[vienna]

My contribution to the Phil Spector lore...


I became a bartender because of Phil Spector; I was working in a rock club around 1974-75 and, at the time, I was working the door; the main owner trusted with the admissions money since I had set up a simple accounting procedure for keeping track of the funds and their reporting, cutting down on 'five finger' losses by the staff; the club officially opened each evening at about 7 or 8 o'clock, but it was common for some of the staff, regulars and friends to drop by and hang out a bit during the daytime when the club was open for cleaning out, restocking, etc.; we would often have records playing on the sound system as we passed the time...

One summer day, there were about a dozen or so of us in the club; I was in one of the large booths near the front entrance, just sitting around with some of my lady friends, just having a chat; at one point, this middle-aged guy, wearing a trench coat, business suit, and shades, appeared in the doorway, looked into the club, and then proceeded to walk wordlessly and causally through the club and back again, out through the front door; we thought it was a bit odd, but put it down to maybe some dad looking for his kid or a wayward tourist; not very long afterward, a limo pulled up in front of the club, and two more guys, also in trench coats, business suits and shades, got out of the back of the limo followed by a short, dark man (trench coat, suit, shades), followed by the guy we had seen originally; they came in, said not a word and sat down in the booth next to ours, a booth closest to the door...

The bartender, a guy named Randy, got very agitated and suddenly left the club in a big hurry; Tom, who was the main owner came up to the front to see what was going on, and spoke briefly and quietly to the guys in the booth; after his brief conversation, which we couldn't hear clearly, he paused by the booth I was in with my friends, and whispered, "Hey, man, that's Phil Spector in the next booth..." and walked to the back of the club...

The club's phone rang and someone took the call and told Tom that Randy, who was a bit of a speed freak, with all the attending paranoia, had gotten freaked out by the 'men in black' and had called to say he was quitting because he was sure the guys were cops looking to bust him for possession; there was, in the club, a groupie who was a good friend of Randy, and summoning up her outrage and indignity, she tottered off on her high platform shoes to Spector's booth (she didn't know it was Spector , and not cops) and proceeded to yell at the suits for chasing away Randy; suddenly, we heard her scream out and saw her go running, as best as she could in her platforms, to the back of the club; all of us in the booth looked up and around the booth back to the sight of Phil Spector holding a rather large semi-automatic pistol, pointing it at the fleeing groupie; at the same time Spector had pulled his weapon, the other three guys moved to get him out of the booth, pulling guns of their own, and, in a classic wedge security formation, they all backed out the front door and to the limo, whose doors were already opened; they all hurried into the limo and were gone in seconds...

Randy never would come back; Tom was in a spot, since he needed a bartender for that night; he looked at me and said "man, I trust you, wanna be the bartender?'; I accepted and remained the bartender until the club finally closed down months later...

So, I got my bartender job because of Phil Spector and one of his armed escapades...


In the music world in Hollywood at the time, a goodly number of artists and record execs, etc., were getting away with all manner of excesses and behavior that would have landed other mere mortals in jail; of all of those most feared and warned against were Phil Spector and Ike turner, who was also known to pull a gun at minimal provocation or none at all...







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