August 12, 2020 • 25 mins
Phil Spector’s own personal Socrates, Lenny Bruce, reminisces on the unforgettable time he spent with the Tycoon of Teen. Lenny’s tales involve censorship and the long arm of Johnny Law, Frank Zappa and Merv Griffin, and family secrets revealed after late night deli runs. All this and more in the season one premiere of Blood on the Tracks.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Phil Spector was a musical genius,
one of the most successful record producers of all time.
He's now sitting behind bars serving a nineteen years to
life sentence for murder. This is the story told by
his so called friends. Is a special agent Paul Ramone
(00:30):
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number
double oh four Dash ten Dash seven for one nine
case subject of Specter Philip Harvey. This information pertains to
the period and in August third, sixty six interview subject
as Bruce Lenny interview number one Dash thirty four DAST
six five six Dash six six seven Spirit Confessional Recall
(00:51):
number two day jan two thousand three. M. I think
what people want isn't want to beat the devil, and
they really believe is a good and a bad, a
(01:11):
good and an evil, and maybe he was evil. I
don't know his music. Evil is free speech, evil rock
and roll, the Devil's music. All the First Amendment is
is free to a speech, the right to say it.
Whatever it is you want to say, you have the
right to say it. But they can't police the bad
out of somebody. Man and they can't beat it out
(01:33):
of either, because there isn't the beating the devil all
there is this blood all the tracks. Chapter one, Phil
(02:06):
Specter and Lenny Bruce yea look. Other people thought I
was really wild, just really far out there, like they
thought that maybe I lost my mind, and maybe I had.
(02:26):
I'm not talking about the so called obscenities and my
act on stage. It wasn't even an act, Okay, I'm
talking about later. I'm talking about after I've been arrested
for the last time and people were bored with me.
They moved on. I moved on to I moved into
that house up in the hills, one off Hollywood Boulevard,
(02:46):
just shot up the strip from Phil's place. People would
visit and take one look at my study. It was
a mess, and I could see that. Okay, I'd give
him that it was a mess. It made sense in
my mind and made sense outside of my mind, made
sense on paper. To them, they saw something far out.
There were hundreds of pieces of legal paper, you know,
(03:07):
that yellow line stuff, all over the floor. I wrote
a word in the middle of each piece, just one word,
a phrase, and then I'd ripped the page out tossed
it on the floor. I read another word on the
next one, another phrase, just one one of those straight thoughts,
and then I'd ripped the piece of paper up and
tossed it on the floor with the others. Phil brought
Mike Spencer up to the house. Mike was one of
(03:29):
his piano guys. Might get some friends with him. Phil
was always bringing people by the house and say hello, Hey,
come on, come meet Lenny, that sort of thing, ladies
and gentlemen. Mike stood in my study just staring at
the hundreds of pieces of paper on the floor. He
couldn't believe that this was how a comedian worked. What
can I say? Man? At that point, it was the
only way that made sense to me. My life was
(03:51):
all fucked. The judge finally came down on me with
that narcotics thing, that junkie rat two hundred and sixty
bucks one of year, suspended, set this couple of years
of approbation that was after everything else, blue shirts, and
put me in handcuffs for like six times during the
first half of the sixties. They arrested me in San
Francisco for saying cocksucker. Of all things. They arrested me
(04:14):
in Los Angeles for saying schmuck. They squeezed me in Philadelphia,
and that was for the junk I think sitting at
Brother who Love You dig? And then they arrested me
in Chicago, New York City. Nightclubs all over the country
put me on a blacklist, a list of one brother.
Let me tell you that I got yank from the
stage of a burlesque club of all places, because I
was too dirty. And they wouldn't even let me in
(04:37):
the United Kingdom anymore or Australia. I wouldn't want to
corrupt to kangaroo. So what can I say? Man? I
was drained physically emotionally. I was bankrupt too, and I
couldn't keep from sticking that goddamn needle in my arm anymore.
Phil was the only one who believed to me. Phil
new destitute, Phil new loneliness. Phil Specter knew the face
(04:58):
of men who had been forsaken by his p He
was by the beloved old guard establishment. I was penniless, addicted.
I guess Phil saw a kindred spirit in me, a brother.
He took me to his place on Muckleina, driving Beverly Hills.
Jesus Christ. It was a fucking mansion. He let me
use his office down on the strip, through some money
at me when I needed it. I feel even one
on the MERV Griffith Show defended me in front of
(05:19):
another film, Phil Foster, that old schmuck. Foster was this
standoffice old prick who just finished telling MERV that he
hated new music, the kind of music Phil was making.
And then they bring Phil up from the wings and
bush Foster with him, fills there with his newsboy cap
holding on for dear life on top of his bushy hair,
and his sideburns had taken on the life of their own,
taking over half his face. MURV introduces Phil as the
(05:42):
king of rock and roll records, which you know he was,
and Foster can't see it because he's some old Sinatra crony.
Foster starts beating on film the way those old girl
comics do. It's all these pricks know what to do.
It's like the verbal equivalent of sitting on top of
someone's face. It's fucking rope man, it's lame. I record
Lenny Bruce. Phil claimed right there on national television, and
(06:03):
I was a mess man persona non grata. America knew it.
And sure ship old Mr Griffin do it too. Phil
Specter didn't give one fuck That song by the Crystal said,
Phil wrote, He's a rebel. Yeah, and I could have
been written about me. I was Phil's rebel, and I yelled.
