‘The magnitude of Kim Fowley’s monstrosity’
Kevin Bronson on
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[Editor’s note: Allegations by former Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs (Jackie Fox) that she was raped by band manager Kim Fowley continue to reverberate in the media. Reporter Jason Cherkis’ original “The Lost Girls” is a must-read, as is Jessica Hopper’s interview with Cherkis on Pitchfork about the reporting of the story. Several have asked my opinion, but having starting circling the L.A. music scene relatively late (2002), I have no insider stories. I was warned off any dealings with Fowley by a couple of wiser-than-me L.A. Times colleagues back then, and I met Fowley only once, outside the Knitting Factory as he stewed about a young band failing to put him on the guest list. It was an unmemorable encounter. Not so for many others who have chronicled music in L.A. Chris Morris, currently a contributor at Variety, former senior writer at Billboard and ex-music editor at the Hollywood Reporter, is one. Morris, whose new book “Los Lobos: Dream in Blue” comes out in September, published his reaction today on his Tumblr blog “Chris Morris’s Wasted Space.” Titled “Victim,” it is retransmitted here with his permission:]
By Chris Morris
More than three years ago, in February 2012, after word spread that Kim Fowley was suffering from cancer, I drafted an advance obituary for Variety. It finally ran this January after Fowley expired. I had advised my editors that it was natural to write an obit about Fowley given his role as Svengali of the Runaways, whose cachet rose in recent years thanks to the 2010 biopic and Evelyn McDonnell’s 2013 book about them.
I believe I dispatched Fowley in print with some professionalism, but inside myself I did not mourn. I had no love for the man. I always viewed him as a viper who walked upright. Though I found myself in the same room with him on innumerable occasions for more than 35 years, I always gave him a wide berth. His reputation preceded him, and it was not one I found attractive.
I had only one direct encounter with him. One night sometime ca. 1979, I was in the Whisky A Go Go with the club’s late booker Michelle Meyer, who was a close friend of Fowley. I made some drunkenly indiscreet remark about Fowley presiding over the assembly of a Bride of Frankenstein-like consort fabricated out of the body parts of teenage girls. I believe I also said that the only thing missing on him were bolts in his neck.
The next night, I received a call from Fowley, to whom Meyer had undoubtedly reported my comment, at home. “You motherfucker, I can have you killed,” he told me. I hung up on him. Fortunately I never heard from him again.
It should be obvious from the remark I made to Meyer that Fowley’s routine was already well known around Hollywood. His appetite for underage girls was the stuff of legend, and one he boastfully spun himself in the many motormouth interviews he gave to writers who dutifully burnished his self-inflated and sleazy profile in their rags. There was no genius in him, and much infamy.
However, the magnitude of Fowley’s monstrosity was finally measured in this week’s Huffington Post story “The Lost Girls” by Jason Cherkis. The piece details the rape of Runaways bassist Jackie Fuchs (aka Jackie Fox) by Fowley at a party following a 1975 New Year’s Eve gig at an Orange County club called Wild Sam’s. Many of you have doubtlessly read the story already; if you haven’t, it can be found here.
I’ve sat on my hands for a couple of days as people have reacted to this story, watching things unfold on the web. Some of the reaction has nauseated me. In some cases, people have expressed doubt that the assault actually occurred. This notion infuriates me. Two of the eyewitnesses who spoke to Cherkis, Helen Roessler and Trudie Arguelles, have been friends of mine for decades. I know them well enough to know they are not lying, and have no reason to lie.
Some have asked why none of the people in the room that night did anything to stop Fowley’s assault. It’s simple: Fowley was an imposing and ever-controlling figure, and the night he drugged and raped Jackie Fuchs he was probably the only adult in the room. He was 36 at the time; most of the witnesses Cherkis interviewed were not old enough to drink yet.
Multitudinous testimony has shown that Fowley surrounded himself with two kinds of people: sycophants, and the young, weak and helpless. Neither would be likely to interfere in an act of sexual violence.
Cherkis reports in his story that Fuchs’ band mates Cherie Currie and Joan Jett were both in the room when the assault occurred, and that Currie fled the scene. Jett’s representatives issued a denial to Cherkis; on Friday on her Facebook page, she denied that she was in the room, contradicting Fuchs’ own account of the attack. I have no reason to disbelieve the account of the victim and other witnesses in this case. You may make what you will of Jett’s denial. I have lost all respect for her.
