Jackie Fox and Kim Fowley

Kim Fowley was born as Kim Vincent Fowley on July 21^st, 1939. He is most notably known for having been in the music scene and managing the all girl group ‘The Runaways’ in the late 70’s. He has been described as ‘one of the most colorful characters in the annals of Rock and Roll”. In interviews of him, he always portrayed himself as a sort of avante garde artist, in some ways, like a “thinker” that was different from other people.

His musical career started in 1957 when he was released from the hospital for having had polio where he went on to manage a local band called the Sleepwalkers. This band had Sandy Nelson and sometimes Phil Spector. According to himself, he worked in the sex industry in Los Angeles in the late 50’s.

His first record as a producer was ‘Charge’ by the Renegades. He promoted records for Skip and Flip, a music duo. In the 60’s, he recorded the song ‘Alley Oop’ which was number one on the charts in 1960. In 1961 he co-produced the instrumental, “Like, Long Hair”, which became a number 38 hit for the band Paul Revere and the Raiders. He even worked with Frank Zappa as ‘hypephone’ on the album ‘Freak Out’. These are just some of musical credits that he worked on.

Jackie Fox, was born Jacqeline Louise Fuchs on December 20^th, 1959. By the time she was born, Kim had already began working in the music industry with people like Alan Freed and Berry Gordy.

In 1974, Kim put an ad in the local fanzine ‘Who Put The Bomp’ looking for female performers. He had hoped to form an all female group that he could produce for but no-one responded. In 1975, he met Joan Jett who had expressed her interest in forming a band. Not long after, he met Sandy West, who also wanted to start a band and soon she was practicing with Joan Jett. Eventually he gathered the other members who would be become the runaways, all in their teens at the time. Jackie was the last member recruited. Initially rejected for guitar, Jackie was recruited for bass.

Kim Fowley was never known to be a clean cut guy. As quoted in the book, “Queens of Noise: The Real Story of the Runaways”, he stated:

“favorite sport then was squatting on a table and fucking as hard as you could when the beer and ’ludes hit, and then you would fall to the floor and roll around and come that way. That was the orgasm of choice in the ’70s for me.” Allegedly, he would admit to anyone that he was after teenage girls, quote, “young cunt” or “dirty pussy”. In the June 1975 edition of ‘Backdoor Man’ he put an ad out looking for the perfect woman. An excerpt:

“I demand a blonde, blue-eyed Sex-dog; a modern Bridgitte Bardot with no sagged out tits or stretch marks. Brown hair with brown eyes tolerated only if it is massively titted with biker mama vibes. Surf stink is most appealing.”

The ad had no responses.

A close friend of Fowley’s, Steve Tetcsch, stated that they used to drive to high schools looking for teenage girls to hit on. “Westlake was a gold mine because these girls came from wealthy families. We’d all be arrested today.”.

A theme of Fowley associating women with dogs seemed to be a theme for him. The ad he placed cried for a ‘sex-dog’, the apartment he stayed at was called the Dog Palace, and according to quotes from Cherie Currie in the ‘Edgeplay’ documentary, there would be many times he would refer to the girls as dogs when they did something he didn’t like.

Months before Jackie Fox joined the Runaways, the band and another girl, Kary Krome (a 13 year old aspiring songwriter he met) were staying at the apartment known as the Dog Palace. According to Kari, when everyone fell asleep Fowley walked into the living room and shook her awake. He put a finger to her lips so she didn’t make any sound, and grabbed her by the ankle to the bedroom. Kari asked Fowley what was happening, and he allegedly said something along the lines of, “It’s time for dog worship”, and that if she didn’t give in to his demands, she have to go back to her parents in Long Beach. Even though Kari wanted to leave, and call someone for a ride, she didn’t have anywhere to go, and even worse, her family didn’t have a phone. On that night, Kim Fowley masturbated on her.

Kari said that he went to sexually assault her several other times. “In his mind, he thought that he was having a relationship with me, like a romantic relationship. He didn’t care what I thought about it. He just decided.”

