The Dirt

April 4, 2004

By chance, I ran into Erick Saturday night at Union Pool. The place was crawling with Erick's friends, and every time Erick introduced me to one of them, he'd say, "This is Jamie. He was one of the first guys I met in New York. We used to be in a band together — the first band I was in in New York."

"Oh yeah? What was the band like? What kind of music did you guys play?" Someone asked.

"Both kinds," said Erick, "Rock AND Roll."

Erick was there to see his friend's rockabilly band and was kind enough to pay the cover charge for me to see the band as well. After the show, he introduced me to another friend of his — a tall, tattooed rockabilly cat with perfect hair — who was also there to see the band. We all stood around talking about motorcycles and music. Erick's rockabilly friend is a drummer who'll be moving out to L.A. soon. He’ll be riding his Moto Guzzi café racer from here to there.

"Dude," said Erick, "How are you gonna get your drums out there?"

"I don't have any drums," his friend told him. "I sold them. I figure I'll buy a new kit when I get out there."

"Yeah," said Erick, "You'll find lots of drums out there."

I thought that was so hilarious that I almost choked on my beer.

"What?" asked Erick. "Why is that so funny?"

"I don't know. It just is." I pictured arriving in LA and finding drums everywhere.

Another of Erick's friends, a guy named Tony Barber, passed by and said hello. I had no idea who he was beyond being a funny bloke with a radical Brit accent. Turns out he's the Buzzcocks’ current bass player/producer.

"No kidding," I said.

"Yeah, man, he's an excellent dude."

Erick told a hilarious story of when Tony roped Erick into being a stagehand for the Buzzcocks gig a couple of years ago at Bowery Ballroom. The story went on and on and is too long to either remember or transcribe, but let's say it involved half a roll of gaffer's tape and Erick pissing into a mop bucket stage right.

As the night progressed, the conversation somehow turned to the subject of Motley Crüe. Who knows why? It was Erick, after all. "Have you read The Dirt? That Motley Crüe biography?" Erick's rockabilly friend asked us. Erick had, I hadn't. "Oh man," they both said to me, "You have to read it. It's sick. Unbelievable."

"I read it straight through in like 48 hours," said Erick.

"Oh dude, I did the exact same thing," said his friend. Then Erick's friend said he thought that Tommy Lee was among the best rock and roll drummers of all time. Erick agreed. I didn't.

"You can't be serious," I said.

"I'm totally serious. The two best rock drummers of all time: John Bonham and Tommy Lee."

Erick did a little air drumming while singing some of Motley Crüe’s biggest hits, highlighting what he believed to be Tommy Lee's best moments, in an attempt to convince me. "His drumming is so simple," said Erick. "Classic."

"He’s got personality, I’ll give him that, but as a drummer? He’s the band's weak link—No wait, I take that back. Everyone in that band is a weak link. A classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts."

"Well, that's true," Erick had to admit.

It was an obvious statement, really. I mean, that's the whole idea of a band, isn't it? Otherwise, why bother?

I read that someone is making a movie based on The Dirt.