Backstage Blog

Row of Hollywood Walk of Fame stars

 

Welcome Backstage.

 

A time travel back to Hollywood in the eighties.

 

The Sunset Strip was my classroom, and rock and roll was my first love.

Bustling crowds, dive bars, music and late nights.

Mural of diverse people in theater setting.
Hollywood and Vine neon sign with clock

Hollywood wasn’t just a city — it was a voltage. The Sunset Strip pulsed like a live wire, and if you were young, beautiful, reckless, or talented (or pretending to be), you belonged there.

Let’s walk the Sunset Strip in 1985. It's midnight and we just parked crooked off Clark Street.

The Strip Was the Runway, the epicenter, from Doheny to Crescent Heights.

Every night felt like:

  • Rock and roll mayhem

  • A rock and roll fashion show

  • A bar fight waiting to happen

  • A record deal two drinks away

Hair was higher than rent.
Leather was tighter than loyalty.
And nobody walked — they entered.

The Clubs were our real cathedral. if you were serious, you rotated between:

  • Whisky a Go Go

  • The Roxy Theatre

  • Gazzarri's

  • Troubadour

  • Rainbow Bar & Grill

This is where rumors were born and reputations died.

You didn’t just “go out.”
You made laps.
You checked who was in town.
You clocked who got signed.
You watched who switched bands.

Backstage smelled like:

  • Aquanet

  • Jack Daniel’s

  • Marlboros

  • Sweat

  • Ambition

The Look

Glam rock was at full bloom. For women:

  • Teased platinum or jet-black hair

  • Red lipstick, heavy liner, blue or smoky shadow

  • Leather pants, leopard print anything, mini-skirts,cat suits,  fishnets, thigh-high boots

  • Men’s band tees cut and slashed

  • Chains and crosses, bolo ties

For men:

  • Spandex in colors not found in nature

  • Lipstick and eyeliner

  • Leather pants so tight they squeaked

  • Cowboy boots or pointy-NANA boots

It wasn’t drag.
It wasn’t parody.
It was armor.

The After-Hours Reality

The glamour had a shadow.

  • Cocaine was everywhere.

  • Jack Daniel’s was practically sponsorship.

  • People disappeared into addiction.

  • Some were already burning out.

Deals were whispered at 2AM.
Hearts were broken before sunrise.
You could fall in love on Tuesday and find out he had three other girlfriends by Friday.

The Soundtrack of was a peak era for:

  • Mötley Crüe

  • Ratt

  • Poison

  • Dokken

  • Faster Pussycat

Guitars were flashy.
Hooks were massive.
Choruses were built for girls screaming in the front row.

And everyone believed they were next.

What made  Hollywood different wasn’t just the music.

It was:

  • The hunger.

  • The beauty competition.The constant reinvention.

  • The myth that you were one showcase away from MTV.

You could reinvent yourself in one haircut.
You could erase your hometown in one leather jacket.
You could become a persona overnight.

For the select (cool) few, a typical night would go to a speakeasy-underground bar, around midnight but first, you would start at the Frolic Room, The Central, The Soundcheck or The Rainbow.

You go for the first buzz of the night, strong cocktails.
You end up at an after-party in a crumbling apartment with mirrors on the ceiling. Midnight marked only the beginning. We'd slip into those underground clubs like shadows-- first one, then another, then another. Our lives became a maze of neon-lit doorways, and rock shows, scrawled in leather in a leather planner I'd never needed before. By the time 3 or 4 AM rolled around, we'd surface from the underground oly to dive into some other bar, some strangers apartment party, until the sky blushed pink. Then home to crash until dusk, unless work beckoned--those days meant red-eyed shifts fueled by the steady snort of cocaine, counting the minutes until darkness fell again. Nap and repeat.

We were the Hollywood vampires.