I am incredibly honored that Rudy Fischmann asked me to be a guest this week on The Cocaine Chronicles to talk about Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats .. the absolutely insane, beautiful, heartbreaking record he made with his friend John Lennon during Lennon’s famous Lost Weekend.
I also got to talk about it with musician and producer @JeffBerrall from the amazing band ELEFANT
I think sometimes the legend of Pussy Cats gets in the way of how amazing the actual record is. Everyone talks about the partying and the craziness... and yes, there was plenty of that... but underneath it all is this incredibly human record about loneliness, heartbreak, and two people trying to find themselves — mostly through a bunch of weird covers from their younger years.
The song that always gets me, though, is their version of “Many Rivers to Cross.”
I truly think it’s one of the greatest rock and roll recordings ever made.
At the end, Harry and John are basically trying to out-scream each other, but it doesn’t feel like two rock stars showing off.
It sounds like two lost souls screaming into the universe.
There’s so much pain and loneliness in those screams. It has this weird feeling of two people completely lost but at least lost together.
It sounds so unbelievably real and unlike anything else.
And then, because this is Harry Nilsson and John Lennon, what did they do right after recording what I consider a masterpiece?
They celebrated by creating one of the strangest, sloppiest, most legendary under whelming cocaine-fueled jam sessions ever remarkably captured on tape...
A Toot and a Snore in ’74 is what the bootleg of this nightcap was called.
The same night they recorded “Many Rivers to Cross,” they ended up getting a few visitors to the studio.. Paul McCartney & Linda McCartney, Stevie Wonder, Bobby Keys,, and a cast of legendary characters who were working on the record already. Including May Pang, (who I actually got to meet a few years ago, and she loved that I named my child after her old wild friend Harry.)
It’s also believed to be the only known time John and Paul ever played and recorded music together after the Beatles broke up.
And was it some grand Beatles reunion?
Oh fuck no.
It was a complete cocaine debacle.
John clearing “in charge,” was singing lead.
Paul playing Ringo’s drums. (As legend goes, Ringo was pissed the next day because Paul always messes up his drums.)
Stevie Wonder on electric piano.
Harry Nilsson singing along.
Everyone is loose, laughing, and having the time of their lives...
But it’s really a complete disaster. And so not that amazing when you think about who was in the room.. You can find it on Youtube.
All just hours after they recorded a completely magical, perfect song — “Many Rivers to Cross.”
On the record Pussy Cats, the line between genius and hilarious was incredibly thin.
Unlike the lines of coke.
Harry was a master at working right on that edge. He could take something completely heartbreaking and somehow make it funny without losing the sadness.
Like in his song “Don't Forget Me” when he sings maybe the greatest lyric about divorce ever written:
“I miss you when I’m lonely, I miss the alimony too.”
Just fucking genius.
It makes you laugh.
And then two seconds later, you realize how sad it actually is.
The joke and the heartbreak are always sitting right next to each other.
Which brings us to the obvious question:
Okay Patrick...
We understand why you’re talking about Harry Nilsson.
You named your son after the guy.
But what exactly do you know about cocaine?
You’re pretty lame...
Well…
You’re right.
I have never danced with the mistress known as Snow White.
But after spending my life chasing the world of rock and roll, I have definitely come face-to-face with Snow White…
And the seven dwarfs who always seemed to be following her around.
A few memorable times.
Once I was in San Francisco for work. It was around 2 a.m. Everyone from my job was basically falling asleep at the bar. I had been offered the services of two women of the night and politely declined.
Then my favorite co-worker comes out of the bathroom suddenly bright-eyed, wide awake, and ready to conquer the world.
He looks at me and says:
“I just did coke with some guy off the sink in the bathroom. I feel like I’m in Mötley Crüe. Do you want some?”
No thanks Tommy Lee...
I never liked Mötley Crüe.
Another time, my band The Poison Control Center had just finished playing a wild, sweaty show at Cake Shop on the Lower East Side of New York City.
A guy came up to me afterward and said:
“Man... you must do cocaine, right?”
I said:
“Uh... no. Why?”
He said:
“Because you play like you do. Do you want some?”
Again, I declined.
Although I did think to myself...
If there was ever a place where the universe expected me to do cocaine, it was probably after a rock show on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
But nope.
Still lame!
But the night I truly learned about rock and roll debauchery happened years earlier.
The date was December 10, 1999.
I was 19 years old.
My friends Sharon, Jim, and I decided to drive from Ames, Iowa, to Chicago.
Jim was going to see his friend’s band Oh My God play at the The Elbow Room, while Sharon and I were picking up our friend Bethany from Loyola so we could go see Guided by Voices at The Metro.
After we all ate at Burger King we dropped off Jim at the Elbo Room and even got to watch Oh My God soundcheck.
It was rad, and I actually envisioned myself playing at that club someday.
Years later, I would.
So our plan was real simple...
After Guided by Voices, we would meet back up with Jim at Oh My God’s lead singer Billy O’Neill’s apartment and crash there.
Easy, right?
Well… remember, I was 19.
This was 1999. No smartphones. No GPS. No texting.
You either figured it out or you disappeared forever.
Vanished. Gone.
But we were in Chicago...
So the impossible is possible.
Tonight, tonight.
I had never seen Guided By Voices before, and I was beyond excited. In the last five years, they had put out some of the most important music of my lifetime.
We got there early and made our way right to the front.
Bethany and I were big fans of the band.
Sharon, being Sharon, was just kinda along for the adventure.
What else would a freshman at Iowa State have going on back in Ames?
