Fun stuff & Michael Des Barres Trivia

Text ©1997+ Cyndi Glass

Photo: Michael Des Barres as Mr. Karst, Episode #51 "High High" of 21 Jump Street

·         On June 19, 2001, Michael celebrated 20 years of sobriety!

 

 

 

·         Michael and Pamela's son, Nick Des Barres, was born in September 1978.

·         Michael has played two different roles on Roseanne, Rockford Files, 21 Jump Street, Miami Vice, and WKRP In Cincinnati/New WKRP In Cincinnati.

·         Some MacGyver fans cheer on Murdoc and speculate on the possibilities of him corrupting MacGyver.

·         The music press first wrote about Chequered Past, Michael's early 80's band, in 1975. (Beetle, a Canadian magazine).

·         Al Stewart wrote a song about Michael Des Barres in 1975 - here is some trivia about that.

·         Click Here for Michael's Birthday Countdown!!

(Text from above photo caption) From Billboard Magazine, March 28, 1987: VIDEO MUSIC: Speaking Out: Lee Masters, MTV's senior vice president and general manager, is shown at the recent Rock Against Drugs (RAD) press conference in Washington D.C., restating the channel's $3 million commitment in airtime for the RAD campaign. On the podium, from left, are California Attorney General John Van de Kamp, recording artists Steve Jones, Sheena Easton, and Michael Des Barres; Masters; performer Gregory Abbott; RAD executive producer Danny Goldberg; and Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif.

 

 

MICHAEL DES BARRES  -  BRITAIN'S PUBLIC ENEMY No 1

 

Yes folks, our hero Michael was for a couple of days back in 1974 in the headlines of every national British newspaper, castigated as Britain's public enemy number one, ahead in a poll consisting of train robber Ronnie Briggs and gangsters the Kray twins.

 

What was Michael's crime you may ask? Well Michael wrote a song called 'Bernadette' which was to be released as his first solo single after Silverhead split up. The song was based on a young female Bernadette Whelan who was crushed to death during a David Cassidy concert in London. The song featured the lyrics 'Crushed in the front, it was no publicity stunt'. After all the press and public moral outrage, a sweat browed Tony Edwards (Michael's manager and owner of Purple Records) quickly pulled the plug on the singles release.

 

What did Michael have to say about shaking Britain's moral decency to its very foundations three years before the Sex Pistols took up the cause? 'Well the whole thing was supposed to come out like a 70s Shangrilas. They just don't understand the significance of it all, they can't see that when a kid buys a poster of Davis Cassidy it's of a religious significance, that stuff is heavy y'know'.

 

When asked what his future plans might be, Michael said, 'I had this whole idea of doing an album called 'I Will Return'. With a photo, a pair of white sandals and a message to the world left by a river. I'd have dissapeared presumed dead and exactly one year later I'd reappear in a Guatemalan police station and be rushed into a studio to record an album called 'I'm Back'.

 

Contributed by Wade (all this info was from British newspapers, a 1974 interview with Michael from the New Musical Express and a personal interview with Tony Edwards).

 

It's the first wife here. My thoughts turned to Michael again as Christmas is coming up; he used to phone me every Christmas Day, but stopped about 6 or 7 years ago. Anyway I've just looked him up on the web (to make sure he's still alive, and to see how he's doing) and came across your web-site again with some funny debate about Michael once being a tie salesman, and also being the subject of Al Stewart's 'What's Going On?'. Michael was, in fact, once a sort of tie salesman. In the late 60s, when we were both actors and often out of work, Michael had a job in a men's clothes shop in North London (from memory, Palmer's Green, I think). He worked there a good few months (and hated it) and, amongst the other men's fashions he sold, must have also sold the odd tie! From your web-site, I see he's in denial; but he did, actually, sell men's clothes, including ties, for a period during the late 1960s. As to Michael being the subject of Al's song, this is quite plausible. Al and I were good friends for a while (from about 1965); our friendship ended around 74 when some-one told him (falsely - and a thing which, even after all these years, still rankles) that I had not repaid a debt. As I say, this was about 1974, after Michael had left me for Pamela (in January 1974). Between 1966 and 1974, Michael and Al knew each other through me. I think that Al thought that Michael had been seduced by the 'lures' of 'rock stardom' from 1971-ish on, and he certainly disapproved of Michael dumping me for Pamela and Amerika! in the way he did. That Al should have written a song, with the lyrics you reproduce on your web-site, in 74 or 75 seems wholly likely, though I didn't know about it. Al also wrote a song, at about the same time, which he said was for me. I don't think it was really; I think it was for some-one else, but it sort of included me. I don't remember what it was; all I remember is the line 'tarot cards revealing, a solitary feeling'. It may be on Year of the Cat. I have always been sad that Al and I were separated, as friends, by lies. After Michael left I was devasted (he had been my first love), and I had a few months 'fling' with John Cale. This was whilst he was in London recording the album 'Fear' produced, as I recall, by Brian Eno; I suggested he sing Elvis's 'Heartbreak Hotel' in the minor key of F, rather than in the major key (C I think) in which it was originally recorded. He did this (and reproduced it at the ACNE concert at the Finsbury Rainbow theatre, in, circa, 1975). He also wrote a song, called 'Emily', which celebrated (if that's the right word) our brief encounter. All these times were quite mad, and it makes me sad again to think about them. Before Michael was signed up to QWERTIOP Productions (funded by Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Time Rice, with money from Deep Purple, as I recall: circa early 70s), we had a rich quasi-revolutionary life with an outfit we invented called 'The Electric Church'. In those days, we were up for changing the world. I don't know if Michael still wants to 'change the world' (probably not, I think), but I'm still up for it in different ways. I'm, now, a rather serious Professor of English at a London university, and still trying to write things which might make a difference (last book: A New Modernity? Change in Science. Literature and Politics, Lawrence & Wishart, 1999). If you're in touch with Michael, tell him that 'The Electric Church' still lives on my corner of the block. I hope this helps your collection of trivia on Michael and, if you're in touch with Al Stewart, tell him I didn't actually, as he was told, behave dishonourably all those years ago. 

best wishes,Wendy (Dec. 2000)

 

 

Found your web site when a friend was looking for the Sixteen and Savaged album cover. Because I am on the cover, shot in the Speakeasy London, photographed by Keith ( who I would love to catch up with ). Wow all those years ago eh ! I think it was Chelita Secunda who got me on it, and I was just seventeen in fact. I went on to drama school, became an actress, had 4 kids the oldest is 16 ! Well....all the best, Judy Elrington (Feb. 2002)

 

 

Michael Des Barres Web Site *

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