Pod Insights DISGRACELAND The Go Go’s: Serial Killers, Drug Addiction, an Historic Album, and “the Rumor” About this episode Serial killers, drug addiction, avoiding death, destruction, punk rock cliches and surviving an unmentionable “rumor” all while doing something no group of female musicians had ever done before.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
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0:41 Speaker 02 She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
0:54 Speaker 03 Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches, and rash, parasitic infection, or heart and circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.
1:38 Speaker 03 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.
1:42 Speaker 01 Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.
1:53 Speaker 01 This is a story about the darkness.
1:56 Jake Brennan? And the light.
1:57 Speaker 01 About serial killers. And seriously killer pop hits. It's about high heels and trash bags and leather jackets and sex tapes before we had a name for them.
2:10 Jake Brennan? It's about the greatest girl group to ever hit the charts. One of the greatest groups ever, actually. It is about The Go-Go's. And you know what The Go-Go's did? They made great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show. That wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called "Jerry Lee Did It First, Not You," MK1.
2:38 Jake Brennan? I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to "Centerfold" by the J. Giles Band. And why would I play you that specific slice of woof-a-guffa cheese could I afford it? Because that was the number-one song in America on March 6, 1982. And that was the day that The Go-Go's album, Beauty and the Beat, also went to number-one. Marking the first time in the history of pop music that an album written by a group of all women had gone to number-one on the charts.
3:11 Jake Brennan? On this episode, Girls on Top, Serial Killers, A Sex Tape, and The Go-Go's. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
3:48 Jake Brennan? Young women have been turning up dead in the hills outside Hollywood for the past two years. And when they finally caught the psychopath who was responsible, it turned out that there were actually two men doing the killing. The serial killer capital of the world got a little darker that day. Welcome to Los Angeles, 1978.
4:10 Jake Brennan? The Hillside Strangler, or Stranglers, rather, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered ten women, and held the city, especially its women, in the grip of fear for close to a year. For Angelenos at the time, this somehow did not seem out of the ordinary. In the late 1970s, fear blanketed the city with an oppression as familiar as its notorious smog. L.A. was dark, figuratively and literally.
4:40 Jake Brennan? The hillside stranglers were not alone. There was the freeway killer, the skid row stabber. Violent Chicano gangs controlled the streets on the east side. Quick to kill Bloods and Crips were transforming South Central into a war zone. Down on the wrong side of Sunset, long-haired freaky people convinced kids to run away from their parents and get religion. Charlie's girls shaved their heads and kept the canyons culty. Doom buggy assassins ran drugs out of Death Valley. Bikers and what was left of the Black Panthers kept the squares freaked out. Greasers ripped the strip and killing machine muscle cars and the Scientologists were just getting started.
5:21 Jake Brennan? Down off Hollywood Boulevard and on Cherokee, outside the Canterbury Apartments, paramedics were wheeling out the dead body on a gurney. And no one knew how long this resident at the Canterbury had been dead. No one cared. She was a washed-up starlet from a long-ago Hollywood era. Certainly, her retirement plan did not include this. A rundown apartment building inhabited by debased delinquents. Debauchery. An open-air drug market. Vice, grime, and squalor. Filth and fury, American-style. Young men and women engaged in all manner of revolt. Their natural postpubescent rebellion turned to nihilism by the extreme violence reflecting
6:03 Jake Brennan? down on them under the big, black sun that blanketed L.A. Good morning, midnight. America, do you know where your lost children live? They live here. Runaways, suburban castoffs, spoiled rich kids on the other side of their expiration dates. And all of them moving to the sound of souped-up classic cars, surf guitars, and subversion. Punk rock, west coast style, was amalgamating on its own and in its own way, 3,000 miles from New York City, down in the dingy basement of L.A.'s Canterbury Apartments. Where a new band was rehearsing. The Go-Go's. Their guitar player, Canterbury resident Jane Wylden, led their sound with an irrepressible
6:47 Jake Brennan? energy that belied her city's gloom. Similarly, the signature outfit of Go-Go's singer Belinda Carlisle, a literal trash-bag clinched with a thrift store belt, could not suppress her natural beauty. The Go-Go's were young, raw, and fresh off their first show at LA's The Mask. The West Coast answered to CBGB's, a tiny subterranean punk rock club beneath a skin flick house where early LA punk bands X, The Bags, and The Germs got their start. Belinda Carlisle sat behind the drum kit for The Germs back in the day before graduating to become frontwoman for The Go-Go's.
