EXCERPT

Rock ‘N Roll Mama

One night, I was in that nice zone of drifting to sleep on the couch in the lounge after a long show, Ricky asleep in his bassinette, moon low in the sky, sun still a couple hours from cresting, when I was abruptly woken by a loud banging on the front door.

“Open this fuckin door or I will kick it off its fuckin hinges!”

“Ah, shit,” I groaned, shaking my head.

I knew the voice. Angela Burdon. The woman made Chrissy Amphlett look like Little Bo Peep.

Around this time, I was living with a Melbourne girlfriend who worked in the hospitality industry and was happy to mind Ricky for me while I was working gigs.

At one point a couple years earlier, in the scamp days of her career, she had made the mistake of sleeping with fashion model Angie Burdon’s then boyfriend Andy Summers, ex-guitarist for The Animals and currently in The Police. Maybe Angie saw my flatmate at a show and it crashed her back to her tumultuous string of flip-flops with famous musos, starting a decade earlier when she had split with husband Eric Burdon, lead singer of The Animals, to take up with Chris Wood of Traffic before winding up with Eric’s buddy Jimi Hendrix, who died soon after, leaving Angie lost and drifting—basically into the arms of Pete Sears, bassist for Jefferson Starship. Sightings even floated around the biz about her relationships with The Who’s drummer Keith Moon and with Zepp’s guitarist Jimmy Page. Who knows. None of that matters.

What mattered to me was that Angie Burdon was not merely serial arm candy of rock royalty, she also happened to be a black belt in karate and could kick most men’s asses and was therefore a supermodel not to be messed with.

“I know she’s in there, Katie!” Angie screamed at me again through thudding bashes on my front door.

I needed no drama with karate queen Angie Burdon, ex of Eric Burdon, ex of Andy Summers, ex of Jimi Hendrix, and currently with Pete Sears. Or whoever. Girl was blasted off her face, in the tank drunk. A walking distillery. Well, stumbling distillery. With karate chops.

Suddenly the glass in the front door shattered and in she barged, through the shards and into the living room, and went berserk looking for the guilty flatmate.

“Where is she!?” Angie bellowed at me.

I jabbed a trembling finger in the direction of the second bedroom, said, “In there, I think.”

I bundled Ricky into my bedroom and closed the door just as my flatmate’s door opened and she stepped into the raging shitstorm.

Angie set about trashing the lounge room, throwing furniture, and screeching at my flatmate, who howled right back at her. It was a high volume, bare knuckle brawl.

I had no idea exactly which husband, boyfriend or ex-lover they were bickering about, but little Ricky was now in panic mode and my home was being destroyed out there, so I plucked up my courage and trooped into the battle.

“Angie!” I yelled, “Get your lunatic ass out of here right now or I will call the fucking cops!”—careful not to say The Police, lest that stir up whatever past wounds might still exist in her with Andy.

“Whoever the guy is, he’s not worth it!” I advised her. “Go bash him up! I have a little baby here!”

A light seemed to go on in Angie’s head and she paused her swinging and kicking at my housemate.

“Look,” I prodded, “it makes no sense you blaming my girlfriend when all of us know your problem was probably the bloke’s doing in the first place.”

Angie’s eyes squinted and she gave me a look like a roo in headlights, like someone had cracked a vial of amyl nitrate under her nose and zapped her awake. She looked down at her fist, which was clutching a chunk of my friend’s hair.

I picked up the phone to dial the police and said gently, “Go on, Angie. On your bike now, Love.”

“Right,” she grumbled. “Fuck this.”

She kicked out the rest of the glass in the front door, stepped through it, and left.

How I was managing to navigate that spaghetti tangled world of interconnected trysts, pre-trysts and post-trysts in the rock and roll biz was some sort of a Guinness Book of World Records miracle. I wouldn’t doubt they all had kids scattered around the planet who they don’t even know exist. Hell, we all might have a little DNA in us from those 1960s through 1980s prodigious rock ‘n roll giants out there. They often toured the world and spread their unrestrained joy with abandon.

…Welcome to my new world. It was a far cry from being the ABC weather girl, runway model, and arm candy to the rich and infamous. And I was still in my 20s.