I’m pretty sure most of us are well acquainted with one of Faith No More’s most controversial moments—the 1989 video for “Epic” directed by video visionary Ralph Ziman. The cringey, surreal video got animal rights activists riled up as it features a fish flailing around on the floor of the set seemingly in the throes of death as the song dramatically plays out. Historically, FNM’s reputation for fucking with their fans, bands they’ve toured with, and random people are well documented. They danced in the nude around Billy Idol in Seattle in 1990, and Mike Patton has told countless, wildly gross stories about the things he does with poop. Although not all the yarns were always factual, such as the rumor he took a shit in Axl Rose’s orange juice while Faith was touring with Guns N’ Roses in 1991. Now that we’ve established how members of FNM have enjoyed fabricating some of their antics let’s break down one of their greatest pranks and the video for “Epic” which started it all. 

After parting ways with original Faith No More vocalist Chuck Mosley, the band joined forces with 21-year-old Mike Patton for their third album, The Real Thing. Armed with Patton’s aggressive vocals and innovative musical arrangements “Epic” would become FNM’s first top ten hit and, with respect to Mr. Mosely, put the band on the map. The video was a massive hit with MTV viewers and FNM performed it live and unhinged at the MTV Video Music Awards show in September of 1990 and on Saturday Night Live in December of the same year. Living up to their rep as tall-tale tellers, and likely to help quell some of the negativity surrounding the fish in the video gasping for air from its gills, a story began to circulate that the fish in question was named Linear Soul Child and was formerly a pet of Icelandic chanteuse Björk. The part about Björk owning a fish called Linear Soul Child isn’t that hard to buy, but the rest of the tale is slightly fishy, and it goes like this; Björk was given the fish as a gift from a fan after her poetry reading in San Francisco. She then traveled to FNM keyboardist Roddy Bottum’s home in Berkley, California where he was throwing a party. Sometime during the evening, the fish disappeared. In another unlikely move, it was alleged during an interview with CNN (?) Björk would make the following statement about her beloved Linear Soul Child and what, if anything, the members of Faith No More had to do with its possible demise after appearing in the video:   

“I know those guys, I know they wouldn’t do anything to harm [him]. But I know, if I had gone home with MY fish, which was given to ME, none of this would have ever happened.”

 

The fish from the “Epic” video.
 
While I’m sure we’d all love to believe the fish in “Epic” belonged to Björk, it’s simply not true. Sure, it’s not hard to conceive Björk was traveling with a fish she got as a gift from a random fan in San Francisco, but it sadly never happened much like the shitty Axl Rose orange juice caper. As far as the idea for the fish to be used in the video and where it came from, there are two accounts—one from director Ralph Ziman and the other from FNM bassist Billy Gould. Gould claimed the idea to use the fish in the video was his, inspired by the ethos of director John Waters, and in Gould’s words, how to get “maximum attention for minimum money.” In an interview from 2010, Zimon debunked the Björk rumor (which he had never heard until then) and gave his version of how the fish ended up in the video: 

“It wasn’t Björk’s goldfish. But yes, I am responsible for that. And it wasn’t even a goldfish, interestingly enough. I was talking with someone about this yesterday. We made that video in 1987. I remember the band had one day off from tour, and they were in London. The record company had phoned us on very short notice and asked us to do a music video. They made it sound like a really low priority. I think it was being done for Warner Bros. at the time. I just made a list of a bunch of things I thought we could do. Exploding a piano. A fish flopping around. We literally had one day to pre-produce it. So we handed the fish off to the art department. I can’t remember what it was. If it was a carp? It was a freshwater fish. We shot that in London in some studios next to the tour venue. And we wound up letting that fish go in the river when we were finished. We had a couple of them. We would let them flop around, and then we’d swap it over, and we’d shoot another one. I don’t remember what kind of fish they were, but the animal handler had brought them in because they were so feisty.”

First of all, Zimon must have meant to say the video was made in 1989, not 1987 as that would pre-date Patton’s formal affiliation with FNM. Anyway, now that we know the fish in “Epic” was some sort of British freshwater fish, Mike Patton has also gone on the record saying the song is about sex, or more accurately, the frustration associated with not getting it on enough. Later in 2005, Patton would say his unique vocal stylings in “Epic” was his attempt to cultivate his sound to be in line with Debbie Harry’s performance on “Rapture,” a song Patton often covered in live performance during his time with Mr. Bungle. 
 

Faith No More performing “Epic” in London, 1990.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Courtney Love, then just 20, fronting Faith No More in 1984
Faith No More danced naked around Billy Idol during a Halloween gig in Seattle, 1990
Mike Patton performs in his pajamas with Faith No More on MTV’s ‘Da Show’
Patton is GOD: Faith No More channel Black Sabbath with their crushing cover of ‘War Pigs’

Axl Rose and David Bowie hanging out at the China Club in Los Angeles in 1989. Photo by Gabriel Lorden.
 
