Rock & Roll nights in Los Angeles, California. A high octane fictionalized memoir presenting an eye-popping peek backstage, behind the scenes at the hottest rock club in the world, written by internationally recognized music journalist Jim Esposito, who Grace Slick called "like the weirdest guy I ever met."

"I always loved music. In high school, it was all me and my friends talked about - aside from sex, drugs, sex, drinking, sex, cars, and sex. I'd heard A LOT of music since then. Yet here I was in a smoky barroom, a band on stage, drink in one hand, a nose full of coke. Pity I didn't have any pot, make the roll call complete. A crazy business. But what would you expect from an industry based, ultimately, on musicians?"

Listening, I had one of those peak experience flashes. Surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a rock 'n roll show, it was a defining moment, a flash of karmic clarity, when you had to stop, right in the middle of the trivial details you get caught up in, think: "Yes! THIS is WHY I do it!" Nobody could ever take this away from me. No matter where I went or what I did, I was here, in this moment, at this place. Nine-to-fivers could kiss my ass.
Rock 'n Roll, baby!

Chapter One

There was going to be a video shoot, but I didn't know until I showed up for work at The Club that night.

Getting off the freeway at Sunset I drove past the front of The Club so I could check out the line, like I always do.

It was early so there were only 10 or 15 harmless looking kids grouped around the front door. Which figured. Huey Lewis & The News were playing; they drew a clean pop crowd. In addition, their record company bought a couple hundred seats. Those folks probably wouldn't start to arrive until the opening act was off.

Then I turned the corner into the parking lot, saw three video vans parked behind the building. Cursing, I knew what that meant: I'd be short-handed. I'd need an extra man backstage, two more on the floor, nurse-maiding camera crews. I'd have to make a rush call to Contempo, the security company from who we contracted men when needed. My boss, Garrett, wouldn't like that, since they were more expensive than using our own crew, but expecting a well-behaved crowd I'd given two of my men the night off. And nobody had told me nothing about no video shoot.

Parking, I walked in through backstage, stepping between local neighborhood teenybops who always hung around the door, peeking in, hoping to catch a glimpse of the stars or something. They knew better than to enter. If they did, they'd be raw meat for the stage crew (who were like heavily into territorial).

Inside I found the usual pre-video bedlam - a bunch of strangers with headsets running cables around, arguing about everything and acting like they owned the place while our stage crew quietly saved their ass.

I looked for Snuffy, our stage manager. Didn't see him, but I nodded greetings with The Doctor, my backstage guard and chief hostility depressant. My "Anesthesiologist." He was big and he was black, and he could do that Bad Mother routine like you would not believe.

People rushing past with equipment, I exchanged hellos with Vince, our sound man, and Duquette (Bird Man of the Lights) as he and a spot operator hurried by with a ladder when I was suddenly confronted by an officious gay guy with a clipboard and walkie-talkie, approaching with the patronizing air of a head waiter in a West Hollywood bistro.

"Excuse me..." he sneered in a prissy attempt at intimidation, "but this is a restricted area. You don't have a pass. You have to go."

"I don't need a pass," I explained. "I'm Head of Security."

Looking me up and down, he did not appear impressed. I don't know what the Head of Security at a rock 'n roll club is supposed to look like, but nobody ever seemed to think one should look like me.