Marina Muhlfriedel

(aka Marina del Rey, née Joanne Russo) For crime and punkishment

Although Gen and our bass player, Joanna, initially had crushes on lead singer, Dave Vanian, Brian James and Jake stayed with Gen and me, respectively. Captain Sensible and Vanian lodged at The Screamers place, while Rat Scabies moved in with Joanna. One night at the Whisky, Dave
Vanian was talking to Rat and referring to Joanna, a diehard Star Trek fan, remarked, “She even looks like Spock.” The realization stuck and so did the name. To this day, most people still call Joanna, Spock.
It was like that then, you met people and stayed with them, simply because you got on. Looking back at that black hair dye and leather jacket, safety pin and razorblade era of sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, it was precisely a decade after the Summer of Love and four years before the onset of the AIDS epidemic. Thanks to a number of such allusions in the British musiC press,
Backstage Pass’s reputation as a groupie band preceded us as we’d meet touring bands.