Later in 1975, the Runaways played a New Years Eve show at Wild Man Sam’s. The owner of the venue, Jim Caron, remembered feeling uneasy about how young they were. After the final set Fowley took the girls to a motel near a club where they were celebrating. Soon after arriving, a roadie approached her with a Quaalude, telling her that she needed to take it, no questions asked, to which she did. There were witnesses that heard of her being given four-six pills that night. Most of the people at the party were teens.

There are differing stories as to whether Joan Jett was really there that night. According to one story, Joan played guitar with another person at the party. Undeniably, Lita Ford was not there, which many witnesses have corroborated. Joan has denied ever being at the party.

At one point, Jackie needed to lay down, as she was having trouble staying up. A roadie checked on her and Kim Fowley asked him if he was interested in having sex with her. Fowley said, “She doesn’t mind, do you?”. Unable to say no, Jackie was in terror that someone was about to have their way with her. She said that she looked at the roadie and tried make a pleading face as hard as she could, to convey that she was trying to say no. Thankfully, the roadie denied the offer. From this point on, she started to slip in and out of consciousness.

From there, though it is unsure how much longer after, Fowley stood over Jackie and began to unbutton her blouse, which did not have a bra. One person stated that everyone was trying to pretend that didn’t know what was going on. As the story goes, Fowley unbuttoned Jackie’s pants and penetrated her with the handle of hairbrush. He then invited other guys to have sex with Jackie doing so himself. Someone shouted, “Kim’s fucking someone!”. As Kim raped Jackie, he gnashed his teeth and growled liked a dog.

Jackie stated that she remembered opening her eyes, and Kim was raping her with people watching her. According to Jackie, she looked from the bed and noticed Cherie Currie and Joan Jett staring at her (some stories allege they were snickering).It was the last memory of the night she had.

Cherie stated that she spoke up and stormed out of the room, and all the witnesses felt intimidated.

Jackie didn't tell her parents what had happened to her.

After the assault, Jackie’s place in the band never felt the same. The next day, she showed up for practice and everyone was silent. The girls were all teenagers, and didn’t even know how to deal with what had happened.

From there, Jackie started to develop a mistrust for most other people. She refused to sleep on car rides during tour, she stayed sober. She tried to read and approve contracts for live shows. Some of the band members thought of her as a charity case, since they felt she was a novice bass player. In retrospect, Cherie Currie suspected that Kim Fowley was trying to pit the girls against each other. In 1977, Jackie had had enough, and was going to quit, when Joan got on her knees and begged her to stay. Not long after, they had their famous tour in Japan, where they were huge.

The final straw for her was when her treasured 1600 dollar 1965 Gibson Thunderbird fell off it’s stand and broke. In her room, she broke down and threw a coke bottle into pieces. She took a shard and ran it down her forearm. Cherie Currie helped her to the hospital where she got bandaged up. It was at that point, Jackie had had enough and asked to go home. She quit the band and was later replaced by Vickie Blue. Vickie stated that the other band members would often joke about Kim “fucking Jackie like a dog”. Apparently it was a running joke.

For years, Jackie was quiet about what had happened to her. There had been rumors for years that Kim Fowley had raped an underage girl at a new years eve party in 1975. Cherie Currie also wrote about it in her book, “Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway”. In the chapter, “Kim Fowley’s Sex Education Class,” Jackie was mentioned as a bystander, asking for more food after witnessing the rape. Jackie threatened legal action though, because the event Cherie wrote never happened, so Jackie was excluded from the chapter.

For years, Fowley denied that he raped her. In January of 2015, he died of bladder cancer. In July of 2015, Jackie made it publicly known that he raped her. Despite the time frame making it seem like she only wanted to come out after his death, in reality, Jackie had been trying to confront Fowley for years for what he did to her. In the few times that she could get a phone call with him, he’d first ask if she was taping the call. When he was at the end of his life, he didn’t respond to her emails, and the number she had for him ended up disconnected.

All Jackie wanted was an acknowledgment that what he did was wrong, and an apology.

In the end, Jackie came out on top. She went to college and even had some classes with Barack Obama. She became a lawyer. She knew, that Kim Fowley died without being forgiven.

