It’s been a long while since I felt like being a band slut, the best feeling in the world.
I fell hard for Diamond Tuck & the Privates back in November. They snapped me out of a funk with their first song, a mix of heavy metal, glam rock, Oregon pride and total HOTNESS. An eight-piece band carefully culled from the lifers of the Portland rock scene, these guys and gals know how to throw a show. Captain Diamond is 6’2 and covered with tattoos. As the leader of the pack he makes the call on whether the boys wear pink or white denim and coordinates eye makeup, too. His best outfit is sweat and man was he wearing it that night.

Kelly’s Olympian was packed. The band barely fit on the makeshift. Midway through the show Diamond waded out into the crowd, made out with a lucky slut and then mounted the bar, preaching a chorus of sexxxed up YEAHS to adoring worshippers, pouring a drink down his smokin’ hot chest and reclining in his best Burt Reynolds pose. The band and the backup singers broke it down to a whisper while Diamond told all us pretty ladies just what was in store for us. The volume came back up and the whole ensemble rocked out—complete with choreography—til every last panty was wet and every t-shirt was sold. I went home shaking my head in disbelief. I’ve known this Diamond fellow for YEARS. I’ve seen him in a hundred rock bands. But oh-my-goodness I had NO IDEA… I woke up the next AM still wondering who the lucky slut was he made out with on the floor. I vowed to kill her.
Two months later the band was appearing at Slabtown with another Portland all-star band, Starantula. I’d seen Starantula four years before and thought I knew what they were all about. I was wrong. In that time they’d changed from a lounge-punk novelty act to a blistering four-piece RAWK band. Think the Jimi Hendrix Experience fronted by Jim Belushi dressed as John Travolta. You cannot NOT dance to Starantula.
Diamond Tuck played first. The estrogen in the room was so thick that I decided to let him alone. I made love to my tequila and danced my ass off instead. When Starantula took the stage I accidentally fell in LUV with Kelly Gator—Fireballs of Freedom lead singer and axe slinger—right in front of his girlfriend! My eyes were crossing and she could tell. She glared at me through the smoky sweaty haze and I conciliatorily made out with seven people: two chicks, two drummers, two strangers and DIAMOND, who very politely asked, “Viva, will you come make out with me in the bathroom?” We sucked face on the floor while his guitar player Private Mike took a piss right over us.

The morning after I was still in love. I was shocked by my lingering lust and went to the clubhouse to tell Blondie. Blondie said, “That’s not love. That’s rock’n’roll.” Duh.

Blondie had been celibate for like weeks. She was in that lipstick-buying, cat-petting phase of the MenSuck continuum. It was getting harder and harder to get her to go out. Then I got beat up and everybody except the men I was fucking felt sorry for me. Blondie was even willing to be my wing-woman. I took her to 72nd Avenue where the band parties and made her make out with Private Mike. Diamond and Private showed us a real bitchin’ time, taking us to rad bars east of 82nd and finally to drummer boy House Arrest Dan’s house where Blondie danced to Hall & Oates in her legwarmers and Diamond made out with me in spite of the stitches in my swollen, bloody lip. One short week later we were on the road to Bellingham, following Diamond Tuck & the Privates on their tour of the Northwest with Starantula.

Bellingham ROCKS. It’s got something of the energy and excitement of the Satyricon scene in its much-storied heyday. Lots of little rock’n’roll bars are lined up on State Street. Nearby Horseshoe Café and Tavern has a 24-hour breakfast and a groovy cowboy pulltab lounge. Blondie and I had biscuits & gravy there for dinner and then got slutty in the bathroom after the long greasy drive. Blondie put on her makeup in the midst of a full-on dyke battle, sometime lovebirds tearing each other apart but still not immune to Blondie’s considerable charms. Blondie is every dyke’s wet dream. I slipped out of my tight jeans and lavender black-eye-accenting sweater into fishnets, short white denim skirt (Diamond had informed me that the “theme” of the evening was white denim) and red knee-high alligator boots and we ran to the rock club.

