Interview: Pleasant Gehman
My interview with Pleasant Gehman, the "Princess of Hollywood". We talk zines, The Cramps and belly dancing.
You had a zine detailing the LA punk scene in the late 70s, what made you want to make a zine?
A. I knew that the music I loved wasn’t being covered in mainstream rock magazines. Since I was about ten, I’d read rock’n’roll and alternative magazines like Cream, Rock Scene, and Andy Warhol’s Interview, but they really didn’t cover punk. Once I got a hold of Sniffin’ Glue from the UK, I realized that I could make my own zine, with my own writing!
So I started getting stuff together, my ideas, some reviews of shows I’d seen or albums and 45’s I’d gotten. My friend Randy Kaye and I started Lobotomy together. We both loved Mad Magazine…the satire and parody it featured about current events was hysterical. So I wanted Lobotomy to have some of that feeling, too…and to take rock ‘n’roll (but not ourselves or Lobotomy) too seriously.
I got a lot of friends and roommates to help out with writing. Kid Congo, later of the Cramps and Gun Club, was living with me and he had a really sick and fun sense of humor- we both laughed all the time! He wrote a lot of stuff for Lobotomy…and he also had a job at Bomp! Records, so he got a lot of import 45’s before anyone else did.
Photographer Theresa Kereakes and I met at The Whisky A Go-Go, in 1976. We both were teenagers; we went out every night, and were obsessed with rock’n’roll and punk rock. I asked Theresa to take photos for Lobotomy, and of course she accepted! At the time, neither of us ever thought that we would be friends for forty years- but we still are… and now, we’re working on a book about Lobotomy for Punk Hostage Press. Featuring my writing and Theresa’s photos, many of them have never been seen! The Lobotomy book will be published in early 2017.
Do you think zines are still relevant now that anyone can easily have a blog with a tenth of the effort it is to make a zine?
A. Well, I think the original punk ‘zines are totally relevant as an important piece of rock’n’roll history, for sure.
I know there are many people – mostly younger ones who weren’t even alive during the late 70’s and early 80’s making zines and chapbooks. There is something really, really cool about actually having a physical hard copy of someone’s work, it’s like a piece of handmade art.
I see new zines all the time…but in truth, a blog is much easier to set up, andhundredsor thousands of people can see it right away, the moment it’s published. Still, zines have value, and they’re really fun to make…and will be an awesome physical “time capsule” item. Just the same way as when somebody puts an event page on Facebook for a concert or show, but they still make hard copy flyers for the event.
Who was your favourite roommate in Disgraceland?
A. Ahhh…. I never really thought of that, and can’t decide (and not going to, either!) Between Belinda Carlisle, Iris Berry, or Laura Bennett, who was my bass player in the Screamin’ Sirens. They were all so much fun!
Belinda lived with me before-and right after- The Go-Go’s got famous. We got into tons of trouble together, we had a blast! But eventually, all the fans coming around, and like, kids sticking their faces up at the windows and their hands through the mail-box slot on the door made it a necessity for her to move.
Iris is now my publisher at Punk Hostage Press, and I still see Laura all the time. We all had mad, crazy, wild fun together, we all got into so much trouble!
How was it being in an all female punk band (Screamin' Sirens) in the early 80s? Did you feel like you were paving the way for more women in the scene?
A. Yes, I did…. But also, my close friends had kind of paved the way for the Sirens, and me too. I’d been a friend with Joan Jett since 1975, right when the Runaways were starting, and with Belinda since 1976. By the time I started the Sirens in the early 1980’s, The Runaways had broken up and Joan had started The Black hearts…and Belinda and The Go-Go’s were getting really famous.
Starting an all-girl band was a no-brainer, cause I loved all the gals I was hanging out with. But even though the punk scene in LA was full of women in bands- or other all-girl bands like The Bangles and The Pandoras, there was still a huge amount of sexism in the mainstream music industry.
Record companies all though we were “novelty acts” and wouldn’t sign us!
In those days, going into a music store to buy strings or drumsticks, the clerks would always say, “What does your boyfriend play”?
It was insane, no one ever used to take female musicians seriously.
