Confessions of a Glorified Sideman

Stephen Stills and his Tele­caster — © ROGER BARONE 1994 — www.rogerbarone.com

Dis­claimer: In the fol­low­ing, I dis­cuss my use of ille­gal drugs. Let me be clear, I no longer do ille­gal drugs or have plans to ever do them again, nor do I wish to con­done or encour­age their use by any­one. Ille­gal drugs were a part of my life in the past and I can’t change that.

I used to do ses­sions in the late 80’s/early 90’s for a very tal­ented key­board player and pro­ducer named Kim Bullard. He had played with Stephen Stills in a group called Man­as­sas.

Around mid­night one night in 1994, I get a phone call from Kim. He’s in a ses­sion at his stu­dio in the Val­ley (or on the Bene­dict Canyon side of it, any­way), and he needs me to play harp on some­thing right now. I asked if it couldn’t wait, and he explained he was work­ing with Steve Stills, who was there, and the song had to be fin­ished mixed and turned in by the morn­ing for a movie called The Cross­ing Guard. Jack Nichol­son starred in it and Sean Penn had some­thing to do with it. He needed me now!

Well, when duty calls… I said sure, got the address and imme­di­ately called my dealer. I fig­ured I’d be mak­ing dou­ble scale (around $600 at the time) so some refresh­ments might come in handy. It turns out he was at a night club called Num­ber One which was located right on the way – on Sun­set just past the Strip as you’re head­ing into Bev­erly Hills. I only needed to run in and I didn’t want to valet and park­ing is a bitch so I’m think­ing of things to say to secu­rity when I pull up and who do I see but Steve Maruchi, an old friend from my Rod Stew­art days. He was Rod’s body­guard. I was dri­ving my black Mus­tang 5.0 and how I didn’t kill myself and oth­ers with that car I’ll never know. I was a speed demon to the max. I pull up and he’s about to tell me I can’t park there when Steve rec­og­nizes me. We have a laugh together and I tell him I just need a minute in the club so he let’s me park right in front. I find my guy, cop a bindle, and I’m on my way.

Kim’s stu­dio was on a very nice piece of prop­erty with some kind of creek run­ning through it. If you didn’t know bet­ter you’d think you were in the coun­try and not in the mid­dle of a major city. LA can be like that. I meet Steve and he was not in a good mood.

After I was intro­duced we lis­tened to the track and he said some­thing in a gruff, grav­elly, impa­tient, cig­a­rette voice, “Well… ya think ya can play some­thing on it?

I fig­ured out what key the song was in. I believe in D as I played a G harp. How I remem­ber these things I will never know… and wish I could tell you because I’ve for­got­ten what the hell I was sup­posed to be doing today… oh yeah!! Write!!!

I start play­ing some harp in the con­trol room with the track and he’s already dig­gin’ it and his mood is get­ting way bet­ter. I go in the room play it through a few times with input from Steve and Kim and Whommp! There it is!! We’re done.

Everybody’s happy and now we’re just hangin’ and Steve asks if I’d like a glass of wine and I say why not. The stu­dio had a big porch with sofas and chairs like an old south­ern house and I was doing a hit of blow when Steve walked up with the wine. He asked what I had there so I offered him some. He accepted. We drank wine, I told him what a big fan I was of Buf­falo Spring­field when I was grow­ing up and how much I loved one his songs, Blue­bird. I was hang­ing with Steve Stills… and he dug what I’d just played…

Life was good…

At the time, I was liv­ing in a Hol­ly­wood Hills apart­ment on North Fuller, which I had rented when I’d got­ten the part in a Jen­nifer Jason Leigh movie, Geor­gia. We filmed it on loca­tion in Seat­tle. (Go rent the movie — I did a great job play­ing a musi­cian – it was a stretch, but I pulled it off.)

I don’t think the neigh­bors appre­ci­ated my lifestyle. I had moved in with Heather – a 22 year old, recent grad of the Uni­ver­sity of Ken­tucky (yes, that one). She was beau­ti­ful, blonde, mes­mer­iz­ing green eyes, long legged and full of ambi­tion… with an incred­i­ble thirst for cocaine an insa­tiable sex­ual appetite to go along with it. It was quite a cir­cus at times try­ing to feed both of them. It was pure heaven and hell with her. I suf­fered through it like the trooper I am.

Her Daddy was a mil­lion­aire high roller – what they call “a whale.” Caesar’s Palace used to send their jet to fly him in from Ken­tucky. I saw him drop $100,000 in a few hours play­ing black­jack in Vegas.

When I met her I thought I’d try and shel­ter her from my deca­dent lifestyle. Yeah right. One day she said she had to pick up some­thing at her hairdresser’s place for her Daddy who she was to meet in Vegas. We drove in her late model sports car to a funky apart­ment build­ing in Hol­ly­wood. I waited in the car. She goes in and comes out in 15 min­utes, jumps in the dri­ver seat and tosses me a ten­nis ball. I’m think­ing Huh? She says squeeze the ball. I do and inside was a small bag­gie stuffed full of sparkly flakes of crys­tal meth. She’d just copped a half-ounce of meth for him to gam­ble on. Yeah I’m gonna keep this girl pure as the dri­ven snow.

Any­way… few days after the record­ing ses­sion for the song on The Cross­ing Guard I get a call from Steve’s man­age­ment. They said Steve wanted me to come up to his house in Bev­erly Hills to play the song we’d recorded. Now I’m con­fused. I ask the agent, “He wants me to come over and play the song?” He says, “Yeah”

So of course I ask why? I mean, it’s already recorded and mixed. We’re done. WTF? He says with some atti­tude, “How the hell do I know? Steve wants ya up there around 2:00 Sat­ur­day after­noon.” He gives me an address on Sum­mit Drive.

My girl had a job as a recep­tion­ist at a Hol­ly­wood record­ing stu­dio. Besides doing fair amounts of blow together we were in the midst of an erotica/ sex­ual toy phase of our rela­tion­ship. I mean it seemed this girl didn’t see a sex­ual toy/dildo she didn’t want to try. Who was I to argue?  After a while we had a small gym bag full of these things.

So it’s the Fri­day night before the Sat­ur­day that I’m to go to Stills house. My girl and I are on an all night binge of sex, drugs, video… and sex toys!!! We were like two lit­tle mani­a­cal bunny rab­bits all over that apart­ment till the sun came up. Whole lotta fun!! So I come to my senses the next day, look at my watch and it’s 1:30 pm. I jump out of bed and she’s out to the world. Fuck. I’ve got to be at Steve’s in 30 min­utes. The apart­ment is trashed. Bot­tles, drinks, toys all over the place. I take a quick shower and usu­ally I always take all my axes (harps, saxes, flute) when­ever I go to a ses­sion or rehearsal. But this was… hell, I didn’t know what it was so I grab just one G harp for the song I played on. I fig­ured we’d play it a few times and I’m out of there. Big mis­take.

As I’m walk­ing out of the apart­ment I see a note on the door from the build­ing man­ager say­ing they had to come in and check some­thing in about an hour. Fuck. I gather up all the toys and dil­dos and put them on the kitchen counter and run back to the bed­room and tell my girl the manager’s going to be there in an hour and to clean up a bit ‘cause I had to run up to Steve Stills. She mum­bles some­thing and I’m gone.

We didn’t have GPS then. The old handy Thomas Guide was my best friend. So I’m nav­i­gat­ing to Steve’s and I take Cold­wa­ter Canyon Drive and then start dri­ving up… and up. It ain’t called Sum­mit Drive for nothing.

I get to the top and you have a 360-degree view of Los Ange­les, the Ocean, down­town, etc. I find the place and it’s a huge incred­i­ble house. I was told later it was Bar­bra Streisand’s place and that Steve was rent­ing it for $10,000 a month. Nice. It’s all right for some, eh?

I knock on the door and some­one answers and tell’s me Steve is rehears­ing in the barn. Rehears­ing? Hmm­mmm. They give me direc­tions to the “barn” and as I’m get­ting closer to this actual large barn I hear a band play­ing very loud one of Steve’s hits, For What It’s Worth. How apropos.

I walk in and it’s a full on band rehearsal. Shit! They’re in the mid­dle of a song. Steve sees me but looks right through me like I wasn’t there. So I just hang off to the side and lis­ten to the music. I knew a cou­ple of the cats, the bass player Ger­ald John­son and piano/organist extra­or­di­naire Mike Finni­gan.

They fin­ished the song and went right into another one. I’m think­ing shit, this is a band rehearsal for a show — not a ses­sion. I’ve got to get Steve’s atten­tion or I could be here lis­ten­ing to this all day. So they fin­ish that song and I walk up to Steve and ask if we should play the Cross­ing Guard song so I can get out of his hair and he can get on with his rehearsal. He looked up at me with an annoyed, con­fused look and said gruffly, “Just play what you played the other day!!!”

There was silence and a preg­nant pause you could stick a fork in. Finally, Finni­gan in his sten­to­rian voice (God bless him), said into the micro­phone, “…uh Steve… Jimmy wasn’t here the other day.” Talk about awk­ward. Fuck! He thought I was some­one else! Steve is look­ing flus­tered and in a split sec­ond I’m think­ing there’s a gig to be had here. I say real fast, “Hey, it’s cool Steve. I just live down the hill and I could go grab my sax and harps and be back in half and hour.” Yeah right. He says “Yeah, go get ‘em.” And they launch into another song.

I’m dri­ving my Mus­tang 5.0 and I’m fly­ing down that fuck­ing hill. A gig!!! With Stills!!

“Down the hill” was more like thirty min­utes min­i­mum from Stills place to mine. I get to my apart­ment door and there’s a note on the door. It’s from the man­ager say­ing they let them­selves in because no one answered and that they had fixed the prob­lem. I walk in and the place is just as I left it. Dil­dos, bot­tles, full ash­trays, and shit every­where. Jeeeeez!!!