7:28 Jake Brennan? One of Belinda's Germs bandmates was Pat Smear, who would go on to join Nirvana and then the Foo Fighters. Darby Crash fronted The Germs. Darby would go on to become a punk rock casualty. Worse, a rock and roll cliché, dead of a heroin overdose at just 22 years old. The Go-Go's formed with Jane Wylen and Belinda Carlisle, as well as the excellent musician and songwriter Charlotte Caffey, bassist Margot Oliveria, and Alyssa Bello on drums. In 1978, they were just beginning their journey to not become punk rock casualties, or worse, to become rock and roll clichés.
8:11 Jake Brennan? Like most punk rock bands worth a damn, The Go-Go's aimed for authenticity. For them, that meant balancing the darkness of LA and of LA's punk scene with the natural, bouncy, idealized vision of the West Coast that the band members had grown up in. Frankie, Annette, Jan, Dean, and the Brothers Wilson before Manson taught them how to never learn not to love. Being authentic meant drawing on your own influences, not some prescribed punk rock dictum stating what a young punk band could and couldn't sound like. Guitarist Jane Wylen's taste spanned beyond the obvious impact of the Ramones and the Buzzcocks to 60's girl groups.
8:54 Jake Brennan? Singer Belinda Carlisle was California to her core: surf music, the grassroots. And guitarist Charlotte Caffey grew up obsessed with all kinds of music: The Beatles, Stones, Genesis, Patti Smith, and more. And new drummer Gina Shock, who joined in 1979 after coming up through the ranks of the Baltimore trash scene behind the kit for the John Waters star Edith Massey in her Edie the Eggs group. Gina was a throwback to another generation of workhorse drummers, steeped in the sounds of John Bonham and Keith Moon. The Go-Go's were not simply a group of girls trying punk rock on for size as the latest accessory. Content to grapple with the obvious influences of the all-girl group, The Runaways,
9:39 Jake Brennan? or New York's female-fronted Blondie. No, the Go-Go's, from their inception, were as serious-minded musically as the serial killers who prowled their shared streets were murderous. Onstage, the Go-Go's killed. Offstage, they nearly killed their career. Because the Go-Go's were hell-bent on staying true to themselves, on being authentic, on not becoming rock and roll cliches. And to do that, they needed to do the one thing every adult, every professional, every male record executive told them they shouldn't do: write their own songs.
10:41 Speaker 01 Cash Flow Crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds, up to $200,000, right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food.
11:19 Speaker 05 Connection and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
11:26 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant. So I just kind of shortened my explanation to I'm deathly allergic in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
11:37 Speaker 05 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
11:43 Speaker 00 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
11:48 Speaker 05 So join us and hear their stories and more because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At The Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At The Table and start listening on the free iHeart Radio app today.
12:10 Jake Brennan? It sounds ridiculous now, but back in the early 1980s, the idea that a group of women could write their own hit songs was radical. And maybe radical is the wrong word. Heretical is more like it. It was heresy in the late 70s, early 80s music industry to believe a group of girls could write hit songs. The Runaways had a male Svengali, Kim Folli, behind them. And Blondie's Debbie Harry had a bunch of dudes in her band. The Supremes, the Pointer Sisters, La Belle, their hits were all written by others. Same goes for all those Phil Spector produced girl groups of the 60s that the Go-Go's loved.
12:51 Jake Brennan? There simply was no model for a group of women writing their own hit songs. And you know what that's like. When something hasn't been done before, no matter how simple or obvious the task, for the majority of people in the world, that something seems impossible. People who are governed solely by reason, who need to witness physical or historical evidence before they can put their faith into something, generally speaking, are averse to risk. By contrast, the Go-Go's, because they insisted on writing their own songs, well, the Go-Go's therefore, in the record industry's eyes, were a risk themselves. And they couldn't get a record deal. No matter how many times they packed the Whiskey a Go-Go on the Sunset Strip,
13:36 Jake Brennan? which was exactly what the Go-Go's were about to do. Except they needed a bass player.
