disappeared toward the bathroom where other members of the crew and band were, eager to try out the brand new little video cameras (they had just come on the market) they had been playing with. Kirk Hammett also grabbed what I called my Helen Keller camera — one of those point and shoot 35 mm things (this was in the pre-digital era) that even she could have operated.

There was a great deal of commotion when James discovered that Kirk was holding them both over the top of the bathroom stall — where — well, several months later, when I had forgotten all about it and the prints came back from the developer, I was shocked to discover, right in the middle of some happy family vacation, exactly what he was doing with this young lady crouched on the toilet and could not believe that I had not been arrested for pornography. Then again, maybe that only happens if it involves pictures of children and it was VERY clear in vivid living color that James was NO child.

It was almost the end of Metallica as we knew it, when James suddenly roared out of the bathroom, grabbing Kirk by the throat with one hand and the video camera, from which he ripped the film, with the other, before stomping on it and practically smashing the guitarist’s head against the wall as he begged for mercy.

Dokken in the late 1980s.

How my camera was handed off to me in all of the commotion I have no idea, but the drummer from Dokken swaggered into the bathroom just as the girl was coming out. Before she had a chance to make it to the sink, he grabbed her (they seemed to have been previously introduced) in a most amorous embrace, practically sweeping her off her feet– you might have thought it was one of those old fashioned romantic movies if only they’d had better costumes– as he shoved his tongue down her throat.

“Congratulations, ” I said, “You just blew James Hetfield!”

Legendary rock music critic Deborah Frost is the leader of the Brain Surgeons.

Stories From The Road: The Pleasure Seekers meet Iron Butterfly

By Nancy Quatro Glass

I was only 15, on tour with the The Pleasure Seekers, and quite innocent to the ways of musicians.

Nancy Quatro with tambourine performing with The Pleasure Seekers, 1966

Does anyone remember the band Iron Butterfly?

Iron Butterfly in the 1960s.

Picture me walking down the hotel hall to my room, all of the doors open with the smell of pot all around, and out walks the guitar player from Iron Butterfly into the hall wearing only a towel and carrying a watermelon.

He bends down to roll the watermelon down the hall to me and his towel drops. He is standing there buck naked. (That is the first time I ever saw a man’s penis).

I turned and ran the other way cause I thought it might do something scary to me!

I learned very quickly that I would see many more musicians in much the same way as they seem to want to bare all as often as possible.

Nancy Quatro Glass spent her teen years singing and playing bass in The Pleasure Sisters, a popular 1960s all-female Detroit garage rock band formed by her sisters Patti, Suzi, and Arlene. Nancy and Patti went on to form the hard rock band Cradle and are currently at work reissuing an album of Cradle’s music.

Stories From The Road: Pylon tours with Gang of Four

By Vanessa Briscoe Hay

Back in 1980 or so, my band Pylon was on a short tour through the Midwest and parts of Canada with post punk legends the Gang of Four. The two bands have been friends since the summer of 1979 when we had opened for them in Philadelphia and in New York City on our first trip out of Athens, Georgia.

Pylon performing in the 1980s.

Both bands had stopped for the night at an enormous Holiday Inn near the Canadian border. The generic corridors seemed to stretch for miles. The next day, we were making our first trip across the border to our first Canadian show. The members of Pylon and our roadie/soundperson were all staying in one room. Guys two per bed. I got the rollaway cot, but it was my own bed and not the floor. We were used to sleeping on floors. Actually getting to stay in hotels for the whole tour was a huge step up for us.

Hugo Burnham (the drummer for the Gang of Four) and his brother Jolian, (GO4 tour manager), invited us to come watch TV and hang out in their room. I noticed that Hugo had a nicely typed-up list of their equipment and serial numbers sitting on top of the TV. I became worried because we hadn’t done anything like that. I brought it to the attention to the rest of the band so we could make an equipment list too. I remember drinking beer, chatting and watching a documentary about Jimi Hendrix on the television. I’m sure that some Rebel Yell was available too. All great fun!

The British band Gang of Four.

After awhile, most of the members of Pylon had drifted back to the hotel room. Curtis Crowe (Pylon’s drummer) and I remained behind. Eventually realizing that it was getting late, we decided to head back to our room. I guess we were inebriated — as a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure that we were! On arrival to our room, we suddenly realized that neither of us had a key. We banged on the door for awhile to no avail. Our fellow bandmates were sleeping pretty deeply and obviously didn’t hear us. Curtis and I put our heads together and decided that we should go back to Hugo’s room and ask if we could sleep on the floor.

Heading back down the hall, we passed an open door. On the bed lay Jon King (the lead singer of the Gang of Four) fully dressed and sleeping on his back with the lights blazing overhead. Curtis and I both agreed that Jon wouldn’t mind. He was our friend! It was very convenient, too. We carefully locked and latched the door for him and turned off all the lights and crawled into the other bed fully clothed and went to sleep.

Sometime, early the next morning someone was shaking me. I blearily opened my eyes. Cold, early morning light was pouring through the window. Ouch! A guy was angrily yelling “Who the fuck are you?!” Curtis and I both sat up and looked at each other and realized, yikes! THIS WAS NOT JON KING! Just someone that looked a little bit like him.

We jumped up. Apologized. And ran back to our room. This time when we knocked on our door, someone woke up and let us in.

Vanessa Briscoe Hay is the lead singer of both the influential alternative rock band Pylon and the more recently-formed Supercluster. Vanessa is married to musician Bob Hay. They have two daughters.