That rebel yelled louder than Phil Specter. Whatever dare. Okay,
(06:52):
Phil Specter was not hit. His reputation proceeded. I'm sure
the tycoon of teen on that nonsense. He said he
had his finger on the Paul also Young America, and
then he turned something disposable into art. I didn't know
anything about that. That wasn't my world. Talk to me
about Cannonball, Adderly or Bill Evans and I'm picking up
what you're throwing down. Talk to me about Darlene Love
and the Teddy Bears and you've lost me. So when
(07:15):
they say he had his finger on the pulse, I
only ever saw his fingers wrapped around cold, hard cash.
He took the pulse of money pretty damn well. He
knew what it felt like to touch, what it smelled like.
You could smell the residue of Chris Bills and his Caddyman.
It was all over him like an after shave. Get
the kind of money that allowed him to catch a
flight from l A to San Francisco last minute on
(07:35):
a Sunday evening. You see a midnight show by yours. Truly,
he was just hanging around one Sunday afternoon and felt
like getting out of the house. Threw down his bucks.
United flight, this, United flight, that, and he was at
the Basin Street West when I took the stage at
twelve sharp. Jesus, can you imagine that kind of cash?
(07:58):
I was up to my eyeball wasn't dead at that point.
I'd never lived comfortably again, so I thought I was,
let's see maybe four grand in the hole. At that
point in the Basin Street West, you should have seen
this place. Phil was there with some DJs from Los Angeles,
and then they were a handful of other people. A
handful is generous man midnight on a Sunday. It wasn't
(08:19):
like it used to be. I didn't even have enough
cash to buy a pack of smokes that alone. God
damn fix. I felt like a schmuck. I couldn't let
anyone know. I felt like a shuck. So here comes Phil.
Smells like dollar bills, crispin sure, but crumpled ones to
the ones you find at the bottom of your pockets,
and you leviyes when you're doing laundry, bawled up, forgotten about.
He wants me to come down to l A spend
(08:41):
some time with him. He wants to produce some of
my shows. He's got an idea for a residence at
the Fond Theater. He wants to release my next live album.
Can I say he came on strong? And what did
I know? I even enough not to say no, I'm
playing to a handful of sorry, asked Fox at the
Basin Street West, one of the only gigs I could
find at the time. I was broke. I was down,
(09:02):
I was out. Here's this guy, He's basically rolling up
the red carpet. He may have had the means, but
he certainly was not a hit. I mean, he may
have talked the talk, he may have worn the shades
about the collar of his pea coat and dangled the
occasional cigarella from his lips. But the man was the
squarest of the squares. He didn't walk nor walk, but
he liked how I walked the walk. Phil looked at
(09:25):
me and saw a guy with a dirty mom, A
guy who said what he wanted a guy who didn't
give a fuck. He saw a drug addict. He saw
a drug addict within a rest record longer than the
personnel sheet for one of his Wall of Sound sessions.
He was close to being a has been himself. Maybe
he saw a kindred spirit in me, a couple of
dried up, tossed out losers. He told me about how
(09:48):
he made the biggest songs in the world for acts
simply turned the backs on him, and about the groups
that he hit big with and then struggled to hit
big with again, those Rounnetts and Righteous Brothers again on
my bag man. But Phil told me the he was
the true artist, the true architect, the one who allowed
everyone else a few minutes of infamy on the dial,
and then it just all slipped from his hands. And
(10:10):
you know what, I let him see whatever he wanted
to see. Phil had the cash, and he wanted to
give the cash to me, and that's all that mattered.
He could put me on whatever pedestal he wanted. Sure
I hung out with him in l A, spent a
lot of time at that old Woolworth mansion that has
sat down in the back of that caddy with him
while we cruised down Labraa so he could grab a
couple of dogs from pinks. I always gave a ship
(10:31):
for that. It's all lips and assholes, Phil, I told him.
Made him laugh and maybe that's what he needed me.
I needed bread. I needed bread to buy my daughter
a birthday present. Needed money for a pack of smokes,
needed money for other things that I didn't tell Phil about.
He was on a needed no basis, as was I.
I suppose. I went to Danny Davis for the cash.
(10:53):
Phil's business manager. Phil told him to give me whatever
I needed, no questions asked. One time I overheard Danny
talking on the phone about how I was just a
phase ful Phil, that Phil went through people like he
went through hit records. So I decided to double down,
squeeze as much juice as I could get, lending my
ear when Phil was looking for one to bend. Look.
I knew about his past, I knew about the ship.
(11:13):
He had a dirty asthma's allergy to sunlight. He was
a fat kid. It was teased relentlessly. He never shook
that thing with his father either. Phil told everyone that
his old man had a heart attack, just some normal one.
Of the mill cover story. But he told me the
real story. He told me all the real stories. I'm
(11:35):
telling you. The guy thought he was talking to himself
when he was talking to me. I can't explain it.
He told me the thing with this old man was April.
It was a big deal that it was April. For
some reason, the fact really stuck in his brain. Some
time around then he made some passing reference to debts,
to organized crime, distress and depression. That was the fuzzy part.
(11:55):
The party was clear about. It was the part where
his old man parked his car on the curve of
Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, took a two and put one
end in the exhaust, put the other end in the
front window, rolled the window uptight, and turned the car on.
What a way to go, all right? I mean ship,
I don't know. What do I know about taking it
a lung full of carbon monoxide? It seems like a
(12:16):
hell of a way to go. We'll be right back
after this word word word. One night, Bill wouldn't let
me leave his car. I'm talking about that Caddy the
limit right. The thing was a beast ship. A couple
(12:38):
of guys like us could have lived in that thing
for a few days, and this night I really thought
that was gonna happen, that we live in the thing.
