Jaan Uhelszki

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Set podcast.
My guest today his music Writers, who was senior editor
at Crew Magazine in addition to her other accomplishments. Jan, Hi,
how are you. I'm good. So there's a new documentary
on Queen Magazine. Are you happy with it? I am

(00:30):
happy with it. I mean, I have to say I
ended up with ulcers of the three years of making it,
but the end product actually is much better than I
ever imagined it would be. Well, if you had ulcers
for three years, that would indicate you were heavily involved
in the production of the film. H Can you tell
us more about that? Yeah, I actually wasn't. Initially, I

(00:51):
was the conduit between J. J. Kramer, whose father was
Barry Kramer, the founder of the magazine, and Scott Crawford,
who I had worked with at Heart Magazine. And I
made the introduction and I thought that was just enough
until they kept asking me questions, and the questions were
really bad, like oh, I've got to jump in here
and say no, no, no, no, this is the way

(01:13):
it was. So just in increments they pulled me into
being first a consultant and then a co writer and
then a co producer, So I ended up having to
wrangle most of the bands that you see in the
documentary because honestly, it was time to collect the favors.
You know. It's like if I had bead on the
road with Kiss as many times as I have and

(01:35):
got on stage, then my figured they could speak in
the documentary. So it was one of those things. I
just got out all the trading cards and started cashing
them in. Okay, Well, you you said they had bad
questions which would indicate a lack of knowledge. You remember
any of them? Well, I think that they wondered, Like
they would ask me questions like who is this? Like
who is Rick Siegel? Who is Dealer? And are these
people important? You know, the very first pillars of the

(01:59):
people who founded Cream. So they didn't have this working
knowledge of that, and I only did because I was there,
you know. I mean the sad truth about rock journalism
and maybe rock bands is they eat their young. So
there weren't a lot of us around to ask, so
it was pretty much me and J. J. Cramer's mother,
Connie Kramer, who were actually witness this to this. So

(02:22):
I felt like I had the sacred duty honestly a
sacred duty to get in there and get it right
for them. Now you say you wrote the film. Uh,
had you had any experience in film or was that
required in this case? It's kind of like it I
ever written before I went to Cream. No, no, uh no,
it was It was not. It wasn't like writing the script.

(02:45):
It was more like fashioning the right questions to elicit
the stories that I wanted to tell, the things that
I remembered that were important. And as it went along,
it started a narrative. Arcs started being creative by actually
the interviews. It's like the first rule of journalism, Like
when you go into a story, you can't go with

(03:06):
any preconceived notions. You have an idea of what you want,
but you have to let the witnesses speak. And the
better story was there. Um. It really started to have
shape when we interviewed Cameron Crowe and he likened Cream
to a band and with three members. I mean it
actually had more members and it was more like an

(03:26):
ensemble cast of friends. But that was a really good
hook because we could organize the three big personalities that
really were the foundation of Cream. Berry Kramer, who was
a pugnacious visionary who picked a fight to get what
he wanted. Dave Marsh another pugnacious visionary unless your bangs,

(03:46):
who never took anything seriously but was a covert intellectual.
So it was this really combination of these three personalities
that made Cream and the various camps that collected around
their viewpoints. So that I mean, I like, oh, Cameron
a big debt for actually making it easier for us.
And of course Barry and Lester are deceased, so that

(04:10):
makes it even more difficult. Were there any discussions, arguments,
disagreements over what the history was, Well, I think that
people think it's one way, and it really wasn't. I
think that there's this whole perception of when you're writing
stuff that comes out of your fingers. There's not a
lot of machinations and how to get the right people,

(04:30):
or how to get the right acts to cover, or
or exactly how bombastic and how i'm gonna say glamorous,
but how exciting it was to be in the presence
of rock when it was really I'm not gonna say infancy,
because we really were late sixties early seventies rock, but
there was this collaborative notion between the bands and the

(04:55):
journalists and the photographers that we're all doing the same
thing together and we were going to actually feed off
of each other. So I thought that was important because
especially in a time period where you get no access
or very little access to an artist, then it was
really it was anything but that. I mean there were
times when we would take like Leslie West, the guitarists

(05:18):
from Mountain, and we would convince him to be on
our cover, but to do that here we had to
cover him in Whitecastle Hamburgers. So it was like there
was all these deals struck, but it was all this
sense of fun, like we felt like we were on
the same side. And honestly, the difference between the rock
writers that Cream and the artists were they had better clothes,

(05:39):
I mean, playing and simple, and probably more money or
access to more money, yeah, more money than and you
know all the things that went along with it. But
it really there wasn't the sense of there in Valhalla
and we were it was it was really that we
were all in the same playing field. Well, of course
this was a heyday, as you say, sort of the

(06:00):
second wave. We had the British invasion than we had
album rock and that's when Queen began. And then of
course it was mega in the early seventies. You had
access when no one had access. Did it become dere
gourt you or were you pinching yourself all the time?
You know? I think I think we had this real
sense of that they weren't that much different. I mean, okay,

(06:22):
going on on tour with LEDs up and I was
pinching myself and wishing that they weren't such an assholes
at times, you know. But but the fact was it
was that was one that got me. Other than that
I had actually had a job. There was a bollroom
and in Detroit called the Granny Ballroom. It was model
on a film more experiment, you know, like the Bill

(06:44):
Graham And there's a documentary online about it, right, yeah,
there is. So I was the Coca Cola girl there
for three years, so I actually saw everybody and I
had to bring them Coca cola. So I saw a
lot of a little bit slower. What was what were
the duties of the Coca Cola girl? The biggest duty
was to make sure no one spiked the Coca Cola's
because it was those years of dosing, especially when the

(07:07):
Grateful Dead would play the Grandy Ballroom. So my most
important job was to keep my eye on the sodas
because what you would do is because it was such.
It would be a big night, especially in the summer,
and you lay out all the drinks and some would
come along and try to put LSD into the drinks.
And that happened so many times that that was a
designated role. Okay, that that begs the question. Were you

(07:31):
ever dosed? Only once? But not at the Grandy Ballroom
only there was a festival called the Goose Lake Festival.
It was the same dosing that felled the Stooges. Uh
Dave Alexander, the guitar player the Stooges, also got dozed
and when he got on stage to play with the Stooges,
he forgot how to play guitar. Had I had a guitar,

(07:51):
I would have forgotten how to play guitar. But that
was the only time. No, I was really shrewd about it.
When you saw your friends babbling, I mean, the whole
thing about being dosed, you just think you're going to say,
do you have a grand brain aneurism? You don't think
you're dose. You just think something is profoundly wrong. So
that just scared me. Okay. Staying on that same tip,

(08:14):
even though alcohol really came back in the seventies, were
you someone who got involved in drugs and alcohol? No,
I honestly, to be completely real, there are too many
calories and alcohol because, to quote the Sainted Paul Family,
he says, rock and roll is never kind to the
fat boy. Rock and roll is less kind to the

(08:36):
rock writer. You know, you can't look like someone's mother
or grandmother or fat cousin. If you're going to interview
rock bands, You've got to like dress the part. And
that was always part of it. Okay, Well that begs
the question once again, are you will you consider yourself
at that time to be anorexic? Uh? There are days
I was a little antorexic. Yeah. Um, you know I've

(09:00):
I've always tried to be you know, trying to be spin.
But yeah, there were times where I was definitely following
the Patty Boy diet of two salting crackers and a
slice of cheese. So yeah I was. And how about today?
Not today? Not just normal? Okay, So you get a

(09:21):
gig at the Grandy Ballroom. How old are you? I
was fifteen? Okay. Where I grew up in Connecticut, you
couldn't work legally until you were sixteen. What was the
situation in Michigan? False? I D? Okay, And I mean,
first of all I went there. You had to be seventeen,
but I had a friendhood and older sisters, and it

(09:43):
was you could have idea that didn't have pictures on it.
You can get in with your school, I D. So
I got into the ball room with a false I D.
And I just never told them I wasn't seventeen, okay.
Two questions to get into the venue. Did you have
to be seventeen just to work there? Okay? So prior
to getting this gig at the Grandy Ballroom, how many

(10:03):
hell active were you in seeing shows? Well? I was.
The bar was adjacent to the stage, so I could
I could always have a prince ide to the stage.
I guess what I'm really asking is, prior to working
at the Grandy Ballroom, were you an avid concertgoer? Oh? Yeah,
I mean I convinced my parents to let me go
see the Stones in nineteen sixty six, all by myself.

(10:26):
So yeah, I have always all about yourself aline myself.
I think about that now, like, what the help were
they thinking and just dropping me off and arena, Um,
I would go see bands by myself because nobody wanted
to go with me. Well, I have that same experience.
I don't remember it at ten, but certainly once you
hit like fourteen fifteen and later, you know I would.