13:46 Jake Brennan? Kathy Valentine was holed up in her friend's LA darkroom as her friend developed photos. Kathy contemplated the cocaine he was selling, and her friend contemplated Kathy. Should he get high with this girl? She was young, just 21, and from out of town, Texas, and now here in LA. He wanted to freebase, though. Was she hardcore enough for that? Was she ready? She was a musician, she claimed, so perhaps, yes. And the smell of chemical fumes overpowered Kathy. That was nothing compared to what was about to happen. On the radio, in the darkroom, the news came through with zero passion.
14:29 Jake Brennan? John Lennon was dead, murdered outside his apartment in New York City. And Manhattan wasn't about to be outdone by LA's darkness. New York City had its own creeps, too. There, at the end of 1980, and one of them had just gunned down the coolest Beatle. Kathy couldn't help but cry. She didn't care what her friend slash drug dealer thought about that. And her friend no longer cared whether Kathy could handle freebasing. If there was ever a time to freebase, it was now. So that's what they did. And then Kathy Valentine took her cocaine back to her apartment and proceeded to smoke her rock and roll grief away until a couple of days later,
15:14 Jake Brennan? pulling herself together and heading out to The Whiskey to see X play on Christmas Eve. It was there, in the dingy rock club's bathroom, where Kathy met the rest of her life, Charlotte Caffey, the Go-Go's guitarist. Charlotte knew Kathy could play. And Charlotte needed a bass player to fill in for Margot during the Go-Go's upcoming four-night headlining stint at The Whiskey. Charlotte asked Kathy if she'd be interested in the gig as the fill-in for the Go-Go's bassist. Kathy said yes on the spot. And there was only one problem. Kathy couldn't play bass. Kathy was a guitarist. But that didn't stop her. Kathy didn't reason her way out of her destiny.
15:58 Jake Brennan? She had faith in herself as a musician. So she spent the next forty-eight hours holed up in her apartment, snorting lines of cocaine and learning how to play the Go-Go's entire set on the bass guitar. When it came time for the shows, eight shows in four days, two shows per day, Kathy was ready and she killed it. And by the time the shows were over, the gig was permanently hers. Kathy Valentine had outshined Margot Oliveria. And the Go-Go's knew a perfect fit when they saw one. Kathy was asked to join the band. And of course, she did. With the whiskey shows triumphantly in the rearview, now the Go-Go's could focus on writing hits for their debut album. But the problem was,
16:42 Jake Brennan? no record label would sign them due to the Go-Go's insistence that they write their own songs.
16:50 Jake Brennan? And that was exactly what Charlotte Kathy was busying herself with on New Year's Day. Squirreled away up in her LA apartment. Word of that murdered girl, Jane King, being broadcast from the local news. Jane was hanging out at the Mask when the Go-Go's played their first show. That is, Jane hung out at the Mask before the Hillside Stranglers got their hands on her.
17:14 Jake Brennan? Charlotte ignored the news and cut up some cocaine. She had a job to do. Writing songs was work, like anything else. The drugs, though, were not helping. And neither was the television. Charlotte did another line anyway. And then she changed the channel.
17:33 Jake Brennan? Yes. Exactly what she needed. The annual New Year's Day Twilight Zone Television Marathon. Charlotte let herself get sucked in. On the TV, the Black Leather Jackets episode. Three aliens disguised as greasers. Pompadours, motorcycles, black leather, denim, beyond cool. Walking down the street. With an eerie but irrepressible beat. Charlotte stared into the black and white haze of the television and eventually passed out. When she woke up, she had it. The beat. Just like the dudes in the black leather jackets from back in the day.