He just didn't want me to leave him, not that,
not yet. It was so late and the sun was
almost up again. It was late, it was early. What
was the difference, feeling? I we're both living the kind
of lines that didn't pay attention to the day of
the week, let alone what hour it was. He said
(12:59):
that of that caddy together, one across from the other.
He just kept talking to me. I would make a
movement motion towards the door. He put a hand up,
asked me another question, and asked me where I was going?
Tell me another story? Hey, Lenny, did I tell you
about the time? Give me a reason to stay the caddie?
As we sat talked until we ran out of things
to talk about. When he had nothing else to talk about,
(13:21):
we listened to the engine harm in prayer. He didn't
want to go back to his place all alone. The
guy was the biggest pot producer on the planet did
but he was always alone. Charles Foster came going back
to Xantitude for another lonely night. We had just driven
back from Cantor's out on Fairfax Joint coach scene and
be seen the whole scene, the whole night. You had
(13:43):
the knock worst, the knock worst that canters have you
had it out of sight? It was late, so late
nighthawks at the Diamond League. Probably two am, doesn't matter
how late it gets in l A. The lights are
always on the neon hams above the storefront. Sounds like
steak sizzling on the grill, and it's bright to man
sh it. Sometimes l A at night it feels more
(14:03):
alive than it does during the day. Is that big
electric hum before nineteen North Fairfax Cantor's fair Fax opened
twenty four hours Bakery Delicateston. You can tell what time
it was by the crowd of cancers. He didn't need
to watch. If the joint was full of a bunch
of octagenarians taking long slipes of suit, was midmorning. The
(14:24):
place was jumping with a bunch of wire kids, kicking
out from the last party and looking for the next one.
It was two am. Phil took me with him to
meet with Frank Sappa that night. Phil want of the company,
wanted a familiar face with him in case Frank boored
him too tears. Of course, he brought one of his
bodyguards with the two might have a big red. Phil
thought he was the most important person in the world,
(14:45):
and the bodyguard helps sell that image. Was the ultimate hustle.
Frank was doing a little hustling himself. I'm sure the
big labels were a bit skeptical of him. Everyone was
skeptical of whom his band, The Mothers are invention, long hairs, beards,
looked like a bunch of back murderers. He did. Frank
needed a label to release his first record. He thought,
maybe Phil get involved, put it out on his Phillies label.
(15:08):
I think Frank saw a fellow outcast, a fellow member
of the French. Frank thought he had found his meal ticket. Sure,
And of course there was Frank's idea of Fringe, and
then there was Phil's idea of fringe, and the two
were light years apart. Frank brought this cat with him,
(15:30):
Danny Bruce. Danny Bruce, no ship. I said, are you
shooting me? Who the fuck is this guy? He had
to be working with me, right, am I? Right? Danny
fucking Bruce. I looked this guy straight in his eyes
and I said, are you fucking with me, man, I
swear I thought it was some cosmic joke, some cosmic
two am joke on Junkie Jones and for something sharp
and hard at the Kosher Delhi on Fairfax, and Denny
(15:51):
Bruce said, no, man, I'm Danny Bruce, no relation, no ship.
Frank starts talking about how he changed his name is
a tribute to me, so Denny corrects him. The name
has nothing to do with his room name was Leonard Schneider,
and he needs something a little less jew and a
little more going for show biz. I get them, me
(16:11):
and Frank, who got into it. He looked at me
and saw a kindred spirit. Frank thought I was some besidah,
no joke. All Frank wonder was the question authority railed
against authority, and here he had the guy who took
that anti authority jat all the way to the bitter end.
I couldn't have cared less Jack, Jack, Frank, whatever the
fucking name is. I just needed to get through the
social engagement so that I could feel okay if I
(16:33):
hit Philip for some more cash, which of course meant
more junk. And then we were back home, the Caddy
Limo rolling up to my place out on West Hollywood Boulevard,
way up there in the weeds of Tinseltown. I just
needed to fix That's all I could think about. It's
all I thought about all night. The fil had any idea,
He didn't care. He wouldn't know needle if it jumped
(16:54):
from the ground and poked him in the ass. I
kept my secrets pretty close to the vest. Feel. Secrets
weren't kept at all, at least not around me. They
tumbled out, they spewed forth, they were blurted. There was
no embargo on the kinds of things that came out
of his mouth. He used the stories to keep me
hanging around after he doled out the money, like to
think about his old man. And now, in the car
(17:18):
outside my place, way out in the willie wags of
Hollywood Boulevard, he was telling me more secrets, secrets that
would buy him a few more minutes with me, a
few more minutes before he had to be alone again.
He was telling me about the time he got piste
on by a couple of kids have followed him into
a bathroom after he just played a show, The Teddy Bears,
that's what they were called, which I mean in all fairness,
(17:40):
sounds like the name of a band that wants to
get piste on in the men's bathroom. If you know
what I'm saying. Here's Phil and his flat top and
embroidered sweater. He's the manifestation of a mark a square
and this is back when he couldn't hide be in
the square so lay fifties. I think he said it
was in New York, but it doesn't matter. These kids
he feel performed. And then when he heads into the
men's room there on hist hell, he has no clue.
(18:01):
A couple of them whole fill down on the floor,
another one keeps watching at the door, and another one
on zips his khakis and just pisces all over him. Humiliates.
Phil is like twenty years old, breaking into show bissess
and he's being held down against the cold, wet tile
of a nondescript men's room while pisces raining down on him.
