DOA: Sex Pistols 1978 Tour: Roberta Bayley Joins the Tour
Chapter Eight: January 7, 1978 San Antonio Texas
Narrator:
In our last episode, Tom Forcade insisted that John Holmstrom report on the entire Sex Pistols tour! We drove from Memphis to the airport, and after buying a ridiculous-looking three-piece western business suit for Holmstrom, and headed for San Antonio.
Back to the story:
Before boarding, Tom bought around 25 publications to read on the flight (a huge pile of magazines): everything from Guns & Ammo magazine to the Wall Street Journal. At one point, he pointed out an article to Michael Drake: “See this plane? I wanted to buy it last year but they wouldn’t let me. Now look—it’s worth three million. We would have cleaned up if they had only listened to me!”
Once we left the plane we took another large vehicle to a swank hotel. As we were about to check in, Ira Kaplan (the famous photog hired to shoot stills for the film), was causing a ruckus in the parking lot in front of the lobby. I couldn’t hear exactly what was going on but the guy was threatening to quit the tour and was pissing off Tom (Ira was film director Lech Kowalski’s guy). After the drama ended, Forcade said: “We need a new photographer. Do you know anyone?”
“Roberta Bayley! She’d be perfect! She even worked for Malcolm McLaren!”
“Call her now!” Tom barked.
Since I spent most of my time on the tour hanging out with her, and she was one of the most important people involved with PUNK Magazine, allow me to tell you a little bit about Roberta Bayley—one of the most amazing people I’ve ever worked with. I have to say that in those early days of the magazine Roberta, Mary Harron and Robert Romagnoli were the three most important creative people contributing to the magazine (besides me, of course). Despite “common wisdom,” Ged Dunn Jr. (the publisher) and Eddie “Legs” McNeil weren’t very involved in creating editorial content at the time, really: Legs hung out at CBGB, got drunk and picked up girls while Ged tried to run the business, which wasn’t an easy task. Robert Romagnoli did the funniest stuff that everyone loved, Mary brought in the big interviews and was our best writer, while Roberta handled photographers and took many of the photos herself. The Legend of Nick Detroit (PUNK #6) was mostly shot by her, although Chris Stein also contributed some great images. Roberta also appears in the last scene, after Nick Detroit kills everyone who likes him and gets a drink at a bar.
Most people don’t know this, but Roberta Bayley put PUNK Magazine on the map back in the day! She took photos of me with the first issue of PUNK that were published in Rock Scene magazine (edited by Lisa and Richard Robinson and Lenny Kaye). She was also responsible for selling our first issue at the door of CBGB (back when it ws $2.00 to get in and the magazine cost 50 cents—which was a lot of money since you could buy a beer for a buck at the bar back then!) And of course, the first time she did a shoot of a band for PUNK, it ended up as the cover of the first Ramones album.
I always thought of PUNK as a hybrid comics/rock magazine, and the main appeal of rock mags were photos of rock musicians. This persists to this day. Photographers with great images of CBGB musicians can make a lot of money! Back then this wasn’t the case. No musicians involved in the CBGB/Max’s rock scene were famous. I think Rock Scene magazine paid $5 per photo, and mot rock magazines didn’t pay much more than that. At PUNK Magazine? We couldn’t pay anything! But a lot of people wanted their work showcased in our pages. Roberta made sure that every photo was properly credited and that we published as many photogs as possible.
Something many people forget is Roberta’s role as the CBGB door person back in the day. Just a few years later people running the door at Studio 54 or the Mudd Club had a lot of power because they decided who got into a club and who didn’t. Roberta was that kind of power broker back in the day: She had access to every important power player who showed up at the door of CBGB. She could be tough, like: “You’re on the guest list? Sorry, your name isn’t on there. No, you can’t get in for free. Pay the two bucks. Support the bands. What, you’re a fucking cheapskate? It’s only two bucks! Support the damn band! What is wrong with you people?”
She would also allow people with no influence or power into CBGB if she liked them.In a way, she shaped the CBGB scene like no one else—not Hilly (who owned the club), nor anyone else. In a way, she ran the place!
Roberta is also one of the most punk rock people I ever met. She constantly had to deal with record industry people who thought they were entitled to do nothing but still receive support from the scene at a time most of the musicians were broke. When she demanded that record executives pay their way in? It was a beautiful sight to see her squeeze a few bucks out of them.
Not only that, but Roberta was drop dead gorgeous, classy and intelligent. And I don’t think we ever had a serious argument the entire time we worked together at PUNK. She was truly one of the people who made PUNK Magazine a successful creative effort.
After I went to my room, I immediately called Roberta and told her I was on the tour, but she sounded pissed off, like I was lording it over her. She didn’t want to hear about me going on the entire tour! Then I told her she was now invited to go on the tour, and to get a ticket from Maureen McFadden, Tom’s assistant at High Times, but to be discreet about it. Suddenly, she wasn't’t so pissed off at me! She understood, like I did, that we were there to chronicle one of the most important events in rock ‘n’ roll history.
After getting Roberta to join the tour (remember that a lot of people back then would have refused!), I focused on my hotel room: It was one of the nicest I had ever stayed at! The bed was circular and large enough to fit a dozen people comfortably, the bathroom was huge, and the room itself was almost large enough to be used as a suite in most hotels. With a few hours to myself, I started writing down what had happened. I kept the hotel room pen and the room stationary with me the rest of the tour, since I was down to essentials at this point. I didn’t have my suitcase (thanks to the Memphis pimps), so I used a paper bag to carry everything.
Suddenly, Michael Drake stopped by my room and gave me $1,500 in cash. This made me feel a lot more relaxed about the situation. He told me to hang onto it and to spend the money only in case of an emergency. “That was thoughtful of them,” I thought, “since I mentioned the situation I went through in Memphis and almost got lost in a bad neighborhood… And my life was threatened!”
Now I had money for beer! And transportation to and from the venue! Maybe I could even buy a tape recorder to replace the one I lost during the scuffle with the pimps in Memphis… And maybe even a notebook! And a new pen!
Then… After an hour or so Drake came back to my room and asked for half of the money back. So I gave it back to him. An hour later, he came back and asked for the rest of it. Oh, well… Easy come, easy go.
Apparently they did this to several people during the tour. It was some kind of test. Another mind game. Another situation that blurred lines between reality and fantasy. What is truth? What the fuck was really going on? At the time I had no idea who Michael Drake was or Tom Forcade’s background, just that he was a rich guy who was really into drugs (especially marijuana)… Which was all I needed to know at the time.
NEXT EPISODE: Roberta arrives and we meet Malcolm McLaren!
Yeah. What Was up With the $1500 mind game? Truly easy come easy go... LOL