| 8th January 2007 11:08 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Crüe story: Everything but the sex tapes
January 07, 2007
Malene Arpe
Pop Culture Writer
I'm outing myself. Most people would never believe it," says Laura Suchan. She's a 41-year-old mother of two boys and the executive director of the Oshawa Community Museum. But what co-workers and acquaintances may not know is Suchan is obsessed with veteran rockers Mötley Crüe – and lead singer Vince Neil in particular.
In fact, she's writing a novel "about a fan who meets her idol and finds herself swept up in some awkward situations as a result." And it's based on a Crüe encounter.
What is your first memory of Mötley Crüe?
"My very first memory is coming across a picture of the band in the early '80s. It was before Shout at the Devil came out, the album that put them on the map. I saw this picture in a magazine and it made me go out and get Too Fast for Love."
When did you know for sure that you were a fan?
"It was probably after I saw them at the Shout at the Devil tour in 1984. At that moment I thought that I really enjoyed myself, really enjoyed the music. As I got older and got out of school I was able to indulge myself more, travel to see them, meet up with people."
How many concerts have you been to?
"With the band, over 50 and then probably another 40 with Vince Neil. He is my obsession."
Why him?
"I've been trying to think of some profound reason, but I don't have one. It's purely physical, the first time I saw him I thought he really attractive. Since then I've just had an interest in his life. It's been a life of a lot of hardship and a lot of highs and lows."
Have you met him?
"I met him for the first time in the early '90s. My most memorable meeting with him was in Barrie in 2004. I escorted a cancer patient to meet him; we got to spend half an hour with him. It was a really nice, low-key meeting. He went out of his way to meet with this girl with cancer. His 4-year-old daughter died of cancer, so he has an affinity. He was wonderful. I even got a kiss on the cheek."
What do you consider to be the greatest achievement of Mötley Crüe?
"Probably their longevity. They've been around since the early '80s (and) there are a lot of younger fans getting into it. They're still packing in the audiences."
What are you less thrilled about?
"Some of the off-stage antics of the band. I'm not really the kind of person who is into that kind of lifestyle. You hear about them getting into fights, Tommy going to jail, the assaults, Vince Neil's accident (he crashed a car in 1984, killing a fellow musician). I'm always defending the music, but I can't defend the lifestyle."
So, I guess you never watched the Tommy and Pamela sex tape?
"No. Vince made one, too, and that's the only Vince thing I do not own. I'm proud to say I never saw the tape; even for me that's a little too much Vince Neil."
How much time do you spend on your fandom?
"I probably spend a few hours a week, but there are times I spend much more. My collection is catalogued. I can find it, I know how much I paid, I got notes on it. I've just finished reading a book called Ronnie Wood's Smile and Where it Led by a woman I felt an affinity with. She's a university professor who's obsessed with Ron Wood. It's a hobby to her, so when people ask, `What's your hobby?' she says, `Ron Wood.'"
Do you go to conventions?
"There are Crüe-fests. Several in North America. Last year I travelled to Chicago and Cleveland. It's fun to hang out with people as obsessed as you are."
Favourite piece of memorabilia?
"It's the cover of Mötley Crüe's Rolling Stone cover autographed, and all my CDs autographed by Vince Neil."
What is the absolute highlight of your life as a fan?
"Apart from meeting Vince Neil, I have to say the Generation Swine tour when they were reunited."
Do you have or would you consider getting a tattoo of Mötley Crüe?
"I do have a tattoo actually, which nobody has hardly seen, on my lower back. It's the Theatre of Pain album cover. I got it to celebrate my 40th birthday."
How has fandom enhanced your life?
"It's introduced me to a great variety of people and sent me places I may not have travelled to otherwise. It's got me going places by myself, which was difficult at first, but now it's just normal."
How has your fandom made your life difficult?
"I don't think I let it rule my life. But maybe money sometimes – you want something and you just buy it. There's the odd ribbing from my brother, who likes to remind me that grown women don't do things like this."