18:16 Jake Brennan? Back then, they did the pony, they did the watusi. It put 'em all in a trance. Charlotte was looking for a beat-based song, and here it was, courtesy of Cocaine and Rod Serling. See the people walking down the street, fall in line just watching all their feet. They don't know where they want to go, but they're walking in time. They got the beat. Charlotte pulled from her deep well of musical influences and brought some light to the darkness surrounding her. The darkness from her growing drug addiction, from the eerie television show, from the local news, from the danger on the streets outside her apartment. Charlotte laid down a perfect west coast guitar riff over an imagined heavy tom beat. It wasn't punk, but it wasn't pink either.
19:00 Jake Brennan? It was nasty Link Ray notes hammered over a sexually-charged Dennis Wilson day at the beach. It was L.A.'s dark streets waking up to the light of another perfect day. It was "We Got the Beat." A perfect pop song. "We Got the Beat" was emblematic of who the Go-Go's were and where they had the potential to go as a group. As was the romantic bop Jane Wildling created with her tune "Our Lips Are Sealed." These were not the songs of a modest punk rock band. Because the Go-Go's were not a modest punk rock band. To pretend so would be inauthentic.
19:41 Jake Brennan? At the expense of their L.A. punk rock credibility, the Go-Go's did what came naturally to them. They wrote the only songs they knew how. Songs that were potentially giant smash pop hits. Born of punk rock, but far from being punk rock.
19:59 Jake Brennan? Nobody, it seemed though, saw that potential. Nobody believed that five women could write their own hits, even when those hits were blaring back into their faces. Nobody in America would believe it, that is. But across the pond, Miles Copeland, brother of the Police's drummer Stuart Copeland, manager of his brother's band and head of IRS Records, he did see the potential in the Go-Go's. From the strength of "We got the beat and our lips are sealed", that potential should have been obvious to anyone with ears. About to mention the fact that the Go-Go's looked great onstage. They had a style that was totally their own, a mix of thrift store chic, punk rock nihilism and old Hollywood glam.
20:43 Jake Brennan? And I mean, come on, Belinda Carlisle was their front woman. She was an incredibly charismatic singer who was impossible to take your eyes off of. No wonder Miles Copeland signed them to his record label. He knew the Go-Go's couldn't miss. All they had to do now was put their incredible songs on tape and make a record. But doing that meant that the Go-Go's would have to leave L.A.'s darkness behind and eventually move past their own darkness.
21:15 Speaker 07 We'll be right back after this word, word, word.
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21:51 Speaker 05 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
22:06 Speaker 06 People would always think I was lactose intolerant, so I just kind of shortened my explanation to "I'm deathly allergic", in a big way that defined a lot of my childhood.
22:17 Speaker 05 And while there are challenges, there are moments that remind you you're not alone.
22:22 Speaker 00 One of the best guys that I dated, he made a point to memorize all my food allergies.
22:28 Speaker 05 So join us and hear their stories and more, because living with food allergies isn't just about what you can't eat. It's about still having your seat at the table. Brought to you by Genentech and Novartis. Listen to At the Table, the food allergy podcast on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow At the Table and start listening on the free iHeart radio app today.
22:51 Jake Brennan? Destroying a hotel room for a rock and roll band is a rite of passage. Doesn't matter if that band is a bunch of dudes or the Go-Go's. The difference with the Go-Go's was that after they destroyed their hotel room, they cleaned it up. It wasn't because they were women and inherently nicer than their male counterparts. No, I think it had more to do with the fact that they were, at their core, punk rock kids. And punks, a lot of them anyway, despite their nihilistic tendencies, actually have a conscientious side to them. But I'm betting that deep down, Jane, Belinda, Kathy, Charlotte, and Gina, I'm betting they couldn't help but think about the poor minimum wage worker whose job it was to clean up after their rock and roll circus left town. And that's why they cleaned up after themselves.
