All the while with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, she found a curling iron in the studio and just began curling my entire head into this gorgeous fairy hair while Mick shot Stiv. So I get there, and Anita started playing around with my hair and proceeded to turn my waist-length hair into ringlets. Turned out she was a huge fan of The Dead Boys. In the late ’70s and the early ’80s, Stiv was really good friends with Mick, so one night they were doing a photoshoot, and we all went over there and Anita Pallenberg joined. It wasn’t until the ’80s that we became closer friends. Mick Rock has been a friend of yours for years how did you two meet?īB: I met Mick Rock informally a couple of times in the UK with Queen when I was with Todd, but just a sort of introduction- hi, bye. I loved to do all the kinds of things that any princess, lol, would love: I loved going to tea at The Plaza I loved going to the foreign magazines stand at The Ritz, that’s where I met Salvador Dali and was invited to tea in his suite. I was 18, so I was just living in the moment.
In the back room of Max’s was a mix of photographers, poets, journalists, drag queens, models, make-up artists, singers, celebs it was a culmination of artistry and talent holding court. In the ’70s, we just flocked together with a comradery, a tribal mentality where everyone was represented.
My favorite song to dance to was The Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.” Everyone would hit the dance floor. People used to dance back then, to rock music. It became this super cool place that people would go back and forth between Max’s for late-night dancing. There was this other place, though, called Ashley’s, opened by Alice Cooper’s best friend (named Ashley). The place I really frequented in the early ’70s was Max’s Kansas City. What were your favorite New York haunts in the ’70s?īB: I didn’t really hang out at CB’s, although Hilly became a good friend of mine. Now, you need a high education and big bank account to make it. Raw creativity was everywhere, unlike it is now.
I came to New York aimless and was able to find my way. The city was affordable for people to come to with a dream, artists of all genres could come and create. Todd and I lived in this amazing townhouse on Horatio Street for $600 a month. You have to remember that sanitation was on strike, the city was bankrupt, the city was crumbling. Can you bring us to those first months in the city what was it like making your way in Manhattan at 18?īebe Buell: New York was a gritty place then, but when you’re young, you don’t notice. You moved to New York in 1972 when you were scouted by the legendary Eileen Ford. The rock and roll “It girl” sat down with us to divulge her stories of the ’70s, her New York favorites, and how she went from model to musician. The self-proclaimed “Nash Yorker” went from rubbing elbows with rock’s elite to becoming a rocker in her own right-you can often find her playing with her band in her new home of Nashville. Model, muse, and mother to actress Liv Tyler, Bebe Buell landed on New York’s legendary rock scene in 1972 and quickly became a fixture at Max’s Kansas City.