Crystal Passion Ch. 07

"The nude!" exclaimed Jacquie loudly enough to be heard on not only every adjacent room but probably on the floors above and below. "Fucking naked!"

"You might not fucking mind being nude on stage," stormed Jane at Crystal who was currently as naked as ever, as incidentally were almost all of us. "But that's a step further than Jacquie and I have ever taken before. It's fucking insane. And we're not fucking doing it!"

Jane and Jacquie were right, of course. We might appear naked in front of each other and, indeed, on occasion in front of very many more people, but none of us, except Crystal and Judy Dildo, ever took off all our clothes on stage. That wasn't the sort of band we were. In any case, it was always unspoken that neither Crystal nor Judy did so for any reason other than the exercise of their personal preferences. And, furthermore, there was another reason for our reluctance besides our understandable aversion to pandering to the pornographic fantasies of a male audience. And that was that Judy and Crystal were also the two members of the band for whom nudity was somehow both most natural and most flattering. Jane and Jacquie might have been my lovers, but neither had the figure of a magazine model: their bosoms were pendulous with large areola, their arses protuberant, and their thighs and waist fleshy and overflowing. I loved their bodies dearly, but they weren't the object of most people's erotic fantasy. And, of Andrea and me, it was my sister who was the most slender and evidently attractive. Although I had no excess fat as such, I was (and still am) quite thick-boned even if I'm not at all above average height. And with a below average-sized bosom, a waist not much slimmer than my hips and, of course, my shaved head: I was plainly not the obvious candidate to be a stripper or sex performer.

But there was a kind of inevitability to the subsequent stream of events along which I flowed while never feeling in control. Kai Pharrel emphasised the legal consequences of reneging on a deal in America. Marianne in London expressed sympathy for our plight, but totted up the punitive costs of a tour that was already losing money. And then there was the fact that we would have two successive nights at The Purple Robe and it was over a week till our next scheduled gig in Kansas City: the home of Charlie Parker and not much else.

What else could we do till then?

The gigs were promoted on unsubtle garish posters pasted throughout the city that featured photos of naked women that resembled not a single one of us strumming Rock guitars and bashing it out on drums. And emblazoned across the poster under the thick purple italic letters proclaiming the club's name was the name of a band called Chrystal and the Passions who we half-hoped no one would associate with us. In small print were a few choice quotations that were attributed to articles about us: 'Notorious and Naked' 'Anarchy from the UK' and 'Lesbian Punk Sensation'. None of us cared or were at all bothered to confirm whether the Detroit Sunday Journal, USA Today or the Philadelphia Daily News were correctly cited.

Crystal was probably the most distraught of any of us, however much she struggled to appear outwardly calm. Her mood was worsened by Jane and Jacquie who maintained a tireless tirade of how shit Detroit was, what a cesspit America was and how much they were looking forward to quitting the band. Every day they threatened, with attendant tantrums, to fucking walk away and leave the Crystal Passion Band mired in shit up to the fucking chin. Their mood was not improved by the fact that on this occasion it was the band's rhythm section that couldn't be spared. A set that had been adapted to emphasise the more rhythmic and guitar-led side of the Crystal Passion Band had to include Jane and Jacquie. Most of the band was spared the shame of having to appear at the Purple Robe, but, unfortunately, I was also not one of those.

Crystal and Judy Dildo led the band from the front. In fact, Judy was the only one who didn't seem especially upset by the turn of events. As a Rock Guitarist she'd appeared at some pretty crappy places with correspondingly rowdy audiences. She often regaled us with stories about the audience at these Rock gigs: the urination and vomit on stage, the blood and bruises in the mosh pit, and the fist-fights in the venue's shadows.

When Crystal and Judy appeared on stage at the Purple Robe on either side of the dance pole they were both totally naked with the exception of their shoes (flat-heeled in Crystal's case and rubber-soled in Judy's). It was unusual to see Judy perform without her strapped-on dildo and the black plasters over her nipples, but I think she felt a need to compensate for the rest of us who were disgusted, ashamed and humiliated at having to do the gig. Those watching the gig must have thought Judy was the band leader and that she was the Chrystal advertised on the posters rather than just one of the Passions. She completely took the initiative and compensated for Crystal's unnatural reticence and our shamefaced reserve by giving the audience something of what they wanted (although they may have been puzzled that it wasn't she who was singing; in fact, Judy's voice would only ever be good for the raucous amateurish punk rock that not even she enjoyed much).