(10:47):
I would go and no one want to go, but
it wouldn't stop me. And the other thing that people
say is I have a friend of his concert promoter
in Denver. He says, well, he thinks about it throwing
a party, whereas back then they used to have seats.
It was like a religious experience more than you know,
just hanging with the people. Oh yeah, it really was.
It was like we were one. You know. It wasn't

(11:09):
like not too continually like conjure up the grateful dead,
but there was that sense of community that really came
out of the sixties that we were one. We were
all in it together. This was holy and actually there's
like some some kind of information that we're all sharing.
It's kinda like close encounters of the third kind. We
all saw mashed potatoes, we all saw mountains that our

(11:31):
mashed potatoes, So there was there was just something addictive
about it. And well, a lot of our generations sold
out after Reagan lowered taxes and legitimized greed. Where did
that leave you? Um? I had my mom years. I
actually um got off the road. I think I saw
another lids up until I got off the road. I

(11:52):
found out that I was pregnant and thought, okay, you
cannot be a mom and be a rock writer and
be on the road. So I actually took the eighties off.
My daughter was born eighty, and I didn't really I
came back and wrote like in the mid eighties, and
then came back completely in ninety one. And were you
married to your daughter's father? I was yes? And was

(12:13):
he in the music business? Yes, he owned berserk Lee Records. Um, okay,
that's Matthew KINGE Coffin. You are still married to him? Yes,
I am. That's you know, that's very rare, not only
for people who our generation, but people our age. How
did you meet him? I was working for a record
World that was with a minor trade in the in

(12:35):
the triad of trades and cash box billboard and record World,
which supposedly had the best charts that's what they said
Record World. They did say that for so many reasons,
but we will not explore here. And I was doing
a column called The Coast and it was deadline and
I got a tip from Toby Mamas, who now works

(12:58):
for Alice Cooper. Yeah, I hear from every day, I'm sure,
And he told me that Journey who had to managers, Um,
we're actually splitting ways. And I just stuck it in
the end of my column. No big deal, It wasn't flashy.
I just because I had an industry column. So the

(13:19):
next week I get a call from Rogerson Cowen and
they have a client, Matthew King Kaufman, and he wants
to take whoever wrote the item about um the Journey
managers to lunch because he had just had lunch with
them and they didn't tell him that that he that
they were breaking up. So he came down to l
A from Berkeley and took me to lunch and we

(13:44):
hit it off. He uh, he used to go to
the track. I used to go to the track. And
he had this contraption called a bio later and I
definitely have a metaphysical bend. And the bileage showed you
your virhythms. But also seemed like JFK had three critical
days in the day died. So I was fascinated, like
I wanted to see the day I was going to die.

(14:06):
So he left that lunch and he gave me his violator.
So fast forward, how many years later? Yeah, still married? Okay,
so it was essentially an instant romance. No, actually a boyfriend.
So I had to work work through that, you know.
I we were friends for about six months and we

(14:26):
would go to the track and then one day I
just thought, Wow, I've got something for this guy, Like
there's there's some chemistry. It's a slow burn. Okay, why
the track. I had an uncle who had horses, and
um he taught me how to handicap as a kid.
And I've always been really good at math, and I
love astrology, so I always would say, oh, it's just

(14:48):
horse astrology. If you figure out a horse's patterns much
like astrology, figure out some of these transits, then you
can actually be pretty good at predict who's going to
win at the track. And I was. And Matt grew
up across from Kilmaco in Maryland and he used to
go to the track as a kid. So we both

(15:08):
were handicappers, I mean one of those oddball kind of association.
So what was your biggest win ever? Enough to buy
furniture from my living room? And and at this if
we close your bedding career today in the black or
the red? Oh, definitely the black. Wo. Yeah, I'm careful

(15:30):
better and I'm really O C D about my numbers. Okay,
so I'll ask you, is it fixed or is it not?
Even if it is, there's certain things when you look
at a horse. There's a there used to be a
video tip called the fit of I think It's fit
racehorse by this woman called Bonnie lead Better, and she
would show you the physicality of a horse and how

(15:52):
you you should bet at it that if it has
certain kind of attributes, or if it had foam in
his leg or any of those things. So, even if
it's fixed, which I'm certain it is, you can still
override that if you look at the condition of horse,
because sometimes the horse just wants to run, no matter
what the jockeys thinking. Okay, let's go back to the
Grandy ball room. So you're the coke girl. How long

(16:15):
does that last? That loss? About three years? And in
that three years, you have a desire to get deeper
into the music business. Well, I would go home after
after my shift two o'clock in the morning, and I
would write about what I've seen. I just had a
sense it was better the second time around. So always
I was doing this little ad hoc reviews for myself,

(16:36):
just writing about bands. And right next to the the
coke counter there was a little kiosk. It was very
Kramer had a head shop and they sold like papers
and sundry things, and they sold cream magazines. I wasn't
there from day one, but I used to say them, Okay,

(16:57):
if I give you free Coca colas, can I write
for magazine? And they go, oh yeah, sure. But I
kept doing that because I was bent and determined that
I would write for cream magazine because there was not
the game in town. So yeah, it's funny because and
I worked in this place called the bird Feeder where
you said food on the plaza at Snowbird in Utah.

(17:17):
I would cree favor with the freestyle skiers by giving
them big ice cream. So it's like the same thing.
I've never actually had that experience. Okay, so you're staying
up till two in the morning when you're in high school.
I am, and your parents totally cool with that. My
mom was a dancer and she she used to dance

(17:38):
with jazz bands. So she said to me when I
was really young, the only thing I'm going to tell
you is never date a sax player and never try heroin.
So she was absolutely cool, you know. She They really
gave me a long leash. You know, they were they
were kind of Matthew. My husband always says they were
like Sid and Nancy, you know, because my parents just

(18:00):
like wild hipsters. So yeah, it was just normal for me. Okay,
so when did you do your homework? I did on Sundays. Actually,
like to this day, I hate Sundays because I had
to do play catchup. Okay, so you graduate from high school,
you're still working at the Grandy Ballroom. And then where

(18:21):
do you end up going to college? I go to
Wayne State University UM, and I actually that's actually the
bigger entrance to the Cream because when I was registering,
a friend of mine, unbeknownst he was growing out with
the art director at Cream, Charlie Oranger, And she says
to me, I'm just about to break up with them,

(18:42):
you know, I've got somebody else I have my eye
and I go, really, why would you? And she goes,
I don't know, it's just not my types. I said,
do you mind if I actually make a play for him? Um.
It was very subtle, but that was it. I met
Charlie Oranger, and that's how I got to Cream. Really
is that we just started having coffee dates and Um
eventually brought me over to the offices. So I met

(19:03):
everybody that way. Okay, did you graduate from college? Eventually?
I graduated ninety two because I was I finally got
a job full time at Cream and I couldn't do
college and Cream that I couldn't do that homework, so
I dropped out about a year and a half into it.
And then what was the motivation in the execution of graduating? Well,

(19:25):
I always felt like I wanted to to actually get
a degree, But I think the other thing is having
those ten mom years where I was just really pretty
much a housewife and learning astrology and playing the horses.
I thought, I've got to figure out my next act.
So I went back to school thinking I'd be a
history teacher. I got a degree in history, and the

(19:48):
only job I could get besides working for the Democratic
Party was working at magazine. So I worked at Band
magazine for a while, and then I just started freelancing
and then really worked my way back to my you know,
chop wood carry water before Enlightenment, chop wood carry water
after Enlightenment. I just became myself again. Okay. And where

(20:08):
did you get your degree? Cal Berkeley? Okay, so let's
go back. So you meet Orange or in the back
of your mind you want to work for queam in
in front of my mind, I want to work for Cream. Okay.
So this this is when you're like a freshman that
this starts to happen. Yeah, I'm a freshman. Okay, So

(20:30):
how do you drop it on him that, hey, I
want a connection to the magazine. You know, it was
just really subtle. He knew I was a writer, and
I was writing. I mean for myself. I had published
except for, you know, a couple of things in like
high school paper, but other than that nothing, And I
just talked about wanting to be a writer. So he
lived at the Cream offices. Cream was a series of

(20:52):
communes for the first like eight years or so, so
he lived where the offices were very Cramer and Dave
Marsh lives, so I would go there with them and
I hit it up. It wasn't so strategic. I mean
I like to be around people like me. I mean,
there is that whole misfit outsider aspect of Cream magazine anyway,
and there was something that connected all the people who

(21:14):
ended up working there, and I just I really hit
it off with Dave Marsh immediately, and Barry Kramer scared
me for the longest time, but you know, I felt
like I was home. It's funny you mentioned that, because
that used to be a defining marker, uh, the inside
outside and the fact that, I mean a person who
was captain of the football team would never be the

(21:35):
big Rock fan insider. And now it's all you know.
You see people going to the Stone show and buying
five leather jackets. You go, they were not into the
Stones back when you went in sixty six. I know, right,
I I think about that, like, especially if I don't
know about you, but I've gone to my high school reunions.
I have not. Oh, I don't recommend it, but well,

(21:58):
let's float down fascinated. Which reunions have you been to?
Did you start like right away, I like with the
five year reunion, I started the ten year and we
started a ten year so I went to that one. Okay,
I'm fascinated with history. I got my degree in history.
And there's nothing like seeing your appears as a bookmark
to who you were and who you've become and you

(22:18):
measure yourself against them, which you which kids always do. Well,
you don't really think about a sixties something doing that,
but you still do that. And now it's kind of
like the false memory syndrome. It's like all the people
who said they were at Excess Pistols concert, like all
of the people now say they read cream and they
always you know, exactly yeah. It's like no, right, and

(22:40):
you were you were Woodstock too, Yeah, exactly right. Okay, okay,
just so we get some of the geography down. What
town do you grow up in? A little town called
later At Village. It's outside of Detroit, Like how far
from the Renaissance Center, etcetera. Twelve miles because Detroit structured
on mile roads that yeah, from down so essentially close.

