By AMES FLAMES
LOS ANGELES – My time with Betty Blowtorch was never a dull moment beginning with their debut show in January of 1998. They created and played amazing music and put on a visual spectacle on most occasions. That was because in addition to some fun performances by great women playing the good stuff, we also had Torch Girl dancers who used Bic lighters and a can of Aquanet to make actual flaming torches.
Sharon Needles was rhythm guitarist and she did some lead vocals, and at times played bass when lead singer Bianca sang certain songs. Bianca (known as “Bianca Butthole”) possessed a quality of voice that ranged from sweet at times to thumping out bass lines. She was in full command at center stage and was also quite the prankster. Blare-N-Bitch was lead guitarist. She could wail and her leads were fluid, almost like words you could remember note for note. She was always locked in and adding to the rage.
Needles was well known for her trademark voice on the song “I’m Ugly and I Don’t Know Why.” Judy Molish was drummer, recruited from Bobsled. Her thunderous arrangements were the heartbeat. And while she was used to the vibe of Bobsled, this was not the same. After a bit she got in the groove and fit in perfectly. Our original Torch Girls were Carol, Winter, Liz, and a fire breather, Cricket. As for me, instead of Ames, I decided through all this, I would be known as “Flames,” AKA Flames Evil, Keeper Of The Torch.
I watched them from the get-go and imagined what they could become. I wasn’t wrong. Show by show the band got better and tighter. They were moving up on the billings and getting the pick of the night or week in the LA Weekly. I saw many a headliner worried about following them after the girls played. They did record an album’s worth of songs with Foil Records but the CD that was released, “Get Off,” only had six songs. It featured Donnie Popejoy announcing the band like he would do at their shows in LA. By the end of ’98, we were a well-oiled machine.
We were a Rock and Roll hit squad. We had all worked together before, it was a big happy family. I had developed a process for everything and we would all click into mode upon arrival at the club. Like Bobsled, four girls and I in a van. Despite what anyone thinks, girls say way nastier stuff than a bunch of guys. On the other hand, our van was always clean. Out of town, we didn’t get to bring the Torch Girls. To me they were an important part of the total picture. They were a great band without them, but they were an important element fans outside of LA didn’t get to see.
When we starting going out of town in late ’98, We did a little run of shows with Goldfinger. We were staying at the Phoenix Hotel in San Francisco. In the morning Bianca and I went to a little store across the street. Inside the store was a table of Hostess Fruit Pies on clearance for 10 cents apiece. Bianca loved pulling pranks on a grand scale. She bought two bags full of pies, I could see in her eyes she was plotting. Bianca’s plan was to attack Goldfinger on the highway. She held up a sign, Pieway To Hell. Then another, Wanna Taste My Pie? Down went the window and she started hurling pies at the Goldfinger van. Goldfinger was shocked. Another time we were behind them at a stop light. Judy jumps out and hoses their van down with a fire extinguisher. While Goldfinger slept the girls decorated their van with icing, candy, cat food, and various other things. Profanities were included. At the last show they got us back. I parked many blocks away and they still found our van.
After the set, I went back and we came up with a plan. Some guys had a pickup truck and they agreed to take our gear to the hotel. Two girls went with them and two girls went with me to the all night car wash. We totally cleaned the van. They were all waiting for us to return to the hotel and were stunned to see the van was clean. Why is the van wet? I was parked by a broken sprinkler that was soaking several cars on the street. We had a BBT sticker on our back window. I told them that I went for blocks all around and put a BBT sticker on the back window of every van like ours. You might have hit the wrong van. No one beats the Torch, even if they lose. It just shows how committed this team is.
Later on another run we decide fireworks might be a good replacement for the Torch Girls on the road. I would pass out sparklers for the Ugly song and light fountains for the end of the show.
We had rented an RV this time out. I did a lot of the driving. I drove all night and gave the wheel over so I could crash out a bit. I went up in the loft and slept, until I was awakened by the compressor on the roof of the RV being ripped off by a low overhang. I had to duct tape it down so we could get to the rental place to exchange it. At first I was riding on top, but then I got in, it was too scary. We had to change it out again a couple days later because we got a dud. Each time was a production because Bianca had decorated the RV with lights and stuff.