23:38 Jake Brennan? By 1981, the Go-Go's were entitled to their rock and roll trappings. Their debut album, the excellently titled Beauty and the Beat, was racing up the charts on the backs of the group's two masterful singles, We Got the Beat and Our Lips Are Sealed. The Go-Go's were on tour supporting The Police, who at the time were a much bigger band. This was a stadium tour. The Police were capable of packing stadiums with or without the Go-Go's supporting them. The gig for the Go-Go's was about promoting their record, and it was working. One night in Atlanta, while the Girls and the Go-Go's picked at a deli tray backstage, Sting burst into their dressing room with two bottles of champagne to celebrate the
24:21 Jake Brennan? fact that the Go-Go's had just passed The Police on the charts. Things were about to change for the little punk rock band from Los Angeles. It wasn't just the shine the Go-Go's took off The Police by opening for them every night. The Go-Go's, like The Police and like Duran Duran and Blondie, were being played on MTV constantly. The Go-Go's, despite their disdain for the inauthentic video-making process, were naturals on camera. That modern west coast vision of a tough but hot thrift store girl group was novel. Kids on the other side of the television set ate it up. I know, because I was one of them. All of a sudden, the Go-Go's were to early 80s mall culture what the Beach Boys had
25:04 Jake Brennan? been to 60s surf culture. The Go-Go's had transcended punk, transcended even rock and roll, and they were now something bigger. The Go-Go's represented a modern take on what the Blasters, Dave Alvin called "American music." The Go-Go's projected something different: a new neon 80s Americana. Back in Los Angeles, in those dingy clubs that the Blasters were filling alongside the Go-Go's other contemporaries, the makers of Beauty and the Beat were falling out of favor as their fame cemented itself into national prominence. It didn't matter that the Go-Go's had helped build the LA punk scene.
25:46 Jake Brennan? It didn't matter that Jane and Belinda were such a core part of LA punk that they literally played and lived alongside members of the Germs and the Bags in both the notorious Canterbury Apartments and the infamous Flophouse known as Disgraceland. Hold up. It's time to address the tiny elephant in the room: Disgraceland, the name of the Flophouse Belinda Carlisle once lived in in Los Angeles. A dingy dive on Las Palmas where reportedly, everyone who was anyone in the LA punk scene lived or partied at one point in the early 80s, including, of course, the Go-Go's frontwoman. Now, did I know about the LA punk scene's Disgraceland when I named this podcast? Yes, I did.
26:27 Jake Brennan? Did I get shit from angry punk rockers from that scene when they heard about my podcast? Yes, I did. Did I care, or do I now? No, I do not. These same LA punks stole the name Disgraceland from Jerry Lee Lewis, just like I did. Should I have given the LA Disgraceland punks credit when I took the name as some of them have suggested in angry Facebook messages? Also, no. In all my research of the LA punk scene, I've never once heard or read anyone mention the original Disgraceland, which was Jerry Lee Lewis's home in Nesbit, Mississippi. I've been clear about where I got that name from the very beginning. Go back and listen to episode 1 of Disgraceland and you'll hear what I'm talking about. Am I concerned what old-school LA punks will think of the name thing when they listen
27:12 Jake Brennan? to this particular episode? I am, a little. I love some of those bands: X, The Blasters, and of course, The Go-Go's. And I have nothing but respect for the scene and its contribution to music history. So with that said, back to our story. Falling out of favor with hometown scenesters was the cost of doing business for The Go-Go's in the early 80s. They didn't sign to a record label and change their sound. They signed a record deal, an independent record deal, mind you, with IRS Records, and recorded with Blondie's producer Richard Gauder, and proceeded to put down on tape the same sound they'd been tooling together since their early days in the basement of the Canterbury Apartments.
27:53 Jake Brennan? Their sound had evolved, which is what happens when any group of great musicians and songwriters continue to ply their trade. It's just that The Go-Go's were so damn good at their trade that their sound evolved into massive pop hits. To create anything different would have been inauthentic, which is the one thing in punk rock that you absolutely cannot be. So The Go-Go's, in staying true to themselves, in staying punk, alienated the punks.
28:22 Jake Brennan? They also garnered a Grammy nomination in 1982 for Best New Artist. And word spread quick. The Go-Go's had sold out. They were all Grammys and glitz, which of course was total bullshit. Along with thrift store dresses and self-styled hair and makeup the girls brought to the Grammys for an award they ultimately lost to Sheena Easton, the Go-Go's brought along their demons as well. For Charlotte, this meant masking an intense heroin habit that threatened to break up the band. For Jane, Belinda, Kathy and Gina, they had their own drug and alcohol demons to deal with. But for the entire band, there was nothing to threaten their current status at the top of the pop mountain as much as...