Maybe that's why he felt a connection with me. He
(18:23):
was humiliated on the floor of the bathroom by some
holier than now thugs. I was humiliated on the stage
by some holier than the cops. Phil Specter was absolutely
fucking nothing like me, but he thought he was man.
What else he thought? I'd never know? And that was
the last night I ever saw. August third to five
(19:15):
West Hollywood Boulevard. Not the iconic Hollywood Boulevard that runs
parallel to Sunset Boulevard, but the Hollywood Boulevard that passes
over Laurel Canyon, The Hollywood Boulevard that retreats up the hill,
the one that hides among the oaks and sycamores and
eucalyptus trees, the one that gets squirrelly, twisted, winding, shady, obscured.
That's the Hollywood Boulevard. The sirens raced up that night.
(19:39):
A little to the west, the phone rang in phili
Specter's house. Were traveled fast. Phil answered the phone, listen
to the voice on the other line, didn't say a word.
Within seconds, he slammed the receiver down so hard it
made the bell ring on the base of the rotary.
Phil grabbed Danny Davis by the shirt collar, pulled him
quickly from the house, and they ran outside the Tora
(20:00):
to the white caddy. Phil yelled at Danny, told him
to get in the car, and told him to drive fast.
They needed to get over to Lenny's Place as quickly
as fucking possible. They needed to be there ten minutes ago.
They avoided the strip and went the back roads. They
hit to he need to Sunset Hills or right onto
Oriole and then thrash her ab Rising Glen Road, Sunset
Plaza Drive, and finally banged a hard right on the
(20:21):
Hollywood Boulevard. There were cops outside Lenny's place when they arrived,
bright coplights. Phil was out of the caddy and pacing
furiously towards the front door. The cops were standing around,
talking low, mumbling under the breath, smoking cigarette butts with
red hot ends flicked to the ground, filled it and
stopped to ask questions or announce his presence. Phil was
(20:42):
inside now. He followed the cops, made his way into
the living room, passed the kitchen, more cops, towards the bathroom.
Even more cops, and they were like a trail of
bread crumbs, those cops, and they led Phil Specter right
to what he'd been told he would find Lenny Bruce
dead on the floor next to the john, his pants
around his ankles, a needle in his arm, gloated, half naked, exposed, humiliated.
(21:05):
Lenny was gone, daddy O. Phil looked around at the
bathroom full of cops. These goddamn cops. They persecuted Lenny,
harassed him, told him what he could and couldn't say,
told him which jokes he could tell, told him what
words he could say, pulled him from the stage, put
him in handcuffs, chewed him up, spat him out, left
(21:26):
him for dead. Lenny wasn't the only one exposed and
humiliated on a bathroom floor. Phil also thought back to
his own bad memory in a bathroom. Bathrooms were a
bad scene, man, and this scene was the worst. His
heart pounded. He felt himself losing control of his better judgment.
He was on his knees now. The cops tried to
haul him away, but he stood his ground. You did this,
(21:49):
he shouted at every batch in the room. You killed him.
An overdose of morphine. Fucking ponderous. It was an overdose
of police, plain and simple. Phil couldn't shake the police.
They came by his office soon after Lenny's death, fists
full of photos from the scene in Lenny's bathroom. The
raw shots of Lenny Lang prone in the bathroom tile
looked like something from Luigi's portfolio. The cops joke that
(22:12):
maybe Phil wanted to buy them for one of his
album covers. It was a sick joke, but Phil took
it as a serious offer. How much he asked five
grand sold. It was a small price to pay to
keep them out of someone else's hands, and it was
the last piece of Lenny that he could hold onto.
Phil couldn't shake Lenny. He paid for the funeral, delivered
(22:33):
the eulogy. He hung a giant poster of money directly
above his bed, larger than life. In it, Lenny's gaze
was tired but foreboding, the look of a man far
past his prime, bloated, worn out, scatter rain on junk.
Phil would climb into bed, find comfort in Lenny's gaze
bearing down on him, but his wife, Ronnie Specter would
(22:55):
lay next to him, unable to close her eyes. She'd
turned on her side, her stomach, but she always felt
Lenny's eyes following her, burning into her, judging her. She
would roll onto her back, look up at the overbearing
image of the man her husband briefly idolized his Socrates,
he would say, and she felt something was terribly wrong.
(23:17):
She felt it was an omen a warning from beyond
the grave and above her bed something evil. There is
no good and there is no evil. There's only blood
on the Tracks. This episode of Blood on the Tracks
(23:43):
is brought to you by twenty seven Club, a podcast
that I host on musicians who died at the age
of Season two featuring Jim Morrison is now available as
the season one with twelve episodes featuring Jimmy Hendrix. Subscribed
to the twenty seven Club on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio,
app ever you get your podcast, and of course, this
episode was also brought to you by Disgrace Land, the
(24:05):
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wherever you get your podcast, all right. This episode of
(24:25):
Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth Lundi and
scored in mixed by Matt Boden, posted by me Jake Brennan.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker and Henry Junea.
Blood on the Tracks is produced by myself for Double
Elness and partnership with I Heart Radio. Sources for this
episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the
Blood on the Tracks series page. If you like what
(24:47):
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(25:08):
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Pod Rock, a Ball or Dad
Blood on the Tracks is the production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Phil Spector was a musical genius,
one of the most successful record producers of all time.
