Mr. TWISTER and SUNSET BLVD. in "GARAGE SALE"

Mr. Twister back in the day, fronting an ad hoc group called Sunset Blvd. in the film "Garage Sale" circa 1975, starring Goldie Glitters of The Cockettes. Goldie at the time had left the influential San Francisco transgender troupe and matriculated at Santa Monica City College, where she eventually was elected Campus Queen ("A real queen!" she'd gushed trolling for votes.) 

Stymied for a big finish, the director Norman Yonemoto polled the crew for ideas whereupon the soundman extolled he could put together a visually exciting rock group with original songs overnight, the next day they could shoot the cast dancing to them, the wild rock rhythms would cause Godzilla to arise and attack, and the roof would fall in crushing everyone, The End (Fin.)  And so it went. The resultant underground film was well reviewed in the Hollywood Reporter.

A taste of my production stills of Sunset Blvd. in the film are above and below. The what ever happened to's of the entire band reveal someone who now lives at the very top of Topanga Canyon in a lovely manse; a film production professional; a first grade public school teacher; a current deputy mayor of the city of Los Angeles; and someone deceased way too young.

Security globe portrait

What to do while waiting at the after-midnight pharmacy? Self portrait in the security globe.

CARLA OLSON duets with GENE CLARK

photo
(C)1986 Heather Harris






Carla Olson, once of punks The Textones (from whom The Gogo's poached Kathy Valentine) and a worthy, popular duet-ist (with Mick Taylor amongst others) performing in 1986 at the Palomino with Gene Clark, once of '60s rockers The Byrds and their primary songwriter alongside Roger McGuinn and Bob Dylan. Clark, a stellar talent with a troubled life, died of a heart attack at age 46 in 1991. Michael Stipe in the earliest R.E.M. days invited comparisons to Clark's own sonorous vocal sound, sharing the same Southern roots.

naughty little doggie?

impersonation of the naughty bits with Iggy Pop and Don Was, 1990.

Memorial concert for SANDY WEST 12.9.06

What I did on a certain Saturday night (12/9/06): take pix at memorial concert for Sandy West (The Runaways' drummer.) Lotsa female bands: a Bangles reunion, The Donnas, (both groups pictured above) (that's a helluva cute drummer in The Donnas, oui? All Mary Pickford curls and bows,) Kanary (a band that featured Leslie Knauer of Precious Metal plus Mary Kay and Tony Matteucci of The Dogs,) Michael Des Barres and his Big Band doing Big Band covers of, say, Sex Pistols' songs, and a lotta punkers' reunions, including The Adolescents, White Flag (last pic) and Rhino Bucket.

PHOTOGRAPHING THE IMPOSSIBLE

In the textbooks, Frank Lloyd Wright's FALLINGWATER coruscates through the forest river mists like fairytales come true, a magic building floating over a real life waterfall. It's one of my bucket list goals to see/photograph it in person before croaking.

Topsy-turvy-wise, do you architecture groupies know about the only actual building that itself influenced a fairytale? The Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego, California was the prototype for the illustrations of the Emerald City castles in the original Oz books (the first five). The hotel featured a huge cone with tiny, little windows jutting out: you can see it in "Some Like It Hot" where it's role-playing being in Florida.

His son Lloyd Wright's works abound, but there are only three Frank Lloyd Wright residences in my native L.A., the Ennis House in my above photo, the Freeman one that's based upon triangles in cement and Mayan whimsy, and the fabulous Hollyhock House estate and grounds on the only single hilltop (as opposed to range of foothills) in Hollywood. All were from his molded cement period, and all are suffering from neglect.

Ennis House was used as the location of Angel's lair in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." My photo with the toppled trees and piles of brick debris was taken in 2006 after our rare rains produced much damage as seen above (absolutely nothing is built to last here.) I can't imagine any municipality not restoring a national treasure like a Wright residence, but then again, this is L.A. which insists upon doing the wrong thing at all times.

On the same jaunt I took the above pic. As Mistress of Illusion I love to photograph things that tweak reality. It's not a good shot, but it's of something that's not supposed to exist.

