Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

better was the television presentation the East Germans put together. It was an opportunity to calm the anxieties of the youth, show off the best of their technologies with regard to lights and sound, and a chance to be seen in person and throughout parts of the communist world. In addition, they agreed to allow Uwe Tessnow to secure the recording rights to the performance. It became the CD called
Red Blood, White Mink
. It was the last recording I made with Johnny Badanjek, and the last with the Thrashing Brothers. It was recorded at the Palast of the Republik.
    In these times the only constant and non-confusing aspect of my life was seeking out the means to record as much and as often as I could. I didn’t understand why, to be honest. I talk about wanting to keep a journal of my progression as an artist, but there are moments when it rings hollow. But my journey as an artist was, and still is, the only blind trust I get any reward from. Relationships, on the other hand, are just too complicated. Humans demand attention. Music demands invention. You tell me which you would rather struggle with.
    I had seen Jurgen Osterloh for the last time in Paris well over three years prior. He had since moved to a more creative and vibrant part of Paris and wanted to be an actor. When he showed me the new home he had acquired it was, as I expected, quite beautiful, but it needed a lot of work. We talked about how to arrange the rooms and colors and such, and we walked and spoke of living together and made plans––plans I knew I couldn’t keep the instant I made them.
    I believed I loved Jurgen very much. He was the only man I loved that way, but circumstances rule and we never realize what our lives would or could have become. On May 31, 1985, Jurgen died from an overdose of heroin. Bernard Ossude, who also was in love with Jurgen, blamed me for his death. He didn’t say it that way, but because my relationship with Jurgen was more about dreams, as compared to his very real and close ties as a friend, Bernard took it out on me––and every other character that had come in and out of Jurgen’s life.
    One time, a year or two before Jurgen’s death, I was on my way to the airport. I knew I could not take any drugs with me, so I left a small packet of heroin behind for Jurgen from the party the prior evening, along with a note telling him I loved him. That is what angered Bernard so very much. It wasn’t that particular packet of drugs that killed Jurgen, but it was drugs, and Bernard has not spoken to me since.
    Back in Detroit things were taking on a new beat as well. Kim was now a total stranger. I never knew where she was or what she was doing, but I continued to enable her by providing a car and money. While I had asked Kim for a divorce some time earlier, we had not yet dissolved our marriage, mainly because I did not want to go through a second divorce. The pain from the first was great enough to make me try to find some other answer, but nothing worked.
    I decided, with the help of my friend Geoffrey Fieger, to go into rehab. I checked out the insurance, made all of the arrangements, packed my bags and got dropped off at the front of the building.
    I returned home after a month and a half, began touring, and lived in a house of strangers and users for two years. The band was disappointed for some reason, even though I didn’t insist they not use. I should have. It was difficult, but I worked an honest and hard program and after a while, maybe a year, I no longer thought about alcohol. And, my self-confidence on stage was very good, as were my performances. This, like previous separations from drugs, but mostly alcohol, would outdistance the Colorado four and a half years, and last seven and a half. I believe these frequent vacations away from physical and mental chemical alterations are what allow me to have limited health problems at this stage of my life. It’s the damned cigarettes that mess with me.
    I also began a new arrangement with a booking agent whom I work with to this day, Randy Erwin. Randy was with a small agency called G.M.A., but was leaving toform his own company. I asked him to take me on, and he did. I had burned a lot of bridges due to my behavior under the influence of alcohol and still had a long way to go in learning about myself. I knew I had been handed a raw deal many times in my life, and finally realized there might be some way to deal with all of that other than shooting myself in