I go to the bed­room and my girl is still in a coma. Great! I say, “Baby, I told you to clean up cuz the man­ager was com­ing over! He’s come and gone (no pun intended) and there’re dil­dos every­where!” It didn’t seem to bother her or be of any impor­tance at all at the time to her. She just rolled over and went back to sleep. Oh well, too late now.

I grabbed all my axes and bolted out the door. I get back to the barn and set up all my stuff and fin­ish off the rehearsal. Every­thing seemed cool but I had no idea if I had the gig or not. The next week I get a call from Steve’s man­age­ment telling me about a gig in Las Vegas. It was a cor­po­rate gig at the Hotel Rio Casino. At the time I had no idea what a cor­po­rate gig was. All I knew was there was a gig. I asked if I could get a CD or tape of the show/songs with which I could rehearse the songs. They said they’d get one over to me. I never got one.

The British have a quaint phrase for how I felt on that first gig. I felt “like a spare prick at a wed­ding.” At sound check no one had thought to tell the sound peo­ple or any­one else for that mat­ter about a sax/harp player in the band. No one had given any thought to where I should set up on stage. It seemed I was just in the way. Since I didn’t know the mate­r­ial I fig­ured I’d try to set up near Finni­gan so I could see the key­board and fol­low the changes. Smart move. Mike was so cool shout­ing changes to me that night and I will always be thank­ful. I stum­bled through the gig and didn’t feel to good about it but I got the call for another gig in South Lake Tahoe.

We arrived the night before the gig in a mas­sive snow­storm. I remem­ber smok­ing coke all night watch­ing these huge flakes come down out of my hotel win­dow. I had grown up in Sacra­mento and every sum­mer since I can remem­ber we had spent at Don­ner Lake. The Lake Tahoe/Reno area was my stomp­ing ground and I had lots of friends. A cou­ple of pals came to the gig and it went a lot bet­ter this time.

Right before we were to go on stage I see a tele­phone on the wall right on the stage. I checked and it had a dial tone so I called my girl. We hadn’t been get­ting along and sure enough we start get­ting into it on the phone. Steve hears this and comes up to me and says, “Hang the fuck up! Are you outta your fuck­ing mind! Never, EVER, talk to your chick before going on stage!” He was right. I should have known bet­ter because all I did was think about how pissed I was at her instead of the music. Good advice, indeed.

We had a good show and the house was a rockin’. It was a large casino show­room and we had rooms in that hotel. After the show my pals and I were hangin’ at the casino bar when we see Steve rum­ble through to a black­jack table. He looked in a surly mood. My buddy was a really good black­jack player. A few years before he’d had a card count­ing team and they did pretty well until they were all rounded up one day by some casino thugs who threat­ened to smash up their knees and knuck­les if they ever tried that shit again. He wanted to meet Steve and I tried to con­vince him that now might not be the best time. He didn’t lis­ten. Steve was alone at the table and when my pal sat down with him Steve told him to fuck off. Pretty funny. Steve was fucked up drunk and his pen­chant for blow was no state secret so he was prob­a­bly gacked out of his brain because I saw him at 6 am across the street gam­bling at another casino.

My pals and I finally got back to my room and ordered some food from room ser­vice. One thing lead to another and a food fight ensued. And then we started trash­ing the room. I know… not too intel­li­gent. When I woke up in this trashed room I look at my watch and real­ize I’ve missed the shut­tle to Reno for the flight back to LA. I quickly dressed and inquired about a ride to the air­port. If I hus­tled I might still make my flight. My room was a com­plete wreck. I left.

As I’m wait­ing for my ride in front of the casino this tricked out early 60’s Ford Fair­lane screeches to halt right in front of me with the motor revving hard. Sounded like a fuck­ing tank. Stills is dri­ving. He yells at me to get in, we’re going to the air­port. It wasn’t snow­ing but it had the last two days and the shit was piled up every­where. I’m think­ing no way I’m get­ting in that rocket with that maniac behind the wheel who’s been up all night drink­ing and doing blow. Not to men­tion we had to drive over the Mt. Rose sum­mit to get to the Reno Air­port. He’s get­ting really pissed off now yelling at me to get in the car and I’m say­ing it’s cool. I’ve got a ride com­ing. It must have looked hilar­i­ous. Finally I tell him there is no way I’m get­ting in that fuck­ing car with him and he roars off all pissed off.

The next week in LA I get a call from my man­ager, Gary Ballen. He says he just got off the phone with Stills man­age­ment. Appar­ently my ser­vices will no longer be needed. He asked what the fuck went on up there. The hotel is ask­ing for a lot of money in dam­ages. I said that’s bull­shit. Just some food on the walls and some chairs turned over. Then he got me. He asks, “Well, what did you do with the door to your room?” WHAT?! He says the door to your hotel room is miss­ing. Wait a minute. Those doors are heavy. I’m not sure but I would think you’d need tools to get the damn thing off and where could I carry it. Of course, I deny it. But now I’m not sure. I could’ve sworn there was a door to the room when I had left… LOL.

Another gig bites the dust.