(23:02):
So if there was like a bus when you were
a teenager you could take into town. There was a
bus when I was a teenager, and that's how I
had to get anywhere because I'm so dyslexic. I didn't
get my license. So I was nineteen. So yes, I
took a bus to work and then and then how
did you get back from the Grande Ballroom? Uh? God
made hitch hiking or asking asking people for rides. My

(23:24):
girlfriends and I were like a posse of you know,
could you give us a ride in those perilous times. So, yeah,
we didn't have cars. None of us drove. Right, It's
not like today when the kids sixteen and they get
a car. And Wayne State is how far from Detroit?
It's about two miles from downtown Detroit. It's an inner
city college. Okay, So when you're going to Wayne State,

(23:48):
you're living at home. I'm going at home. Okay. So
Barry Kramer starts Queen magazine on top of his record store.
How long after that do you start visiting the offices? Okay?
His record store was elsewhere down Cass Avenue. It was
actually a place where it was like a It was

(24:09):
an old storefront where people used to just live, turned
into apartment. So Barry lived there and he turned that
into his offices. So I'm there like it starts in
marsh of sixty nine and I start going. That was
Charlie Oranger in August of sixty nine, So I'm there
from August August nine on. Well, that's essentially the same

(24:32):
because outside of Michigan there was very little distribution of
Green magazine at that particular time. But by time you
get involved, they've already gone to the structure of rural
living in a house. Now by the time I get involved,
I'm after class, I'm going to Cream and I'm working,
and then then Charlie would drive me back Arou. I
would just stay there, so I'm I'm working until we

(24:54):
don't move to the horrible and horrible hinterlands until Okay,
so you live with your parents through this whole time.
I do up until I'm quasi literally tried, but I'm
not really like I wouldn't really commit. It just felt
not morally wrong, just power structure wrong. Um, so I

(25:17):
would stay there, but I didn't really move out of
my parents until maybe when we moved to Birmingham in
nineteen Okay, so it's sixty nine, you're working at Cream.
How much money are they paying you? Well, if you
got paid it was which was really twenty five with
the taxes taken out, someone reminded me, and seventy five,

(25:42):
even in those days was very little. So you could
essentially do what live with your parents by cokes, you
could essentially do that. I got a job at a
suburban mall um to selling jeans, so I actually outfitted
the whole staff and jeans and the Alice Cooper group
if they came by, because we would, you know, we

(26:07):
I had no compunction, like you know it was, I
have no this poet. I still a little bad that
I shoplifted from the store that I actually worked for,
but I gave I gave jeans away to everybody on
the staff. And how long did you have two gigs? Oh?
I had two gigs, probably about four years. And selling jeans?

(26:27):
Was that the only one? Or did you have something else?
You know that that was the only one I would.
I would go there in the morning, opened up the store,
and then I would go to cream and I'd come
back and close the store. So I pretty much was
on the treadmill. Wow. How many hours a week were
you working at the store? Oh, like I guess probably
between twenty and thirty all day Saturday, all day Sunday. Okay,

(26:48):
so you when you get to Queam, what is the
status of the magazine in the operation? Well, when I
get there, it's moving from that news printy thing. It
was actually has actual covers that has curt distribution. Um
how I how I really got there? And the door
wasn't for writing. It was because I worked at that
boutique and we sold T shirts and I said, why

(27:10):
don't you let me create a T shirt line for
you and I'll just sell them under under the counter.
I'll give you a percent of the profits. And I've
got a little sister and she's got a cadre of friends.
Why didn't I send them door to door selling cream
T shirts? And that's really essentially how I got my
job because I created a T shirt. Ok what did
the T shirts have? The famous boy how and who

(27:35):
created boy Howdy? Oh? Our chrome created it before my time,
but but it was it was amazing something I think
he regretted because he only got paid fifty dollars for
the logo. So I had a lot of situations. I
once spent night a night playing guitars with him. It
was very interesting and seventy three, but that's a different digression.

(27:58):
So you're how many of these T shirts do you
think you're sold? Oh? I probably sold a couple, maybe
a thousand, and that's yeah. And then well it was
a really popular mall store. I mean we had like
so much traffic. We really did a big business. And
then my kid's sister, who's very entrepreneurial, rounded up all

(28:19):
of her friends and I think we paid them like
twenty bucks each. So then then we sold them through
the magazine, and then it actually got to be as
big as it is. I mean even today people want them.
So yeah, I finally threw mine now because they were
more holes than material. Okay, you're doing this, you're working

(28:42):
two gigs, you're selling the T shirts. What does that
evolved into? Um, they give me the job as a
subscription kid, which I was now fulfilling subscriptions, not a
writing job, like tapping into these entrepreneurials like like kind
of them. I mean they did that. And then I
started selling small magazines to small dealers, so I handled

(29:05):
all of that part and then I can do reviews
at night, um, which I did a couple and they
were incredibly bad and terrible. And then finally I had
my break when Dave Marsh took me to to a
press conference where Smokey Robinson was retiring and didn't tell
me I had to write about it, So it was

(29:27):
really it was accidental on their part. For me, I
always planned to write for Cream. I just I just
didn't think it was gonna take me almost two years
to do it. Do you think that the factor was
were a woman in a boys club worked against you? Oh? No,
I always worked for me. Um. I think there's great
power and being underestimated and getting away with really really

(29:49):
rude questions or really incisive ones and people don't see
it coming. I think the thing was is I think
being able to write about bands are spoke bands. It
was a day where they thought most reporters were groupies,
so they would really act out or not take it seriously,
and I would always present to my story and it

(30:10):
was it was funnier because of that, because I definitely
have a comic bent. So I think always worked for me. Okay,
tell the fulm Smokey Robinson article story, which is delineated
or shown in the movie. Um. I went with Dave
Marsh and Charlie Orangered down to a hotel in Detroit,

(30:30):
and with a lot of hoopla, hometown hero Smokey Robinson
announces that he's leaving the Miracles, a heartbreaking event for
any Detroit kid because he was like poet laureate, he
was the man, and I was sad. I was a
huge Miracles fan. So Dave took me because of that,
but he didn't tell me. He says he did, but

(30:52):
he didn't tell me. I had to write about it.
So I go back to my parents house where I'm living,
and he calls me about o'clock at night, and he goes,
where's that story? And I go, what are you talking about?
He goes, you know that story about Smoky And I go,
there is no story. What story? So he says you
have to write it? And I go, I don't have
any Miracle albums. So it goes get out over here.

(31:13):
So I then by then I'm nineteen, I have a car.
I drive to the Cream office and I pick up
his Miracle's albums. I listened to him all night long
and stay up all night long and write an open
letter to Smokey Robinson, which was the cover story. So
my first time out, it's a cover story and it's
you know, please please slee smoking, don't go okay they

(31:38):
all you know, they also say in the movie it
was a great letter. So the door is now open.
What's your next step? Well, next step set, I'm doing reviews. Um.
I'm still working as a subscription kid, like eight hours
a day, ten hours a day, but I'm writing reviews
at night and they're better, Like you know, Lester's helping me. Um.

(31:58):
I'm writing them kind of in a style of j. R.
Young was up. He's still alive, but he was a
rolling stone UM reviewer and he always made them into
a little story. So all my reviews became little stories,
little vignettes. And I did that for a while, and
you know, I just I got all the girls stories,
you know, like I got like Dionne Warwick or Carly Simon.

