#taquila mockingbird

L-R from top: Taquila Mockingbird, Angelyne, Nina Hagen, Elvira and Rodney Bingenheimer

MRR: So, I read We've Got the Neutron Bomb a while back and don't remember you being mentioned. TM: Well, I was Brendan Mullen's [founder of punk club The Masque] direct competition and he just decided that black people had no place in punk. MRR: Did he ever say that to you explicitly or was it just his attitude? TM: Um, at the end of his life, he said to me, “Why did you do it?” and I said, “Do what?” and he said, “Why did you have to book punk acts? I could've been all by myself. I could've been the only one.” See, he did The Masque. I was at King's Palace. That was my first night club. Brendan booked for the place once and they didn't like it and they put him out. It was a black guy who owned the place and he wanted me to do the same thing, which I was already doing, but he wanted to make it more concentrated, so that it would be our people, not their people. So, it became exclusively white. MRR: Well, first of all, what do you mean by our people instead of their people? Black people instead of white people? TM: When I say my people, I don't mean black people, I mean people that are outsiders. I don't subscribe to the whole “We're all black, we're all in one club together” mentality. MRR: Okay, so tell me more about how and why the scenes got segregated and Brendan's role in that. TM: The owner of King's Palace was a black pimp. Before punk, they mostly booked disco acts. Brendan was the first to bring punks to that club and then I came in and he moved over to The Masque. But The Masque was like... I didn't wanna go in because a friend of mine was The Masque's janitor and we would go in there the morning after shows and find syringes and puke everywhere. Brendan denied it, but I saw it. It was just a place I never wanted to go to. Carla [Maddog, drummer for The Controllers] was the only black person who ever went in there. MRR: So, the atmosphere of The Masque was alienating? TM: Yes, but also because Brendan Mullen was only interested in exploiting punk for profit. The Masque was initially a practice space and he started having punk shows there when he realized he could make money off of it. See, the first five years [of punk] we were united. Then came people like Brendan who wanted to make punk an exclusive club. The best part of punk was hanging out and finding other outsiders. The worst part of punk was “Who is punker than who?” And racism definitely was a part of that because people became concerned with presenting a marketable image of punk. I don't think Johnny Rotten thought about [punk] that way. He thought punk should be open to all outsiders. But people like Brendan changed that. They got what they wanted, they capitalized on it and also made it an exclusive club.

Not only is Tequila Mockingbird one of the busiest women in Hollywood, she is also one of the most creative, eclectic, and diverse. A singer, songwriter, music critic, poet, actress, entrepreneur, former model, you name it she’s done it. In fact, “Busy” may as well be her middle name. She recently opened up the Punk Museum near downtown L.A., a colossal tribute to the music scene she has been intimately involved in since the late 1970s. According to Tequila, the motivation behind creating the museum was based upon a promise with former Germs vocalist, Darby Crash, “to keep punk rock alive,” an exchange they had just days before he died from a heroin overdose in December, 1980. Never one to shy away from controversy and downright shaking things up, Tequila is in the process of writing an autobiography which, if she has the final say, will be titled ROCK AND ROLL NIGGER. By all indications it will be an excitingly salacious read, chock-full of true to life stories from the never ending stream of Tequila’s memories involving her wild child lifestyle in the Hollywood underground and beyond. And yes, Tequila admits even Robert Plant tried to hit on her during their 1971 tour in support of Led Zeppelin III, when she was just a sweet youth thing living in Cleveland. What Up Hollywood recently got a chance to talk with Hollywood’s very own Punk Princess at the foot of Johnny Ramone’s memorial about her upcoming appearance in her third Batman flick and a whole lot more.

Punk Rock Museum Opens: Our Exclusive Preview