"Riff Randell was based on three women I knew at the Fillmore East, when I was an usher and backstage hand there, while I went to New York Film School. Diane, Gayle, and, uh, I can't remember the third one. Just three girls from Brooklyn and Queens who used to hang out, and we'd talk about music. And they had different taste than I did. They were much more into the flash English bands than I was, like Bowie and T. Rex. And whenever there was an open seat, I'd get them good ones. And they were such avid rock fans--they were Riff Randell. And in 1969, they got on line for tickets for a Rolling Stones show in town, and got their picture in the paper. And that's where I got that stuff in the movie, with Riff sleeping on line for the tickets to the Ramones show."
I knew he must have worked there--you can see him sporting a Fillmore jersey during the ticket-taking scene. Here's my DVD booklet cover, with Mary Woronov's autograph:
The latest issue of Shindig has a cool piece by Domenic Priore on John Sebastian's Village days. Here's a moody shot of him most likely taken at the Night Owl--I think it was scanned from an ancient teen mag by my pal Allison.
Lastly, I just finished Steven Tyler's memoir. As I'd been forewarned, it's mainly full of anecdotes about sex, drugs, rock and roll, and still more drugs (severe later-in-life painkiller dependencies from over-medicating his numerous aging rocker stage injuries). But I read it mostly for his account of his early years on the NYC scene, and while he doesn't linger in that part of his past for very long, I did enjoy his recollections. However, I've been advised that his Left Banke story leaves much to be desired in terms of validity...and later I was stunned to see him take a writing credit for "Big Ten Inch Record." So while the book is an entertaining read on the whole, it's probably best to take much of what he says with a surfeit of sodium. I'm told another book on Aerosmith called Walk This Way goes into greater detail about the Chain Reaction, so I may check that out at some point.
I'd also be discussing the new 33 1/3 volume on Television's Marquee Moon here, were it not for the Canada Post strike of the last couple of weeks. Thanks Bryan!