A fellow fantasy movie fan rhapsodized online about "King Kong" whereupon I added that I had seen one of the original Brontosaurus (now Apatosaurus) props from the original 1933 "King Kong" at horror/sci-fi collector supremo Forrest J. Ackerman's house, who was pleased as punch when I stopped in my tracks. He grinned as I marveled that it wasn't supposed to exist, that Willis O'Brien's stop-action armatures weren't constructed to last, and that all the props from original "Kong" were supposed to have long since disintegrated. This one didn't, and he loved the fact that I recognized this sauropod out of all others in the history of cinema, despite its precarious state. Remember the brontosaur rising from the primordial swamp? Here it is, 77 years later. Ackerman passed away in 2008.

SINGER PAMELA MASON

More rockergrrrls local history. Pamela Mason fronted a slew of my assorted L.A. clients' bands in the Sunset Strip's Golden Age of Hair Metal (she fortunately sported her own Brigitte Bardot tresses that required no further extensions.) As one group would fold or retrench, another would scoop her up: she was that good a singer.

I photographed the solo session with the flowers and my antique velvet clothes as a nuptials present to her and fellow musician Mark Mason, giving framed prints to them. They wed on a remote mountain top in Malibu so treacherous that all us guests refused to motor up there on its burro trail-driveway and just walked.

I photographed her in She Rok, Touch and Misguided as shown here and lost track of her whereabouts after her last foray singing high-ranged but smoky-voiced covers of obscure Free songs in a blues combo. Rumors prevailed that Mark and she moved to a horse farm somewhere on the West Coast while maintaining a globe-trotting business of yacht sales. It's all true. Last night we finally caught up on the phone, and they're still radiantly happy. Are you readers in love with Pamela yet?

Below, Pamela singing for Touch, and in She Rok (with Mary Kay in the center, see her own amazing story HERE.) The Touch shot appeared instantly in Music Connection magazine the second the editors saw and practically drooled on it pre-publication when the print was first brought in (during the pre-digital era.) Me, I like the devil horns effect as well.

Pamela in Misguided (see HERE for more Misguided)

Lastly, here's a link for Mark and Pamela's yacht sales business that contains a current photo of her. She proves still very hubba hubba indeed.

HOW I STARTED A RIOT 41 YEARS AGO WHILE PHOTOGRAPHING GRAM PARSONS AND THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS

The Palm Springs Pop Festival, April 1, 1969, a music event a tad bigger quantitatively than the more celebrated Monterey Pop Festival of the same era although smaller by many triple digits than the later that summer Woodstock, was peopled by some eight thousand strong in drug-fueled hippie-dancing young souls.

I went with my new college chum who shared my interest in music specifically to see Moby Grape (see my blog HERE) and the Jeff Beck Group, the astonishingly adept and charismatic ensemble belying its solo name which also included Rod Stewart back when he cared and was actually fun + magnificent alongside future Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, all of whom I had witnessed in sheer jaw-dropping awe in San Francisco a year earlier. (No pix of the 1968 Jeff Beck Group at Winterland by me: it was the first time I tried to shoot 35mm natural stage light and, with no instructions for my used pre-set lens camera, I botched it.) Both these bands canceled at the last minute, unbeknownst to us when we debarked for same.

When we got to the outdoor venue, it was my first time attending a show that blocked off the front of the stage from the audience or photographers like me. I was as determined then (particularly given the Jeff Beck Group photo fiasco) as I am now to get good live shots, so I just tore down the chicken wire, entered the rarified area and took the following photo of The Flying Burrito Brothers, (left to right the legendary Gram Parsons, Chris Hillman, Chris Ethridge and Sneeky Pete) all accoutered in their infamous custom Nudie suits, Gram with cannabis leaves and pills, Sneaky with pterodactyls etc.:
I only got this one shot of The Burritos because suddenly eight thousand people rushed forward to join me and I was jostled terminally from any further photography. It was uncomfortable amongst the new surging throngs, it was cold in the desert night air, the other two bands we wanted to see had canceled, we'd seen the remaining other acts before, and my friend was starting to get drugsick, so we left. But apparently those pushing stagewards continued in their spirit of surging and mobbing, and eventually rioted throughout toney Palm Springs all the way to the Taquitz Falls park. It was one of the first instances in failure of concert crowd control ending in rioting, quite some months before Altamont, and I, dear reader, may be responsible for its inception.

