The Sienna Incident
Many, many years ago, when the world was a bright and joyous experience and before I had a Close Encounter of the Fifth Kind with the Taxman, I enjoyed a very brief flirtation with the music business. I've detailed this adventure elsewhere and this is a continuation of those missives.
My band was never, ever big in the UK or the USA and we were only momentarily more than a flash in the pan in Europe. However, we were fairly successful in Japan and South Korea and even enjoyed something of a cult status during the long, hot summer of 2001. That whole period is peppered with incidents and memories, which I have promised, one day, to write down if only to set the record straight. However, for the moment, I'm keeping my mouth shut. There are a whole stack of vainglorious events lurking stage left, many of which should perhaps be left undocumented for fear of raising ghosts that I have long since dispatched into the greying hinterland that is my fading memory.
That said, a couple of friends both in real life and on FetLife have asked about the Sienna Hotel Episode, which I mentioned briefly elsewhere and which, I feel, deserves to be described in detail.
This event is actually one of my favourite perving moments and I'm more than a little astonished that I've never talked about it before. I guess that's because I've been worried that there were or are newspaper reports still out there on the net, which might lead to me being 'outed'. I've since had a damned good search and there's nothing on record, certainly not in any UK newspapers.
(If you do find something then please send me a PM... )
What follows is largely true. I've changed a few names and dates to protect the innocent but this is pretty much how it happened.
The year was 2002 and the band had just enjoyed their first appearance on German TV. Our manager, Hector, wanted us to capitalise on the exposure and, to keep our record label sweet, he organised a couple of photoshoots. The first was in Berlin and a second was with their partner label in Sienna, Italy.
Except that, and this was the tricky bit, I was more than a little uncertain of my future in the band., I thought I was going to get sacked.
Before we get going properly, let me introduce the other members of the band.
Beast was the band's nominal leader and my partner / boyfriend. He played guitar (both rhythm and lead), some bass guitar and keyboards too so long as the parts weren't any more complicated than simple, one finger melodies. He also wrote most of the songs and I helped with the arrangements to a limited extent.
Beak was the band's rhythm guitarist, although he too could provide lead and bass but obviously not all three at the same time. His best friend was Senso, the drummer. Senso and I did not like each other at all much.
I played keyboards and sang banking vocals but my main instrument was the bass guitar. And what a fearsome Monster I became when I wielded that thing. Like Thor and his hammer, or Arthur and Excalibur. Together, we were unassailable. All I had to do was pick that thing up and I became my alter-ego, Midsummer Knight. Like some kind of deranged Pixie.
And... Back to the main story.
For a time, maybe a year or more, I was Beast's girlfriend so, on paper at least, my position within the band should have been relatively safe. I knew the rudiments of music theory, could write songs and play my keyboards to Grade Eight, which is to say that I was several steps beyond Senso and Beak, who had no musical training whatsoever and wouldn't know what key you were in if you wrote it in three foot high letters or tattooed it across their foreheads.
The problem, my problems, lay with Senso. To him, I was also just a short-arsed, skinny chick who didn't fit in with his idea of the band, which was an all-male Macho Power Trio. Senso maintained, privately and in public too, that I wasn't cool enough or hip enough to fit in with their long-term plans. I had to go.
Hector said no. Absolutely not. Sarah was a member of the band. End of. Beast agreed.
As a compromise, Senso suggested that I should perhaps adopt the role of Sides-man, meaning that they'd be the Power Metal trio they'd always wanted to be and I would be at the side of the stage, and out of sight.
Senso's motivations were painfully obvious. His ego was bruised. Stuck at the back of the stage and behind a wall of metal, he was largely anonymous and he absolutely hated that I was out front every night wearing my full Gothic/She-Devil/BitchFace alias. It was all about attention. The fans wanted a chick who could genuinely rock. They couldn't give two hoots for the Gorilla at the back pounding animal skins. Senso's concept would leave me performing little more than backing vocals and the occasional keyboard line. I definitely wouldn't be out there with my substitute phallus, strutting my stuff at the front of the stage.
Now, I didn't like this idea on iota mainly because I loved the attention. However, becoming a Sideman has serious financial repercussions. You're no longer considered a full member of the band, which means you don't get your full share of the band's income. You're paid a stipend per performance. Bollocks to that, I thought, and I more or less told them to read my contract very, very carefully before they even considered removing me from the line-up.
With that little melodrama gently simmering on the back burner, we were flown out to Germany and, as soon as the Berlin photoshoot was over, we were (quite literally) shoved on another plane and sent to Italy.
We landed in Florence in the late afternoon and were driven to Sienna in the back of a fairly decent minibus. So far, so good. However, when we were dropped off in the town centre, we discovered that we'd landed right at the start of the Palio season. Consequently, the town was utterly rammed with a mix of locals and tourists.
We were driven directly to the hotel to dump our stuff and then escorted to the record company's offices some distance off the main drag. Simple. Straightforward. No messing about. No opportunity for the other members of the band to get utterly shit-faced and drugged up, or loose themselves in a gaggle of groupies.
The interior photo shoot went well, probably because the photographer, Kit, and his make-up artist (Petra?) were already on a total high. They'd been photographing Motorhead's Lemmy that morning and both Kit and his crew were still utterly steamed six hours later. I've never seen such a happy photographer.
Furthermore, there was a rumour (unsubstantiated) that Bowie was in town for the Palio and everyone was keen to see if they could meet up with him (and maybe party, too).
The exterior shots were not so easy. Finding a place to take pictures without getting photobombed was almost impossible. In the end, we settled for a collection of basic crowd shots, with us looking 'interesting' in front of various historic buildings surrounded by our adoring 'fans', most of whom thought we were... I dunno who? They just looked bemused.
Some hours later, we were taken to the hotel restaurant for a meal, which was amazing. Kit, our photographer, had brought some proofs for us to approve before they were couriered off to his magazine. He said that Lemmy was still in Sienna and that he was going to meet up with him later for a night shoot, and that we could, if we wished, tag along. I was certainly up for it although the others were not. Beast was still talking business with the label but Beak and Senso were plainly off their faces. Embarrassing really. Sad to say, they simply couldn't be bothered with some 'drugged up old-hippie'. Yeah, right. Go figure.
Once dinner had been concluded, Kit, Petra and I bounced from bar to bar around the main square but, alas there was no sign of Lemmy. Shame, really.
And so to bed.
Except that... Firstly, my key card wouldn't work in the hotel door and I had to walk back to reception to get a replacement. Once inside my room, I found that I couldn't close my window and the street outside was both noisy and smelly. Not conducive to a good night's sleep.
I went for a shower... No towels and, worse, the water was running cold.
