I was stimulated by the artistic energy surrounding me in Beverly Hills, but my biggest stimulation was happening two thousand miles away, in Minneapolis. Just as Michael Jackson rocked my world in grade school, Prince rocked my world in high school. When I saw Prince, I saw myself—or at least the me I wanted to be. He could write, sing, dance, and play the shit out of the guitar and every other instrument.
Prince had found a way to funk up New Wave. He knew how to grab attention and create an image. He wore punky clothes and hairdos. He was fearless. In my mind, I heard him saying, I’m gonna wear a trench coat with nothing but black panties and thigh-high black stockings and ankle boots. I’m gonna wear heavy eye makeup and process the hell outta my hair. I’m gonna do whatever feels good, and you’re gonna love it.
I loved “Soft and Wet,” from his first album, and “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” from his second. But the release of his third album, Dirty Mind, hooked me for life. “Head” was beyond brilliant, not to mention scandalously sexy.
David Bowie was another huge influence. He gave glam swag, and he understood rock as theater. I’d always loved KISS because they were rooted in comic book fun. But Bowie took it further. He kept redefining himself with a mysterious sophistication I recognized as real art. Like Prince, he was cocky and cool at the same time. He had a knack for switching up characters and inventing alter egos like Ziggy Stardust.
I started thinking, Can I become such a character?
I kept asking myself, Who, in fact, am I?
I started seeing that my search for a look and a voice had been going on since I first saw the Jackson 5. I loved all sorts of voices and all sorts of looks. Now, in high school, I went from an Afro to a short natural to a look-like-Prince process. Ray Hall, Mom’s hairdresser on The Jeffersons, was the first to relax my hair and fashion it with Jheri curls. I cringe a little when I see photos of myself from back then, but what can I say? That was me, raiding Flip and Aardvark’s Odd Ark on Melrose Avenue, sporting vintage tux jackets, ruffled shirts, skinny jeans. This was the New Romantic style. Up on Cloverdale, when no one was home, I’d spend hours in Mom’s closet, trying on furs, scarves, and feather hats. Like Prince, I let myself go.
* * *
My parents had no idea who I was at night. On my own, I discovered an underground world of music and dancing. The Odyssey was the first place where I felt I belonged—it’s where all the misfits gathered. The Odyssey was a cavern that pumped out all the newest New Wave music, like Soft Cell, Haircut 100, and Romeo Void. Kids wore blousy Elizabethan-style shirts. As soon as I entered, I was hit by the dank smell of butyl nitrite. There was a counter in the back of the club that sold the chemical under the name Locker Room. If I didn’t have enough money to buy my own, the stuff was being passed around the dance floor anyway. With my head spinning, I’d dance by myself in the middle of the crowd until 4 or 5 a.m., when I’d have to hurry home to return the stolen vehicle. On other nights, I’d catch a midnight showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Tiffany Theater on Sunset. Stoned and dressed in full costume, I’d dance along to the routines and shout along with the famous dialogue. It was beautiful. It was a fantasy. The whole experience had a communal call-and-response church vibe that brought the freaks together.
Let’s do the time warp againnnnnn.
* * *
On the home front, things between me and my father had gotten worse. He continued to harp about my bad grades and my messy room. He had a point; he was right on both counts. So, I was always being grounded, but also always finding ways to sneak out anyway. All this was going on while Dad’s attempt to make it big in Hollywood was falling flat. His already short temper got shorter.
* * *
It was my junior year. I’d just turned sixteen and was leaving the Beverly campus when I spotted this guy blasting Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Boogie Wonderland” on a boombox while beating out grooves on a drum pad. He was dressed in a designer suit and fancy Gucci loafers and wearing a gold watch with a mother-of-pearl face and Porsche sunglasses. His hair looked like it had been groomed by Vidal Sassoon. He was no student. I figured him for a professional musician. Naturally, I had to approach him.
He was a friendly dude: Dan Donnelly. He had just moved back to L.A. from Eugene, Oregon. At eighteen, he’d already graduated high school and figured that by setting up camp on the lawn of Beverly High and blasting out funk, he’d get noticed. His drumming chops were off the charts. When it came to R&B grooves, he was already a virtuoso. His Mexican mother had raised him and his seven siblings by herself.
From that first day on, Dan and I were inseparable. I introduced him to my friends. I talked my music teacher into letting him sit in with the school bands. I acted like his agent. We were both eager to form bands and get our music out to the world. The hustle was on. Dan had me drive his butterscotch-colored Olds Omega so he could beat out grooves on the dashboard until that damn thing was destroyed.
Dan and I soon started up a business based on a model he had developed: a disco/deejay company catering to private parties. Dan supplied the sound system—four Yamaha PA towers—and I learned to deejay. I was up to date with disco and knew which records to buy. I also knew the party scene in Crenshaw, Ladera Heights, and Inglewood. I wasn’t shy about soliciting business. We called ourselves GQ Productions, after the men’s fashion magazine, and printed up fancy business cards.
The gigs came. We booked everything from sweet sixteens to house parties to cotillions in the ballrooms of fancy hotels. If we were driven to begin with, now we were doubly driven. We were making connections left and right. One of those connections seemed a sure bet.
He was a shady character called Smokey. He claimed that he played drums for the Gap Band. The Gap Band was huge and one of my favorite groups. One night, Smokey heard us jamming—Dan on drums, me on guitar—and he flipped out and said we were gonna be stars. And he was gonna help us form a band. We’d be the leaders, he’d find us sidemen, and we’d soon be touring the world.
Smokey even came up to Cloverdale to meet Mom. My mother skeptically listened to his hype but didn’t say a word. When he left, she expressed her doubt. This prompted me to challenge Smokey during our next meeting. I asked him to demonstrate his drumming chops, but he declined. He said he didn’t want to show up Dan. Dan and I insisted. That’s when we learned that Smokey couldn’t play a lick. Not only was he not the drummer for the Gap Band, but it turned out he was on crack! Dan and I had been blinded by our ambition. But Mom’s eyes were wide open.
That misstep didn’t stop me. Nothing would. I kept looking for the right sound, the right voice. I kept looking for my musical self. And this took the form of putting together new bands with new friends.
* * *
I was introduced to a guy at Beverly named Tracy Oberstone. He looked so androgynous that most people thought he was a girl. We clicked immediately. Tracy had a Black Jamaican mom and a white Jewish absentee father who hadn’t shown up until Tracy was in high school. His dad turned out to be Sy Marsh, a high-powered agent who represented Sammy Davis Jr. When Marsh finally did appear in Tracy’s life, it was only to drop off a bag of second-hand clothes. I was a witness to that sad scene. To complicate things even more, Tracy learned that one of our high school friends, Tracy Marsh, was Sy’s daughter! His dad had never even bothered telling him that he went to school with his half sister, not to mention that she shared his name!