Later I would find access to stage photography limited by far more than chicken wire fencing, instead by micro-managing control freaks associated with the acts, and that has proven in long run a far more formidable obstacle to good photography than any 8,000 person riot behind me.

SOME GIRLS of the 70s, 80s and 90s, assorted sessions

all photos (C) Heather Harris. All Rights Reserved.
Some that you recognize, some that you've never even heard of

Bonnie Raitt, her Grammy and her band sax player at the Grammy Awards
Above, my friend Mary of The Dogs, far left, and one of her metal bands whose name I can't remember. Leah on guitar and ego (justified by her excellent playing) is in front, the singer on the far right was a dancer in her day/night job, and the preppy-looking drummer played like Mini-me John Bonham in a drum cage

Crickette for my punk book back cover

Patricia Morrison of Gun Club, with bass and her genuine hair, not extensions. Elvira copied her look and admitted same early on, Patricia has since married onetime The Damned bandmate Dave Vanian, and together they now have a little ghoul

Melanie Herrald, world-class singer, pipes of steel, from grunge-metal BadXample

Paula Pierce of The Pandoras, different phases. Don't ask, don't tell what she was doing onstage in the photo on the right. It was during her cover of the Stooges "Loose"

Pan A. of The Love Poodles. She could sing in Russian!

Chloe Webb (Nancy in "Sid And Nancy" film) at a Rock and Spoken Word festival performance

more of The Wild Hairs with different line-ups. One of them helped pioneer commercial piercing, one of them disappeared with Billy Idol on the back of his motorcycle after a gig, one remains a natural blonde, one of them has written published, historical non-fiction from Washington DC, one of them has been to Cuba and back (hard to do for us Americans,) and one still lives across the street from me

I've forgotten whom, but I surely referenced Richard Avedon for this singer. Two items of my own antique clothing worn here

I've forgotten whom, but she was cute, very young, arrived without proper accessories, and is wearing my jacket and muffler, as I continue to do as well to this day

Above, the photographer herself, on television in the early 1970's. My film of my future better half's band on the production set hadn't turned out well, so I was trying to recapture same photographing the actual broadcast. 'Still didn't get much. The photographer in this persona and vintage marabou bedjacket so trendy in the original Glam era bears no resemblance to the present one. Note I am on tv twice.

CHARISMA ASSERTS EARLY IN HOLLYWOOD

Maria Damon from Facebook remarked, at the following description of our mutual teen crushes, how some individuals already are blessed with charisma even when they are relatively unformed.

 He was a 6'3" ridiculously good looking 17 year old with Byronic curls, and liked films (inevitably, as he was the nephew of a Classic Hollywood Legendary Face of the 1920s through the 1950s, and direct spawn of a noted director and actress,) rock music, exotic foreign cuisine, fashions of the day (think back through the Paisley Corridors of Time,) dangerous illicit pastimes (also think back through the Paisley Corridors of Time,) drawing his own art and taking his own still photography.
 

These arty topics never even came up in my own toxic family environment recently vacated  by my one ally, my brother. These topics were even actively discouraged from ever existing. My father had been a professional singer who gave it all up when he married and he'd retained a bitter "if I can't succeed in showbiz, no one in my family should even try" mindset that attacked my artistic ways nonstop throughout childhood and adolescence. In my bedroom of secrets, such topics already had become centerpiece to my young world. Everything all at once, plus add hormones. I was a 15 year old goner. 
 
This goner-ism came from just snuggling next to him at the oddball movie "Morgan! A Suitable Case for Treatment" starring David Warner and Vanessa Redgrave back in the Swinging '60s. I then realized that love wasn't just an abstract conceit of the Romantic poets, it was physical. Lightning bolt of lust. Wowza! 

It also was 100% totally unrequited, except that he let it remain rather actively unrequited by continued interaction with yours truly for some four years while otherwise socializing in the normal manner one might expect of handsome teen guys. I did pick up a professional skill as it turned out. I learned how better to deal with ladies' men such as one would encounter as the norm in the rock and roll business. There's always trade-offs for the best ones. But I wouldn't again fixate upon another of these (the best ones) in my personal life for years to come, and it would take another five years to scrape the groupies off...(Story found when you follow the link proffered HERE.)