Tupperwaring With The Stars

Tupperwaring With The Stars

BOOKS

BYJAAN UHELSZKI

* ROCK AND ROLL WOMEN By Katherine Orloff (Nash)

Aw, the old man was going to Philly next Friday for one of those conventions and I had nothing to do so I decided I’d throw a hen party. The last time I’d seen any of the gang was over a year ago when we gave Carly a baby shower. I made up a list of the old backstage broads and started calling. Tanya couldn’t make it because she was grounded. Suzi Quatro was laminating her leathers that night, Karen Carpenter had a 10 o’clock curfew, and I couldn’t get Nico to come to the phone because she had reverted to her catatonic state. Gracie, Rita, Alice, Linda, Claudia, Nicky, Maria, Bonnie, Wendy, Carly, Terry, and Toni all assured me they’d be at my place by 8:00 that night. Oughta be a lot of fun swapping stories and catching up, I thought, as I made a quick inspection of my liquor cabinet. Scotch, JSloe Gin, and Southern Comfort, I wrote.

By 9 o’clock everyone had filtered in — all 13 of them. Thirteen? I’d only invited 12. Who was the extra? Then I saw her — a slitty-eyed blonde. She kept beaming a mouthful of pearly whites at

me from across the room. Finally I walked over to her. She leaped up and with a healthy pump of my hand offered, “Name’s Katherine Orloff.” She had made herself at home, and I was too taken aback by her gall to even ask her to leave. Instead, I exited to the kitchen to fetch some pretzels and booze. Before I could fill up a bowl with Cheeze-Nips, I heard this booming voice coming from the front room.

“It is extremely difficult to be a woman in rock and roll,” began Orloff, who had jumped on top of my leatherlook sofa without even having the courtesy to remove her Earth Shoes, “and your insecurities prevent you from breaking out of the insulating world of rock and roll; so you have become pre-occupied with pretense and image at the expense of personal evolution. You challenge a man’s world on man’s terms, negating your greatest asset, your womanhood. You don’t understand it and can’t use it to your own advantage:”

Terry Garthwaite jumped from my bean bag chair and testified: “Rock and roll is set up for men!”

Wendy Waldman nodded her frizzy top wildly and said,“You’re damn right; it’s harder being a woman in this biz. I

once had to fire a drummer in mid-tour because he hated working behind a woman. Now my band has a joke that goes: ‘Twenty five percent off automatically if you’re a girl.’ ”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” laughed Bonnie Raitt. “I think it’s been easier because I am a woman. I probably got those early jobs because I was a girl.”

Claudia Linnear tossed her magnificent mane of hair and continued: “I don’t think I had to hustle any harder because I was a chick. I believe everybody gets their chance. There are a lot of chicks who get laid by the director and still don’t get the part.”

I was getting sick. Why, these weren’t undersexed housewives, these were the rock and roll queens, the most enviable women ever to wear a backstage pass.

“Bah, Womanhood,” spat Nicky Barclay. “I’m sick of saying we’re musicians, then we’re girls. It amounts to us apologizing for being, women, shying away from any kind of glamor or attractiveness on stage — just to prove we were serious as musicians,”

“Well I don’t care what you guys think, I dig being sexy. The audience needs to be turned on, and I definitely think you should be sexy on stage,” insisted Wendy Waldman.

Katherine tried another tactic. “Hard rock has always been the province of men. There is an obvious phallic connection with instruments and in many cases almost direct confrontation with audiences. Women’s rock is less aggressive and less intense — being more sensitive and articulate. It hasn’t had the recognition the male approach has. In fact, the music business has helped underline the female performer’s position of inferiority. A woman in the rock and roll lifestyle tends to fall prey to traditional roles. You sacrifice much of your femininity. There is that pressure to conform and you ladies fight both your instincts and cultural roles.”

Linda Ronstadt was quick to agree: “I lived with a musician for two and bne-half years. It ended up that I’d get up and fix breakfast and he’d write a song.”

Katherine threw Linda an approving look, while Carly threw Linda a disgusted one. “You’re crazy,” she said out of the side of-her mouth. “Sometimes in a fit of guilt I decide that I will take a backseat to James and take up the traditional role of ‘the woman standing behind the man.’ James and I both hate me for that.”

“You got it, Carly!” said Grace Slick. “If I act like an asshole I am treated like an asshole. If I act regular, I am treated regular. It’s no more difficult because I am a woman.”

Shot down again, Katherine floundered in her own sociological trap.

I wanted to paste her in the chops for turning a night of gossip and gab into a goddammed lecture hall. She never seemed to wind down. “It’s more difficult for women to be accepted as serious musicians and group leaders and its hard for many male musicians to acquiese to female leadership,” droned Orloff.

“Yeah!” seconded Maria Muldaur. “There aren’t even groupies for girls. People are drooling over you in the audience but where is the one guy who will come in afterwards who isn’t just a teenager with his tongue hanging out.”

Suddenly, as if on cue, my hen party, which had already taken on the worst characteristics of a high school debate team, deteriorated into a cat fight.

In one corner were Grace, Claudia, Bonnie, Alice, and Carly. Backed into the other were Linda, Terry & Toni, Wendy, Nicky and Rita. Leggy Linnear planted a big one right in Ms. Barclay’s bread basket. Bonnie was lambasting Terry and Toni in tandem. These were the regal ladies of rock? Looked more like Friday Night at the Fights featuring the women wrestler’s tag team.

I saw my chance and I pulled that slagmonger, Katherine Orloff out of the ruckus, planning to really clean her

clock, “Lookit what you’ve done. Are .you recruiting for the Rock chapter' of the Woman’s Movement?”

The mousey blonde’s roar ceased. She replied, “No, I was just reasearching the book' I’m writing called Rock and Roll Women and I thought this’d make good copy.”

Off The Wall

WALKING TO NEW ORLEANS, THE ST-ORY OF NEW ORLEANS RHYTHM & BLUES by John Broven (Blues Unlimited):: For those already fans of the distinctive, happy New Orleans style of R & B, this is an invaluable historiography which will answer every question you ever had about the subject. But since it’s long on factual detail and short on genuine color, it will be of marginal interest to others.

John Morthland

HOT SHOTS by Norman Seeff (Flash Books):: Norman Seeff has one good idea — a kind of blurry-around-theedges, soft sort of photo (references: album covers for Stage Fright, The Joker, Montrose, and those post cards inside Exile On Main Street) that seems to make good album covers. A whole book of it, however, is sort of like a record-biz-sponsored trip to L.A. It’s all about driving it into the ground, Norman.

Ed Ward

THE BEER BOOK by Will Anderson (Pyne Press):: This book got reviewed some time ago in these pages, and it is now available as a paperback for half the price. If you drink beer and get off on the mystique, you need this book.

E.W.