(32:20):
And one day let's just said, you know, this is
unfair to you. We're ghetto wise in you. We've got
to get you out of this teenage girl ghetto. So
they started giving me like bat you like. I started
getting heavy metal bands and stories, you know, led zep one.
So that was how funny, let's see the girl in
the short skirt write about metal bands. So you know,
I was playing against type. But that actually I really

(32:43):
didn't mind, like anything that someone else didn't want. I
took because I wanted to get published. And did you
like all of this music you were reviewing and writing about? Well?
I did, I actually did. I mean, I really love
hard music. I love the MC five, I liked the
students a lot. Um. I actually had a great love
for like Grand Funk Railroad. You know, I really did

(33:04):
like that kind of meat and potatoes, bone headed rock
for I still do actually. Okay, so uh, when is
the first time you go on the road for cream? Um?
I think it was seventy two. I go on the
road with Steve Miller and we go to a couple

(33:25):
of days in Ohio. Who's paying for that? Well, I
think it was Capital Records at the time. That was
when they would, you know, people would put the bill
for everything, you know, the days of like showering you
with with ephemera and lobster dinners. And was there a
wink wink? Is cam't be a negative article? No, it

(33:48):
wasn't at all. Actually he was. He was a really
good teacher for a lot of things. If that was
the first one, it was really good, Like he had
a brother who was a heroin attic and he told
me all about it. And when I didn't put in
the story, I saw him. Lady goes, well, what I
gave you an exclusive? Why didn't you use it? I
think I didn't know that you could be that brutal
at the time. I mean, I was just finding my

(34:10):
sea legs. So no, he was good. He also I
remember him making a pass at me and I'm saying, oh, no,
I have a boyfriend, and he said, well, that was
just a test. And I said, are we out right?
And he goes, no, How could you actually sleep with
somebody that you were doing a story on and think
that you could stick a microphone in their face the
next day and actually get something. So I mean that

(34:30):
was a good cautionary tale anyway. So um, I thank
them for a lot. And was your style to use
a cassette recorder? Yeah? I took notes and a cassette recorder. Actually,
I'm such a spoon vendor. I've always had two tape
recorders with me at all times. What kind of tape
recorders were they? A little sony cassette? I still own

(34:52):
them today. Okay, okay, So if you let's say you
went on the road with Steve Miller. How many cassettes
would you end up with? Oh my god, Well I
would just because I overdo things anyway. I would take
six of them and just just keep them talking, because
you really don't know what's a good quote. I think
when you're learning how to do journalism, you don't know
what's important. So you just record everything and and you

(35:15):
know the story emerges, but you know what if you
miss it? So I think the worst part about journalism
was always transcribing the tapes. Okay, so if you're on
the road with Steve Miller, there's obviously a sit down
at some point, but there must be interaction in between,
and you're not recording that, are you know, you're taking

(35:36):
notes on Thatt like we were in Cleveland. They went
to his cousin's house for dinner, you know. So there's
all those cute little moments, and you learn to use
those because everything is a metaphor, and every object you
see and every reaction that someone has to something that's
not mostly a rock question like a quiz show question,

(35:56):
is where the really more important stuff is. It's like
you see the nature of the person who makes the music.
Then somehow informs the music in a much more interesting way.
So I've really been more of a forensic object reporter,
where I will I'll talk about somebody in terms to
their objects, or how they act or how they At

(36:17):
one point was how how a man treated up Jesse
Mail and how he treated a waitress. You know, because
everything is everything? Is it? Quaintly used to say in
the seventies, right, So if you're on the road with
Steve Miller, you the only writer on the road with Steve. Okay,
the magazine came out monthly. Needles just say. Life goes
up by daily. So there were certain times where you

(36:39):
would write or do something and by time the magazine
has produced, your stuff is not included. Your stuff is included. No,
I mean, I mean, would you ever write something that
ended up on the cutting room floor? Never? Never? Never?
And to what degree would they editors alter what you wrote?
Not much? I mean, you know, we we were all

(37:00):
pretty like like I read some of that stuff, like
I'm complete piling an anniversary issue to go out, go
out with the documentary, and I'm like going, oh my god,
really we wrote that. It's not just me. It's like
so I look at some of my stuff and I cringed,
but I look at other stuff and go, wow, I
was pretty fearless. I can't believe I I wrote that.
But no, Um, I think the thing was it was

(37:22):
such a collaborative, great working environment, like a think tank,
that if we needed help, we would talk to the
prison next to us. We're really small, We're all really
close and insular. So if I was having trouble in
a story, I'd go to Marshaw, I'd go to Leicester
VN Edmonds and say, hey, could you help me on this?
So so no, it was never okay. So you break

(37:44):
in with Steve. Who's your next big act? Oh? Rick
Wakeman's my next big Rick Wakeman. So he's already left, Yes,
doing the doing the Caepe stuff and all that other
stuff is not really a typical cream magazine or coal.
So tell us that story well, because because the thing was,
we would always like to put somebody in the situation

(38:07):
and let I mean, we would choose for personalities like
he was a great recontour. He was just funny as hell.
And I did this one actually with Cameron Crowe and
I remember, I remember we three of us who had
went down to have lunch, and he it was just
like a boozy lunch and it was super funny. I
recorded that used none of that. And then later I

(38:28):
went to his room and I remember this so vividly
because it was one of those, oh my god, write
of passage things. He answers the door and a towel,
and I go, all right, what and I tell him
to could put some clothes on it. He won't just
a funk with me, right, not to make a move,
but just actually leverage the power of the interview. And

(38:49):
it was But again, this is what you would put
in if you were a more season journalists. I don't
think I even put in that he wouldn't put clothes on,
which is really ridiculously stupid of me. You know, in hindsight,
where I left out was more interesting than I put
in at that point. And by your own choice, did
you ever have boyfriends in this world, whether they be

(39:13):
stars or other business people? Are you loyal to Charlie? No?
I was? I was. I was like monogamous. And the
other part was who had time to meet people? Because
we were such a small staff, we really didn't do
anything to go to the office like we worked. Maybe
eighteen hours a day, and when we went out, we
tended to go out on mass like we would go

(39:34):
see a band together, like everybody would go and um,
we socialized together. There was really very little life outside
of Cream. You know. I was really monogamous. And Okay,
Rick Wakeman, ultimately you work with led Zeppelin and Leonard Skinner.
But before we get to those stories, anybody in between memorable. Um,

(39:55):
the Kiss Star is memorable because I can never believe
they let me perform with them. Let's start from the game.
What year was the kiss story? That was? So I'm
probably skipping a lot of other stories, but that was
that was really memorable. Okay, But rock and Roll All
Night from the live album has been a hit. Well,

(40:16):
actually it happened when I went to the story. It
was the night after they recovered they record Alive, their
big breakout live albums. Okay, okay, so it wasn't released yet,
it wasn't released. Okay. Were you a Kiss fan? Well,
I was a really huge Kiss idea fan I had.
I had gone to London to covering David Essex and

(40:38):
one of those many things blocked On, which was an
amazing song, and I came back to New York. I
had a layover because there was no nonstops to Detroit
and I went to some narest forum and Kiss was
one of the speakers. They run on this little panel
with Richard Robinson and Danny Fields and Wayne County. It

(40:59):
was it was about gender in rock and roll, and
they all switched around their name tags and they would
answer every every question with its only rock and roll.
But I like it because that Stone song had just
come out and I thought, this is hilarious. I can't
believe they're not breaking character. This is really wonderful. We
have to cover it. I get back to Cream, but

(41:20):
I saw this band like like, you know, they they
have a record out, and you know, they're just like Nightmares.
And everybody said, oh no, no, they're just like New
York doal clones. That's they're just trash their cartoons and
go no, no, we got to cover them. And I
remember bed Edmonds telling me, cover you cover them, You
want to cover them? You right it? So I created

(41:41):
this this rock like Kiss comic, a comic strip panel
without takes from Dressed to Kill, and that was how
we first got them in there. And I don't know,
I just pressed hard to get kissed in there because
I just have this idea, even though I didn't love
the music, it was like an idea whose time had come,
and it was just so comic book and so I

(42:02):
don't know, so death of art that I thought we
could make fun of them, which pretty much did right
although after you left it seemed to be all kissing
Cream magazine. But prior to going on stage with Kiss,
what was your relationship with them? Or was at the
very beginning? Um, when I met them at that panel

(42:23):
and then um, they would play Detroit all the time.
And then I got this idea of doing a kiss comics,
which it was Kissed Comics with a K O K
K O M I K and I did that. So
I went and talked to him then and we got
really friendly because I don't know, there was just we're
all the same age, we're all coming up together. I
think they were making like a hundred bucks a week

