From: Tracy
Subject: Janes Addiction experiences at Powertools and Scream


I'll start off right now by telling you that when I was hanging at Powertools, which I adored, I had already been sober for a couple of years, but I was still really young, like 22 or 23.

They always had this great theme everyweek and that ballroom on 6th and Grand, and I loved it there. I'd go to my 12-step meetings and go right to Powertools to meet my friends, some of which I had no idea they were pretty heavy hitters in the young hollywood scene. I was just a surfer girl from the south bay who wanted to go to the dark side and be with the real people, and just dance without anyone caring what you did.

So, one night, one of the owners had been watching me dance and asked if I'd be interested in being on an on-call list for their dancers, who provided whatever atmosphere that was going on at the time. I needed the money really bad, and no one I knew except for my club friends, (some of who were famous, but I was so naive I didn't even know or care). Anyways, I said 'sure what the hell"? We wore black bikinis with dayglo paint and us girls were on all corners of the stage for atmosphere under the black lights. I loved it!! Felt totally safe up there.

The cool think was, that there was this band in the middle of the stage and us girls. They played this amazing percussion to enhance the songs and the mood, They were incredible. They would take songs like Creedence's "Heard it through the grapevine" and "Sympathy for the Devil" and make then feel like religious experiences. It was so amazing. Turns out they were Jane's Addiction!!!! It was an experience I'm really proud that I was a part of. Now I'm a 42 year-old mom with a 14 yr-old daughter and she's so proud to hear these stories. You dont even know how important they are until later.

I was at Powertools it's last night, then it turned to Scream. I was really happy that Jane's got the attention it deserved at that club. We were there all the time, and some other bands that made names for themselves at Scream made it special place too.

I'm still sober after all those years, by the way, I just love that whole "to each his own" thing. It was great to have a place where all this great music was happening just for us, and no one cared what you were doing, or tried all that meat market bar bullshit you'd usually run into back then.,

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it!


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