When Fowley died, I shuddered at the outpouring of admiration and praise for this man, who to me seemed no more than the poster boy for the bottom-feeding, manipulation and self-promotion omnipresent on the Hollywood rock scene, writ on the most grandiose scale. Though he was indeed a Zelig-like figure for decades, always cropping up at the right place at the right time with a quote dripping from his tongue, he was in the end a man of few enduring accomplishments. As people were celebrating him after his death, I found myself asking: What are these people on about?
Some of these same people have been chiming in, asking, “Why now? Why is this so-called story only coming to light six months after Fowley’s death?” The answer is simple: The only time a rape victim can feel truly safe is after the perpetrator is dead.
This is a point that Queens of Noise author Evelyn McDonnell suggests but does not state outright in a long and highly defensive blog entry about the HuffPo scoop that was posted on Friday. McDonnell, who is now a journalism professor at Loyola Marymount University in L.A., was a copy editor at Billboard many years ago when I worked there, and as such I spoke to her on the phone in the course of business. I have not read her book. I do not know her personally. But I think it is lamentable that a woman who describes herself as a feminist critic chooses to lodge charges of “male bullying” and “sensationalism” in a critique of a story that did something she was unable to do in her own work – bring the whole story home.
In the end, it’s a horror story, one of extreme violence perpetrated by a man who made a career out of hucksterism, exploitation and domination. I am glad Jackie Fuchs stepped forward to tell it now. I would hope Fuchs’ story will shame some of Kim Fowley’s myth-making apologists into silence, but I’m sure I’m hoping for too much.
I know that the rock culture in which Fowley enjoyed prominence and success is not, as some have maintained, merely a thing of the past, an artifact of the distant ’70s when the Runaways reached the Strip. It abides in Hollywood today. Only three weeks ago, I was standing outside the entrance to the Greek Theatre smoking a cigarette, waiting for Brian Wilson to take the stage. Glancing over at the press gate, I saw one of Fowley’s closest associates entering the venue, accompanied by a girl who couldn’t have been more than 15 years old. Recalling that moment now, a shiver runs down my spine.
[Update: Cherie Currie has issued a statement.]
[Also: Fuchs will discuss the matter on CBS’ “The Insider” on Monday night.]
Thanks for publishing your opinion on such a vital topic, as well as what Chris Morris had to say. I now only wish more would have spoken out against Fowley sooner, when he was alive, but the fact that many shunned him is as courageous an act as “speaking out.” I have lost respect for Ariel Pink for hiring Fowley to work on his most recent album, but who knows if he knew anything. Thanks for not ignoring this topic, it has been eating at me ever since I first saw it reported at Pitchfork.
If nothing else maybe this horrible incident will get “I Love Rock n Roll” pulled off the radio . GEEZ how much mileage can you get out of a song Joan??
This is not about Joan Jett.
Kevin, bravo. You nailed Fowley. I couldn’t have said it better. Thank you!
I had been posting to many of the written articles and on peoples post for a couple days now and this is the first article that has said about the same things, that I was posting. ( about that he was threatening and probably threatened anyone in that room with death) and that she waited because many rape victims never feel safe til the Perp is dead. I hate how everyone tried to jump on a bandwagon when this was not even about bandwagons it was about a healing process and exposure of someone who needed to at least have their name tarnished since they cant pay for their sins and broken laws now. I applaud this writer.
Kevin, thank you so much for this. As a victim of Fowley myself at 18 (the sexual assault referenced in the HuffPost article), I can’t tell you how upsetting it was to read all the accolades he received after he died. I’m so grateful to Jackie for being brave enough to tell her story and show the world that Fowley was a monster.
This is a superb piece. What Ms. McDonnell should be lamenting is her sloppy book, cut and pasted around a graduate thesis (which may be its only literate portion and easily distinguished by its academic jargon the sometimes redundant muddle of old fan mag clips, ladies room conversation, unsubstantiated nonsequiturs some hysterically laughable gaffes- from confusing “sodomy” with “masturbation” to describing Jett’s manager with the wrong ethnic slur) rather than the fact this story– familiar to all viewers of the documentary “Edgeplay,” which informs the bulk of her “research”and provided her with interview subjects, has finally told. And well.