(42:43):
and we were making so we just had this camaraderie,
like I just felt like, I feel like Andie Dickinson
in the rat pack with them. Really, so tell us
the famous story about going on stage. Um, there used
to be a guy who worked there Um, Larry Larry

(43:03):
who was Neil Bogart Castle Blanka Records, because you're having
to write a good book. He died of just a
couple of years ago. Forty Larry Harris, Larry Harris and Um,
he was always bringing bands over to Cream and he
was he was just a lot of fun. And I
called him on one day, um, and I said, Um,

(43:25):
Connie Cramer and I had this idea Barry's wife because
there was a story in and Esquire Blair Sobel had
done about being and I get so Connie and I
one night, working late read it and she says, do
you think you could do that? And I go, oh, yeah,
I could do that with Kiss? Right? And I go
yeah with Kiss. So I called up Larry Benjamin the
next day and I said, could I go on stage

(43:47):
with Kiss? And he goes what, I go, No, can
I go on stage with Kiss? And he said yes,
but you can't call him a glitterband? Like go, oh,
no problem, I won't call him a glitterban. Okay. So
they come to town maybe week later, and I go
to sound check to learn their moves because I'm gonna
go on stage with them, right, And when I meet

(44:08):
the band members who I know not well but I know.
I say, yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go and stay
with you, and they think I'm going to cover the band.
They don't know. No one's told them I'm going to
go on stage with them, and they look at me
like I'm crazy. So so next morning, after they record
their album, we go to Johnstown, Pennsylvania on a little

(44:30):
prop plane and there I am they outfit me. Then
I then like mother hands. Then they're into it and
we're gonna all be in this together and they're gonna
fix me up, and they, you know, they take turns
putting their makeup and they argue like, I'm looking too
much like June Simmons because he's he's like putting his
bat wings on me. And you know, Ace Freely is
making fun of because I don't know how to put

(44:51):
makeup on because I never wore foundations. So but it
was great. I have to say it changed my life
because I understood the addictive nature of what happens once
amazon stage and that surge of energy that you get
from being on stage. I understood at that moment why
people do what they do and why they can't give
it up, and I think that story not for the notoriety,

(45:12):
but more for that actual recognition of why why musicians
do that with has like really served me for the
rest of my life. Okay, so how long did you
take them to make you up? Oh? Like twenty five
minutes longer. It takes them a long time even today,
like I just covered well last year I covered them
and their End of the World tour. They've been there

(45:33):
for two hours. It is really an intense process of
stages upon stages of making up. And at what point
do you go on stage? Well, I'm thinking I'm doing
the whole show in my innocence, so they go on stage.
I tried to go after them, all dressed up just

(45:53):
like them, you know, and the road manager post May goes, no,
you got you got the last song. So I had
to watch the whole show with the jitters like I'm
just shredding Kleenex. Then I'm nervous, like I'm all full
of gravato. I'll do it, you know. When I think
I'm gonna go and do the whole show, I don't
know what I was thinking. So when Rocket Roll All
Night comes on, they pushed me out there, give me

(46:17):
this really this red guitar. I think it's offender, and
Paul tells me, like where low really low looks sexier
that way. And again they're like mother hands watching me
like I'm their kid at a recital, and it's so funny.
But I realized, which is I just made this realization
the other day. I was thinking about this that nobody
in that crowd in Johnston, Pennsylvania knew there was an

(46:40):
extra member of Kiss. They're like, I never heard about it,
No one wrote, it was in the paper. It was
like it was like some kind of big blooper. And
the only way I ever knew about it is because
I wrote about it later, you know, afterwards. But that
realization just cracked me up. And it was like if
if a tree falls in the forest and there's no
one there to hear, did it really fall? Did it?

(47:02):
It was just all mocked. Okay, so what do you do?
During the number you were on stage? I actually had
an open mic. I sang with them and I danced around.
I danced behind behind Paul, and Paul has told me later,
he goes, I forgot you were there. All of a sudden,
I looked me. It was like another me like a
big mini mouse singing. And of course anybody who's seeing
Kiss knows they wear these gigantic platforms. Did you have

(47:25):
a pair of platforms? I did. I did anyway, so
I just wear my own I actually had. I had
the right the right stuff except for the jewelry. I
was definitely right in line with their fashion statement. Okay,
so you have the experience and you have the insight
still continuing, you go back to write the story. Do
you realize the impact the story will have both for

(47:48):
readers who are fans of Kiss and for you personally.
I just think it's another story. I was always about
high concept stories, like I've done other high concept stories before,
so I just thought it was like the George Limp
something like nobody would even notice. It would just be
another story. How I knew it was a really big deal.
And I swear some of the best things that ever
happened to me was the Bale Musicians Guide wanted to

(48:11):
license it, and I thought, oh my god, blind kids
will actually see what that's like. So to me, that's like,
I don't know why that one just really touches my heart,
but it did. Yeah, that's like the story that's just
reverberated around the world, like you know, just I got
to do it. So okay. One thing that always went
through my brain during that era had the line the

(48:34):
maiden form bra, which of course was the line from
the ad, but at that point in time, no one
in the demo Warren made in form bra, right, right,
that's so true. Well, it's because I grew up on
like fashion magazines. It's like, do you remember the ads, Belie.
You wouldn't remember that, but girls remember the ad was
these women would wear bras and they would wake up
in these odd places like at the symphony or in

(48:55):
the office, and they'd be wearing like a pencil skirt
and be wearing just a bra and the top. I
don't remember that, yeah, of course. Okay, so I dreamt
that I was on stage with kissing my man form bra,
which I wasn't wearing. But the fact what was it
was like such a great hook. Oh it was great. Absolutely.

(49:16):
Uh So you're a led Zeppelin fan from the beginning.
I'm such a led Zeppin fan. When I worked at
the Grandi Ballroom, I was a big yard Bird Birds fan.
And one weekend I'm working there and this new band
who never no one ever heard of was led Zeppelin,
So no was at the at the venue, like no
one knew who they were, so no one showed up.

(49:37):
By the second night, it was like wall to wall
people like words spread like wildfire. They were amazing like
they were, they looked beautiful, they played like it was
just like like sound like sound just broke through. This's
like that where mind meet Spotty. It was a trans
formative experience for me. Um. And then when they came back.

(49:57):
I remember taking my break during they're set and getting
on stage with them so I could hear them better.
And all of a sudden, I saw this picture of
me like I've got like my elbows on Jimmy Page's
amp and I'm just like, you know, like angelically looking
like watching this every mood. So yeah, they were like
my van And what's what's your favorite Zeppelin album? Physical Graffiti?

(50:22):
I go back and fat between Physical Graffiti and the
first Physical Graffiti if no other reason's got ten years gone,
which I can I know, I know, well, I love
the first one because I think that base, that bubbling
bass like it's being played under water, unbelievable too. Even
today it's still unbelievable to me, and they were just

(50:43):
so mysterious. Okay, so how do you end up interviewing them?
The first time I interview them there, Um, I just
think that one of those things that nobody else wanted
to do. It is odd as that is. And they're
playing Detroit and I interview them, um backstage at Olympia
where they were playing. There was no big deal. It

(51:03):
was just, you know, it was just a regular rock interview.
I wasn't on the road with them, um. And then
later on I got on the road with them for um.
I forgot what album it was, but that was when
they were holed up in the in the Plaza hotel
for for like weeks upon weeks and I went for
like probably four days, so we'd fly out to various
cities and come back and that was. That was like again,

(51:27):
not a big deal, like in terms of it being
bigger than life. Yes, But it wasn't until my third
time where it got really odd. It was one of
those almost famous moments where to me, Page didn't want
to do the interview even though it was for a
cover story. So I had to dog him for five days,
like ask because I have an interview because I have

(51:48):
an interview, and on the last day before I was
going to go home, they finally granted it to me,
but only in the provision that I couldn't speak directly
to him. I had to speak through an interpreter, so
I had to ask the questions to the publicist and
she would translate them to him. And it was like
being in a foreign film and with subtitles and watching

(52:12):
it because it was so bizarre because we all spoke English.
But I'd have to ask him, he would answer her,
and she would answer me. So I just went on
for like half an hour. It was so unnerving. But
at some point I got this like a little like
thought balloon, like, oh man, I can make this funny,
you know, I can like do a thoughtful and thing
like what's really going through my head? But it was

(52:34):
so unnerving. I mean, I don't know how I pulled
out of that one, but it was you know, once
you get it field to get lemons, you make lemonade.
I really make LeMond On that one. Okay, Uh, you're
in this uptight situation. Do you whip out your curveball
question or do you say I don't want to screw things.