[SOURCES]

wikipedia

Edgeplay

https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/the-lost-girls/

https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/6627217/runaways-jackie-fox-rape-kim-fowley-joan-jett-fuchs-interview

https://myspace.com/jackiefuchs

Lita Ford and Parental Alienation

Lita Ford, one of the most iconic female guitarists in modern history started her career in the 70’s as a member of the Runaways, up until they broke up in 1979. After the Runaways, she started her solo career creating a majority of her discography in the 80’s and 90’s. Lita took a a break from music to raise her sons with her husband Jim Gillette, from the band Nitro.

Apparently, the couple got married to each other after only knowing each other for 2 weeks. In an interview with Loudwire, Lita reflected, as "fucking dumb". She initally met him after her parents had died, having "lost her entire family". In the same interview, she stated that when she got pregnant she initally wanted to leave her husband, but didn’t because she didn’t want to keep her children from their father.

The family moved to Turks and Caicos, where Jim Gillette had a real estate developing business. Lita said that she taught her kids everything, fishing with them, and was a loving mother to her sons. But the relationship between her and her husband started to dissipate. At some point, her husband agreed to doing a reality tv show on TLC with their family, that would’ve been called The Gillettes: An Extreme American Family. In taking a business trip to Los Angeles to discuss the conditions further, Lita came back to her family shunning her. Her kids wouldn’t talk to her, her husband having turned against her. According to Lita, she said that Jim Gillette encouraged her sons to attack her, to which she sought divorce. Lita said that the relationship was about control, and everything was under Jim’s control. Allegedly, everything was in his name, their house, her cell phone, any emails she would get he’d be notified, and he’d read her texts. She felt like she had nothing private to herself.

In 2009, Lita made a comeback musically, with her album ‘Wicked Wonderland’. The album was produced by her then husband, Jim, who she stated had control over almost the entire project. He can be heard on multiple songs singing vocals. Initially, Lita said of the album,

“Everybody has their own 'Wicked Wonderland'. It's a place where you can do whatever you want and get as freaky as you feel. These songs are my version of that - they're all about my life…well, the parts that happen when the kids are in bed and my husband and I get into the boudoir. This is definitely the heaviest stuff I’ve ever recorded. I've evolved and matured as a person and so has my music. It’s lyrically very real.”

Lita has since disowned the album, stating so in her 2016 autobiography. All music rated it as unfavorable, and chronicles of chaos rated it as a 3.5 out of 10. Many long time fans do not consider it a real Lita album. I’ll review it another post.

Though I am unsure of the exact year that they divorced, it involved a 2 year litigation that has been quoted multiple times as “ugly”. Interestingly, the custody resulted in Jim Gillette getting the kids, and not Lita. Surprising for a country that favors the mother so much. Many articles from 2015 have popped up, all quoting the same thing from Jim Gillette.

“First of all and for the record, I have sole legal and physical custody of our sons. I think that should tell you just about all you need to know since it’s nearly impossible for a father to get that kind of result in a highly regarded US court. Unfortunately, it goes much further than that. As heartbreaking and unbelievable as this might sound, Lita Ford is not even allowed to see our sons by way of an agreed upon court order. This order was signed after nearly two years of litigation – during which time the courts only allowed her supervised visitation.

Not many people know about this as up until now I’ve kept my mouth shut. Our sons have urged me for years to tell the world our side of the story but this is all I’m prepared to share at this point in time. I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that’s been so kind and supportive of the boys and me.”

There are two sides to every story, and this one is has no easy side to know who is really telling the truth. But in 2015, Jim did two interviews that I found very interesting, with the website metal sludge.

In 2012, Lita said, “What’s happened is my ex husband has taken the children out of the country. They are in a country that is not protected under the United States law. And the only way for me to go there would be to go with the SWAT team because he would become physical with me.”

And in a rebuttal in 2015, Jim stated, “Obviously it’s not true as I have every right to live with our sons anywhere in the world. We are regularly in the states and have no reason to avoid it. Everything is legal about the boys being with me, and all of Lita’s self-serving claims and slanderous allegations are completely and 100% ludicrous. Quite frankly, all of this is more than a little frightening for our family.”

He then went on to say that he was proud of his sons, and of course thanking all the people that had supported him. A week later, there was a follow up interview he did to clear some questions that people had on how he ended up with custody. He provided documents that showed excerpts of the situations he went through with Lita. The first being that Lita had called the police for domestic violence on Jim, and when the police showed up, they ordered Jim to pack his stuff and leave the house. Lita then had custody of the kids, of which frightened the boys. The report showed that the kids were truly afraid that their mother would kill them.