The rest of the band was composed of the rhythm section of Jane, Jacquie and me, who stayed as much in the shadows as we could; enough so that we could avoid baring our private parts which were hidden under our not especially sexy or erotic underwear. Even so, we all still had our tits out for the boys: the sisters' large and fleshy breasts flopping about awkwardly as they played and my own much more modest bosom affording little pleasure to the voyeur (of which pretty much everyone in the audience was). I borrowed a purple wig from one of the pole dancers who performed between our three twenty-minute sets. I was scared that my shaved head would attract the wrong kind of fetishistic attention otherwise.

The only other members of the Crystal Passion band to venture into the Purple Robe were Jenny Alpha to roadie and Tomiko to manage the sound desk. She was dressed even more than usual like a weird Japanese schoolgirl wet dream; if one that swore with frightening ferocity, drunk her beer straight from the bottle and snorted a shocking number of lines.

The time we spent on stage was relatively easy to endure. I barely glanced out through the flashing red and yellow lights at the exclusively male audience that was mostly somewhat older than we were used to playing. They were just shadows I could glimpse in the dark of men who'd presumably been lured into a strip club with the promise that they'd witness a currently notorious rock band. It was actually the time when we walked onto and came off the stage that was most humiliating. I'd never before been treated to so many wolf-whistles and so much yelled innuendo in my performing life. Only Judy acknowledged the attention and she played the role of the Angry Rock Star to perfection (although that may have been because she was an Angry Rock Star). Jane, Jacquie and I kept our heads down or looked away until we could withdraw behind the thick purple velvet curtains and retire to the small changing room where the strippers were waiting their turn.

I don't know what I'd expected of the Purple Robe strippers. In all the American movies I'd seen which featured a stripper, she was almost always portrayed as the waif-like girlfriend of a dishevelled and misunderstood male hero who was struggling to get by until she could do something more worthwhile with her life. I could see no evidence of that in the Purple Robe strippers who smoked constantly, whose skin was a mix of several tones of black and brown, and for which English was not always their first language.

Moxie Fox was the stage name of the girl who lent me her wig but she preferred to be called Charlene. She had very light black skin and was so thin that I half-expected her to start shooting up, but she could just as easily have been a recovering anorexic. She was more interested in hearing about my glamorous life as a Rock Star than she was to talk about her life or trials however much I tried to steer the conversation elsewhere, but I preferred Charlene's company to that of Jane and Jacquie whose broken-record conversation returned again and again and yet again to how shit it was to perform in a fucking strip club and that they'd be fucked if they'd go on stage for the next set (even though they always did). I had no opportunity to talk to Crystal who was in a tightly huddled conversation with Judy Dildo whose arms were wrapped around Crystal's shoulders in sisterly affection.

Jenny Alpha and Tomiko were the only ones who didn't come backstage but they had to supervise our equipment to ensure it didn't get stolen. In any case, neither of them had been obliged to take off their clothes. My guess is that the two of them were sharing their dope and coke and should any of the male audience venture too close they were both more than capable of handling the situation. Tomiko's blatant sexual aggressiveness and Jenny's well-toned muscular figure were more than enough to intimidate even the most crass wolf-whistler and unfunny heckler.

Polly Tarantella is characteristically coy about our gigs at the Purple Robe, as she is with any aspect of Crystal's life that doesn't fit into a remarkably prim vision of her as a misunderstood and wholly spotless genius. What she does say corresponds more to her account of a Crystal Passion who was persecuted and humiliated on her American Tour where the villains are not so much flexibility in the face of necessity but the persons of Kai Pharrel and Judy Dildo (Marianne being wholly innocent of any wrongdoing). I think Polly is unfair to both of them. Kai was just the bearer of bad news and Judy Dildo, if anything, was the person who did more than anyone to rescue the band from even more humiliation. But Polly is unlikely to forgive Judy for making a success of a couple of gigs at a strip club. I think she'd rather we'd had our clothes ripped off our backs by rapacious male chauvinists and then stoned to death.