Evelyn McDonnell should be lamenting her sloppy work, tacked around a graduate thesis (that is easily distinguished by its profusion of academic jargon rather than the muddle of fan mag clips, re-telling of the documentary “Edgeplay,” which seems to have provided the bulk of her “research” and subjects, transcripts of Kim Fowley’s monologues in which he claims, among other unsubstantiated non-sequitors, to have been his own mother’s child pimp, ladies room conversation masquerading as “interview,” other, sometimes unintentionally hysterical gaffes-such as describing Jett’s current manager with the wrong ethnic slur- and confusing “sodomy” with “masturbation,” ad nauseum) rather than the fact that this story has finally been told. And well.
I am starting to feel that the Devil himself decided to spend 75 years in human form as Kim Fowley roaming the earth, spreading his misery and ruining lives.
Joan Jett did not deny being in the room. You need to reread what she posted please.
A lot of the comments on the Internet have been about whether or not Currie and Jett were in the room when Jackie Fox was raped or not. No one seems to be challenging the claim by Jackie that she was raped by Kim Fowley, nor has anyone expressed surprise that someone would make the allegation against him. I don’t think you should take the position that you have lost all respect for Jett because of her denial. Assume that everything that happened that night was a quaalude/alcohol blur messing with the vision/actions/memories of underage, and despite their bravado, naive, teenage girls. In the end, what Currie and Jett (and Sandy West) did/didn’t do, saw/didn’t see, doesn’t matter. This was a man, twenty+ years their senior, doing whatever the hell he felt like. Sometimes in life, people look like who they are. Kim Foley looked like the weasel that he was. And as far as these bottom-feeders of the music industry making these criminal threats of murder and mayhem, it is the M.O. of the weak and the powerless.
People shouldn’t be so quick to judge Joan Jett and Cherie Currie so harshly. Kim Fowley is the one that is responsible for this horrible mess. It is awful that Jackie Fox had to experience such a traumatic event, I wish her nothing but peace and healing. I admire her strength and all the positive things she’s accomplished in her life.
The point was made on Cherie’s Facebook page by a fan that people appear to have read INTO Jackie’s story more than READ Jackie’s story. I’m starting to believe this is more and more true. The defense of Cherie and Joan leans towards stalkerism, with people upholding their feminist rock and roll icons at the expense of showing empathy, caring and compassion towards Jackie Fox. We haven’t changed that much after all, have we?
For starters, google runaways stories blog spot dot com and you’ll see Ms. Fuchs’ comment back in October of 2000, that the incident did not happen. I guess she forgot to delete that when she “went public” in this recent Huff Post “story”. Also, people I know in the Music Industry that were contacted by Cherkis said he misrepresented himself by stating he was doing a “Kim Fowley Tribute Story” It should also be noted that Ms. Fuchs blogs for Huff Post as she has stated on her Wiki Page (above the reference to her being a repeat game show contestant). In my opinion, this is an outrageous and erroneous “story” by a woman who is an Attorney that knew to wait until Kim Fowley died, so she wouldn’t get sued for Slander/Defamation of Character. As a former Record Company Executive, I knew Kim Fowley both personally and professionally for nearly 40 years and NEVER EVER saw him behave or act in the manner Ms. Fuchs describes. It is grossly unfair that Kim Fowley is not here to defend himself against these egregious allegations. Let her enjoy her 15 minutes of fame and when it all blows over, she’ll still be a bitter has-been most likely jealous of her band mate’s success. Ironically, Kim is probably applauding her hustle from the grave, but if he were alive, the Lawyers would nip her in the bud real fast! Edgeplay (google it on youtube), is a “movie” that Vicki Blue did on The Runaways back in 2004. If you scroll to the end of the film and credit roll, you’ll see outtake footage of Ms. Fuchs at 1:43:25 saying “I’ve already given you a lot of stuff already that’s probably going to get one or both of us sued” and then at 1:48:12, you’ll see Ms. Fuchs waving a videocassette at the camera and saying “This is Vicki Blue’s movie….this is Vicki Blue’s blackmail material for the next 10 years….. bass player’s revenge”
You expressed many of my sentiments about this story, but backed them up with facts.Thank you.