Because of the conditions of their divorce, Lita had absolutely no right to see her children, and she didn’t for many years. In 2013, she posted the song ‘Mother’, a tribute to her kids on youtube.

Interestingly, this song would brought up in the 2015 interview with Gillette, of which he said,

“In what universe does a mother think it’s a good decision to dedicate a song to her children that says their father (whom they love more than anything) should be crucified and left to die?”

The rest of the interview talked about how despite swearing under oath that Jim didn’t, hit her, she has made things seem worse for her. Interestingly, Jim also brought up Lita’s known temper, that was also pointed out on the Runaways’ documentary, ‘Edgeplay’. In the movie, it was brought up how she pinned Cherie Currie to a wall, and hit Jackie Fox over the head with a phone. Metal sludge asked if she had taken drugs in their marriage, and Jim stated that he believed she was on pills when they were together.

Interestingly, later on that year in July 2015 their oldest son, James, went to the press to tell people a little bit of his side.

“ My Dad always taught me, “if you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it”. Well unfortunately my mother has left me no choice with her latest crazy allegations against my father (including kidnapping) and recent attempts to start a nation-wide amber alert type search for my brother and me.

We have not been kidnapped. We live with our dad and have every right to. Thankfully we never have to see our mother again and we have the legal paperwork to prove it. By the way, I’m 18 and can live wherever I want, with whoever I want, and I choose to live with my dad. How ridiculous would it be for my mother to put out an amber alert on me even though I’m a legal adult.

Obviously our mother has a lot of problems. Five years ago a court appointed doctor told my brother and me that our mother was mentally ill. This came as no surprise to either of us.

Unfortunately my mother has never accepted any responsibility for her actions and continues to blame anyone and everyone all while publicly playing the victim.

Our mother is a child abuser. She was violent, threatening, and tried to make my brother and me hate our dad. Her attempts at parental alienation were constant and never ending. When we didn’t agree with her she would become livid and out of control. We told child services, the sheriffs department, and many court appointed professionals that our mother was crazy, violent, and we were afraid she would someday kill us in a fit of rage.

We were with our dad when he was served divorce papers. We made him promise to do everything he could so we never had to see our mother again. He kept his promise and for that we are forever grateful.

Our mother alleges that our father brainwashed us against her. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our dad never said a bad thing about her. He didn’t have to. We saw first hand what she did to all of us. If he has in any way let us down, it was that our father should have gotten us away from her sooner.

Our mother said horrible things about our dad all the time. She even said things about me and my brother. She called us “fucking faggots” because we used to sit with our dad and watch movies.

Our mother threatened to have us thrown in a Foster home and said we’d never see our dad again. Why? Because we told her we didn’t want to be with her and she was angry we told all the professionals that she beat us. She also threatened us and said she would have our dad thrown in jail for the same reasons.

I could tell you horror stories for days but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. My mother needs serious help. She needs to stop lying and she needs to leave us alone. She also needs to stop with her harassing and stalking behavior.

Anyone that says my father should be crucified and left to die will never be a part of my life. Who in their right mind writes a song for their children saying those terrible things?

James Gillette “

In 2016, there was an article with Lita talking about how she hasn’t been able to see her sons in several years. She was quoted as saying, “My ex has kept my sons from me for seven years now. No communication with my sons whatsoever. No texting, no phone calls, no e-mails, nothing!"

In 2018, there was an article from blabbermouth stating that she finally saw her children for the first time in almost ten years. She stated,

“By the time our divorce was final and everything was said and done, it was such a joke that it didn't matter what I got on paper. There was no way I was gonna be in those boys' lives. They were such a mess by the time I left and my ex-husband left that it just didn't matter. I just needed to walk away from everything and regroup and come back with Plan B. The big problem for me was I couldn't find them after hiring four or five private investigators and them being out of the country in a Caribbean island. I really didn't have any United States… The Hague Convention, the Hague treaty was working against me with them being in a Caribbean island. And when they did come back to the United States, it took me nine years to track them down and find out that they were living in Tennessee. If somebody wants to fall below the radar, they can."

