ABOUT US
The Late 60's found me alone building my photography studio, and working as a cab driver to pay for the rehabilitation of a Vegetable & Fruit store into an art space near a huge excavation “le trou des Halles,” in Paris.With that company cab, I would also drive to Amsterdam on my “free time” to smuggle back through tight customs American paraphernalia: books, comic books, posters,records and bootlegs for the Open Market record store. All of it for panache, thirst of freedom and to be allowed a mere discount for buying these very same records from the Open Market. That's how I started to pile up records I dreamt of, had heard about, listened to or wanted for their covers. And that's exactly what happened when I saw “1970” by The Stooges. I rushed back to my lair with the album, closed myself in and got the same pangs my first girlfriend gave me and the same mind vibes Hendrix had zapped me with the first time I took pictures of him.
In those days, the Press in Paris was writing about Folk Music, mainstream French artists & Poets… Not too much of a musical leap from Classical Music played at home. Since my return from San Francisco in 1966 and the last two concerts of Jimi Hendrix in Paris, I wanted to taste more sounds, BAD !!! I was struck by such an adrenaline rush that I bought “1969” the next day and decided I had to search & toy Iggy Pop & The Stooges. Right then, I started in my studio, at 12 rue des Halles, a T-Shirt factory, Harry Cover, with a graphic artist, to wear the mug shots of the forgotten boy.
In 1971, I was able to carry enough good photo equipment, cash and letters of credits from the magazines I worked for, and an unlimited Press visa to hope to stay in America long enough to search & deploy.
My kid sister living in NYC that was good enough for me to start my journey unto Destroy Rock. It was a big help since the task appeared nightmarishly impossible: Rock & Folk, Best, Extra and Salut Les Copains were unknown magazines in the U.S. and France was far from being thought as a “R ‘n R kind o' place.”
A daily struggle to affirm oneself and overcome the American jokes about Frenchies and "Yéyé Rock". Restricted to small offices “down the hall,” looking for an inexistent “International Department” sign and having mostly to speak to people who had no idea who you were or what you were talking about.
The whole 100 % pure concentrate of my musical formation, Classical, Jazz & Blues, had morphed into the Alexis Korner / Zoot Money / Stones / Beatles / Animals / Kinks pure mind drip of my early 60's school-break trips to England. But now I was totally devoted to the MC5/Stooges Detroit Raw Power.
Motoring down to the West Coast on the trail of The Stooges, I found them in a pink building on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood all of them split up in different wings. Iggy and James Williamson on one side and the rest of the band on the opposite side. James all pissed off ‘cause of Bowie's mix of Raw Power too “faggy-sounding” for him. Iggy coiled in his room or a corner of the bare living room, not liking daylight nor the light of the day, having tasted the spotlights and “glam” of the Bowie scene, heart bleeding from the shot of stardomness and reenacting it every night in the streets of L A and the motels of Santa Monica.
He being “out” all day long, I was left to be scrutinized and put to the Question by James who was busy playing Mr BIG, Mr Very, Very BIG.
Crossing over to the other side, I didn't get much help from Ron either who had turned their apartment into a Nazi Kommandantur; all the props left from the last gig with Iggy. Months of daily visits later, James finally handed me a copy of Gonzo journalist Hunter Thompson's “Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas,” and told me to read it “ ‘cause it's the story of your life.” I took it as a key to their flat to come and go as I pleased. Until then I had kept my cameras in my bag, but now I was “in” and “allowed” to follow the “ins & outs” and to run from one side to the other without the risk of looking like a two-timer. It seemed I even was able to bring some peace to the “friendly feud.” At least enough of a truce to get me driving down with Ron and the crew to a motel where the Ig was “hiding” out. Drying out or in between two wild-child crazes. Took lots of zany pix in the bathroom. Got Iggy to get used to my face, the “fear and loathing” Frenchie. Tremors & imagination all superimposed over the picture of the Ig laid on a carpet on the “1970” record cover I had looked at in Paris. That was 3 years later - well worth the wait.
Another morning, back on the Strip, Iggy stumbled out of his bedroom unaware of the time of day, zombied out yet smiling like a child & saying HI!
I knew I had to get my gear and freeze the Ig.
And to think fast about how to bring him to “my photography studio”: the open roof of the hotel next door where I had made friends with the Staff who had tacitly given me free use of the swimming pool on the terrace overlooking West Hollywood & Hollywood.
Wearing only the pants of his moon-$-stars pajamas, he re-entered his dark bedroom where I followed him and saw the pea-coat of a blond female asleep, grabbed it as well as her wide frame sunglasses. She couldn't mind one way or another and THAT would have to do to allow Iggy to step out and up to “the atelier.”
Back in Europe, large spreads of my shots were printed in rock magazines and that comforted and sealed my friendship with the whole group. It lasted for some time; at least until Iggy's fame skyrocketed on the European market.
After the Lust For Life Tour, being pal with the Sales Bros, Tony and Hunt, I was urged by them, who had known the passion that had led me to create with a couple of guys the Iggy Pop Fan Club and I Wanna Be Your Dog fanzine in Paris, and the T Shirt Factory, to expand them to the States where I had been living since 1973. I asked James “Killer Guitar” Williamson for permission. And that's when we created Siamese Records, he as the Collecting VP and I still stuck with the job, the hustles, responsibilities and financing. Siamese was the name, relating to their strong friendship, he had thought of with Iggy if they ever were to start their own record label - one of these days…
We kicked out the Jams by releasing I Got A Right & Gimme Some Skin by IGGY POP & THE STOOGES. A cult record which, as Joe Ramone told me later, energized the whole NYC Punk Scene. I peddled that monster single through the grapevine before everyone started to bootleg it like maniacs out of Rip Off Land.