He's now sitting behind bars serving a nineteen years to
life sentence for murder. This is the story told by
his so called friends. Is a special agent Paul Ramone
(00:30):
with the Federal Bureau of Investigation work in case number
double oh four Dash ten Dash seven for one nine
case subject of Specter Philip Harvey. This information pertains to
the period and in August third, sixty six interview subject
as Bruce Lenny interview number one Dash thirty four DAST
six five six Dash six six seven Spirit Confessional Recall
(00:51):
number two day jan two thousand three. M. I think
what people want isn't want to beat the devil, and
they really believe is a good and a bad, a
(01:11):
good and an evil, and maybe he was evil. I
don't know his music. Evil is free speech, evil rock
and roll, the Devil's music. All the First Amendment is
is free to a speech, the right to say it.
Whatever it is you want to say, you have the
right to say it. But they can't police the bad
out of somebody. Man and they can't beat it out
(01:33):
of either, because there isn't the beating the devil all
there is this blood all the tracks. Chapter one, Phil
(02:06):
Specter and Lenny Bruce yea look. Other people thought I
was really wild, just really far out there, like they
thought that maybe I lost my mind, and maybe I had.
(02:26):
I'm not talking about the so called obscenities and my
act on stage. It wasn't even an act, Okay, I'm
talking about later. I'm talking about after I've been arrested
for the last time and people were bored with me.
They moved on. I moved on to I moved into
that house up in the hills, one off Hollywood Boulevard,
(02:46):
just shot up the strip from Phil's place. People would
visit and take one look at my study. It was
a mess, and I could see that. Okay, I'd give
him that it was a mess. It made sense in
my mind and made sense outside of my mind, made
sense on paper. To them, they saw something far out.
There were hundreds of pieces of legal paper, you know,
(03:07):
that yellow line stuff, all over the floor. I wrote
a word in the middle of each piece, just one word,
a phrase, and then I'd ripped the page out tossed
it on the floor. I read another word on the
next one, another phrase, just one one of those straight thoughts,
and then I'd ripped the piece of paper up and
tossed it on the floor with the others. Phil brought
Mike Spencer up to the house. Mike was one of
(03:29):
his piano guys. Might get some friends with him. Phil
was always bringing people by the house and say hello, Hey,
come on, come meet Lenny, that sort of thing, ladies
and gentlemen. Mike stood in my study just staring at
the hundreds of pieces of paper on the floor. He
couldn't believe that this was how a comedian worked. What
can I say? Man? At that point, it was the
only way that made sense to me. My life was
(03:51):
all fucked. The judge finally came down on me with
that narcotics thing, that junkie rat two hundred and sixty
bucks one of year, suspended, set this couple of years
of approbation that was after everything else, blue shirts, and
put me in handcuffs for like six times during the
first half of the sixties. They arrested me in San
Francisco for saying cocksucker. Of all things. They arrested me
(04:14):
in Los Angeles for saying schmuck. They squeezed me in Philadelphia,
and that was for the junk I think sitting at
Brother who Love You dig? And then they arrested me
in Chicago, New York City. Nightclubs all over the country
put me on a blacklist, a list of one brother.
Let me tell you that I got yank from the
stage of a burlesque club of all places, because I
was too dirty. And they wouldn't even let me in
(04:37):
the United Kingdom anymore or Australia. I wouldn't want to
corrupt to kangaroo. So what can I say? Man? I
was drained physically emotionally. I was bankrupt too, and I
couldn't keep from sticking that goddamn needle in my arm anymore.
Phil was the only one who believed to me. Phil
new destitute, Phil new loneliness. Phil Specter knew the face
(04:58):
of men who had been forsaken by his p He
was by the beloved old guard establishment. I was penniless, addicted.
I guess Phil saw a kindred spirit in me, a brother.
He took me to his place on Muckleina, driving Beverly Hills.
Jesus Christ. It was a fucking mansion. He let me
use his office down on the strip, through some money
at me when I needed it. I feel even one
on the MERV Griffith Show defended me in front of
(05:19):
another film, Phil Foster, that old schmuck. Foster was this
standoffice old prick who just finished telling MERV that he
hated new music, the kind of music Phil was making.
And then they bring Phil up from the wings and
bush Foster with him, fills there with his newsboy cap
holding on for dear life on top of his bushy hair,
and his sideburns had taken on the life of their own,
taking over half his face. MURV introduces Phil as the
(05:42):
king of rock and roll records, which you know he was,
and Foster can't see it because he's some old Sinatra crony.
Foster starts beating on film the way those old girl
comics do. It's all these pricks know what to do.
It's like the verbal equivalent of sitting on top of
someone's face. It's fucking rope man, it's lame. I record
Lenny Bruce. Phil claimed right there on national television, and
(06:03):
I was a mess man persona non grata. America knew it.
And sure ship old Mr Griffin do it too. Phil
Specter didn't give one fuck That song by the Crystal said,
Phil wrote, He's a rebel. Yeah, and I could have
been written about me. I was Phil's rebel, and I yelled.
That rebel yelled louder than Phil Specter. Whatever dare. Okay,
(06:52):
Phil Specter was not hit. His reputation proceeded. I'm sure
the tycoon of teen on that nonsense. He said he
had his finger on the Paul also Young America, and
then he turned something disposable into art. I didn't know
anything about that. That wasn't my world. Talk to me
about Cannonball, Adderly or Bill Evans and I'm picking up
what you're throwing down. Talk to me about Darlene Love
and the Teddy Bears and you've lost me. So when
(07:15):
they say he had his finger on the pulse, I
only ever saw his fingers wrapped around cold, hard cash.
He took the pulse of money pretty damn well. He
knew what it felt like to touch, what it smelled like.
