C H A P T E R   O N E

this story begins in 1985, when the world was young....most of the clubs that we played at are gone, either they're Mexican restaurants or shopping centers or they just sit there, a silent testimony to a different time. 

this story is important, not just because it's mine, but because it is in itself a fairy tale. guys like me, born with nothing, struggle against all odds and win the BRASS RING. that ring has been fumbled and dropped a couple of times but what's important is that for one brief shining moment I HELD IT, I wielded it like Thor wielding his hammer, I stood on a cloud that teenagers dream about standing on for decades, all the way back to the Beatles... 

this is for all the people that stood in front of their bedroom mirror , hairbrush in hand and pretended that they were someone special. this is for their first guitar amp that broke all the time, cost them every penny they had ..everyone starts this way, you, me, but not many people get the PAYOFF, not many people get to taste REAL GLORY, performing for 18,000 screaming people. being able to snap your finger and bring 2 or 3 girls to bed . driving cross-country on a seemingly never-ending panorama of sights and sounds and having it all revolve around YOU. it IS you. no words were ever more true than SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI--earthly glory is fleeting....it sure the fuck is....  so let's begin at the beginning.... 

before I joined the band that would be known as LOVE /HATE my real name was James xxxxxxxx. I was born in Chicago but I had lived most of my life in the san fernando valley in los angeles, a safe, serene middle class conservative area.I hardly ever ventured out to hollywood, looking back I was probably scared shitless, people there were DIFFERENT than me. they dressed different, they partied hard, they were DANGEROUS. I was this stoner dude that bounced back and forth from shitty band to shitty band, I won't bore you with my life before I joined l/h because IT WAS BORING. a merry-go-round of amateur bands, no direction or purpose. a cornucopia of shit. 

love hate at that time was called DATACLAN. they were fully immersed in the "new-wave" techno thing. they sounded like the old Thompson twins, Duran Duran, , that was the era of "fashion rock". flashy expensive clothes and slick catchy love songs. people would put a streak of red dye in their hair and think they were "punk". 

love/hate's manager at that time was a guy named g. xxxxx, someone who I had known from another band I'd been in a year before. he was a successful car salesman, which didn't qualify him as a manager per se but DID qualify him as a person with ready cash that young bands could mooch off.. my earlier band had drained him dry shooting an expensive video and now here he was taking care of DATACLAN. 

about the time I joined DATACLAN they had just come back from a disastrous showcase engineered by skid, or chris as he was then known. apparantly the band was hot, they actually had an offer on the table from Atlantic records for a single of theirs, $60,000 I believe. Capitol records was also interested in signing them. the band had made some influential contacts and things were looking good. but skid decided that it wasn't enough, he decided what was needed was a HUGE EVENT , something that would attract the attention of every label in town, in other words, he wanted to engineer a "bidding war" . now, these are big stakes here. a big splash can either generate a big wave or you can end up all wet with nothing. the stage was set... 

now thru joey's parents contacts they were able to secure the famous Picfair mansion in the hollywood hills, once the home of silent film stars mary pickford and douglas fairbanks. joey's parent s were business partners with jerry buss, who amongst other things owned the los angeles lakers. anyway, this guy lived at this prestigious mansion and agreed to lend it out for one night. the band invited EVERYONE in town , every record company, everybody. it was an expensive catered  affair, valet parking, the works. I can say this from experience because I was actually there, having been invited by my friend g. xxxxx. I admit when I showed up I was a bit awed and not a little bit jealous. there on the lawn in front of this big house was a huge 10-foot stage, lights, bells and whistles, everything. it did indeed look impressive. there were tables set with food and drink, all you could eat. important people in suits were milling about, talking and eating...then A HUSH FALLS OVER THE CROWD--- THE BAND TAKES THE STAGE, they were dressed to the nine's in expensive leather , their hair all coiffed, there was skid on bass, joey on drums, jon on guitar, a keyboard player named rodney , and their former singer m. xxxxx. they took the stage, they started to play....and people started leaving.... 

they didn't leave immediately, of course, they waited a polite song or two. why, I don't know, maybe glory is fleeting, maybe the band wasn't ON that night, who knows but after that night they lost all their prospective record deals, they lost it all. they had tickled the dragon's tail, and been burned. 

now when you engineer something of this nature, of this magnitude, you are basically gambling everything on ONE roll of the dice. after this fiasco EVERYONE had seen them, and now  NOBODY likes them. live and learn. I'll be repeating this little motto all thru this narrative because IT FITS. getting a career in music is all about TRIAL AND ERROR, being in the rite place at the rite time. talent has SO little to do with it, believe me. there are a million talented singers and songwriters in L.A.. right now LANGUISHING, starving, because they never got that 1 big break. the competition is unbelievable here, trust me, there are literally thousands of bands trying to secure 1 or 2 record deals. I can go to the Rainbow any given night and see people there that I hung around with in 1986, still unsigned, still mooching off chicks to live, still trying to convince themself that THIS IS GONNA BE THE YEAR....jesus....it boggles the mind. so, here they are, no record deal, no record exec returning their phone calls, there's nothing going on. there is also friction in the band. M. xxxxx, the singer and once-principle songwriter is being eclipsed by skid, who is coming into his own. there's also people whispering in xxxxxs' ear, telling him that he should go solo, that he doesn't need the rest of the guys anymore....dissension, dissension. 

g. xxxxx decides the best thing for the band to do rite now is to get out of town. he arranges a short trip to japan, they will play the Bottom Line club in Osaka for six weeks, playing a combination of their own songs and cover songs. it seemed like a good idea... 

so they go to japan. things start breaking apart. skid is going thru pot withdrawals, he refuses to come out of his room, xxxxx is getting more and more encouragement to strike out on his own, the band hates the idea of being "top-40 " band....then -the pivotal moment--xxxxx decides he's going to leave , to quit, never mind that there's a contract to play for 2 more weeks, he packs his bags in the wee hours of the morning and takes off. joey, being awakened suddenly, actually helps him carry his bags to the taxi...inexplicably ....why would he do this? knowing that it would spell the end of the band? who the fuck knows?----the band tries to carry on without xxxxx but to no avail, they get fired by the club and sent home in disgrace. that little trip cost xxxxx the chance at the brass ring--he tried to get his shit together over the years but , like most people, it just wasn't in the cards--he QUIT...he left of his own volition, so did Rodney, the keyboard player, left to STRIKE OUT ON THEIR OWN....a scary notion, I can't impress enough upon people not to quit, don't quit until it is absolutely positively the last thing you can do--somehow the Rock Gods look upon quitting as unfavorable and WILL STRIKE YOU DOWN, they'll put you on that express train to mediocrity and there you will stay....if you're gonna quit, quit for a better band, don't quit for nothin', like a certain Bass Player we all know, 'cause the moral is , you might not be able to get home again....