The bands and their bitches were all there and I instantly started to swoon, but Blondie needed vodka TOOT SWEET. We wandered the streets looking for something other than a tavern and wound up at the Factory—another super cool Satyricon-y bar with, thank God, liquor. Blondie downed three vodkas with Red Bull in quick succession and I medicated with two. Back at the 3B, I flirted and twinkled and didn’t notice that Blondie looked like a beautiful schizophrenic about to throw herself out a window. I got her some water and took her to the bathroom for a nice puke photo shoot. Soon Blondie felt blonde again. “Glad I got that over with!” she chirped.

Diamond and Co. took the stage and took the TOWN. The locals gawked in shock while we Portlanders danced and screamed and made out. The local paper was there to document it all, fell in love with Diamond and took notes for a front-page feature in the Bellingham Daily. These guys are IT, man!

Diamond was wearing his pink leather captain hat, a big black monkey fur jacket, a tight white t-shirt and tight white Levi’s. Private Mike had on white denim trousers AND matching jacket, his white private hat and aviator specks. And his Flying V, which he played as masterfully as he’d been playin’ Blondie. House Arrest Dan and bass player Private Andy are the lookers of the band and are deadly. What kinda girl doesn’t fall for the rhythm section straight off anyway? They wore head-to-toe white denim, too. Then there was THE WIZARD, Greg Gallant, wielding a Flying V, black handlebar moustache and long black Ozzy hair. He’s all Black Sabbath at night, but during the day is your average pot-smoking Converse-wearing northwestern cutie. Finally, the pistol-hot Hidden Valley Singers: Lucinda Beth, who is, according to Diamond, “More woman than most men can handle,” Heather from DOTS who is blonde and has hamburgers tattooed on her sternum and wears groovy polyester pantsuits, and beautiful, honey-voiced Cameron, aka “Cam-Shaft,” the world-famous hula-hoop boy. Cam is tattooed and skinny and uses the ladies room so you can ogle him in the light. He plays a mean tambourine.

Blondie was in fine form by now and joined the rest of us sluts on the floor, shakin’ it HARD to Starantula—the best dance band on the West Coast. Starantula’s got it and there ain’t no doubt about it. Every girl from every walk of life jumped out of her seat to swoon and shimmy and sing along to their rockin’ cover of “Fooled Around and Fell in Love.” Cam hula-hooped.

The after-party was at the hotel room. Everyone had been on the road for days and was smelly and sleepy. Diamond lent me his chest as a pillow and covered me with his monkey fur. Private Mike and Blondie curled up in the alcove under the vanity mirror after raping each other for hours. Everyone else watched TV.

The next day we had breakfast with the whole motherfucking band. The boys and girls trickled in—each hotter than a jar of Hot Mamas. Me ‘n’ Blondie giggled and cuddled, feeling like the luckiest girls in the whole world. What band sluts get to stay the night and then stay for breakfast?! We felt just like My Little Ponies, smeared mascara and all.
After breakfast we headed to the Murder Bar, so-called because Ted Bundy, the Green River Killer and the D.C. Snipers all partied there. Everyone orders white Russians. I take mine black. Local bar slut gets excited about my black eye. Says she just got the shit beat out of her by her old man but the cops took HER in for four nights. In fact she was fresh outta jail that morning. I admire her ring. She guesses that we are rock’n’rollers. Private Mike tells her the band is Iron Maiden and that we’re off to Japan in eight hours. Tells her Blondie is his wife of seven years. Blondie melts all over the bar like a softserve sundae smothered in hot caramel.
We have two more rounds at the Murder Bar and then stumble out into the late winter sun. It’s time to go home. Blondie and I rub noses with our band boys and speed away in the Volvo, reliving every slutty detail over the dreamlike five-hour drive home. We know that Diamond Tuck & the Privates have more band sluts than any band in the world. But man don’t it feel goood to be back in the saddle? Huh, Blondie?