Two women with strong local ties have a pair of friends who are prominent rock stars, are in their late-20s, moved to California when they were about 20 and at times have hung out in downtown Hudson nightclubs.
Allison is friends with Flea, the accomplished bassist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and got to know him through her even stronger friendship with the bassist for the group Fishbone.
When I first talked to Allison about this, Flea was in the news when he lost an expensive mansion to raging wildfires that hit California. He has also made headlines as the Chili Peppers were up for induction in the rock ‘n roll hall of fame. When the group performed in the Twin Cities earlier this year, the reviewer noted that it was Flea’s bass grooves that were the highlight of the show.
Allison says that she has had conversations with Flea and has “hung out” with him many times, but that she knows the other bassist much better. I have known Allison well for several years, and have always wanted to ask her if a line from the song Dani California might refer to her. (I know she would demurely deny it). The Chili Peppers — who again are from L.A. — in their lyrics are known for name-dropping, of states not people, and in Dani they sing about regret about not being able to make a planned road trip to the Twin Cities area.
The other focus of this story — and I at one time tried to no avail to get the two women together for a photo — is Taega. She is tight with multi-platinum artists such as Jermaine Jackson, former of the Jackson 5, and also Serge Tankian, Serbian frontman for the acclaimed heavy metal group System of a Down. Ironically, Taege knows prominent people who lost their homes in the aforementioned fire such as Flea, and even dated one of them some time ago. Still, Taege says she would rather talk about Jackson’s work with orphans in Iraq — which was prompted in part by a relationship with Helena who is Iranian — than about his fame. “He’s just Jermaine,” she also says demurely.
How Taega got to know these people, and that was some time ago before she got her college degree and moved on to bigger and better things, was working her way through school at Starbucks in Las Virgenes, a suburb of L.A. at the mouth of the Malibu Canyon.
“Jermaine is a really interesting guy; his girlfriend is amazing. In talking with him one afternoon at the store, we all ended up reminiscing on our favorite winters in the Midwest,” Taega said. “The most interesting part was that it took his girlfriend mentioning Wisconsin or (Upper) Michigan about six times before he realized what we were talking about. As soon as he did, he went into a story about someone in his childhood on a snowmobile.”
Also prominent regulars were Tito Jackson and Ernie Hudson.
“I used to see Jermaine, Tito and their girlfriends all the time, all over the city. I find it hilarious. Over the course of a weekend last summer, I saw Helena at The Rack shopping and Tito at Kerry’s Deli for dinner,” Taege said in an earlier interview.
“Aside from the Jacksons, I try not to really bother them — they’re just people too,” Taega said. “But honestly, each celebrity I have met throughout those six years has been remarkably kind. Serge has such a surprisingly quiet and mellow voice, considering his musical style. He seems to be a very, very, very kind and down-to-earth man.”
“I’ve been told that Britney Spears and boyfriend Kevin used to come in,” Taega said. “She would order for the two of them and make him drive around the parking lot, so as to prevent too many paparazzi photos.” This quote came from the height of her popularity.
“The celebrities who I actually missed and was disappointed that I did, were Gavin Rossdale and his baby son Kingston,” Taega said of the frontman for the rock group Bush and squeeze Gwen Stefani of No Doubt. “I never worked Friday nights, so of course, that would be the night he comes in. That was a seriously disappointing miss.”
“To be honest, most of the celebrities who were regulars at my store, or even just stopped in, often went unnoticed. One who didn’t really ‘act like a regular guy’ was Bruce Willis,” Taega said. ‘He walked through the store one day, just to use the restroom, waving and smiling at everyone in the lobby. No one cared. Why would we?”
And oh, there is one more local woman with a bassist friend, that being the one for the Smashing Pumpkins. Heidi, formerly a bartender at Dibbo’s, has known the other woman for years and says she would love getting on stage with her. I recall making a road trip to Milwaukee and seeing this very tall and leggy member of the Pumpkins in a prominent photograph in the arts and entertainment section of the Journal-Sentinel, right next to legendary singer Billy Corgin. The accompanying article made special note of the solo she had played the previous night.