Do you have a secondary fandom?
"Not to this extent – I have an interest in rock memorabilia. I don't collect it, but I do like to read about it. But really, this is my one hobby."
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THE STAR.COM
Recently we ran a note asking for hardcore fans willing to be interviewed for a new series to please step forward. The replies confirmed real fans – whether of a singer, a collectible, a TV show or something else entirely – have some traits in common: Passion, yes, but also an inherent urge to not just sit passively and open-mouthed while culture is poured down their throats.
The devoted fan finds something vital in a movie, a singer's lyrics, an actor's physique or a collection of toy soldiers that evokes familiarity and warm fuzzies and, sometimes, righteous anger born of devotion, and makes it his or her own through interpretation, participation and discussion with others.
Even if others look askance, the pleasures of fandom override the eye rolls and tired suggestions that the fan get a life instead of spending hours combing eBay for Streisand memorabilia.
Me, I'm mainly a fan of fans.
Yes, I've dabbled in various fandoms. As we start this series wherein subjects reveal their obsessions to the world, let me disclose that I have, at various points in my life, owned a sizable collection of David Cassidy posters, watched the entire Buffy series over and over, attended too many Bob Dylan concerts (once while it rained so hard the mud came up over my feet) and seen Bull Durham at least 30 times. I can have a conversation about the Millennium Falcon without embarrassing myself and Peter Jackson's Fellowship of the Ring made me cry. I prefer books with werewolves in them to novels about poor, broken families struggling with depression during the Depression. Right now, nothing comes between me and Battlestar Galactica. But the Battlestar fan intrigues me even more.
Maybe it's envy. My obsessions are usually short-lived. For some of the fans you're about to meet, decades of devotion are not uncommon.
An expert on fandom, author Matt Hills, says in the preface to his excellent book Fan Cultures, "Fans interpret media texts in a variety of interesting and perhaps unexpected ways. And participate in communal activities – they are not `socially atomised' or isolated viewers/readers."
Talking to fans, I've learned the truth of this insight. The autographs, the memorabilia, the fan fiction and other fan art, the autographed photos, playing the tie-in games, the online conversations and meticulous dissections of a scene or song, the action figures and the T-shirts are all a way of claiming ownership of your obsession and sharing with others.
At Comic-Con in San Diego, as fun as it is to listen to actors and comic book creators discuss their projects, it's the pointed, well-informed questions from fans that make the event special. If you're a director whose last project was a disappointment, or an affront to fans in the know, you'll catch hell.
Having interviewed both William Shatner and Patrick Stewart, I'd take a conversation with a Star Trek fan over a chat with a captain any day.
Henry Jenkins, one of the first academics to take fans seriously, says in his seminal work, Textual Poachers that "Fandom does not prove that all audiences are active; it does, however, prove that not all audiences are passive."
Want to tell your story?
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| 8th January 2007 11:33 AM |
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| Joey |
"No. Vince made one, too, and that's the only Vince thing I do not own. I'm proud to say I never saw the tape; even for me that's a little too much Vince Neil."
I have the tape ( Vince & Janine & Brandy Ledford )
http://www.imaniacs.org/brandy/index.htm
Not bad ( Janine is friggin hot ) but Vince is no Tommy Lee ( If you catch me drift ) .
......
[Edited by Brandy Ledford ]
[Edited by Joey] |
| 8th January 2007 11:49 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
Joey wrote:
...but Vince is no Tommy Lee ( If you catch me drift ) .
No I don't catch your drift. You'll have to explain it. |
| 8th January 2007 11:52 AM |
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| Joey |
" You'll have to explain it. "
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| 8th January 2007 12:49 PM |
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| Dan |
I always enjoy Motley Crue shows, whether it's a good show or a bad show but Vince Neil solo is just an abomination. Saw him for free opening for Poison. Pure dreck.
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