“They said I was not taking the medication that they prescribed for me that was absolutely ridiculous. It was just an excuse. I did everything in my power that they asked me to do. I did everything. They had nothing on me. And my ex-husband was just lying, he was just making up stuff as we went along. It was just insane. And as he made stuff up, there was no proof that I did all these things he said I did. It was just absolutely crazy. Because I really was a great mom. I put everything into being a mom. I stopped my musical career. I focused on nothing but my boys. I home schooled my boys living on that deserted island. I mean, I spent all day every day with these kids. I had stacks of books. And then we would go fishing and we would cook dinner. We had a great, great relationship. So for them to turn around and say, 'Mom, you did this and you did that.' Like, 'Wait a minute. You guys are dreaming. You guys are being brainwashed by your dad.' And the attorneys are just feeding off of that."

"I just contacted them for the first time in almost 10 years, And I was able to serve my ex-husband with papers saying that I want to see my son, my 17-year-old son. Because my older son now, being 21, there really isn't much I can do. So I was able to go in and see my kids for maybe 10 minutes in a mediation. But my ex-husband had turned them against me so badly that when I went into the mediation, all they did was accuse me of things and get angry at me and point their finger at me. It was horrible — it was absolutely horrible — because he's still sticking to the same crap stories."

In 2012, Lita created the page ‘Lita Ford’s Parental Alienation Awareness’, a page talking about parents that have had similar experiences as her. She still posts regularly, wishing her sons happy birthday when their birthdays roll around.

 

 

EDIT [Sept. 6th, 2020]: As I edited the video for this post, I realized something that I didn't pick up on before, and went back to do some research on the post. While listening to my recording of Lita's son's letter to the press, I realized that it seemed quite odd that the letter sent was quite similar in the verbiage that Jim Gillette would use in interviews about the divorce. What stuck out to me was the last part that said,  "Who in their right mind writes a song for their children saying those terrible things?" in reference to the song that Lita wrote, "Mother".  

Earlier in the post, there is the quote from the Jim Gillette interview, where he says essentially the same thing about the song, in his interview with Metal Sludge. He said, "In what universe does a mother think it’s a good decision to dedicate a song to her children that says their father (whom they love more than anything) should be crucified and left to die?". This may seem like a vague detail to some, but it is enough for me to doubt the veracity of this letter. On top of that, there was never any sort of confirmation from any of the sites that this letter came from that it was actually James Gillette himself that wrote it. What I find even more odd, is that there is seemingly no reply or response found from Lita about this letter, unless I have missed it. 

In the metal sludge interviews with Jim, there are a couple screenshots of the court files included (the second interview I believe). One picture shows that the children were reportedly scared of being left alone with their mother. True. One screenshot is without much context except for setting the stage that Lita had slurred speech, implying that she was potentially on drugs. The last screenshot shows where Lita had been asked if Jim ever hit her, to which she said yes, but quickly reflected and said that he had more like "squeezed her". 

 

I do not think that there is any good person in this situation, as divorce tends to be messy and hard for both sides. But when I think back on this situation I feel like us on the outside really don't have much information despite what he or she says.

In the article, "Denial of ambivalence as a hallmark of parental alienation", it states that in 11-15% of divorce cases, parental alienation is present in mild to extreme cases, with 1% of children being subject to "some form of parental alienation with an equal distribution between fathers and mothers being alienated and doing the alienation". Apparently  there are 20–25% of parents who still use parental alienation tactics six years after the divorce. The article states that parental alienation can be represented as:

• Complete rejection of one parent by the children
• lack of finding anything positive to say about the alienated parent
• and no longer presenting mixed feelings about said parent

Children in situations like these tend to rely on the parent that "holds the power", which typically ends up being the alienator in these situations. Even more interestingly, parental alienation tends to start when the children are 9-15 years old, with adolescents being more alienated than younger children. This is almost textbook as to what happened Lita, since between the two sons, we have only heard anything from the older one James, and his disdain for his mother. 

In the end, we can never really know what happened, unless the two were to release the court documents. I cannot say that side with either person, since I feel like I just don't know enough. The situation is just so very weird to me, and it seems like the ex spouses went from love to hate very quickly.