No. Her comment is a despicable apology for a serial rapist and abuser who’s horrific behavior has been described by dozens of victims and witnesses. A large number of reports of the rapists criminal actions can be found quickly by going to various stories and comments about the Runaways. Many of these stories came out long before Jackie told her story to HuffPo.
Also note that no one has denied observing the somatic symptoms of the rape Jackie described. The physical and psychological symptoms she suffered were classic symptoms of someone who has been brutally raped or tortured.
Frankly, I am disgusted by the nasty attempts to defend a serial rapist and child abuser.
marisa, you clearly have an ax to grind. as you invited us to do, i read jackie’s blog dated october 2000. it absolutely does NOT say that jackie, in 2000, denied that she was raped by kim fowley. i include the quote and the link below, for the edification of any readers who care to confirm how completely full of baloney you are. for those with ADHD, jackie denies that SHE (jackie) was also forced to look at a girl being raped. that is the gist of the scene in cherie’s book. this is a fact you conveniently ignore. jackie is right. she didn’t look at a girl being raped – she WAS the girl being raped. that’s a hella difference.
regardless, if one were to believe you, cherie made up a story about “someone” being raped by fowley. jackie made up a story about being raped by fowley. kari krome made up a story about being sexually assaulted by fowley. lita ford land vicki blue lied about the band talking (and laughing) about jackie being raped. and other witnesses all lied about seeing jackie being raped. wow, that’s a helluva conspiracy by a bunch of people who don’t even talk to each other (like lita and jackie).
i am not in “the industry” and i have no dog in this fight — which you admit you do, through your long standing association with someone who now looks like a class A jagoff who manipulated, drugged, and sexually assaulted minors. congratulations on your friendship with such an individual. speaking from the outside, you don’t appear to be a particularly good judge of character and your arguments aren’t particularly believable.
from — http://runawaysstories.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2009-08-27T19:04:00-07:00
“In this chapter, Cherie claims that when we played the Golden West Ballroom in Norwalk, California, Kim Fowley drugged a teenaged girl and our other manager forced us to watch Kim rape her. Cherie claims that the rest of the band sat around and watched this, and that I, after seeing it, asked the rest of the band if they had any more hamburgers because I was still hungry.
The event described in Cherie’s book never happened…”
Marisa .. your fancy talk means nothing to ones who lived in this entire scene in the 70s. I was there my friends were there. WE ALL KNEW what kind of person HE was.. and everyone says the same thing .. he was a creep and sly and rude and disgusting to women. ALWAYS. People would avoid walking in his path so they didnt have to hear his rude comments. I cant say how many times entering the whiskey he would stand in the door hall and make remarks as young girls passed by into the club. See you people who know nothing about what it was like back then spout off support to someone who may have tried to change his toon to save face at times. But even his interviews showed signs of extreme mental illness. There is no excuse for him having anything good said about him he was vile creature who knew how to talk the talk and walk the walk of sleeze. Whomever you saw you were jaded.
Marisa, I saw and knew not only Kim Fowley, but Audrey Pavia, Helen and Trudie. I hung out and photographed them. Not from a distance, but we were very close. They are very careful about what they say and would not libel themselves. I also saw Kim Fowley in action, particularly 1977-78. Many times.
He was KNOWN then for his abusive behavior towards people, esp young women, but all of us. I never hid the fact I was shocked people actually like him, worked with him, took him seriously and worse, let him get away with that crap. But do you think anyone paid attention? Think he’d defend himself or eat it up. He loved me the man you love to hate.
40 years? Were you paying attention? The minute he walked into a room vibes changed. Calling women DOGMEAT? You never heard his vocabulary?
I spoke up about him 5 days before he passed, while showing my photos at LA Library. I was surprised by the loud applause and cheers from my fellow early LA punk rockers. Including Helen from the article. Plus women performers, managers, writers: all who created the LA punk scene.
When I posted about this when Kim died, I caught heat from two male friends whom Kim helped. Men whom I thought were my friends and men of dignity. They refused to even acknowledge the validity of what I and other said, for many years and after his death.
Sure, Kim could be a clever businessman. BUT that does not negate nor excuse his appalling, evil, damaging behavior towards many of us. Had to be BLIND not to see and DEAF not to hear that. 40 years in the industry and you missed all that?