(52:54):
Oh you don't, I really, although I have to say
that I did because it was during the tour where
the tour doctor confronted Jimmy Page about someone stealing the
quay lose that was the tour doctor carried, and I
had the audacity asked him if he actually stole the
quay loose so and he was this indignant and the

(53:19):
crazy part is part two of the story. In two
thousand six, Hugh Magazine hired me to do my recollections
on on led c up one tours, So I wrote
about that whole tour and a friend of mine, Brad Tolnsky,
who was the editor of Guitar World, was friends during
Page and one day he called me, so, there's somebody
here who wants to talk to you, and he puts

(53:39):
Stey Page on the phone. He goes, jan, I stole
the kay lose. That's funny. That was great. I had
no idea was going to do that. I was like
one of those those yeah, sure, sure, it's Jimmy Page.
But it was great. Okay. Now, I met a lot

(54:00):
of these rock stars, and I've met them myself. They
very rarely live up to the image in your head.
So that begs the question who did and who didn't. Um,
I'd say Ronnie van zandt did. He was he was
like a prophet. He was like tapped into something that

(54:21):
the rest of us just don't hear. You know, it
was like he knew was going in. The sad part
was he knew when he was leaving. And I think
I talked about unnerving when I did a story on
him and I was ill prepared. It was Lester Banning's
birthday and he decided he didn't want the story because
of birthday, said Jane, you go to the story, here's

(54:43):
the questions, and just shoved me out of the nest. Really,
I just did that. But during the course of the interview,
and it was really long, I interviewed all of them,
Ronnie Um and I just sat and talked to He said,
you know, I had Janni's Choplin disease. I don't think
I'm to be here long. In fact, I doubt i'll
see thirty. This was about a month before his twenty

(55:05):
ninth birthday. And you know, it's one of those things
that I don't know why I might have left out
Rick Waiteman's tall, but I put in that Ronnie van
Zandt said he was never going to see thirty And
then I remember being in Los Angeles reviewing some concert
and hearing that they're playing had gone down and there
were some survivors, and I immediately knew it wasn't him,

(55:26):
you know, it was like there was a president of
some press of something like surreal metaphysical, Like I think
the best musicians get their information for someplace that world
never know, and I think he was one of them.
I think he was like the one who had the
greatest impact on me. Um, just as soon al though
we can't if he had not passed away, would he

(55:48):
still have had the greatest impact? Um? I don't know that,
because I think it was the fact that he shared
that with me. That's a really great question, that he
shared that moment with me, and I was somehow part
of it. Um. I think that's what the impact was. UM.
Other people, you know. I remember people who are nice
to little people, you know. I love like Kirk Halmet

(56:09):
from Metallica. It's always great and personalizes every interview and
makes you feel like a human. I think when a
rock star makes you feel like we're again back to
that cream Ethos that were all the same and they
remember you. Although your friend of my friend, Dicky straight
told me a secret and I've got to stop now

(56:30):
or show kill me. Never mind, never mind? You know
Vicky through the Metallica club or do you know were
previously at Columbia. I know, I know because she's from
Royal at Michigan, the next town over from where I
grew up and off Mike. But in uh, in any event,
this brings us to Lester Banks. I mean, on my end,

(56:54):
the most famous thing with Lester Banks, he wrote a
review for Rolling Stone of Alice Cooper's Killer and it
was boxed out and it was so over the top.
This was in the days of the Great White Wonder
and hoaxes that I bought the album just to see
if it was a hoax or not. Of course you dropped,
you dropped the needle. It was under my wheels and
it was, of course incredible. So you follow the guy.

(57:16):
Then he's playing on stage with the typewriter, etcetera. Then
they have that he dies, they have the compilation book,
so people like you and me know who these guys.
These guys. Then Cameron makes the movie, turns him into
a folk hero, who won't be forgotten. What was your
experience of Lester Bags? You know, one of the greatest

(57:36):
people ever met, too great impact on me, hev he
even lived. In fact, I have a reoccurring dream about
every two years where he says to me, jan I'm
not dead of justin Florida. So I can't tell you
how odd that is for me. But he was really
He would call like subscribers up or people who would
write him letters. We would because we work so late.

(57:59):
We would just we would all like get the phone.
He would call people who wrote him and give him encouragement.
I mean he was every young writer's best friend. He
was certainly mine. I mean he really helped me with
a lot of things. He was driven in a way
that you hardly ever see. When I say that people
think that stories come out of your fingers, not your brain.
They seemed to come out of his fingers. It was like,

(58:22):
I don't want to belabor this. This like people know
where they're going to go. But it was like he
was racing the devil. Like he almost felt like he
didn't have all the time that he wanted because he
he would sit down and just write the most beautifully constructed,
well thought out pieces. It was a marvel and actually
gave me a phobia for a long time because I
wonder why I didn't write that fast. Now. He was

(58:44):
a guy who would stare the ship. I mean, all
you had to do is go to one of those
lou Read contests. Every time he interviewed lou Read, he
would always bring a posse and I was there a
couple of times and he would just go writer's I
mean box stars into like saying things that they might

(59:04):
not like. He called it a little insect or asked
him about his wife girlfriend Rachel, who was like omni sexual.
I never figured that one out, but he would insult
them to their face and it was like it was
a site to be behold. It was also really embarrassing.
But I can't say he did it in good fun.

(59:24):
I think he just did because he wanted a reaction,
because he knew it was a better story. He could
be brutal and he could be the kindest man in
the world. There was no middle speed with Lester. It
was either fast or slow. And what do you think
about his depiction and almost famous. Well, having had a
little ado with that, Cameron hired me and Jim Durgat

(59:44):
us to do little treatments, so it was so accurate.
I'm gonna say that Cameron was such a genius in
that character for two reasons. They would call me from
the set all the time. But what kind of pieza
did he really eat? Or whatever did they barbecue really
come from there? So he was just slaved detail and
that comes across. But the other thing which was so

(01:00:04):
strange is casting phil Um Samoura Hoffmann because I interviewed
him from OJO and I was sitting across from him,
and I felt like there was less just ghost. He
would even when he talked, he ate, and he would
talk with his mouth full, something Lester always did. I
felt that he was a mediumistic actor anyway, but I

(01:00:26):
felt like I was. I was in the presence of Lester.
I can't think that anyone was any better than that,
like in that choice. Going back to almost famous, you
know the scenes in the riot House, which is no
longer called a hyatt uh. They changed the branding of
those who thus who followed that from the late sixties on,

(01:00:46):
especially a lot of the British musicians. These were dark
characters doing dark things, dripping wax on people. Uh, what
was your insight into the dark side of these musicians?
You know, it was always fast it and how they
got that way. I mean, the thing is that they
would actually talk about if you had the guts to

(01:01:06):
ask somebody about it. Maybe not Jimmy Page, who was
the purveyor of most of that, you know, but um,
I don't know. I mean it was like, how did
they get away with that? I honestly have to say
I didn't ever get involved in anything that like the
farious or witness to it, because I don't know, maybe
this is the part about not going for the sleeves

(01:01:28):
part of it. I was always more ironic, psychological, like
satiric writer, so I usually didn't see any of the
horror mongy, you know. I do remember like when I
was on tour with Fred Zeppelin, I mean, Jimmy Page
dressing up just like this most beautiful boy there and
having his arms slung around, you know, around his back,
and I was like, okay, you know, I'm a little

(01:01:50):
young and I'm Midwestern, and this is the first time
I've seen that, so it kind of jolted me. So,
you know, I wasn't pretty to all of that stuff.
I'm not really sure who it was except for but
who's Stanley Boost who wrote a really great book on
the Rolling Stones. I mean, not many people. You had
to hang with them. You had to have the same

(01:02:12):
kind of habits, had the same kind of cool, had
the same kind of land Nick Nick can't he did
with Iggy and was like like, I think probably stuff
and it was Iggy definitely do you do you think
you're cool? I do think I'm cool? Okay. Is it's
something you always knew? Uh? It was something I always knew.

(01:02:34):
I just I just but I cultivated. Yeah. Maybe I
think it was just like I kind of grew up
being fully formed, like I always knew what I wanted,
and it's that never let them see you sweat kind
of thing. Okay, continue, So others thy disagree. You know,
I don't have my distractors, so okay. Uh So what

(01:02:59):
are your parents to do for a living when you're
growing up? Um, my dad was a was I worked
at four. He was a design engineer and my mom
was a dancer who hung up her shoes by the time,
you know, my sister and I came along. And how
many generations has your family been in America. My parents
were both second generation. Their parents were born in the

(01:03:23):
Old countries. They so quaintly said, how did your parents meet?
They met in a bar um in Detroit, and they
did they remain married during their lifetimes. And how many
siblings do you have? I just have one sister who's
a photographer, and she's older or younger. She's younger by

(01:03:45):
how many years? By seven? That's a long time. What
was going on? What was going on there? Well, at
least something. Actually, my mom was afraid of the pain
of childbirth, so she vowed never to have another child
until they introduced togs into the birthing process. So my
sister is like a drug baby. Okay, So you go

(01:04:05):
to school, are you like popular, do you have friends?
Or what kind of kid are you? I'm the second
tallest kid in elementary school. So I either had a
really good firs eide view or I was a really
like um, I mean it was a little bit of
an outcast, but not really like I had like my
sub genre of people. So, um, you know, I was

(01:04:27):
really like sporty spice I was. I was super athletic.
I used to compete in track, so, um you know,
I was I was pretty normal. But I think the
hardest thing was is my name was so unpronounceable that
I definitely had a complex. I remember a letter to
Cream in later years and my favorite letter as someone said,
tell you and your hellsky to get an American names.