You could smell the residue of Chris Bills and his Caddyman.
It was all over him like an after shave. Get
the kind of money that allowed him to catch a
flight from l A to San Francisco last minute on
(07:35):
a Sunday evening. You see a midnight show by yours. Truly,
he was just hanging around one Sunday afternoon and felt
like getting out of the house. Threw down his bucks.
United flight, this, United flight, that, and he was at
the Basin Street West when I took the stage at
twelve sharp. Jesus, can you imagine that kind of cash?
(07:58):
I was up to my eyeball wasn't dead at that point.
I'd never lived comfortably again, so I thought I was,
let's see maybe four grand in the hole. At that
point in the Basin Street West, you should have seen
this place. Phil was there with some DJs from Los Angeles,
and then they were a handful of other people. A
handful is generous man midnight on a Sunday. It wasn't
(08:19):
like it used to be. I didn't even have enough
cash to buy a pack of smokes that alone. God
damn fix. I felt like a schmuck. I couldn't let
anyone know. I felt like a shuck. So here comes Phil.
Smells like dollar bills, crispin sure, but crumpled ones to
the ones you find at the bottom of your pockets,
and you leviyes when you're doing laundry, bawled up, forgotten about.
He wants me to come down to l A spend
(08:41):
some time with him. He wants to produce some of
my shows. He's got an idea for a residence at
the Fond Theater. He wants to release my next live album.
Can I say he came on strong? And what did
I know? I even enough not to say no, I'm
playing to a handful of sorry, asked Fox at the
Basin Street West, one of the only gigs I could
find at the time. I was broke. I was down,
(09:02):
I was out. Here's this guy, He's basically rolling up
the red carpet. He may have had the means, but
he certainly was not a hit. I mean, he may
have talked the talk, he may have worn the shades
about the collar of his pea coat and dangled the
occasional cigarella from his lips. But the man was the
squarest of the squares. He didn't walk nor walk, but
he liked how I walked the walk. Phil looked at
(09:25):
me and saw a guy with a dirty mom, A
guy who said what he wanted a guy who didn't
give a fuck. He saw a drug addict. He saw
a drug addict within a rest record longer than the
personnel sheet for one of his Wall of Sound sessions.
He was close to being a has been himself. Maybe
he saw a kindred spirit in me, a couple of
dried up, tossed out losers. He told me about how
(09:48):
he made the biggest songs in the world for acts
simply turned the backs on him, and about the groups
that he hit big with and then struggled to hit
big with again, those Rounnetts and Righteous Brothers again on
my bag man. But Phil told me the he was
the true artist, the true architect, the one who allowed
everyone else a few minutes of infamy on the dial,
and then it just all slipped from his hands. And
(10:10):
you know what, I let him see whatever he wanted
to see. Phil had the cash, and he wanted to
give the cash to me, and that's all that mattered.
He could put me on whatever pedestal he wanted. Sure
I hung out with him in l A, spent a
lot of time at that old Woolworth mansion that has
sat down in the back of that caddy with him
while we cruised down Labraa so he could grab a
couple of dogs from pinks. I always gave a ship
(10:31):
for that. It's all lips and assholes, Phil, I told him.
Made him laugh and maybe that's what he needed me.
I needed bread. I needed bread to buy my daughter
a birthday present. Needed money for a pack of smokes,
needed money for other things that I didn't tell Phil about.
He was on a needed no basis, as was I.
I suppose. I went to Danny Davis for the cash.
(10:53):
Phil's business manager. Phil told him to give me whatever
I needed, no questions asked. One time I overheard Danny
talking on the phone about how I was just a
phase ful Phil, that Phil went through people like he
went through hit records. So I decided to double down,
squeeze as much juice as I could get, lending my
ear when Phil was looking for one to bend. Look.
I knew about his past, I knew about the ship.
(11:13):
He had a dirty asthma's allergy to sunlight. He was
a fat kid. It was teased relentlessly. He never shook
that thing with his father either. Phil told everyone that
his old man had a heart attack, just some normal one.
Of the mill cover story. But he told me the
real story. He told me all the real stories. I'm
(11:35):
telling you. The guy thought he was talking to himself
when he was talking to me. I can't explain it.
He told me the thing with this old man was April.
It was a big deal that it was April. For
some reason, the fact really stuck in his brain. Some
time around then he made some passing reference to debts,
to organized crime, distress and depression. That was the fuzzy part.
(11:55):
The party was clear about. It was the part where
his old man parked his car on the curve of
Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn, took a two and put one
end in the exhaust, put the other end in the
front window, rolled the window uptight, and turned the car on.
What a way to go, all right? I mean ship,
I don't know. What do I know about taking it
a lung full of carbon monoxide? It seems like a
(12:16):
hell of a way to go. We'll be right back
after this word word word. One night, Bill wouldn't let
me leave his car. I'm talking about that Caddy the
limit right. The thing was a beast ship. A couple
(12:38):
of guys like us could have lived in that thing
for a few days, and this night I really thought
that was gonna happen, that we live in the thing.
He just didn't want me to leave him, not that,
not yet. It was so late and the sun was
almost up again. It was late, it was early. What
was the difference, feeling? I we're both living the kind
of lines that didn't pay attention to the day of
the week, let alone what hour it was. He said
(12:59):
that of that caddy together, one across from the other.
He just kept talking to me. I would make a
movement motion towards the door. He put a hand up,
asked me another question, and asked me where I was going?
Tell me another story? Hey, Lenny, did I tell you
about the time? Give me a reason to stay the caddie?
