i know you are accustomed to seeing me photographing stiv, but here, he's photographing me. this photo was taken - of him photographing me photographing him - in amsterdam in july 1985.
1985 was the summer that stiv, michael monroe and i were roommates - in stiv's flat, in mine, and in michael's manager's flat ...
michael monroe in my flat at the portobello hotel
why did we have so many places to stay? well, we didn't stay in any of them for very long, for reasons i'll explain later.
stiv and i were in amsterdam for a week's vacation, so that when we returned to the UK, we could have an additional 6 months to stay without having to do deal with getting extended stay visas. we were both pretty savvy at getting around having to deal with government paperwork. i mean - can you imagine lords of the new church-era stiv in the US embassy?
although he looked out of place in a government office, stiv lived the life of a rock n roll celebrity; had a rather palatial (by london standards), expensive flat in ladbroke grove. arundel gardens. we could see lemmy's house from stiv's roof deck (see, i meant it when i called it palatial by london standards), and we were walking distance from the portobello hotel, where i always stayed in those days. whenever it was available, i got rooms 6 and 7, on the ground floor. the big room opened out into the hotel's beautiful english garden. the little room was big enough for the bed, a desk and the walkway between them to the bathroom, which was only big enough to turn around in. both the rooms were gorgeous though. the big room had a giant four-poster bed with a canopy and green velvet curtains that wrapped around the entire bed, so you could completely block all daylight out and sleep in.
even though i charged these posh portobello stays with credit cards that my parents paid, i was careful to stretch out my credit allotment. usually, we'd stay at the hotel for a week each month. that would basically take care of the time it took us to find another apartment - or holiday let.... we were on the move that summer because stiv and his girlfriend had split up and he couldn't really afford the palatial ladbroke grove digs on his own.
michael was in between flats, too. there was a month his manager went out of town, and we stayed there. after that, we stayed at the flat where i was house-sitting when little steven came to london...
stiv told me that little steven was a big dead boys fan. steven hung out with us, took us out to dinner, and we in turn told him where to get 24/7 eats (at the portobello hotel restaurant, but of course!) and where to get pizza by the slice that tasted almost like NY pizza (very tough one, that). steven was in town to work on his anti-apartheid project, a record called "sun city." he was going to be recording it at island, where i worked. small world, isn't it? stiv and michael ended up singing choruses on the record, along with half of london... they're also in the video hart perry shot, both in the studio part, and in the street scenes shot later in NYC.
in addition to his own "sun city," little steven went in to produce demos for stiv and michael.
we were in the recording studio in convent garden - neals yard studios, so named for neals yard, the little square in convent garden where the studio was located. peter cooke and dudley moore recorded their comedy albums there, and so did monty python! we loved that vibe. during the recording sessions, which went deep into the night, i'd go out before the shops closed to get some food for us - usually mediocre pizza and OK salads and sandwiches. then i'd crash on the couch in the front lounge, as the guys would just record all night long, often doing some takes over and over again. musicians would come and go all night long as well.
one morning, i woke up to find polaroids of me in full clown face make-up. everyone denies doing it - and because when i awoke, my face was clean, i wasn't exactly in the position to accuse anyone of really messing me with me.
during those recording sessions, stiv, michael and i had to move again.
stiv's former drummer in the wanderers, ricky "rock" goldstein had a flat in the ravenscourt park section of hammersmith, and i had stayed with him and his wife, margaret before. they were going on a brief holiday, so stiv, michael and i decamped there.
stiv in the bedroom of the ravenscourt park flat
believe it or not, we lived a sort of happy nuclear family type existence... with me the mom and stiv and michael as my sons. only they both always spent way more time primping in the bathroom than i ever did. we moved by taxi. stiv had a genius way of packing, and always only carried one suitcase. but that one suitcase carried everything AND the kitchen sink. stiv packed for us, and left michael and i to hail a taxi that would take us from old church street in south kensington to ravenscourt park. an older gentleman cabbie picked us up, and was flirting with michael, thinking he was a woman. i did all the talking, saying that my friend was from finland (true) and didn't speak english (false). it would be terrible for the cabbie to all of a sudden stop carrying our luggage if he learned michael was a man! stiv got in, and the cabbie is exchanging real dude eye contact with him: lucky guy... two ladies! ha!
michael in his red kimono in the bedroom, ravenscourt park
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