We knew it probably wasn’t good.”īesides being the keyboardist, Caffey was the Go-Go’s most prolific songwriter, having composed “We Got the Beat,” “Head Over Heels” and “Vacation.” She attributed the delays in the group’s 1984 third album, “Talk Show,” to writer’s block. “Charlotte tended to isolate herself quite a bit,” says Carlisle. Charlotte Caffey, Gina Schock (drums), Belinda Carlisle, Kathy Valentine (bass, behind Belinda Carlisle’s head), Jane Wiedlin in 1981. As the Go-Go’s became more famous, Caffey purchased a secluded house in the Hollywood Hills and developed a full-blown heroin addiction, largely unseen by the other members. The substances, however, weren’t always a party. broadcast, “we were like cross-eyed drunk,” Schock says. So, magically the blow appears.”īy the 11:30 p.m. So, then you wanna balance it out, you wanna lift things up a little. “Let’s have a toast! Champagne!,” says Valentine. During their first appearance on “Saturday Night Live” in November 1981, guest-hosted by Bernadette Peters, the go-go-getters started boozing bright and early. The band was often wasted onstage and on TV for millions to see. “A total weekend of debauchery,” says Caffey, the guitarist and keyboardist. A flyer for the Go-Go’s’ gig at the Rusty Nail, Sunderland, MA on Aug 19, 1981. They didn’t want her to have a heart attack. The rules? Schock was allowed booze, Valium and mushrooms - but no cocaine. Hardly registered MDs, the girls decided to take her for a blowout weekend in Palm Springs, Calif., “in case she croaked,” Wiedlin says. In 1984, drummer Schock discovered she needed to have open-heart surgery to repair a congenital defect. Their lips may have been sealed, but their nostrils were wide open. She wouldn’t be the last to go.īetween the dramas there was fun. Olavarria contracted hepatitis A and was swapped for the better-known Kathy Valentine. I’m in a punk band! And I think the rest of us were like, ‘This is evolving, so f–king get with it or get out.’” She was, like, ‘I don’t wanna be a f–king pop band. Gina Schock, the drummer who quickly replaced Bello, says, “Oh yeah, Margot, f–k man. Jane Wiedlin and Belinda Carlisle Melanie Nissen/Courtesy of SHOWTIME “My identity is punk,” Olavarria, the founding bass player, says in the doc. The first sign of discord was when they forced out original member Margot Olavarria, who was furious the band was moving from rebellious punk to more bankable pop. The cutthroat attitude came with making more money. “Yeah, sisters who f–king stab each other in the back.” “There would be a lot of questions about what our relationship with each other was like. “We hated society and our family, but we supported each other,” Wiedlin says in the doc.īut by 1985, the Go-Go’s were enormously successful and popular. The ladies - Belinda Carlisle, Margot Olavarria, Elissa Bello, Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey - started out innocently with the goal of making an all-girl punk group full of self-proclaimed misfits. The Go-Go’s Ginger Canzoneri/Courtesy of SHOWTIME The colorful Go-Go’s were being dragged along by speedy fame - and belly-flopped. The iconic image of the “Vacation” music video, with the women on water-skis wearing pink swimsuits and white tutus, was an apt depiction of the band, as it turns out. So, why were they so miserable?Ī new documentary, “The Go-Go’s,” premiering Friday on Showtime, runs down the band’s rocky history: the artistic clashes, the messy breakups and, most pervasively, the drinks and drugs. The boundary-breaking Go-Go’s were riding high. 1 album until the Go-Go’s did with 1981’s “Beauty and the Beat.” Self-formed, with no powerful man behind them, they made the cover of Rolling Stone scantily clad with the headline “Go-Go’s Put Out” and were bubbly fixtures of MTV in its earliest days. No all-girl rock band had ever scored a No. The Spice Girls and the Pussycat Dolls would be nothing without the Go-Go’s.įormed in Los Angeles in 1978, they were an all-women band that, over just seven years, wrote and performed some of the best remembered songs of the 1980s: “We Got the Beat,” “Our Lips Are Sealed” and “Vacation.” All unforgettable. How shocked victims hunted down the 'king of revenge porn': 'I felt violated'Įthan Hawke directs six-part documentary starring George Clooney as Paul Newman 'Aftershock' doc: 'A black woman having a baby is likeĪ black man at a traffic stop with the police' Manti Te'o girlfriend hoax documentary trailer drops and it looks amazing
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