As we sat talked until we ran out of things
to talk about. When he had nothing else to talk about,
(13:21):
we listened to the engine harm in prayer. He didn't
want to go back to his place all alone. The
guy was the biggest pot producer on the planet did
but he was always alone. Charles Foster came going back
to Xantitude for another lonely night. We had just driven
back from Cantor's out on Fairfax Joint coach scene and
be seen the whole scene, the whole night. You had
(13:43):
the knock worst, the knock worst that canters have you
had it out of sight? It was late, so late
nighthawks at the Diamond League. Probably two am, doesn't matter
how late it gets in l A. The lights are
always on the neon hams above the storefront. Sounds like
steak sizzling on the grill, and it's bright to man
sh it. Sometimes l A at night it feels more
(14:03):
alive than it does during the day. Is that big
electric hum before nineteen North Fairfax Cantor's fair Fax opened
twenty four hours Bakery Delicateston. You can tell what time
it was by the crowd of cancers. He didn't need
to watch. If the joint was full of a bunch
of octagenarians taking long slipes of suit, was midmorning. The
(14:24):
place was jumping with a bunch of wire kids, kicking
out from the last party and looking for the next one.
It was two am. Phil took me with him to
meet with Frank Sappa that night. Phil want of the company,
wanted a familiar face with him in case Frank boored
him too tears. Of course, he brought one of his
bodyguards with the two might have a big red. Phil
thought he was the most important person in the world,
(14:45):
and the bodyguard helps sell that image. Was the ultimate hustle.
Frank was doing a little hustling himself. I'm sure the
big labels were a bit skeptical of him. Everyone was
skeptical of whom his band, The Mothers are invention, long hairs, beards,
looked like a bunch of back murderers. He did. Frank
needed a label to release his first record. He thought,
maybe Phil get involved, put it out on his Phillies label.
(15:08):
I think Frank saw a fellow outcast, a fellow member
of the French. Frank thought he had found his meal ticket. Sure,
And of course there was Frank's idea of Fringe, and
then there was Phil's idea of fringe, and the two
were light years apart. Frank brought this cat with him,
(15:30):
Danny Bruce. Danny Bruce, no ship. I said, are you
shooting me? Who the fuck is this guy? He had
to be working with me, right, am I? Right? Danny
fucking Bruce. I looked this guy straight in his eyes
and I said, are you fucking with me, man, I
swear I thought it was some cosmic joke, some cosmic
two am joke on Junkie Jones and for something sharp
and hard at the Kosher Delhi on Fairfax, and Denny
(15:51):
Bruce said, no, man, I'm Danny Bruce, no relation, no ship.
Frank starts talking about how he changed his name is
a tribute to me, so Denny corrects him. The name
has nothing to do with his room name was Leonard Schneider,
and he needs something a little less jew and a
little more going for show biz. I get them, me
(16:11):
and Frank, who got into it. He looked at me
and saw a kindred spirit. Frank thought I was some besidah,
no joke. All Frank wonder was the question authority railed
against authority, and here he had the guy who took
that anti authority jat all the way to the bitter end.
I couldn't have cared less Jack, Jack, Frank, whatever the
fucking name is. I just needed to get through the
social engagement so that I could feel okay if I
(16:33):
hit Philip for some more cash, which of course meant
more junk. And then we were back home, the Caddy
Limo rolling up to my place out on West Hollywood Boulevard,
way up there in the weeds of Tinseltown. I just
needed to fix That's all I could think about. It's
all I thought about all night. The fil had any idea,
He didn't care. He wouldn't know needle if it jumped
(16:54):
from the ground and poked him in the ass. I
kept my secrets pretty close to the vest. Feel. Secrets
weren't kept at all, at least not around me. They
tumbled out, they spewed forth, they were blurted. There was
no embargo on the kinds of things that came out
of his mouth. He used the stories to keep me
hanging around after he doled out the money, like to
think about his old man. And now, in the car
(17:18):
outside my place, way out in the willie wags of
Hollywood Boulevard, he was telling me more secrets, secrets that
would buy him a few more minutes with me, a
few more minutes before he had to be alone again.
He was telling me about the time he got piste
on by a couple of kids have followed him into
a bathroom after he just played a show, The Teddy Bears,
that's what they were called, which I mean in all fairness,
(17:40):
sounds like the name of a band that wants to
get piste on in the men's bathroom. If you know
what I'm saying. Here's Phil and his flat top and
embroidered sweater. He's the manifestation of a mark a square
and this is back when he couldn't hide be in
the square so lay fifties. I think he said it
was in New York, but it doesn't matter. These kids
he feel performed. And then when he heads into the
men's room there on hist hell, he has no clue.
(18:01):
A couple of them whole fill down on the floor,
another one keeps watching at the door, and another one
on zips his khakis and just pisces all over him. Humiliates.
Phil is like twenty years old, breaking into show bissess
and he's being held down against the cold, wet tile
of a nondescript men's room while pisces raining down on him.
Maybe that's why he felt a connection with me. He
(18:23):
was humiliated on the floor of the bathroom by some
holier than now thugs. I was humiliated on the stage
by some holier than the cops. Phil Specter was absolutely
fucking nothing like me, but he thought he was man.
What else he thought? I'd never know? And that was
the last night I ever saw. August third to five
(19:15):
West Hollywood Boulevard. Not the iconic Hollywood Boulevard that runs
parallel to Sunset Boulevard, but the Hollywood Boulevard that passes
over Laurel Canyon, The Hollywood Boulevard that retreats up the hill,
the one that hides among the oaks and sycamores and
eucalyptus trees, the one that gets squirrelly, twisted, winding, shady, obscured.
