ACT 1: Magic

Clouds

¹

Act 1: MAGIC

Clouds.

To be in a rock band is to travel.

There’s various ways to travel. Planes, trains, automobiles, passenger vans, taxi cabs. Planes is my favorite of them all.

Flying in the clouds never ceases to amaze me. Taking flight as mere little humans.

Gravity imprisons us on Earth.

Birds get to fly…And one day, strange men (hopefully with some women in the background there) discovered we could fly in giant metal birds. I spent so much time in between cities, in the clouds. My favorite time and place to reflect.

I would read nonfiction books a lot on tour, philosophies on love, magic, the mysteries of the universe. But mostly, I’d write in my diary. I’d started keeping a little girl diary at the age of 12 and continued, through everything, right up until today.

But in those journals and on those flights in the ‘90s between my big rock destinations, is where I uncovered the messiness and the mystery of what it was, and is, to become a woman.

In my case, I was becoming a woman in the last analog decade. Immersed in a rare, one in a million chance of being on a global stage rock band, as a bass player, in a female dominated band called Hole.

Never forget: my bass was my vehicle. My original set of wings. It carried me to Seattle and, ultimately, brought me to Hole, where I became their bass player in the wake of unimaginable tragedy.

Not only the suicide of Kurt, Courtney’s husband and the father of Frances, but shortly after, the death of Kristen, Hole’s bass player, who died soon after the release of Live Through This. This was also during the wake of our generation losing our independent emboldened power of the zeitgeist of our “alternative” movement. It had become so explosive, that it took over the mainstream. Which was very unexpected for us who had dwelled in the underground clubs of North America in the late ‘80s and witnessed in real time, the explosion in the early ‘90s.

At the time, I worked as a ticket girl, and a cassette DJ. I’d never missed a show of the great roaming, alternative rock troubadours of our generation.

I had found my people. It was so beautiful. I’m not saying that the corporate power and major labels destroyed everything, but they have certainly ruined a lot.

But on these flights, looking out into the clouds and feeling my body float through the air - which indeed is the impossible of dreams - it allowed me to see the magic in everything.

To experience the wonder and what it is to be a woman, a human, a music lover, and adventure hunter.

I ❤️ CLOUDS

1. ^{“The Sky is My Ocean” 1994. © Melissa Auf der Maur}

^{This photo appears in “Even The Good Girls Will Cry: A ‘90s Rock Memoir” by Melissa Auf der Maur. Available to purchase through Hachette.}