The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA – 1985

Poison

The Troubadour, West Hollywood CA – 1985

What a lucky girl was I to photograph these four fine guys! So, here’s how my photographing Poison came to be, and let’s not forget, it led to my photographing Guns N’ Roses shortly after, and then THAT led to EVERYTHING else. But, let’s talk about Poison.

It’s 1985 and I’m fresh out of high school, and well, I needed bands to photograph, so I set out to go where all bands had gone before. Hollywood. I started to show up at little dive bars and places that allowed teens, which was necessary at that time since I was barely 19 years young.

While looking through a BAM magazine, I noticed another way I could find some bands who weren’t camera shy. Some of the band’s ads for their upcoming gigs had phone numbers for their managers. One such band was Poison. I liked their look, and there in the ad for an upcoming show was a phone number. I called and a woman named Debora Rosner was on the other end. She was fast-talking but very nice. I asked, “Can I photograph Poison’s show at the Troubadour? I’ll do it for free and if you like the photos, you can buy them, if not, no biggie.” She said that would be great and she would put me on the guest list. My older sister came with me since my mother would have a cow if I went alone. And so there we were; my first decent gig at a famous landmark. Poison was only the third band I ever photographed, and yes, you can see I was not yet seasoned. I frankly wasn’t completely sure what I was doing. Hell, I hadn’t even heard their music since they didn’t have an album out yet. We’re talking the breaking dawn here, people.

I was overwhelmed by the crowd of people, mostly women. Wow, I thought, these guys have a following! The last two bands I shot had about five people at this tiny club called The Timbers (It’s long gone, so you won’t find it).

I went backstage to meet up with Debora. I remember she looked like she sounded. I thought this lady has to be from Back East. She wasn’t your typical laid-back L.A. lady. Anyway, she introduced me to the guys. Brett and Bobby weren’t super talkative but they did say HI. Rikki and CC on the other hand were very sweet and chatty and seemed very excited to be playing there. Especially CC who asked me to take a photo of him with his guitar for what might have been a relative back home, maybe his mom? I can’t remember exactly what he said, but alas here are the photos. Oh, and Rikki asked if I had red lipstick. I did and he borrowed it right before he took the stage, THAT I remembered clearly. Aww, the 80’s!

They hit the stage, and I said to myself, “Wow these guys are REALLY GOOD!” I especially loved “Talk Dirty to Me,” a song that for those who know me, had a special place in my heart. Little did I know that along with others there, we were some of the first audiences to hear many of their hit songs.

By late 1986 Poison would eventually become a successful band with videos on MTV! Things were changing fast. I remember I swapped their first record album “Look what the cat dragged in” for that fairly modern and more expensive technology, the compact disk!

Poison would go on to be one of the biggest bands of the ’80s, and as we all know, the guys currently still play! When I think of Hollywood’s glam metal scene, I think of one band — Poison.