That's the Hollywood Boulevard. The sirens raced up that night.
(19:39):
A little to the west, the phone rang in phili
Specter's house. Were traveled fast. Phil answered the phone, listen
to the voice on the other line, didn't say a word.
Within seconds, he slammed the receiver down so hard it
made the bell ring on the base of the rotary.
Phil grabbed Danny Davis by the shirt collar, pulled him
quickly from the house, and they ran outside the Tora
(20:00):
to the white caddy. Phil yelled at Danny, told him
to get in the car, and told him to drive fast.
They needed to get over to Lenny's Place as quickly
as fucking possible. They needed to be there ten minutes ago.
They avoided the strip and went the back roads. They
hit to he need to Sunset Hills or right onto
Oriole and then thrash her ab Rising Glen Road, Sunset
Plaza Drive, and finally banged a hard right on the
(20:21):
Hollywood Boulevard. There were cops outside Lenny's place when they arrived,
bright coplights. Phil was out of the caddy and pacing
furiously towards the front door. The cops were standing around,
talking low, mumbling under the breath, smoking cigarette butts with
red hot ends flicked to the ground, filled it and
stopped to ask questions or announce his presence. Phil was
(20:42):
inside now. He followed the cops, made his way into
the living room, passed the kitchen, more cops, towards the bathroom.
Even more cops, and they were like a trail of
bread crumbs, those cops, and they led Phil Specter right
to what he'd been told he would find Lenny Bruce
dead on the floor next to the john, his pants
around his ankles, a needle in his arm, gloated, half naked, exposed, humiliated.
(21:05):
Lenny was gone, daddy O. Phil looked around at the
bathroom full of cops. These goddamn cops. They persecuted Lenny,
harassed him, told him what he could and couldn't say,
told him which jokes he could tell, told him what
words he could say, pulled him from the stage, put
him in handcuffs, chewed him up, spat him out, left
(21:26):
him for dead. Lenny wasn't the only one exposed and
humiliated on a bathroom floor. Phil also thought back to
his own bad memory in a bathroom. Bathrooms were a
bad scene, man, and this scene was the worst. His
heart pounded. He felt himself losing control of his better judgment.
He was on his knees now. The cops tried to
haul him away, but he stood his ground. You did this,
(21:49):
he shouted at every batch in the room. You killed him.
An overdose of morphine. Fucking ponderous. It was an overdose
of police, plain and simple. Phil couldn't shake the police.
They came by his office soon after Lenny's death, fists
full of photos from the scene in Lenny's bathroom. The
raw shots of Lenny Lang prone in the bathroom tile
looked like something from Luigi's portfolio. The cops joke that
(22:12):
maybe Phil wanted to buy them for one of his
album covers. It was a sick joke, but Phil took
it as a serious offer. How much he asked five
grand sold. It was a small price to pay to
keep them out of someone else's hands, and it was
the last piece of Lenny that he could hold onto.
Phil couldn't shake Lenny. He paid for the funeral, delivered
(22:33):
the eulogy. He hung a giant poster of money directly
above his bed, larger than life. In it, Lenny's gaze
was tired but foreboding, the look of a man far
past his prime, bloated, worn out, scatter rain on junk.
Phil would climb into bed, find comfort in Lenny's gaze
bearing down on him, but his wife, Ronnie Specter would
(22:55):
lay next to him, unable to close her eyes. She'd
turned on her side, her stomach, but she always felt
Lenny's eyes following her, burning into her, judging her. She
would roll onto her back, look up at the overbearing
image of the man her husband briefly idolized his Socrates,
he would say, and she felt something was terribly wrong.
(23:17):
She felt it was an omen a warning from beyond
the grave and above her bed something evil. There is
no good and there is no evil. There's only blood
on the Tracks. This episode of Blood on the Tracks
(23:43):
is brought to you by twenty seven Club, a podcast
that I host on musicians who died at the age
of Season two featuring Jim Morrison is now available as
the season one with twelve episodes featuring Jimmy Hendrix. Subscribed
to the twenty seven Club on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio,
app ever you get your podcast, and of course, this
episode was also brought to you by Disgrace Land, the
(24:05):
award winning music and true crime podcast also hosted by
Yours Truly. Episodes on The Rolling Stones, Jerry Lewis, Cardi b,
The Grateful Dead, j Z Prince, and many many more
are all waiting for you right now. Just search Disgrace
Land on Apple podcast, the I Heart Radio app or
wherever you get your podcast, all right. This episode of
(24:25):
Blood on the Tracks was written by Zeth Lundi and
scored in mixed by Matt Boden, posted by me Jake Brennan.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spreaker and Henry Junea.
Blood on the Tracks is produced by myself for Double
Elness and partnership with I Heart Radio. Sources for this
episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the
Blood on the Tracks series page. If you like what
(24:47):
you here, please be sure to subscribe to Blood on
the Tracks on Apple podcast, I Heart Radio app wherever
you get your podcasts, and if you'd like to win
a free Blood on the Tracks poster designed by Nate Gonzalez,
and leave a review for Blood on the Track acts
on Apple Podcast. If you can hashtag rout on the
Tracks on social media, leave a review there and we'll
pick two winners each week and announce them on the
(25:08):
Double Elvis Instagram page that's at double Elvis. Go ahead
and give that a fun all right. As always, you
can find me blabbing about other crazy rock stars on
disgrace Land and seven Club, and you can talk to
me per usual on Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land,
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