29:06 Jake Brennan? The rumor.
29:08 Jake Brennan? Were the Go-Go's kind of bubblegummy? Yes. Were they beautiful? Yes. Were they super happy fun time, west coast vibes kind of music? Yes. Were they also dark, depraved, sexual deviants? Perhaps. This is what made the rumor so delicious. The contrast. That same dichotomy that had been at the heart of the Go-Go's since their inception. Like Los Angeles, they appeared to be one thing, and they were that thing, but they were also the opposite. By day, Los Angeles shined bright, forever 72 and sunny. At night, serial killers prowled the streets and left bodies up in the hills.
29:49 Jake Brennan? During the day, the Go-Go's sunny vision of west coast teen culture blanketed the airwaves. At night, the Go-Go's conducted drug-fueled orgies with male groupies that would have made Led Zeppelin blush. Or so when. The rumor.
30:04 Jake Brennan? At first, you hear whispers in the hallway at school. You're 17. You've heard some shit before. After all, you got a job at Bergerson's Burgers. And not just a job. You're a manager. A single, successful guy. If you're lucky, Mara McAuliffe will let you get under her shirt this fall when you take her out to the spa in your cruising vessel. But back to the whispers. At first, they're just a random collection of words dancing with the sounds of slamming lockers and sneakers squeaking on the high school linoleum floors. Orgy, blowjob, Spanish fly. You've heard all these words before, of course, and they're no surprise. But the frequency you're hearing them now is a little more intense. And now there are more words.
30:48 Jake Brennan? Party tape, sex tape, and then Belinda Carlisle. Yeah, man, jacking off. Wait, what? From the Go-Go's? There's a sex tape? A sex tape of the Go-Go's? What? It's all over school. It's all anyone in your 11th grade class can talk about. And not just the dudes, the girls, too. And you thought Pat Benatar was the freak. Turns out, it's Belinda and the fucking Go-Go's. What are they actually doing on what is quickly becoming known as the Go-Go's Skin Flick, or the Party Tape? Is it the entire band having sex together? No, there's male roadies involved. That's the word. Okay, okay, okay. What else? Well, it's not the whole band.
31:32 Jake Brennan? It's just Belinda and Kathy. Okay, Belinda and Kathy. No Jane. That sucks, but you can take it. Belinda Carlisle is likely the hottest singer you've ever seen, and Kathy Valentine looks like she'll hurt you, but in a seriously sexy way, so you're all in on the Party Tape. You have to know more, and the rumors won't quit. They're all over the halls, in the cafeteria, in the locker room that day. You're not actually convinced, though, that anyone you're talking to has actually seen this tape. Word is, some senior named Harry has an older brother in college whose friend's girlfriend works at a cutting house over in Burbank, and that the owner's ex-boss has a kid whose girlfriend is friends with a dude over in the valley whose cousin writes for a horror movie magazine, and that guy supposedly saw a copy at a party that some publicist from West Hollywood threw over the weekend.
32:16 Jake Brennan? But wait, are Belinda and Kathy from the Go-Go's actually having sex on tape with their roadies?
32:24 Jake Brennan? Worse, they're supposedly forcing them to have sex. Really? No, not really. When this news gets back to you by the end of the day, your pervy ass is bummed, but not totally bummed because the party tape might not be a full-on Go-Go's orgy, but it is Kathy and Belinda coercing some dude into masturbation. And they're wasted. Pills, supposedly. And Kathy wants to make an art film. And Belinda seems to just want the roadie dude to get hard and get off. And Belinda Carlisle wanting that and voicing her desire nearly makes your head pop off your shoulders and roll down the hall into six-periods study hall. If you can't get sex, then the perfect thing for you to do is to jack off.
33:11 Jake Brennan? There was no sex tape. Just some grainy footage of Belinda Carlisle and Kathy Valentine wasted on pills and booze trying to talk some dude who was too high on lewds and jerking off into a hard-on. It didn't work. But the rumor was the rumor.