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but David Bowie’s fistfight with Guns N’ Roses vocalist Axl Rose wasn’t the first time Bowie got himself a face full of knuckles for trying to make time with somebody else’s girl. The story about Bowie’s startling eye color involves a young Ziggy getting popped in the face by his pal George Underwood when they were both fifteen after Underwood discovered Bowie was lusting after the same girl he had eyes for. But Axl and Bowie coming to blows over a girl in 1989 is the definition of random—and the strange event was discussed by G N’ R guitarist Slash in his 2007 New York Times bestseller, Slash. You see, snakes-best-friend Slash and David Bowie go way, way back. Slash’s mom Ola Hudson was a celebrated fashion designer and had been making clothing for Bowie starting around the time Bowie released his 1975 album, Young Americans. After divorcing her husband, Ola began an affair with Bowie who was married to Angie Bowie at the time. According to Slash, he even walked in on his mom and Bowie in the nude, but let’s get back to the story of Axl Rose and a not naked Bowie throwing punches at each other over a girl in 1989.

It all began at the Cathouse—the legendary heavy metal “clubhouse” owned by Taime Downe of Faster Pussycat fame and MTV VJ and host of the Headbangers Ball, Riki Rachtman. Guns had selected one of their favorite hangouts as the spot for their warm-up before opening the first of four shows for the Rolling Stones. Slash remembers Bowie attended the show with his mother Ola who was sitting with the Thin White Duke in front of the stage when Axl started to hurl nasty insults at him, causing Bowie to leave mid-way through Guns’ set. Ola didn’t understand any of it until Slash told her later on Axl was pissed at Bowie for allegedly hitting on his girlfriend Erin Everly (the daughter of Don Everly of the Everly Brothers). Now, here is where the story gets a bit murky concerning Axl and Bowie and their glammy “fistfight.”
 

Slash’s mother Ola Hudson and David Bowie.
 
In addition to the warm-up gig at the Cathouse, the band also shot footage for the video “It’s So Easy,” and this is where club co-owner Riki Rachtman (as told to Rolling Stone) recalls a very drunk David Bowie showed up to watch everything go down. The video, which didn’t see the light of day until 2018, prominently featured Everly in leather bondage gear, handcuffs, with a ball-gag in her mouth. According to Rachtman, when Axl caught wind of Bowie sizing up Everly for his next meal, he went ballistic, and the two (maybe) threw their fists in each other’s general direction. The event concluded with Axl chasing Bowie out of the Cathouse screaming “I’m gonna kill you, TIN MAN.” As much as I adore Bowie, you gotta hand it to Axl for that one. But wait! There’s more, and it involves Mick Jagger—another rock star who has had his fair share of girlfriends pilfered by Bowie. In an interview with heavy metal bible Kerrang! in 1990, journalist Mick Wall queried Rose about his alleged punch fest at the Cathouse with Bowie. While Axl doesn’t exactly confirm he got into a physical altercation with Bowie, he doesn’t exactly deny it either. In fact, the story had already made it to the ears of Mick Jagger who approached Axl along with Eric Clapton backstage during soundcheck at the LA Coliseum. Here’s Axl on the special moment Jagger and Clapton asked him if he had punched David Bowie’s perfect face:

“I was out doing a soundcheck one day when we were opening for the Rolling Stones, and Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton cornered me. I’m sittin’ on this amp and all of a sudden they’re both right there in front of me. And Jagger doesn’t really talk a lot, right? He’s just real serious about everything, and all of a sudden he’s like (adopts exaggerated Dick Van Dyke-style Cockney), “So you got in a fight with Bowie, didja?” So I told him the story real quick, and he and Clapton are going off about Bowie in their own little world, talking about things from years ago. They were saying things like when Bowie gets drunk, he turns into the “Devil from Bromley” (Bowie’s family moved to the London Borough of Bromley when he was a teenager). I mean, I’m not even in this conversation. I’m just sittin’ there. Listening to ‘em bitch like crazy about Bowie. It was funny.”

If you’ve been curious about the photo at the top of this post of Axl and Bowie looking like BFF’s out scoping for chicks, here’s the story; after the incident at the Cathouse, Bowie and Axl chatted and decided to meet up at the China Club where they smoothed things over. And while they didn’t become best pals in real life, Axl felt he shared a lot in common with Bowie, especially when it came to their “experimental” creativity and their mutual love of sex and drugs. Awww. Speaking of things that make you say “aww,” after the jump you will see photos taken at Guns’ warm-up show, the video shoot, a few taken backstage at the Rolling Stones gig, and images of Ola Hudson and Bowie back in the day. Lastly, you can also check out the NSFW video for “It’s So Easy,” in all its sleazy glory—if you’re into that kind of thing. (PS: You are).
 
