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My Inspiring Friend: Remembering Kim Fowley

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writer / Ericka Clevenger

photos / Kara Wright Fowley and Planet Rocke

I first met Kim Fowly a few years back at the home of Gary Calamar. Gary hosts an event called “music and mimosas”, where musicians and music licensing peeps can mingle and network. I was there with Lindsey and Julie of “Deap Vally” who at the time I was managing.

We were enjoying the private warpaint show (so awesome) when Deap Vally’s drummer Julie EdwardsPirrone noticed Kim. I mean, how could you not? He’s 6’5” tall!! “OMG Kim Fowley is here. He’s such a badass” We all turned and sneaked peeks and quickly looked away when he noticed us looking at him. He was wearing a pinstriped suit, slicked back white hair, and icy blue eyes. After the show we were mingling outside when he approached us. The three of us began chatting about music, how our boobs were our balls in the industry, and the notion of tattooing music contracts on our asses … we all laughed and enjoyed the silly nature of the conversation in the sunlight.

After that Kim and I became good friends. He would call me at random hours, sometimes 8:00 in the morning, and sometimes at 2:00 am. You never knew what you were going to get from him, and thats the way he liked it. It takes a really special person to call you in the middle of the night, when you first met them. When he called it would sometimes go on for hours. I quickly learned this was going to be no ordinary friendship. I felt like a teenager again, staying up late at night, gossiping about music, art, people, the future, and making up new exciting words to define mediocre situations. The first time we hung out we went to El Pollo Loco on the corner of Western and Santa Monica because Kim liked the place. His music studio was around the corner and he said he liked to mingle with the freaks, oh oh oh Yeah! I had the pleasure of filming him for a music talk show I was making with another friend, Taylor Locke, who also collaborated with him on various music projects. He always supported us. He always supported all of his friends. He attracted people who were go getters, and as Joan Jett said at his Memorial, “It was never a matter of IF with Kim, it was always a matter of WHEN we are going to take over the world.” He was just that kind of guy. He found talented people and idolized them, to themselves. Even with myself, he would ask me why I wasn’t famous yet. Often claiming me to be, “The love Child of Orson Welles and Gidget, who has the heart of a six year old, the brains of a jewish businessman and could be the next Tim Burton if I stopped being scared of myself.” He gave me confidence in what I was doing.

Now for the sad, but happy stuff. If it feels like we’re switching gears, it’s because i’ve written and rewritten everything about a dozen times over the past week. Because how can I even possibly begin to define the genius that is Kim Fowley?

On January 15th, 2015 I was in bed feeling sorry for myself, nursing a cold from hell, when I heard the news of Kim’s Passing. He slipped out of this world next to his little sweetheart and wife Kara Wright in their West Hollywood home. She was the best thing that ever happened to him, because she gave him love. Being 27 and having lost people you would think I would understand the notion that death is coming for us all. It was not the case with Kim Fowley.

Even though Kim was 75, and had become very ill from cancer, I thought he would live forever. Even after knowing it’s true, I still can’t help but imagine late at night his arm shooting out of the grave like the ending of Carrie. Because even though you know it is true, you simply can’t believe it.

Life is so cruel and unfair that someone so alive and radiant can be here one day and gone the next. But he has left behind a legacy that will always live on. I could write an entire book on the subject, and still not even come close to scratching the surface.

He wanted to be known for his work first and his character second, although I think it ended up being the other way around. His great personality was too big to hide behind his discography. He has worked with some of the biggest musicians in the world, such as Cat Stevens, Warren Zevon, The Byrds, KISS, Alice Cooper, Leon Russel, Paul Revere & the Raiders, Modern Lovers, Gene Vincent, Mothers of Invention, Van Halen, The Seeds, Steppenwolf and was a great musician himself. He put together the famous all girl rock band,

“The Runaways” that sold over a million records. He introduced John Lennon at the Toronto

Rock and Roll Revival by having the audience light their matches and lighters to welcome him. I mean, stop and think about that for a second, he INVENTED the concert lighter applause. That alone is huge and the perfect metaphor for his life. He was an innovator of not only music and talent, but musical movements.

But most importantly, Kim Fowley was a great human being and friend. He was a poem, a story, and a song. He was a leader, and the most interesting person I have ever met. Even sitting in his living room was an exciting event. He had the most unique way of speaking, using most brilliant forms of expression you have ever heard. The way his mind was linked to his vocabulary was like a beautiful maze that you never wanted to escape. He always made people laugh. When you were around him, you were smiling. I use to tell him he had the same smile as David Letterman. He hated boring small talk, and refused to be a part of it. He was a brilliant, colorful person that I feel so blessed to have known.

I wanted to end this with a piece of writing by Taylor Locke. We both worked closely with him on our show and they continued a different musical friendship up until his passing. I feel it is important to show another inside view on Kim and his caring heart. RIP my sweet friend.

January 19, 2015

I met Kim Fowley through my friend Ericka Clevenger. She and I were producing a web show together and we booked him as a guest. He walked up my driveway in a zoot suit with a cane and David Bowie face paint. I thought in an instant that they really broke the mold when they made this guy. He packed more shock value into a casual conversation, an email or a voicemail, (which I always saved) than Alice Cooper, Kiss or Marilyn Manson have in their whole careers. He was walking, talking performance art. His cadence and hand gestures drew me in immediately. His words and body language were clever and compelling all the time. I didn’t want to miss anything he might do or say because it was all so amusing. But he wasn’t a clown, because he was in on the joke. He knew that I knew how funny and outrageous he was, and it made me feel special, like I was in on it too.

When he walked up my driveway and into my life, I was between projects and in desperate need of an inspirational spark. Over the course of a year, I found that in spades, in this legendary showbiz maniac that would become my “Rock ‘n Roll Grandpa”. Our phone calls were never less than 45 minutes long, like highschool kids, talking shit and trying to get a rise out of each other. In fact, he’d sign off at the end of each call with his phrase, “be teenaged”. I made a habit of saying it back to him. A cancerstricken man in his 70’s, and a singer guitarist in his late 20’s reminding each other to “be teenaged” is a pretty unforgettable exchange. I knew what he meant. It was his poetic way of saying “stay motivated, work hard, don’t lose the edge…remember why you became a musician in the first place”.

The last time he was out and about without a wheelchair was at a party Ericka and I threw for our show Planet Rocke. He brought me a present that night, and gave it to me in front of everyone. It was a folder of unfinished lyrics, mostly handwritten, handpicked for me from his vault, dating 1970’s through early 2000’s. He told me they were mine to do what I wanted with. Suddenly I had my hands full with a new project. I told him I wanted to start a band called The Fowleys. He screamed at me and said in no uncertain terms that he forbid me to use the name, and would sue me if I tried. I couldn’t really understand why he was so opposed to it, so I tried to calm him down and ask for an explanation. The truth of his rejection turned out to be flattering and self assuring. He told me “You’ve already been in bands. Bands are too complicated. Bands don’t last. Bands break up. Its your time to put your name out there and go at it alone.” He twisted my arm into making my first solo album.

We kept in touch, once or twice a week. I went to see him when he was too sick to get out of bed, and I played him the finished songs. He was impressed and proud. It was really all the encouragement I needed to keep going. He married the lovely Kara and seemed very happy.

When his health got worse he stopped taking calls. I knew he was in pain, but I also knew he had Kara by his side, and that his razorsharp mind and dignity were going to be intact until the very end.

A great blog in England singled out the song “Time Stands Still”, one of the first of Kim and my collaborations. They posted it for free download, and a few hours later I heard the news that Kim had passed. The timing was shocking, but also an exceptionally fitting tribute. The song reveals his sensitive, introspective side, that I count myself among the lucky few to have known.

I highly recommend his memoir “Lord of Garbage”. I read it in a day. It’s a wellcrafted expose into not only his largerthanlife Rock ‘n Roll caricature, but his humanity and empathy. Rest in Peace Rock n Roll Grandpa. Stay teenaged.

-Taylor Locke


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