33:28 Jake Brennan? And to say it was an embarrassment for the girls in the Go-Go's would have been an understatement. They'd done what all the experts said could not be done. They'd succeeded as women who wrote their own songs. And now they have the number-one record in America. That's right. Beauty and the Beat had gone to number one. And it stayed at number one for six weeks. It was the first number-one record by a group of girls who wrote their own material ever. And it still is. And this was a remarkable achievement. And there the Go-Go's were, in their moment of shining glory, with all their darkness on full display for the rest of the world to see. Little did anyone know that the darkness on that so-called "party tape"
34:13 Jake Brennan? was just the tip of the iceberg.
34:36 Jake Brennan? Opium is a dark, sticky substance. Picture a tar-like wad of gum that smells flowery but pungent. It's highly addictive. It's the main addictive substance in heroin, in oxy. You know, in the bad drugs that destroy lives and bands.
34:56 Jake Brennan? And it was this dark, sticky substance that the girls in the Go-Go's were currently shoving up their asses in the backyard of some fan's house in Washington State. Imagine that. You're 18, 19 years old, you score tickets to see the Go-Go's at your local Coliseum or whatever. They got the number one record in the country at the moment. Somehow, you and your handsome friends get the Go-Go's to come back to your place for a party afterward, and now Jane, Kathy, and the rest of the girls are in your backyard squatting alongside you and your friends with their pants around their ankles, shoving sticky opium up their buttholes to get high with you. Life is weird, man. But this behavior wasn't all that weird for the Go-Go's.
35:40 Jake Brennan? Drugs had been a part of the band since before they'd written the songs for their hit record. And all of them dabbled in the hard stuff, but Charlotte had a serious heroin addiction. One that had been growing in secret since back before the Go-Go's recorded "Beauty in the Beat." As the band embarked on recording and touring in support of their follow-up album, Vacation, Charlotte's heroin addiction had become almost all-consuming. Personally, this was, of course, disastrous. Professionally, this was the type of addiction that could kill a band, given that Charlotte was the group's main songwriter. Yet this band would not die. The band members pushed on through their demons. Their second album was not quite the follow-up smash that a monster hit like "Beauty in
36:24 Jake Brennan? the Beat" demanded, but it did well enough, largely on the strength of the Kathy Valentine penned title track, "Vacation," which Jane and Charlotte contributed to.
36:35 Jake Brennan? But by the time the Go-Go's third album, Talk Show, hit the shelves, the wheels were coming off. Gina had developed a hole in her heart that required surgery, and the band sent Gina off with a drug binge in Palm Springs. The five of them holed up in a hotel room like vampires, doing every drug they could get their hands on, but keeping the cocaine away from Gina's ailing heart, of course. And when they weren't high, they were paranoid and jealous. Money. What to do with all of it? Who got how much for writing which songs in which parts? Money was a constant source of tension in the band. Charlotte was the main songwriter, but Jane Widlin and Kathy Valentine contributed nearly as much to those songs,
37:16 Jake Brennan? and Melinda Carlisle and Gina Shock lent considerable style and attitude to the music. So the question of authorship was no easy matter to settle, especially under the haze of drugs. And the fierce fight over songwriting credits and royalties caused Jane to quit while on tour in support of their third album. Drugs, excess, squabbling over their largesse. The Go-Go's had become the one thing their punk rock instincts had driven them not to become: cliches. The only thing left for them to do was to overdose and die.
37:53 Jake Brennan? And in Rio de Janeiro at the Rockin' Rio Festival in 1985, Charlotte Caffey was doing her best to make that happen. On the bill with the Go-Go's were AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Rod Stewart, Queen, the B-52's, and other major acts. The show drew a crowd that was estimated at nearly half a million people. And back at the hotel where the artists were staying, the party was on. Rock stars, roadies, groupies, dealers, hangers-on, all poolside and in and out of hotel rooms getting high. Cocaine was everywhere. The girl from Ipanema blasted on repeat. Beautiful bronze bikini-clad women in droves.