Thanks to that hit single, the L A Fan Club, and the American version of the magazine, my work in L A Magazine and the help of Chouket, a dear friend/co-worker, we were able to establish ourselves and get promos and radio airplay.
In August 1977, Bernard Lenoir of France Inter Radio aired it for the first time in Europe on the José Arthur Show: "Le Pop Club."
We even got a timid appreciation from Rodney Bigenheimer, the iconic “Mayor of West Hollywood.”
The Bowie Glam image that Iggy was still carrying in the underground L A scene got us noticed by the Godfather of L A Glam Punk, MAX LAZER, the darling of the then-marginalized homosexual/bi/drag queen world. Thanks to Yvonne Corson who believing in Max and Siamese Records got us together. She also introduced us to Gary “Record Machine” Gladstone who became Engineer & Co-Producer of most of our 45's.
After that I followed some crazy kids who were raising hell in L A, a combination of Black Sabbath and The Doors: THE WEASELS, the Godfathers of L A Hard Punk. They had been touring for a couple of years headlining in Southern California clubs and bars with Van Halen opening their shows. They boldly pushed teenage trash way beyond the boundaries of America the Beautiful.
The Forefathers of Teenage acneic eruption.
I was mesmerized by the band and Siamese released its third single: “Beat Her With A Rake” which got a tremendous response. Members of Women Organizations would go to stores and break the records right there in public like furies from Apoplexia. Refusing to meet us and not realizing that we had in fact opened up the dialogue on battered women, such a taboo subject all over the world. Of course we could only get paid if and when the singles were sold. And even then, at the mercy of the big chain stores, we were lucky if we got a “check in the mail.”
Pretty soon though the title became a classic, thanks to Dusty “Excellentissima DJ” Street at KROQ who played the hell out of Beat Her With A Rake. With always lusciously sexy comments before and after the spin. Play it Baby, on Thanksgiving Day! The traditional American family reunion, only SHE could do it. A great lady way up there in the L A Radio Airwaves. Great spirits and so cool funny. Besides taking snaps of notorious bands, I was making bar rounds searching for that punk sound, Patti Smith, holding my hand, led me to hear way back in NYC before the punk revolution had taken off. The kind of sound The Ramones, Television, Blondie, The Talking Heads, Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders were playing in NYC when I first arrived.
At last came the Godfathers of L A Punk, THE CONTROLLERS. A smart-little-Scottish-kid friend, Brendan Mullen, made me aware of their true L A Punk sound. So I went and met the first “Controlers” with Johnny, Kidd, DOA Dan & Charlie Trash. I kept the shutter of my camera clicking and never left them.
My look wasn't punkish enough and I barely drew a glance from them. I didn't care for I was taken by their sound and “in love” with Karla Maddog, who soon joined the line-up in place of Charlie. Thanks to her “sticks power,” Johnny jumped in DOA‘s place, leaving Kidd–Slow Boy doing ripping guitar sounds.
THE CONTROLLERS had lent their hit song “Neutron Bomb” to fellow punkers, The Weirdos, who were pogoing it in the burbs and Hollywood clubs. (It's back here on this CD, where it was supposed to be, for your very own Destroynesses!)
THAT was THE sound that really did it for me. I was thrilled and made them part of our combat rock. I had a thing for Maddog who was always putting me on the edge. Treating me like an alien white boy. I never told her I had been in “Frisco” in 1966 during the Martin Luther King era with a dear Afro-French-Senegalese friend of mine. When the reverend was preaching for a world where all men would be brothers. It didn't seem like a bad idea at the time.
We did a special Siamese Records gig at the Whisky A Go Go, in West-Hollywood, with THE WEASELS & THE CONTROLLERS. And later a whole day Punk Festival at the Santa Monica Civic Center. At a time when other bands played Bars and small clubs.
Gary Gladstone was keeping busy recording and arranged for a meeting with Rick Tunstall, the Godfather of L A Punk Rock. An amazing Brian Ferry look-alike.
I suggested he styled that look into a street punk attitude and we formed THE ATTITUDE.
Rick had brought me a gem: a track he had recorded with Little Richard, the Godfather of R ‘n R, on piano. A Lieber & Stoller song, “Hound Dog.” Unfortunately, as it was also one of Elvis' songs, we were stepping into the King's suede shoes and we didn't get airplay. Couldn't find a DJ in California to play the single. (As of today, not even the Trash Can man himself, Mike Spencer, dares to play more than half of it.) All of them told us that it was too outrageous to have the nerve to take liberties with an iconic piece of Americana. Daring to touch the God of the White Emblem Society! That didn't help us getting concerts besides the ones Siamese organized. Later the band ended up “killing each other” while we were in the middle of recording an LP.
Fortunately, I had squeezed in the Godfather of L A Radical Punk, Christopher Judges, an English giant with a true concern for humanity, who had formed the NU AMERICANS. We recorded in a couple of hours, in the “wee” hours, “I Am The President,” and I added “Listen to Your Heart.” I let you imagine why I picked up that song for the B-side. We had to rush as we wanted to release the disc on the day of the “Ronald Reagan coronation.” The Swearing-in Day: January, 20, 1981.
Do You Think We Ever Got Airplay That Day or Any Other Day?....duh … If you said “Yes,” you lost Kiddos or you're lost. So what's new??? And as the Reagan reign crept, bad feelings sprung among all of us. Today I feel even more urgently it's time to wake up again America!!! Break'n thru to the other side……
In Memoriam Guy Wali Senghor.
Philippe Mogane.