IF you knew what Vicky went through creating her documentary, you might rethink all this. After all, in the doc, didn’t Cherie admit Kim molested her?
I know a lot more, but that should be enough!
Come on, Marisa, can you do better than that?
So are you going to defend Bill Cosby next?
If your referring to who I think you are [at the end of the story], I’ve met that girl … I don’t think she’s 15……. They seem to like each other a lot. The comparison doesn’t seem fair to me I don’t know.
CORRECT!!!!! i know where she works!!!! she waitress’s and and served me alcohol so she’s 21 AT LEAST!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice work Chris. Had the displeasure of getting stuck working with him once. 1979.. Kim was evil and a total bullshit artist and I called him out on it.. His reply to me was “I can have you killed”.. Guess what Fowley, im here and you aint. Rot in hell scumbag..
Bravo eddy best.. like i said he was threatening when he couldnt get his way. which is why most ppl in that room probably never said a word because of his threats.
Finally.. someone who doesn’t immediately become a Jett apologist. It makes little difference that she was 16 at the time.. she’s almost 60 now and to lie about this rape is not only immoral but it shows how behind the times she is and how antiquated her PR machine is.
In today’s world, feminists (male and female) would stand up and admit they said nothing. If they were children when it happened then that’s what it was. It was a huge mistake to say nothing then but the decades have passed so now, when confronted, people have no choice but to tell the truth. The End.
Jett is touted as a feminist icon (even thought I never felt it and never saw any evidence of this in my entire life; I’m 47) when all she was was a manufactured rocker riding a one trick pony her entire career. Not only did she say nothing and watch the rape, she called a roadie who was at the party a few days later asking him to make sure to deny he saw anything if anyone called him. She was scared of a lawsuit. A frightened, traumatized child who possibly forgot (according to her) she witnessed a brutal rape was cool and collected enough to formulate a plan to protect herself and her band’s finances? Ok, well, it’s possible. It’s possible she was as much a victim of Fowley’s and was acting out of panic; I’ll give her that… but now? Today? In 2015 after it’s been corroborated by multiple witnesses that she was there, in the room where it happened? Sickening.
She should be ashamed of herself and from this point forward, if anyone says her name around me I’ll spit on the ground. People should see this for what it is; an old lady who was raised inside the drug fueled and hyper sexualized kiddy porn fantasies of white men who even today, has no idea how to handle issues as a feminist.
She is such a complete phony and an absolute puppet of the sick system that raised her and allowed her to make a living off a rock n’ roll nostalgia story that never happened. Puke worthy. She may even have deep, everlasting shame from knowing that her entire career was a lie and that if it wasn’t for some repulsive pervert who raped her band member and promoted her band as bunch of kinder whores she would be have never ‘made it’ (inasmuch as you can call this pathetic career ‘making it’.. even got into the rock n’ roll hall of fame for this dreck act).
Joan Jett is a misogynist and at this point, an accomplice. For fucking shame.
Chris Morris is shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!
Brilliant post.
[…] others condemned Fowley — who died of bladder cancer this past January. Los Angeles music writer Chris Morris spoke for many when he […]
[…] others condemned Fowley — who died of bladder cancer this past January. Los Angeles music writer Chris Morris spoke for many when he […]
[…] others condemned Fowley — who died of bladder cancer this past January. Los Angeles music writer Chris Morris spoke for many when he […]
Thank you. You missed nothing by skipping Evelyn McDonnell’s mess of a poorly edited book. She has The Runaways “opening for Metallica” in 1978 and “Prop 19” changing the tax structure of California forever. This here was what I’ve been waiting to read as a now former fan of Joan Jett which makes me by default a former Kim Fowley fan. Yuck. Joan made a choice via internalized misogyny to align herself with Fowley, Smythe and the violent abusive men who surrounded The Runaways. Her desire to be famous overrode and eroded any strong values she may have once had as younger artist. The millions Joan Jett has earned pedophile rapist Gary Glitter in royalties is prime example of how low she functions morally. It’s clear she continually thwarted The Runaways having a reunion because she wanted Jackie’s rape and the other abuse and rape that occurred to be long forgotten lest her silence tarnish her undeserving status as a lol “feminist icon.” Like the misogynistic men she’s backed since she was 15 she probably never saw MeToo and TimesUp coming.