Continues over…

 
Other than the fact that the FBI, the Michigan State Police and Chicago’s finest all believed that Nine Inch Nails vocalist Trent Reznor was dead, 1989 was a pretty good year for NIN. The band released their first album, Pretty Hate Machine which contained the soon-to-be smash single “Down In It” that would help propel NIN to early stardom. Prior to the release of the first song ever written by Reznor, NIN headed to Chicago to shoot a video for the single. And that’s when this story starts to get very, very weird.

In order to achieve the aerial shots for the video, the crew attached balloons to a few cameras. One of the cameras decided to go rogue and floated over 300 miles to Michigan before landing in the middle of a cornfield (I told you things were going to get weird). The camera was then found by a farmer who, after looking at the footage of Reznor covered in cornstarch (in order to enhance his dead-guy look), surrounded by guitarist Richard Patrick and drummer Chris Vrenna, turned it into the police. The footage appeared to be authentically nefarious in nature to the cops who were convinced that the footage in the camera was either the product of some sort of satanic ritual, gang-related slaying or even a suicide.

If you’re a fan of NIN you may already be acquainted with this bizarre bit of history, especially if you also watched the television tabloid show Hard Copy back in the early 1990s. Hard Copy took NIN and Reznor to task then when they ran an exposé on the faux-murder and its lengthy criminal investigation. During the broadcast which originally aired on March 5th, 1991, the show used cheesy “re-enactments” of the “crime” as well as providing equally cheesy and condescending commentary by way of host Alan Frio and the glib curator of the segment, actor Rafael Abramovitz. They even included an interview segment with Reznor himself during which he shared his thoughts about the bizarre debacle:

“When the news came through that this was some sort of a cult killing, and that I had been killed, this great story, my initial reaction was that it was really funny, that something could be that blown out of proportion, and so many people were working on it. And I felt kinda good that the police had made idiots of themselves.”

More after the jump…

The cover of 1989’s ‘The Betty Page 3-D Picture Book.’

Though I’m sure the first thing you will notice about this book of photos and illustrations by Hugh Fleming (and others) of Bettie Page is that her name is not-so-curiously misspelled as “Betty” and not “Bettie.” The alternative spelling of Page’s name as “Betty” is actually fairly common, and its use can likely be traced back to photographer Bunny Yeager who worked with Page in the mid-50s. We also see the alternate spelling of Page’s name credited to Dave Stevens, the illustrator behind early 80s comic The Rocketeer and a Bettie Page superfan. In the comic “Betty,” the girlfriend of “Cliff Secord” (the Rocketeer’s alter-ego) was modeled after Page. Then in 1987 a fanzine detailing the bombshell’s real-life exploits called The Betty Pages became hugely popular thanks to its founder Greg Theakston. There are also other, more modern publications that also refer to Page as “Betty” including this naughty fetish book by Dirk Vermin that we’ve previously featured here on Dangerous Minds.

According to the introduction written by Dave Stevens, the photos that were used in the book came to him through a man named Walter Sigg who had a stash of color photos of Page in what Stevens refers to as “3-D,” many of which had never been seen before. Stevens’ mention of “Walter Sigg” is also curious as the only Walter Sigg of note that I able to conclusively identify was a Swiss graphic designer from Zurich. While I was frustrated by the fact that is seems Walter Sigg might not even exist, as Stevens’ notes in the book’s introduction color 3-D stereo slides of Page do exist and sometimes pop up on auction sites on sale for as much as $500 bucks. When it comes to the book itself, you can find copies of it for anywhere from $10 to $100 depending on its condition on eBay. I’ve included a few photos from the book which is an absolute must-have piece of memorabilia for any Bettie Page fanatic, below. And since this is Bettie Page we’re talking about, they are NSFW.
 

 

 
More Betty/Bettie in 3-D after the jump…

Some ravers, yesterday
 
“Acid Rock’ by Rhythm Device is actually from Belgium in 1989, and not California in the late 60s, as the name might conjure up.

Hence the uber-silly video of leather-clad danse-boyz rocking out in a cheap looking discotheque.

The bass riff in this New Beat classic is naggingly familiar, it reminds me of the KLF a bit, but I am guessing it’s all nicked off some Chicago acid original anyway. That hasn’t stopped “Acid Rock” from being sampled by Nine Inch Nails, no less, on their late 80s hit “Down In It”.

Rhythm Device was the nom-de-techno of producer Frank De Wulfe, who followed up “Acid Rock” with the “Dream Trance” / “Higher Destiny” 12”. Although Discogs helpfully informs us that, even though they had different names:

These tracks are actually four different mixes of “Acid Rock”.

What a surprise.

Anyway, it’s all about the video. A perfect guide in how to look devastatingly butch and astoundingly gay at the same time, it’s all sold by the singers unwavering seriousness: