Somehow I missed the whole story of how Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers grew up in Hollywood. His father is a 73 year old hipster actor from Grand Rapids, Michigan who made sure his 12 year old son experienced sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Maybe this explains Kiedis’ drug problems and why he didn’t wear a shirt until a couple of years ago. John Kiedis, aka Blackie Dammett, has written a book about all of this. You can buy it on amazon as a Kindle download for six bucks. I’m giving you guys the press release I received this morning, as well as a video clip from the BBC. I kind of like this guy.
the release:
Dammett!
Who put the HOT in the Red Hot Chili Peppers–The wild, lurid, hilarious tell-all Hollywood Babylon memoir of Anthony Kiedis’ dad
Soon-to-go-viral book now available as an exclusive on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C4MD2DY
April 1, 2013–Beverly Hills, California: You may wish you had some of that evil 1980s Sunset Strip cocaine too when you can’t put this book down til dawn–it’s immersive, exhilarating, exhausting, elegiac, ribald…and hilarious.
It’s simply the biggest, boldest epic of Hollywood and Rock & Roll ever written.
It’s the memoir of John Kiedis, father of legendary rockers Red Hot Chili Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis.
John Keidis–AKA Blackie Dammett–the Hollywood Babylon Renaissance man whose mind blowing exploits and relentlessly lurid lifestyle shaped his future Rock & Roll Hall of Famer son–between the torrent of drug and sex fueled parties, auditions and business deals in Hollywood, New York and London, Dammett towed the young Red Hot Chili Pepper with him on his drug deals with a show biz who’s who.
Along the way Dammett found time for acting in high profile movies and TV too–everything from “misunderstood junkie hypochondriac suspected child kidnapper with a soft side” to “a failed Hell’s Angel.”
Then there were the “girls.” OMG. Nobody could make this stuff up:
“New girls were always coming of age, replenishing the scene… Deirdre, Darcy, Jill Jacobson, Melissa, Skye Aubrey, Lisa Blount, Lehna from Sweden, Summer, Shannon, Veronica Blakely, Tallulah, Debbie Baker from Trashy Lingerie, Punky, Vickie, Raven Cruel… Annette Walter-Lax who later became Keith Moon’s significant other…”
Fasten your seatbelts–it’s going to be a humpy ride.
Dammett knew them all:
He played Pong (the first video game) with John Lennon, and then Lennon, temporarily exiled from NY by Yoko Ono and lubed with coke and whiskey, poured out his legendary heart to Dammett.
Dammett partied with the likes of Lou Reed, Axl Rose, Andy Warhol, Keith Moon, Alice Cooper, Liza Minnelli, Frank Sinatra, 14-year-old Drew Barrymore, George Carlin, David Lee Roth, Deborah Harry, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Richard Hell and Television, Patti Smith and Basquiat…the list goes on and on.
This is Blackie Dammett’s story–the man who has had a profound, ineffable influence on his son, Anthony Kiedis, front man of the seminal Rock & Roll Hall of Famers Red Hot Chili Peppers.
And the entire book is ghost-writer free–every single word is Blackie Dammett’s.
From his Lithuanian ancestors landing at Ellis Island (with some Algonquin and Mohican blood mixed along the way), to Blackie’s classic youth in 1940s and ‘50s hardscrabble Michigan (an almost Norman Rockwellian, American Graffiti idyll), to his hilariously depraved Hollywood of the 60s through the 90s, his story is the story of America in the second half of the twentieth century–an epic, authentic cultural document without equal in detail, profound candor and heart.
Hey Blackie–You’ll never heave lunch in this town again.