(01:04:47):
Love that that's gonna add a good sense of humors
because the writers for Cream you did you have that
sense of humor before you went to the magazine or that? Okay?
And Dave Marsh, who has a reputation anybody's dealt with him,
has an edge. What was your experience working with him?

(01:05:07):
He was always like a for me, it was always
like a kindly older brother and not that that much older,
but you know, we've he was really impish with me,
like we would go on like when the Detroit the
Michigan State Fair would come, he would go on rise
with me, like we can be kids together. I think
we're We and Robbie Krueger were the youngest people on

(01:05:28):
the staff, so we just brought out the kid in
each other. He was still always amazing to me. Um
for a long time, I felt like an apologist, and
I've just thought why bother? You know, he can think
and do it and so, but I've always seen a
really good side of him. Okay, since we have this
movie which goes back to them, where are all these
people today? And you continue to have contact with them?

(01:05:50):
I do. Everybody you see who's on the staff or
who's still alive, absolutely in the dead ones. Yeah, obviously
they come in dreams, but yeah, I keep intentioned. It
was something about the fraternity of being in in Cream
in the beginning of the inception of something really amazing
and going through it. It's like almost like going to
high school with people together, or going through a war,

(01:06:11):
like we experienced things together that you didn't experience a
normal that it was really like heightened reality there. And
what happened to them job was well, most people stayed
either went into advertising, like Robert Duncan owned an ad agency,
Eric Gnheimer. Everybody actually got really good jobs. It was

(01:06:32):
a good step up. I mean, Susan Whitehall became the
pop music critic at the Detroit News. Um, Lester, I
don't know, Lester, he had to do that vagabond go
to New York and be a New York writer thing,
you know, Um, you know, I'm not really sure what
what went wrong. I'm not sure what twist he took.
I mean, he was always a heavy drinker, and we

(01:06:54):
definitely consumed codings because we thought it would be a
performance enhancer in terms of our writing. But you know,
I never thought of him as that excessive. I mean,
maybe I'm naive about that, but I didn't see that.
I think everybody really got got good jobs afterwards. Okay,
just staying with Lester as an outsider, uh and reading
the publicity. It was the punk era where theoretically anybody

(01:07:17):
could get on stage. It seemed from a distance that
he wanted to be on stage a star, not only
a writer. Was that your experience? Would you say that's undrew?
You know, I think that happened after I left, Like
I left in nineteen seventy six in March, and he
left in December of seventy six, and then he started,
you know, I think the Radio Birdman happened maybe the

(01:07:39):
next couple of years. I honestly thought when he got
on stage with with Peter Wolf and Jay Giles that
that was a flute. That was just another story, one
of our high concept stories. So I was actually surprised
because he didn't have a tremendous voice. You know, but
he had he had that hutzpah. I remember the whole

(01:07:59):
thing pleased in the band with Nicky Um. Mickey Joy,
Roon's brother also and they described it both the Mickey
and Enjoys described it as kind of like Lester was
like that movie Will Build. It's not feeling worried that
what about Bob where the guy comes up and shows
up the shrinks. That's how how Lester was because their
stepfather was his shrink. So, um, I don't know. I

(01:08:22):
honestly was surprised when he did it. Okay, so how
did you decide to leave cream? Um? This is really personal,
but Charlie Oranger slept with my best friend Peggy, Peggy Carlson,
one of the T shirt girls, and I thought I'm
out of here. It was it's really it was like

(01:08:43):
one of those things that was a watershed moment and
my whole life spun on that moment. Okay, how did
you find out? He told me? Why? Because I told
told them that, um, she wanted him to fix her
up with his assistant, and he told me know, she's
more interested in me, and I go, oh no, she's

(01:09:03):
my best friend. Honestly, my whole life collapsed on that
moment and I started making other plans. Just what what
went through your head when he told you that? It
was like it was like a hot knife, you know,
to go a little bit deeper. Was this a one
time event or was he having a full blown affair? Well, no,
I think it was a one time event. But I
it just it just really cut me, you know. I

(01:09:25):
think I was so unaware of it or that actually
even to the day, I don't know. I think it
was just a one time event. And and of course
I've forgiven them all and we're all like not close,
but you know, amends have been made. But honestly, I
have to say that it was the small moment that
that actually informed the whole rest of my life. Okay,

(01:09:47):
walk us through that quickly. Oh. Then I decided I
was going to probably go get another job. I remember
Barry Kramer saying to me, well, you better make this work,
because if I have to fire somebody, I'm going to
fire you because Charlie has been with me since day
when he is the art director, and you're one of
many editors. So I so I pretty much went through

(01:10:09):
the motions for the next couple of years, until I
finally left. And also it took a couple of years.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, I just started planning. I'm a planner.
Can't you see that? The true line? Okay, so everybody knew,
I Verry knew. I didn't tell anybody else. Okay, So
for these couple of years, needles to say, you're not

(01:10:31):
his girlfriend anymore? Right, I'm just taking it. I'm like
phoning it in. Okay. So then how do you ultimately
decide to make the break and how does that happen?
I actually met somebody else, you know, because I didn't
feel all that monogamous anymore. So I met um, I
met a photographer at barbecue at the oh my god,

(01:10:53):
the Capricorn Barbecue and wow, yeah, so wait, just let's
go back all these events. They would say, hey, do
you want to come? We're gonna pay. Often how often
did you go? Well, I'd say I went on the
road one week a year, one week, one week a month,
like every time you did a story, you went on

(01:11:14):
the road. And they would like thing, whip you, you know,
like they would like say, I remember that's the London trip.
I remember them saying the record Covery would say, well,
if you need anything. It's working for Christmas, I doing anything,
Just go get a few things from the gift shop.
So it was like Pola yet insidious, subtle Paola okay,

(01:11:37):
but being on the road forgetting in one town, but
being on the road on a bus, even in a plane,
it takes a strong constitution to be on the road
for a week. You don't get much sleep, etcetera. I mean,
what's your viewpoint about going on the road? Been there,
done that, don't want to do it again. I think
that you get the best stories because you get people

(01:11:57):
an act of being themselves, so you see so much more,
just like the Steve Miller thing. You see the small motions,
the how someone interacts with somebody else, how they act
in any situations. But you don't see that when you're
sitting across from somebody in a record company office. Like,
given given the choice, I will always go Now. You
don't go on the road. You go to somebody's house,
like now I'll go to like because most of the

(01:12:19):
stories I do for Uncut magazine, they're in home visits,
Like I show up at somebody's house with you know,
my my digital recorder and my camera, and I do
the story, So I pick up the clues of a person.
Well on the road, it's like it's stretched out. You're
picking up clues with somebody for like a week or
three days or four days or however long it was,
but it was some time, and you get these sit

(01:12:42):
down sessions with them, or you go do things with them,
like go see a jazz ban or do this or that,
like Allin Brothers was like that. So you go to
the Capricorn picnic, you meet this other guy. How do
you finally quit um? He asked me to marry him,
and I moved to l A and where he was,

(01:13:02):
where he was and it didn't work out? How long?
How long did it taken out to work out? Five days?
Five days? How much contact that you had it before
you moved up, had with him before you moved out?
A lot more than you would think that I would
come to that conclusion after five days? What was what

(01:13:24):
was the deal breaker? He had done? S to remember
sked that self realization kind of program that people did
sevent days more in air Heart and he was going
to go back for a seminar while I was there
my first a few days when I was there and
we came back from the seminar, he said he didn't
feel like he had thoroughly ended it with his ex

(01:13:47):
girlfriend and maybe I should move out. So it was
kind of not my decision, but I refused to tell
anybody because I had quit the best job in the
world to move to l A. And did you have
a job in l A. No. I started freelancing for
Playgirl magazine. I don't know if you remember that magazine Centerfold,
that's the one. So I worked for them a little

(01:14:10):
bit and then I got outimately got hired at Record World,
and that was which led to the next chapters of
my life. So I became the columnists at home at
Record World. Like shortly after that, I just said I
wasn't going home. I spent all my furniture with me,
Like everything I owned was with me in l A.
And did you have enough money to exist? Well, when

(01:14:31):
my grandmother died, she gave me a dream book. She said,
go to the track with the dream book because the
numbers you everything you dream has a number in bet
those and five. So um, yeah, I actually, um, I
actually made money, you know, and I supported myself and
then um, I got the job at Record World. And
then you know, things just picked up. Okay, So then

(01:14:53):
you get married, you have your daughter. What's your daughter
up to today? She is an ad copywriter and she
owns candle company where she she makes candles like metaphysical
candles based on the throw. And where does she live?
She lives in New York Okay, and you have her,
she grows up. How do you go back to college?