[SOURCES]

wikipedia

http://metalsludge.tv/court-ordered-metal-sludge-exclusive-jim-gillette-finally-breaks-his-silence-on-lita-ford/

http://metalsludge.tv/kill-me-deadly-the-boys-stated-they-were-afraid-their-mother-lita-ford-would-kill-them-broward-county-sheriff-report/

https://metalinjection.net/news/lita-fords-son-our-mother-is-a-child-abuser

https://www.axs.com/lita-ford-explains-why-she-hasn-t-spoken-to-her-sons-in-seven-years-112402

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/lita-ford-says-she-was-able-to-see-her-sons-for-first-time-in-nearly-10-years/

https://www.facebook.com/Lita-Fords-Parental-Alienation-Awareness-458574774195123/

http://metalsludge.tv/lita-ford-next-is-the-amber-alert-in-hopes-of-finding-kids-she-alleges-were-kidnapped/

https://www.cogentoa.com/article/10.1080/23311908.2017.1327144

 

Who Was Sandy West?

Sandy West, born as Sandra Sue Pesavento, was born on July 10^th, 1959. She is most notably known for having been the drummer in the all girl 70’s rock band, “The Runaways”. In interviews, Sandy stated that initially she was interested in following the footsteps of her older sister, who played violin. At the age of 9, her grandfather bought her a drum set, and she started practicing the instrument. She had a natural talent that shone when she was in school and in her early teen years where she’d be the only female drummer that’d play at teen parties. At the age of 15, she met Kim Fowley who recruited her and the other eventual members of ‘The Runaways’.

In 1975, at the age of 16, Sandy and the other Runaways formed the popular female band that was rife with drama. In the documentary, ‘Edgeplay’, the teen girls would go between waves of caring about each other and then fighting each other, though it seemed that Sandy wasn’t much to get into the incidents. Sandy played on all the albums with the Runaways. In 1979, the band broke up, and everyone went their separate ways. Even though Lita Ford and Sandy West had similar musical interests and playing styles, the two did not end up creating music together.

After the Runaways, Sandy continued to play live venues and formed her own band called, ‘Sandy West Band’, releasing one album called, ‘The Beat Goes On’. I cannot find any physical copies of it other than on discogs, which state that it was released in 2000 apparently.

When not playing venues, Sandy had to work in other areas to earn money. Unfortunately, she turned to some dark areas, that were lightly touched upon in the movie ‘Edgeplay’. Sandy stated that she had broken someone’s arm, and shoved a gun down another person’s throat in order to get money that was owed to others. She also alluded to having been to jail potentially multiple times. Beyond that, Sandy worked in construction for 20 years, having also worked as a veterinary assistant and bartender at different points.

Sandy always felt like the band shouldn’t have broken up, and that there should have at least been a reunion between the women. She looked upon the time she shared in the band fondly, feeling that their talent could have gotten them farther than they did.

Unfortunately, Sandy was diagnosed with lung cancer, after years of heavy smoking, in 2005. The cancer spread to her brain, and on October 21^st, 2006, Sandy passed away.

In her obituary, Sandy had memoirs that she completed, of which her manager at the time, Mara Fox, hoped to have published. As of 2020, there do not seem to be any plans for the potential book.

Her former bandmates stated:

"We shared the dream of girls playing rock and roll. Sandy was an exuberant and powerful drummer, I am overcome from the loss of my friend. I always told her we changed the world."

-Joan Jett

"Sandy West was by far the greatest female drummer in the history of rock and roll. No one could compete or even come close to her, but the most important was her heart. Sandy West loved her fans, her friends and family almost to a fault. She would do absolutely anything for the people she loved. It will never be the same for me again to step on a stage, because Sandy West was the best and I will miss her forever."

-Cherie Currie

Sandy is buried in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Cypress, California. She was 47.

[SOURCES]

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/16281942/sandy-west

http://www.legacy.com/ns/sandy-west-obituary/19713291

https://www.discogs.com/Sandy-West-The-Beat-Is-Back/release/9233253

https://www.facebook.com/Sandy-West-The-Beat-Goes-On-309571016333/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_West