Judy was the one who interceded between Crystal and the manager of the Purple Robe, a greasy man with skinny arms and a supersized paunch. She got us in and out of the venue with as little harassment as possible. She held off the attention of the ravening crowd by both teasing the audience and treating them like miserable shits. And more than that, she was spending more and more time together with Crystal as she tried to console our clearly despondent band-leader who was taking sole blame for what Jane and Jacquie so often reminded everyone had so far been a disastrous and humiliating American tour. It was Judy who most tried to convince Crystal that she ignore the bad press, the shame of performing at a pornographic venue and the deepening black hole of debt and unpaid wages that was opening up the longer the tour continued. But this might be what most antagonises Polly about Judy. How can Crystal have let herself be led astray by a woman like Judy Dildo when there were others in the band (most significantly me) who Polly claims were much more suitable companions: women who fit better into the myth that Polly and other Rock Music Critics are creating about Crystal Passion and the newest nouveau vague of contemporary Rock Music.

We all wanted our memories of Detroit and the Purple Robe to recede into the back of our mind. We'd done our gigs and we'd got paid for them. Jane, Jacquie and I skulking in the shadows; Crystal strumming her guitar and singing sweetly over the catcalls; and Judy Dildo strutting, preening and thundering out the power chords. And all this to an audience perhaps too mesmerised by Judy's Rock Star presence and Tomiko's deafening reconstruction of the Crystal Passion sound to pay much attention to the music they were listening to.

So, it wasn't with anything like joy or anticipation that we read the review of the gigs in a Detroit tabloid newspaper. It wasn't at all reassuring even though it was a relatively positive review but for all the wrong reasons. It was headlined English Chicks Rock the Purple Robe and the body of the article didn't get any more faithful to our memories of the event:

English Grunge Rock Chicks Chrystal & the Passions rocked out the Purple Robe as part of manager Bob Crux's new policy to diversify the range of shows he stages at the venue.

Bob explained to our reporter that the Purple Robe has long been a success at catering for the demand for adult entertainment in lively downtown Detroit and when he heard that English Rock Stars Chrystal & the Passions were in town he decided then and there to put them on stage.

The sell-out show featured an English all-girl Rock Group who dressed (or didn't dress) just as the crowd demanded. This was a night out for men who appreciate an adult show with Rock songs. Just the tonic if you like the very best English Rock Bands like U2 and Duran Duran.

The lead guitarist was Julie Bilbo (29) who rocked the joint like a female Richie Blackmore if the Deep Purple ax man ever got dressed (or undressed) like her. Chrystal (26) was the Passions' singer and talented songwriter. She reminded this writer of Grace Slick in the days of Jefferson Airplane.

Rock fans at the Purple Robe were treated to the very best of English Chick Rock and we look forward to seeing more English talent like this.

Come on, England. Don't be shy. Show us more of what you have to offer. And we want to hear more of your Rock Music too!

"What kind of shit is this!" exclaimed Jane. "Did this cunt even actually go to the fucking concert?"

"Who is Richie Blackmore?" wondered a totally bemused Tomiko. "And what is this Deep Purple?"

"The reporter must be a mate of the manager," Thelma remarked. "Bob Crux is the only whose age isn't reported."

"Where did they get those ages from?" Thelma wondered. "Did they pluck them out of thin air? Are you really 29 years old, Judy?"

"Erm..." said Judy Dildo, uncharacteristically sheepishly. "Maybe."

"Let's just hope no one outside of Detroit ever reads this review," said Crystal with firm resolve. "And let's hope we can put the Purple Robe behind us and look forward to the next gig."

"Yay!" said Philippa in almost gung-ho enthusiasm (but then she no more than most of the Crystal Passion band had actually ventured into the Purple Robe and she didn't have much shame and humiliation to put behind her). "Kansas City here we come!"