The story so far: just a week before it was
due to begin, Mötley Crüe announced the sudden
cancellation of what was to have been their first British and
European tour for two years. Officially, as reported in issue
171, the cancellation was made because of the band’s
‘exhaustive and non-stop schedule in 1987’.
That’s what the official press handout said, anyway.
Unofficially, however, the stories continue to pour in: from
the sublime to the ridiculous, we must have heard (and printed
a good few) of them all. From the alleged drugs overdose Nikki
Sixx nearly died from before Christmas, to being told that the
real reason the band had cancelled was because they thought the
weight of their lighting-rig would put too much strain on the
various arena ceilings in Britain and Europe, which would be at
breaking point anyway due to all the snow we have in this part
of the world around this time of year. Jee-zus! And those are
just the more plausible stories we’ve been listening to.
Ultimately, though, what this all boils down to is that no-one
in Britain actually believes a word the band are saying any
more. The British Mötley Crüe fans smell a rat. That
you shouldn’t believe every goddamned thing you read or
hear about a band, that goes without saying. But something is
obviously wrong here. Tired and exhausted Mötley Crüe
may well be, but snow on the roof? Naw… if Mötley
Crüe couldn’t get it up for a couple of weeks in
Britain, it wasn’t just because they were knackered, it
was because something had gone wrong with the
machine…
I’m sorry, ladies, but when he
appears in the doorway, immediately I’m struck by how
small he is. Onstage with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony
Kiedis looks like one of those classical Greek statues; large,
muscle-bound, big willy dangling. In person, however, the
singer with the original ‘hardcore, bone-crunching,
psychedelic, sex-funk band from heaven’ looks much more
manageable. Five feet eight maybe, long straight tea-coloured
hair, younger looking than his 27 years; dressed in shorts
(natch), T-shirt and sneakers. Still with the big muscular arms
though. As for the willy? Well, he never showed it to me, which
is a shame. Maybe if he had, I might have sued him and made
some money out of it. He explains how a similar situation came
about... “It was backstage after a show and I was
changing and there was a girl there. We were all joking and
laughing together and when she left, no one was under the
impression that she was perturbed by my nudity in the dressing
room.” Within 24 hours, however, the girl, a student at
the George Mason University, in Virginia, had sworn out a
complaint and Kiedis was tried and convicted on misdemeanour
charges of ‘sexual battery’ and ‘indecent
exposure’. He was fined $1,000 on each count. He paid the
fine for indecent exposure, but is appealing against the sexual
battery charge. She claimed Kiedis had dangled his dick in her
face. Had he?
A word to the wise guy. This month has seen
the release of the first legitimate Led Zeppelin
‘product’ for over a decade. First was the
triple-album ‘Remasters’. Now this week comes the
real McCoy: ‘Remasters Boxed’: a 54-track, six
album / four cassette and/or four-CD collection of some of the
finest moments from arguably the most legendary rock band of
all time. The tracks for both were officially selected by the
three remaining band members – Jimmy Page, Robert Plant
and John Paul Jones – then compiled and re-mastered from
the original studio tapes by Page. The story of Led Zeppelin
has, of course, been well-documented over the years; the tales
of road madness and Red Snappers, cocaine and mind-games,
always with the suggestion of something darker lurking in the
background, are as well-known and often repeated as a favourite
dirty joke. But never has the case for Led Zeppelin been put so
forthrightly, so imaginatively, or so poignantly as it is
throughput the duration of this collection. A good time then to
talk to the man responsible not just for the re-mastering, but
who wrote, played on, produced and directed – both
musically and artistically – every important move
Zeppelin ever made. A good time then to talk to Jimmy
Page…
With very tired eyes, Ross Halfin looks at
me and asks the 64,000 dollar question: “Do you have the
slightest idea what’s going on here?” It’s
8.15pm. Ross and I are standing alone, chair-less and
cheerless, unable to escape, in a large empty room backstage at
the Nassau Coliseum in New York. In the distance, we can hear
Poison onstage, rattling their jewellery for all it’s
worth, 15 minutes into a tight, strictly-no-encores, 40-minute
opening spot for David Lee Roth. Ross should be in the
photographers’ pit shooting the show; I should be out
there scribbling half-arsed little notes and reviewing the damn
thing. It is, after all, what Ross and I do best, which is why
Poison’s record company, Capitol Records, spent all that
money flying us out here in the first place. At least, in our
mutual madness, that’s what we'd assumed… Well, not
according to the band, baby. What me and Ross should be doing
is standing in this goddamned room, pulling our plonkers and
counting the bricks in the walls. Escape is impossible. Two
hours we’ve already been trapped in this room, and it
will be two more before we finally get the hell out of here,
and the weirdness is compounded by the fact that neither of us
understands why any of this should be happening. And yet here
we are and here it is. Three doors out of the room; two of them
guarded by men who are not interested in our stories, only
interested in our passes, of which we have none because nobody
will give us any; the third door, leading to Poison’s
dressing room, slammed and locked shut to us.
“Mickey,” Ross groans, “What’s going
on? I don’t understand it. If they don’t want us
around, why don’t they just tell us to fuck off? Why have
they stuck us in a fucking room and left us here to stew?
I’m dreaming, aren’t I? Go on, tell me I’m
dreaming…”