38:36 Jake Brennan? Charlotte bounced between Rod Stewart's and Ozzy Osbourne's hotel rooms. Rod was pissed off at her for some reason she couldn't figure out. And the B-52's were avoiding eye contact with her. Ozzy Osbourne was in no mind to deal with her, and her own band was nowhere to be found. Charlotte drank more. Charlotte did more drugs. Charlotte's manager thought that now was a good time to bring up rehab. Charlotte blocked out her manager, smoked more, snorted more, shot more heroin, shot more tequila, shot after shot after shot. Onstage, in front of the biggest assemblage of people she'd ever seen, Charlotte sweated through the motions.
39:18 Jake Brennan? After the set, back to the hotel for more drugs and more drink. To this day, no one knows what exactly happened, but whatever Charlotte did that night resulted in none other than Ozzy Osbourne kicking her out of his hotel room. How fucked up do you have to be to have Ozzy Osbourne think you're too fucked up to hang out with? Really fucked up is the correct answer. It was one of many last straws for the Go-Go's. Charlotte wasn't going to be a rock and roll casualty. She wasn't going to be a punk rock cliche. Charlotte Caffey checked herself into rehab, and soon after, she followed Jane Widlin and quit the Go-Go's.
40:02 Jake Brennan? Sobriety in a rock and roll band is a hard road, and frankly, not one that Charlotte needed to travel. Why live in the dark when there's so much light? The Go-Go's did what they said couldn't be done. They succeeded at the highest levels of the music industry as women who wrote their own songs. In 2021, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Getting there and surviving their excesses nearly killed them. But in the end, the band avoided becoming a rock and roll cliche, and in doing so, avoided disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan, and this is DisgraceLand.
40:59 Jake Brennan? All right. Thanks for hanging with me and the Go-Go's in this episode. Apple Podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned on so you never miss any episodes. Guys, this week's question of the week is, which girl group is the greatest girl group and why? Is it the Go-Go's? Is it the Runaways? Is it, I don't know, you tell me. I've been doing too much talking. 617-906-6638. Leave me a voicemail, send me a text with your answer, and you might hear yourself on the after-party bonus episode coming up right after this. Leave a review for DisgraceLand on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and win some free merch. All right, I gotta return some videotapes. Here comes some credits. DisgraceLand was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com.
41:44 Jake Brennan? If you're listening as a DisgraceLand All-Access member, thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And if not, you can become a member right now by going to disgracelandpod.com/membership. Members can listen to every episode of DisgraceLand ad-free. Plus, you'll get one brand-new, exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes, special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events. Visit disgracelandpod.com/membership for details. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod, and on YouTube at youtube.com-at-disgracelandpod. Rock-a-roller.
42:29 Speaker 02 He's a bad, bad man. She's been thinking about this sleepover all week, but I think about her food allergies all the time. Fortunately, her doctor prescribed Zolair, omalizumab. It's proven to significantly reduce allergic reactions if a food allergy accident happens.
42:45 Speaker 03 Zolair 150mg is a prescription medication used to treat food allergy in people one year of age and older to reduce allergic reactions due to accidental exposure to one or more foods. While taking Zolair, you should continue to avoid all foods to which you are allergic. Don't use if you are allergic to Zolair. Zolair may cause a severe, life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis. Tell your doctor if you ever had anaphylaxis. Get help right away if you have trouble breathing or if you have swelling of your throat or tongue. Zolair should not be used for the emergency treatment of allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis. Zolair is for maintenance use to reduce allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis, while avoiding food allergens. Serious side effects such as cancer, fever, muscle aches and rash, parasitic infection, or hardened circulation problems have been reported. Please see zolair.com for full prescribing information. Ask an allergist about Zolair.
43:28 Speaker 03 This is an advertisement for Zolair paid for by Genentech and Novartis.
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44:02 Jake Brennan? Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyages. Back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape set sail March 20, 2027, to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year along with Zeph, and he and I will be taping a live version of Disgrace Land along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners Wyscrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage.
44:47 Jake Brennan? Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/trucrime to secure your spot.
Previous Bonus Episode – Upcoming Episodes, the Diddy Trial, and More Mount Rushmore Next Bonus Episode - Great Girl Groups au Go Go Page updated November 3, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated