KISS IT GOODBYE

There’s Iggy Pop, twenty minutes ago an official onstage performer, now off and looking to cut up informally in the carpeted wing off the main dance floor of the Hollywood Palladium. And whose Shoulders are better to climb atop, there to pose for some pics, than those of Keith Moon, one of the offstage stars of a night on which the sideshow is as important as the main attraction and the concept outweighs both?

It was the Hollywood Street Revival and Trash Dance, a neatly organized, well-defined finish to the glitter scene of Hollywood, an era that always seemed certain to end the next day for lack of input, but which survived and survived on some sort of odd momentum. The decadent lifestyle implies a striving for jadedness, but over the last year it’s showed that it alsohas a will to live.

But the question all along has been “when,” not “if” it will pass on. Almost by definition the scene was an inbred, cloistered, elitist system, which immediately limited its spread and guaranteed an inexorable downward spiral. It’s the proletariat bands — the Allmans, BTO, et. al — that are defining today’s rock dream for American kids. Smart ones like Bowie and Mott knew that outrage wouldn’t last and deftly scampered away from the outre age. The less astute are doomed to live out dead fantasies.

The Trash Dance was as convenient and visible a “when” as any, and was headlined by one of the latter — judging by their four L.A. appearances, anyway, all of which have been progressively less promising duds — the New York Dolls. They were a fitting climax to an evening and an era, thrashing violently, strangely admirably, totally in vain, against the inevitable.

The bittersweet night was redeemed by those who broke through to assert their survival. Chief among them was Iggy Pop, back from the brink one more time and previewing what has been hinted to be the next step: Ray Manzarek on keyboards, James Williamson on guitar, ex-Silverhead Nigel Harrison on bass. Their three days’ rehearsal time kept them down to things like “Route 66” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” but Iggy showed that he can tone it down a touch, be a little less bizarre, without sacrificing any of his insane energy or diluting his gripping stage manner.

Also representing the first generation of the whole thing were the G.T.O.’s, reunited for the show, filling things out with a dash of nostalgia. They were, of course, charming. They, and especially Miss Pamela, have never really stopped performing, the only difference this time being the fact that they were up on a stage. They sang “Mr. Sandman” (backing provided by Harrison again, as well as former Runtgren Tony Sales), and then, in best Bobby Darin-Sandra Dee tradition, they were joined by Michael Des Barres, ex-Silverhead, one of the period’s hottest British imports, and Miss Pamela’s husband-to-be. He’s in the midst of an image-change, moving away from wasted street rebel, and somehow he seems so giddily lost in the swirling stream of styles and events that neither obsolescence nor stardom is likely to come his way. It should be noted as a sign of the times that after that gig Miss Pamela went to New York to begin the continuing role of the girl from the wrong side of the tracks in a veteran jietwork soap opera.

If you looked, you could find some new blood. Zolar X is driven to proving that outrage, if extreme, can prevail, and they work at the fantasy every waking hour. Their performance is as much — perhaps more — off stage than on, as they wander around with spaceage coifs, orbiting eyebrows, ten-gallon swelled heads and stern, science-fiction visages (and their presence could only make the deprived local resident scream the question — why didn’t somebody foot the bill and get Wayne County, a kindred spirit, into town for the show?!). The-Hollywood Stars, abetted by youth, verve, and guidance from Kim Fowley, remain a step ahead of mounting community impatience over their long-delayed album and boredom with lack of change (it’s been almost a year now, fellas...). Their set, in fact, provided the Trash dance with its freshest and least trashy music.

And of'course it wouldn’t have been a true Hollywood event without our ubiquitous Mutt and Jeff: Kim Fowley presiding with his customary aplomb, Rodney Bingenheimer playing records between acts. Rodney was undoubtedly the most pleased attendee, proudly displaying the sticker on his jacket and saying, “Finally, my name on an actual backstage pass! After all these years of making up phony ones!”

Into the scrapbook and back to the streets! ‘