Just a couple of years ago- a good 30 + years after I started the Sirens and twenty years from our last show, I went into Guitar Center on Sunset Boulevard to get some batteries. All the clerks in the store were women- there were at least five of them. One was helping a customer with a drumhead, another was recommending a bass to someone. I was blown away…in fact; I (seriously) started to cry! I was so amazed and delighted and proud that every damn clerk in the store was a chick, it was an incredible moment. It proved how far we’ve come, especially in rock’n’roll, which has always been a male-dominated industry.
How was it to be the so called Queen of the LA Scene? Did you feel a sense of authority?
A. Ha! I knew so many great people (then and now) and was always backstage or always knew about the best parties, that I think Rodney Bingenheimer was the one who started calling me that… I went over every night for like, almost thirty years…
I never really felt a sense of “authority”, I guess cause I wasn’t interested in, like, having “power”. I was just into going out, having a great time, being creative, hanging out with amazing people!
It’s weird; some people get really nervous when they meet me … they just don’t realize I’m just a goofy chick who had a shit-ton of fun. : )
Do you desire to write another movie?
A. Well, that’s a possibility, but right now, I’m more into acting in films, and have four books that are started and need to be finished. The Lobotomy book, a book on Disgraceland I’m co-writing with Iris Berry, a book on Tarot reading that I’m collaborating on with my divination partner Crystal Ravenwolf, and my another forthcoming memoir, called (Super) Natural Woman , about all my life-long paranormal experiences. So… that’s gonna take some time! I’mworking on all that stuff now between dance gigs.
How did you transition from punk queen to belly dancing star?
A. I’m sure it seems insane to people who don’t know me, but for me, it was a logical progression. In 1990, I was on the dance floor at a rock club and a woman asked if I was a belly dancer. She said, “You move like one”.
She was a belly dancer, and I went to see her perform, and then I was hooked. I begged her to teach me. So I started taking lessons, and loved it. Then, a friend gave me a ticket to Greece- you could totally give or sell airline tickets before September 11- it seemed like fate was calling my name, and I needed to take things as far as they would go!
So I added on Cairo, told my family I was going, quit my job and up and left for an adventure that lasted eight weeks in the Greek Islands, Cairo and Upper Egypt.
I learned as much about belly dance as I could in Egypt, and returned several times usually once a year. Right after I came back from that trip, I started working as a belly dancer… and twenty-seven years later, I’m performing and teaching all over the world. Crazy! If anyone had told me in 1990 that belly dancing would take over my life, and I would become a professional, I would’ve laughed him or her out of the dance studio…but here I am!
What were your favourite bands in the late 70s/early 80s?
A. Oh man, there’ssoooo many! The bands I saw most live were, in no particular order: The Cramps, Blondie, The Go-Gos, The Gun Club, The Germs, Tex & The Horseheads, X, The Mumps, The Ramones…
I adored The Damned , Siouxsie, The Buzzcocks and The Sex Pistols, and saw them a lot too, in UK as well as in LA, or in the Pistols’ case, their last show in San Francisco.
But there are tons and tons more… too many to mention!
Do you listen to much punk today and if so, what?
A. I listen to mostly older, original punk, still love it!
One more question that I have to ask: what are Jim Jarmusch and Iggy Pop like to hang out with?
A. I didn’t know Jim Jarmusch that well, just saw him around a lot at gigs and art shows on the scene in New York around 1978-1980, but he was always fun.
Iggy was, of course, wild. Got into a lot of trouble with him on various occasions, from 1975 until the early 1990’s! I met him and we started hanging out when I was fifteen- the whole story is in the book Pamela Des Barres wrote, called Let’s Spend The Night Together: Backstage Secrets Of Rock Muses And Supergroupies. Had a lot of crazy times when he was living in Malibu, in 1977. David Bowie rented the house for him, I stayed there on an off all summer that year. He had the walls covered in butcher paper and would spray paint all over them, and like, dump buckets of house paint over his head so it dripped all over his body, ten run at the walls making body prints. It was beyond. We’d go into town to see punk bands or whoever was at The Whisky play. It was an outrageous way to spend an LA summer!
For more info or to contact Pleasant, go to her website: