Our third gig was Kimona’s friend’s swan-song, as she left town very shortly thereafter. The original Assassinates had been great, but after disharmony set in, we dissolved the group and started over. Kimona 117 and Abby were on a different level and both brought their unique and considerable talents to the table. You can also see that Kimoma is all rocked-out and in full garage goddess mode by her first gig. In fact, I’m the only one who looks the least bit shifty here, obviously my mind is in other places (top). Perhaps I’m looking at one of many promoters that showed up to check us out that night, Stacy Fine, for example, who was running the hottest Monday night scene and immediately wanted to book us for a new Wednesday night event she was starting at a plush restaurant (Big Kahuna) in Times Square of all places.
I remember early in this show the Assassinettes came down to the front row and started going bananas right in front of me, like I was some sort of rock god. They were hailing me and swooning and trying to touch my leg. It was a joke, of course, but the crowd didn’t know that because those three girls hadn’t taken the stage yet.
In a few days, we’d all assemble at the Big Kahuna to check out Stacy’s first party. We were already booked for the next week at. Abby showed up with this amazing blonde goddess from Boston we would soon be calling “Juicy Lucy.” We told Lucy she was in the band the second we saw her. No audition necessary. I don’t think we cared what she sang like, she looked fantastic! And it was so perfect, Kimona being a redhead, Abby a brunette and now this gorgeous blonde! Our whole scene was buzzing the second Lucy showed up and everybody wanted to be the first to date her. Both boys and the girls were going crazy over Lucy!
Here’s a candid shot I took on the road one morning when she was all tired and had no makeup on. Even then, Lucy was drop-dead beautiful. Even John Holmstrom, who had been sort of down on the Soul Assassins as a distraction from my job, turned to me and said, “I wanna be in the band now,” the second he saw Lucy. But I was thinking, what would John actually do in the band? Once those three new Assassinettes got together the magic really started to roll. First, they were all single! Every rock dude in the East Village was soon kissing my ass trying to pry their way into our scene so they could nail one of the Assassinettes. They were all crazy hot, but the energy field they created when all three got together was overpowering. Of course, we’d all pledged not to get involved with any of them, although that pledge would start eroding the second we all got drunk together. Another promoter, Deb Parker attended that Big Kahuna show and we instantly became her favorite garage band. Later Deb would open a bar in the East Village that instantly became our favorite watering hole.