(01:15:15):
How do you decide to get back into the writing game. Um.
When I graduated from college, I went to work for
the Democratic Party and I worked for a national women's
political caucus and it's women trying to get other women elected.
But the crazy part about it was it was a
little mean spirit. It was women on women crime and

(01:15:36):
it was so like I was so shocked that it did.
There was not that camaraderie like we're in this together,
which I like, I love. That's my favorite thing work
collaborative with a lot of people towards one goal. And
it wasn't that. So I thought, well what am I
gonna do? So I started I started freelancing. I thought, well,
I'm not going to be I was gonna get a

(01:15:57):
graduate school to go get a teaching degree to teach history,
and but no, that doesn't really appeal to me. So
I started freelancing, and I started getting hired a lot
for writing about music. So I just went down that path.
It just opened up again. I mean, it was pretty
much I just re entered my life where I left it. Okay,
need let's just say we grew up in Eric, where

(01:16:19):
music drove the culture. What do you think about today's
seeing in today's music visa VI what it was? Well,
I feel like they don't seek there. I don't. I
got my identity from music, I mean somehow, and the
lyrics there was prophecy, it was encoded, was a message
that we all got, you know. And if you like

(01:16:39):
the Stone to a certain kind of person, if you
like the Beatles, you are another kind Like it defined
who we were everything. Now people don't need that sense
of identification. It's not so cut and dry. It's not
a world of strays and heads is that you know?
That term used to be too. So I think that
there's other ways that people pick up who they are
the persona and if there's anything and people are more gamers,

(01:17:01):
you know, and music has just fallen out. It's kind
of background music. And I think it's really a disservice
because I still think that somehow musicians are tapped in
and they hear things that the rest of us don't.
They just get some kind of message, some kind of
enlighten it, some kind of way to live. And maybe
I'm putting too much on a musician, but I've I've

(01:17:23):
found out a lot of things that I know, I
find just by probing a musicians brain. I mean, I
don't know you interview musicians, I mean, do you know?
I mean I find that you know, you talk about
being in a club and being different. The only people
I tend to be able to relate to our musicians.
They have the same attitude. They're outsiders. They can laugh

(01:17:43):
at life, They're gonna go whereas everybody else you know,
is following the buck and checking off the boxes whatever,
which is just not who I am. And uh, I'm
gonna ask you a very standard question. But you have
so much experience, I think people want to know, Oh,
you've been to so many concerts. What are the handful

(01:18:04):
of best concerts you ever saw? Prince at Radio City
back in the eighties, maybe eighty one, that was probably
number one. The Stone Roses actually at the fillmore Um
when they came back for their second coming album. That
was transformative led Zeppelin the second time I saw them

(01:18:24):
in nineteen um the Beatles in sixty six, even though
I couldn't hear them, It's it was like one of
those life changing and um Connor Oberst when he was
just when he was Bright Eyes around two thousand four,
that one just really spoke to my core. There's something
again he something in his voice, something in his expression,

(01:18:45):
something in that that stream of consciousness words. It's almost
like like deciphering cave dwelling. Like I feel like again
he's tapped into something and I relate to that. And
I always think that arts, amir like the bands, you
like the artists, you like they reflect something of yourself
and you see that in them. And obviously something I

(01:19:08):
see in myself I see in him. Maybe not Liz
Up when that's just pure like m Bass. I don't know.
I think I think I have like an incomplete theory
about that. But those are my five. Okay. At the time,
you know, the Stone Roses only had one album. They
were legends in the UK, really didn't have impact in
the US. Why was the show so great? You know,

(01:19:30):
I came to light I missed in the first time around,
and it was really an assignment, like I had to
cover it for I was working for a news magazine
Addicted to Noise that um I did back in the
early nineties with Michael Roberg, one of the first online
music magazines, and it was one of those things which
always works for me, Like you said, just go cover
these guys, so I um I started writing news about

(01:19:53):
them and I did an interview with them, and when
they came out for that second tour after that second
album Electra, I don't know, there was just magic. It's
just something in that kind of like Shoegazer tonality. It's
just really like sound. Like Braceleck said that God is
energy and and you know, music is vibration and that's

(01:20:13):
where the Holy list. And there was something about that
Stone Roses concert that I saw the film were not
technically wonderful. Ian Brown's voice was flat, but there's just
something in that whole experience of that that blast of sound,
that way it goes into your body and the viscual
reaction to it. They just strike a chord with me,
and that's really what it is. Did you keep the

(01:20:35):
records in the ephemeral Yes, no, not not, not any
of it. I had the Stone Roads and stuff. I
have a Gold Fool's Gold album. But no, I gave everything. Wait,
I even gave my last cream T shirt to Joey
Ramone like no, nothing, Well that makes a story that's
worth So why did you mean to get the records

(01:20:55):
for free? That was one reason you became a rock critic. Okay,
so you gave them away later in life or during
the era? No, you know, I have so I could
get everything back, Like I als was traveling light, like
when I moved to California. I was thinking about this
because my daughter was moving to l A. And I
was thinking about how much stuff I put on that
Mayflower truck. And did I take my records? Yeah, just

(01:21:19):
to select few. I found them when my father died.
I found the rest of them and I just sold
them and um and like in a state sale. But
you know, the other fact was they weren't in good shape.
My parents living in Michigan, they would have annual floods,
so they weren't in great shape. But I just think
I was always going to be able and pick up
that stuff. Again, I think it was always going to
go on forever. I said that in the Cream documentary.

(01:21:42):
I'm not sure it made it into the film, but
they asked me if I kept anything. I said no,
I didn't keep anything. I really thought it would go
on forever and I can go and get my Cream
T shirts later. I know. Okay, if you have to
do it all over again, the same path, same path,
you well that you know this is about you. I mean, uh,

(01:22:04):
I would say I don't have any regrets, but there
are choices I made that I question, okay, in terms
of dedicating myself to rock and roll, not that it
was consciously that. You know, it's kind of like Godfather
three and he tried to leave. It just pulls you
back in. And uh so what did we learn? You

(01:22:26):
know all this? You know, this journey of decades. I
think that, um, I mean, it's a thing that keeps
going back to that there's something holy in the sound.
It's like it's like the tribe speaks to each other
through music, and I like to be part of the tribe.
I mean, I really did grow up in that Hipper
era and I feel completely dedicated to preserving that group.

(01:22:49):
Think that that we're in it together and we can
make this a better way. And I got those messages
in the music. Like I remember this Lester quote. It's
something like like he he listened to black bands obsessively
because in some flash flight moment he saw he saw
hope of a better world, a better society, saw prophecy
in that. And that quote always got me because that

(01:23:13):
was it. It's like I saw some vision that I
wanted to be. Do I want to date rock Star's
note I want to be them? No, I just wanted
to explain them to myself and then exclaim to other people.
It was just fascinating to me. Well, Needles say, the
ethos has changed. When we were growing up, if there
were any Republicans, you literally knew who they were and
you hunt them out. Okay, and certainly remember after Ken

(01:23:37):
State we had Ohio. We also remember listening to the radio.
The radio gave you everything, gave you the music, gave
you the news, whatever. But it doesn't seem to be
that way. This just going to the ultimate question. Is
there hope? You seem to be an optimistic person in
a nation full of turmoil? Is their hope? And what

(01:23:59):
role does music I have to play in that, you know.
I think it's more like artists or maybe actors. There
any kind of artists. You know, it's like if you
can make enough of a statement in people who follow you,
which that's what it is, you know that they will
follow you anywhere kind of thing. I mean, I don't know.
I mean I think that there's always room for the truth,

(01:24:19):
and you know, sometimes it's listened to and sometimes it's not.
Do I feel pessimistic about the future. I still feel
like it's going to readjust things get so bad that
the pendulum has to swing swing the other way. So
I don't know. Is there hope for music. I want
to say yes, but not in the part it doesn't
occupy the same place in the culture and it may
never again. Well, you've certainly laid down some truth and

(01:24:43):
inside here, Jan this has been wonderful. Thanks so much
for fearing the time. Oh thank you for maowing me
until next time. This is Bob left us

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Bob Lefsetz

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