Over COVID, I spent a lot of time, and continue to, slowly chunking out memories out of my cobwebbed brain in an attempt to write a book about my life in bands. I know now that with the speed in which I was moving, there was no time to reflect or look back and laugh or cry about things that had happened, so it’s been an interesting exercise dredging these memories up. Im seeing that what can be fun about choosing a life in music (or the arts) is that you get offered to do interesting things and saying yes, regardless of intent, will lead you down some interesting or, in this case, amusing paths.
For 5 years in the mid aughts, I was in a band called Vaudeville. We were a trio of best friends and I think our music conveyed that feeling. We played what we wanted, how we wanted, never played the same set twice, always experimented and if something made us laugh or smile, we did it. I still get good feelings thinking about the band and after we broke up due to our singer/guitarist Daniel moving for college, we still did yearly Xmas charity gigs. It’s a group I’ll always cherish. If we were around now I guess we’d get lumped into Ween type territory, but at the time we didn’t bother to fit in to anywhere particularly. We were just doing our thing.
(Our first record, with incredible art by JAW Cooper)
In 2006, our bassist Jacob was working at Whole Foods and was chumming it up with a regular customer named Kim. She was a fit, blonde, beach body type in her 40’s that you’d expect to see in the beach cities. Jacob, looking, but aiming to be nice, complimented her necklace that hung down past her neck line into her slightly revealing shirt. She thanked him and they got to talking. Never one to not network, Jacob told her he was a musician and in a band. She was, at the time, looking for musicians to help her score a film she was working on. Turns out the film was one strictly for grown ups and she was a relatively famous adult film star…
(Kim Chambers (according to Wikipedia) entered the adult film industry in 1993 at the age of around 19 and has since performed in over 200 films.[1] She has also directed at least four films.[1] Chambers picked her stage name as an homage to Marilyn Chambers, whom she met when she was 16 years-old.[3] )
(Here’s Kim… with Coolio)
When we met her, she was done acting in these films and wanted to get into the directing and producing game. Being the entrepreneur she was, she made films very independently with a small crew and her new film “Flesh Fantasy” was being edited and she needed some, well, cheap, music. Being the defacto band manager, she was given my number and we spoke on the phone and set up a meeting. We all met her at her house, which was a large, but rather nondescript house in Hermosa Beach. We sat in her living on a very comfy, but warn in, leather couch. So bare and non intrusive were the walls, that you’d think she possibly shot one of her films here in this very room, but I digress. We agreed to a small fee (why not, we thought. This is some real bucket list shit) and were given a few temp tracks that she wanted us to emulate.
Ready to kick into gear and get our juices flowing (not intended) we checked out the temp tracks and instead of getting weird, we stuck to general vibe, changing slightly the chords and keys but keeping the grooves the same. The songs we were given were of G Love and Special Sauce, Dr Dre, Kool & The Gang and Kid Rock (?!). Sexy. We certainly weren’t going to use our own Vaudeville songs and we weren’t going to use the band name, so we came up with a new ‘band’ name just for this project, The Lovely Mark Lovely. With the temp tracks in our heads, we banged out (maybe intended) the 30 minutes worth of music in one day at our normal studio with our musical ally Jonathan, in Manhattan Beach. We submitted the tunes to Kim and luckily, no notes! We were on our way to adult film glory as the composers for “Flesh Fantasy.”
(Here’s the only internet thumbnail of the DVD cover I could find…If you want to read a NSFW interview with her about the film, click the pic)
About a month later, we got a call from Kim that the edit was done and she wanted us to come by and pick up a burned DVD copy before she shipped it off to press. We met the editor, hung out a bit on that nice leather couch and got paid. We immediately went back to Daniel’s house to watch how she slid in our tunes (intended) into the film. First of all, to hear your music played in this context is a very singular and strange feeling. If you’re generally open minded and can find humor in making things, then this is a rewarding, but again, strange feeling. I’m certainly glad I did it. It’s a story and it’s something not everyone gets the opportunity to do and look, here I am almost twenty years later sharing it with you. Oh, that leather couch we sat on in our meetings? Well, that couch played a major part in the film…
Kim called me a few years after and I helped her with a meditation tape making synth-ambient music for her with my friend Luke (who was in The Last, whom I talked about here) which was also fun. I always appreciated her entrepreneurial spirit and willingness to pivot or find happiness as needed. According to Wikipedia, since leaving the adult industry, Chambers has been a professional figure competitor and has given advice on sex, health, and fitness with columns in Marie Claire, American Curves, and Muscle Mayhem.
Kim got out of the ‘game’ when it wasn’t serving her anymore. It can be scary to make changes and accept an unknown road ahead if one is to leave a profession or lifestyle that has been a prevalent part of their lives. It’s easy to stay on the same course and copy and paste every experience and decision. It takes a bit of courage and blind trust to pivot. This idea of a life change is something that I think about daily. When considering a big change, the macro can be overwhelming, but looking back at the micro, I find it fulfilling. If and when the changes do comes, I at least have these micro memories reminding me it wasn’t for naught. So, yea….Score a porn if you get the chance! And thank you Jake for talking to Kim. We couldn’t have done this without you.
Thanks so much for reading. I have plenty more of these to come.
P.S. If you’re interested in listening to these tunes, I’ve set them to download free on Bandcamp. Just don’t tell me what you did while listening… ;)