February 1991 was a great month for us. We did a live performance at KUSF radio on Valentine’s Day and were scheduled to play at the Warfield that evening for the opening day of the Gavin Convention.
The Warfield show featured Primas, the Limbomaniacs .. and us. Another band – Psychofunkapus – was initially booked, but they broke up a week before the show. Michael Bailey, booker at the Warfield and the Fillmore, called us a few days before the show and asked if we wanted the gig. We were absolutely ready for this opportunity and we enthusiastically jumped on it.
We played a stellar set at the Warfield that night. After the show backstage was on fire. It was our first experience being “shopped” and all of the A&R people were chasing us around, smiling, schmoozing. It was weird. I felt powerful. That was the beginning of our quest to find a label. One thing I quickly learned about record company executives is that all it takes is for one to be interested and the rest all line up like cattle. But we didn’t want just any label – we needed a label that could handle our personalities and would just let us do our thing. We were different than the other bands signed to major record labels, we were all women and all dykes. I remember one A&R guy we met said his company wanted to “develop” us – which we interpreted as an intent of controlling our creativity and the way we were marketed. We believed we had options, and those options were going to rescue us from the bullshit.
Castro Street Fair 1991
With all of the label interest, things started getting really serious really fast. We had only been a band for a little over a year, and the word around town was that we were going to get signed. The press was buzzing about it. It was both exciting and stressful. Could we successfully make the transition from a popular local band to the national stage? What does that entail? We ran on instinct. There was nobody around to ask.
The band with some friends partying at the Cafe San Marcos in San Francisco 1990
It was around this period, in March 1991, that I was confronted by the band about my drug use. I had been using drugs since I was a teenager, at least half of my life. I wasn’t shy about it as I had been using drugs on and off (mostly on) since the age of 13 and just really never thought too much about it. Now I was 7 months away from turning 30. I had never considered a life without drugs and alcohol, I didn’t understand how they affected my behavior and influenced my choices. I had been doing speed for a while, burning it at both ends, and I suppose it was obvious. I remember getting pretty aggressive after drinking and doing lines, and I was living in a situation that fed my addiction. I didn’t do drugs before the shows, but afterwards things would often get pretty crazy.
One evening the band confronted me and said I needed to deal with it or they would fire me. Wanda had a friend who was a drug counselor at a facility called Waldenhouse, and I entered day treatment on April 1 1991 – coincidentally the date was my 10 years-to-the-day anniversary of moving to San Francisco. Waldenhouse was no celebrity rehab scenerio. It had a deserved reputation as being hardcore; there were residents who were probated from prison and women who risked losing their children. We were urine tested periodically. When I ran my drug history for the intake counselor she wanted to put me into a residential facility. But then I would not have been able to rehearse or play gigs. They reluctantly allowed me to attend day treatment under the condition that I wouldn’t get any second chances. I spent about 8 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week at the facility. I threw myself completely into the program. Being a client of Waldenhouse qualified me for welfare so I could pay my measly rent and eat. My life became very simple: play music, recovery, eat, sleep.
Three days after I entered drug rehab, on April 4 1991, we attended the Whammie Awards. The Whammie was S.F. Weekly and the whole local music scene’s answer to the Bammie Awards (Bay Area Music Awards/BAM Magazine) who had earned a reputation as being out of touch with the local scene and more often than not giving awards to celebrity musicians who happened to live in the Bay Area – as many did. Move to Napa Valley and win a BAMMIE. So the Whammies were the awards that counted in our scene. We won the highly coveted Best Rock Band award. I remember being pretty fragile as it was only my 3rd day free from drugs and alcohol. It was a crazy party but I managed to stay sober.
In early May I attended an all-night women’s group at Waldenhouse. The staff keeps you awake because sleep deprevation breaks down defenses. The groups start at about 2:00am and it gets pretty intense. I was living a block away from the facility, on 14th & Mission streets, and I arrived home at around 8:00 in the morning. Upon walking into my room I got a phone call. It was Wanda calling from her girlfriend’s house, a few blocks away. She had been up all night smoking cocaine and was a mess. This time, she needed my help. She wanted to get into Waldenhouse, too.
Linda Perry and Christa Hillhouse
A few months before the morning I received this phone call from her, Wanda had showed up to a gig drunk. And it wasn’t just any gig – it was the first time we headlined at Slims. Slims is a famous music venue owned by Boz Skaggs. And it was a sold out show. Soundcheck had gone well and we all parted ways to get dressed, etc. and when we showed up a little while before showtime we noticed Wanda had been drinking – and she was wasted. And Wanda wasn’t supposed to drink at all; we had thought that she had been taking Antabuse (a drug that makes you sick if you drink) because of her alcoholism but I guess she lied about that. Needless to say Wanda played like shit. We managed to pull off the show, but we were in shock. I was so bummed. I remember sitting at Linda’s feet on the beer stained carpet on stage during the encore as she sang a solo version of “Drifting”. It served as some kind of healing meditation for my woes.
I never really understood what happened to Wanda that night. I can’t remember what she could have possibly said when confronted about it, what reason she would have possibly had. Nerves? We had been in similarly high pressure situations before. I have heard of self-sabotage; I think that’s what she did. But I have never understood exactly what happened or why. Things were happening really fast and we just kept moving forward. The current of the band, life, the press and the gigs were in control.
Wanda had a long history of on-and-off drug use and problems with alcohol. With both of us in the same treatment program I suppose it made the odds that much worse for one of us. As it is, the percentage of people who walk into the doors of any recovery facility and actually work the program and then remain free of drugs and/or alcohol is something like 2%, so the odds of us both walking out of there successfully had to be astronomically low.
In May we played the Haight Street Fair. Tom Whally, the A&R guy from Interscope Records, and his assistant Leslie Gerard were at the show and we were to all have lunch afterwards with our lawyer and our manager in tow. As we prepared to leave the Haight for the restaurant Shaunna and I noticed Linda being whisked away in a limo. Linda being singled out in this way made us both take pause; the foreshadowing couldn’t have been more obvious if we were making a B-movie. When we met up at the restaurant I remember thinking “divide and conquer”. I think they would have signed Linda to her own contract right then and there had she been willing.
Bam Magazine July 26 1991
We did sign with Interscope records. I got a two thousand dollar signing bonus and used it to pay my rent for a few months. I also bought a CD player (boom box) and some CD’s. I remember flying down to LA and playing a showcase for the record company. We stayed at a nice upscale hotel with all of the trimmings – and then going back home the next day, and getting dropped off at the BART train by our manager. It was jarring to go back to my life after a little taste of glory. Being at Waldenhouse helped me to stay in the moment and not get ahead of myself. One day at a time was all I could really handle.