After an opening set from the Lonesome Organist… Guided by Voices hit the stage…
And played 51 fucking songs.
How do I know it was 51?
Because now the internet confirms it.
But also because I still have half the setlist.
Over the course of those three-and-a-half hours and 51 songs, I swear that band consumed somewhere around 250 beers and cigarettes combined on stage.
It was maximum rock and roll to the fullest.
Complete crazy debauchery.
And it was perfect.
They lived up to the legend, the mystery, and more.
At 19, I wasn’t even drinking beer yet, so I had no concept of what that much alcohol could do to a human being while performing.
But what I learned that night was this:
Rock and roll isn’t about perfection. It’s about the experience. It’s about freedom.
It’s about feeling something so deeply that you almost fall apart trying to get it out, kicking and screaming.
And Guided by Voices were absolutely feeling it.
After the show, we were exhausted just watching a band play that long.
I wanted the setlist to commemorate the night.
I asked someone from the crew if they could grab it for me.
He looked at me and said:
“Yeah… if you kick that guy’s ass.”
So there was a drunk guy who had been heckling the band all night.
I immediately said:
“Sure. Absolutely. I will beat the fuck out of him.”
For the record:
I did NOT fight a man at the Metro that night. But I did get some funny pictures of him.
And I did get the giant setlist.
I tore it in half like a picture in a locket and gave half to Bethany.
I kept the other half. Thinking maybe one day we could combine them again.
After that, we had to get Bethany back to Loyola and somehow find Jim at the Oh My God’s singer’s apartment.
Again: No phones. No directions. Just an atlas and hope.
Remember...
The impossible is possible tonight, tonight.
Chicago at 2 a.m. is a different universe.
Eventually, somehow, someway, we found the apartment.
We got out of the car.
Remember, it was December.
It was freezing.
We started ringing the buzzer for the apartment.
Nothing.
We yelled.
Nothing.
And suddenly I realized:
“Oh no… we might actually be stranded in Chicago.”
And for some reason, all I could think about was the movie Adventures in Babysitting.
Because at this point, I was Elisabeth Shue.
I had to protect Sharon, find Jim, and get us home.
And honestly, at this point, I felt like I was babysitting Sharon.
Because remember, Sharon wasn’t even a Guided by Voices fan.
She was just the friend who would say yes to any ridiculous adventure.
She had just stood through a three-and-a-half-hour, 51-song Guided by Voices marathon watching King Shit and the Golden Boys, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, do high leg kicks, and scream into the night.
And now her reward was standing outside a random Chicago apartment building in December, freezing cold, with no way to call anyone.
I could almost read her face:
“Patrick… what exactly have you gotten us into?”
And honestly…
I didn’t have a great answer.
Then, just when it looked real fucking grim…
Our guardian angels appeared.
Except these were not normal guardian angels.
One looked like an NBA basketball player.
One looked like he had just come from a rave.
And one looked like an Italian gangster wearing an ill-fitting suit, hands covered in gold jewelry, with his shirt buttoned only halfway up.
The gangster-looking guy goes:
“You trying to get into Billy’s apartment?”
Confused, but excited.. We said:
“Yeah.”
He goes:
“They’re not answering? What the fuck?”
“No,” I said.
Then he says:
“I know how to get in.”
And because we were 19 and apparently had zero survival instincts, we followed the gangster, the possible NBA player, and the raver behind the building.
They pulled down the back staircase.
And we all climbed four icy flights of stairs.
The gangster starts pounding on the window.
And suddenly…
The door opens.
And Billy appears looking like Jim Morrison in a dream state.
Black pants.
No shirt.
Long hair.
The Crystal Ship sweet Lizard KIng has arrived…
“Oh hey guys… come on in.”
Like this was completely normal.
And then suddenly the angels and Billy lay out an amount of cocaine that could have been used to record both Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and Tusk albums.
I had never seen cocaine before in my entire life.
And I have never seen that much in my whole life combined since.
I remember thinking:
“Oh my God. What the fuck? I am inside an actual rock and roll movie.”
And then we remembered why we were there:
JIM!!!
No, no.. not Jim Morrison.
Jim, our friend.
Where the fuck is Jim?
I politely interrupted Billy and the angels and asked if he knew where Jim was.
He is passed out on the couch in the other room.” Cool..
“Jim. Jim. Yo. Wake up. Wake up.”
“What? What’s going on?”
“Hey… we gotta get out of here.”
“Why?”
“Because these guys just showed up and there is a LOT of cocaine everywhere.”
Suddenly Jim goes from half-asleep to wide awake.
“WHAT?”
The guys who were our guardian angels 20 minutes earlier were now getting louder and louder in the other room.
Things were getting weirder.
People were arguing about money.
Who owed who what.
And the three 19-year-old kids from Iowa looked at each other and realized:
“We are absolutely not built for this fucking movie.”
Sharon, the only one with any sense, said in her Dorothy-like way:
“I’m so tired, and I just wanna go home.”
So we followed the rainbow and left.
At 3:30 in the morning, instead of sleeping in Chicago, we started the seven-hour drive back to Ames.
END SCENE!
The rock-and-roll debauchery movie credits were rolling like the lines on the highway at night back to Iowa. Sometimes I wonder what happened in that apartment after we left. But sometimes rock-and-roll debauchery.. is best left smothered with mystery.
Listen to the brand new episode of The Cocaine Chronicles.
And a big thanks to Dave Gebroe for making Discograffiti the greatest deep dive music podcast in all the land.