Then started a run with the van and trailer. My world had become the very back seat when I wasn’t driving. I set up a nice bed because I would crash in the van for security and to give the girls privacy. One day Bianca wanted to crash out and asked if she could use my bed, I said sure. Later she told me my bed was better than the hotel beds and said “no wonder you crash in here.”
We hit SXSW on this run, this is where the band was informed they would be signed to Foodchain Records. Bianca and I celebrated with Scott Milano and Kelly Spencer from the label. But two days later it all almost came to an end. I was doing a night drive from Lawrence Kansas to Denver, Colorado. The girls were all sleeping including my co-pilot. I was driving along and a three-trailer semi comes blasting by me like I am standing still. I thought to myself: I will see you ahead. Soon I could no longer see it. I get to an S like turn. Suddenly I have no traction. Gas and brakes do nothing, I am free sliding. I was in the slow lane.
The van starts to turn to the left because of the bank of the curve until it’s sideways in the fast lane and the trailer has swung around in the fast lane so it was a V formation. The road pitched the other way. The van was now going straight down the fast lane and the trailer was still in the process of straightening out and eventually did. Then I felt the road again and finally screamed. The girls work up and I told them i hit some black ice. I am glad they were asleep. I know my life flashed before my eyes. I went over a rise and there in the center divider was the three-trailer semi and all the stuff in the trailers all over the place. Plus there were cars on both side that had spun out and off the road for the next several mies. I kicked it down to 30 to be safe.
A few months later Betty Blowtorch got the LA Weekly Award for Best New Hardcore/Punk Band 2000. They were also recording the “Are You Man Enough” album. We close out 2000 with a Fall tour. The album was recorded and the label sent us out on the road. They gave us a trailer with the label logo on it. I didn’t like it because it made us identifiable. Lets just write “instruments and merchandise inside.” I always worried about getting ripped off. We hit the road with a camera crew in tow for the first few shows, NYC, and tour end in LA. we were leaving Yreka, Ca. and heading towards Oregon on back roads full of deer or moose. We get to the foggy main highway. A deer appears out of the fog on the driver side. It hits our trailer and the fender got mostly ripped off the body. The camera crew was right behind us and saw it. Had the deer gone behind the trailer it would have ended up on the camera crews windshield. I did my usual magic and fixed the fender enough to continue.
I was really happy for the band and what they accomplished. I came to a decision. Should I quit all my other bands and just work for BBT, or leave and keep all my other bands. I figured the label would supply them with proper help, in fact, that is what I thought they wanted to do. So I resigned. Unfortunately, The label didn’t do that great at getting them help.
They had done two tours. I offered to do the third tour but they decided to go with someone else. I did do the record release show before the first tour with out me, and two LA shows before they went on that third tour. The band blew up on that tour and Bianca sadly lost her life. They were supposed to be on the bill New Year’s Eve at the Whisky a Go-Go and I was there that night with Texas Terri. Blare showed up and played three BBT songs. I made lyric cheat sheets for the singers. Bianca’s ashes were in a Kiss lunchbox on top of Blare’s amp. Bianca was home. I log it as the last BBT event, end of the line.
In 2011 the three surviving members of Betty Blowtorch got Mia X to fill Bianca’s spot. This lineup did spot shows thru 2024. I sang lead on “Rock and Roll 69” a couple of times, I played rhythm guitar on “Ugly” once, and my final show with them during show ender “Rock My World” I took the bass from Mia X and I played the bass part so she could walk out in the crowd and sing. My last moment with them and I was on stage with them. That means a lot to me, as well as this whole story. I have a huge vault of BBT stuff but it is the memories that I value and the adventures I had with these girls.
You might have a lot of questions, I suggest you watch the “Betty Blowtorch and Her Amazing True Life Adventures” documentary, it will give you more info on things I touched on here, or listen to their music. The “Get Off” EP/CD, “Are You Man Enough,” and the Bianca Tribute CD called “Last Call” are great. I supplied several pics for the booklet. Over the years, I continued working with Sharon and Judy in several other projects so you haven’t heard the last about them. As usual these are my views and not the views of the band members. See you next month with another story.
Ames Flames, known as “Roadie to the Stars,” contributes his adventures and insights to U.S. Rocker. Read more of his work here.