TROY MARTIN SINGS ROCKY HORROR

I LOVE the music from "SHOCK TREATMENT".
For me, the best thing about "SHOCK TREATMENT" is the music.
"SHOCK TREATMENT" contains some of Richard O'Brien's best songs.
Richard Hartley's arrangements and production of the soundtrack are simply awesome.

I only wish I could say the same about the film "SHOCK TREATMENT".
And before I go any further, please keep in mind that my opinion is mine alone.
I don't want to seem like I'm bagging on "SHOCK TREATMENT".
The transition from ROCKY HORROR to SHOCKY was a difficult time in my life.
It was a time in which a lot of things changed very quickly for me, and some of my experiences were not a lot of fun.
Your individual results many vary.

"SHOCK TREATMENT" is decent film, but it lacks what I loved about "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW".
It was aimed at ROCKY HORROR fans, and, as Richard O'Brien said, "the audience smelled that."
"It's Not A Sequel, Not A Prequel, It's An Equal!" was the way it was pitched to the audience.
It certainly belongs alongside "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" as a companion piece.
And I like the fact that it's a continuation of "The Adventures Of Brad & Janet".
But it's not "An Equal". At least not for me.

I love Jessica Harper's performance as a junked-up Janet.
Jessica is one of those actors that "the camera loves".
She's a marvelous screen presence. And I love her voice.
Cliff DeYoung was great, too. Awesome singer!
I thought they made a great Brad & Janet. They had a genuine chemistry together.

We had heard for 2 years that Richard O'Brien was writing a sequel to "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW".
It was titled "The Brad And Janet Show" and it eventually evolved into "SHOCK TREATMENT".
Richard O'Brien, Jim Sharman, Michael White, Richard Hartley, and a lot of the old gang were involved with it.
But Tim Curry wasn't in it. Nor were Barry Bostwick, Susan Sarandon, Meatloaf, Jonathan Adams, or Peter Hinwood.
We all knew it was not going to be "Rocky Horror Shows His Heels" or "The Revenge Of The Old Queen".

On June 19, 1981, The Tifffany presented the "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" 5th Anniversary Floor Show".
"That's Hollywood!" filmed our pre-show and interviewed us for their "Cult Classics" episode.
Barry Bostwick was our special guest and he addressed the audience.
I introduced myself to Barry, and he gave me his autograph. Nice guy!
I made the final cut of the "That's Hollywood!" episode 4 times.

On July 12, 1981, Sal Piro appeared at an another one of Rick Sloane's R.I.P Conventions in Anaheim CA.
It was appropriately named "The Third Annual Transylvanian Convention". Time certainly had been fleeting.
This convention was the official beginning of the promotion of "SHOCK TREATMENT" by 20th Century-Fox.
The event was filmed for "The Rocky Horror Treatment" and "Real People".
Sal played some of the soundtrack and showed us production photos from the film.
The music was great! And I got to co-host!
I got to hang out with Gail, My All-Time Favorite Trixie.

RICK SLOANE, TROY MARTIN, SAL PIRO, NORA McGILLIVRAY & STEVE CARTOON
TIFFANY THEATER
Hollywood - 1981

GAIL
MY ALL-TIME FAVORITE TRIXIE
THIRD ANNUAL TRANSYLVANIAN CONVENTION
Anaheim - 1981

THIRD ANNUAL TRANSYLVANIAN CONVENTION
JOHN, NORA McGILLIVRAY, PENDLETON BROWN, ELIZABETH PACELA
Anaheim - 1981

NORA McGILLIVRAY
October 15, 1962 - September 25, 2007

It was at this time that I met Nora McGillivray. She was from Arizona.
She was a wonderful person, a regular Frankie-fan, and one of the coolest people I ever knew.

TROY MARTIN
THIRD ANNUAL TRANSYLVANIAN CONVENTION
Anaheim - 1981

The convention was a lot of fun. Rick ran his R.I.P. films for the audience.
After the films ran, I was doing my schtick when Cyn Fox walked onto the stage and hit me in the face with a pie.
They crowd liked it. It wasn't the first time I got hit with a pie, and it certainly was not the last.
After I was done, I dropped a hit of really good acid.
I went to the Denny's at the hotel and hung out with Jill, Michele, Jim, Gilbert, Cyn, Hale and Jason.
I had a great time. I was feelin' groovy and enjoying the hallucinations!
After it was over I went back to Crossroads and started listening to Rodney On The Roq on the radio.
The Go-Go's were his guests. They were being really obnoxious & funny...something about horses on the beach.
Rodney also played the B-52's "Party Mix" EP for the first time.
That tripped me out...I was so used the original versions of the songs and unprepared for the re-mixed versions.
It was the first time that LSD had really "blown my mind".
I sat on the couch and watched the walls melt. I laughed a lot that day.

Everyone bought the "SHOCK TREATMENT"soundtrack album about a month before the film was released.
It got a lot of airplay. We learned every word to the soundtrack within a week or so.
All ROCKY HORROR people were waiting in "Antici...pation!"

Rick took us to 20th Century-Fox to be the among first ROCKY HORROR fans to see"SHOCK TREATMENT".
Jim Cochrane & Chelsie Kraemer from THE DENTON AFFAIR, Lori Rizzo, Lisa Kurtz Sutton, and Nora joined me.
The folks at 20th Century-Fox were really nice and we were honored to be there.

And then they rolled the film.
Other than the music, it did nothing for me.
It was boring. The story was weak & tepid. There was no "spark that is the breath of life!"
It was all very nice...and tidy...and clean...and shiny...and bright...and wholesome...and sterile.
"Don't Dream It...Be It!" had been replaced by "Trust Me...I'm A Doctor!".
I don't know about you, but I'll take "Absolute Pleasure" over "Sanity For Today" every time.
We couldn't see any way that we could relate to the film, much less interact with it.
I didn't have anything to say at the Q&A afterwards.
It was a Pretty Big Downer. Even Charles Gray couldn't save it.
I really tried to like the film. I really did. I felt that the the only thing the film had going for it was the music.

We held a post-screening party at Crossroads, and a really nice group from Fresno joined us.
But there was another group of crashers that showed up. I don't know who invited them. I know I didn't.
They seemed nice at first, but about 2 hours into the party, they started to openly criticize us.
Then they began to lecture us about "Their Beliefs".
They got to be such assholes about it, and pissing everyone off, that I had to ask them to leave.
That kind of put a damper on the evening, and the party broke up.

The weekend before "SHOCK TREATMENT" opened, an employee of the Vista Theater showed up in line at
the Tiffany to distribute flyers advertising the opening of the film at the Vista the following weekend.
Dave, the manager of the Tiffany, came outside and confronted him. I had never seen him so angry before.
He got in the guy's face, and told him that he could not distribute the flyers because it would take away "his"
business from the Tiffany on the weekends. The guy from from the Vista said that he had every right to do so.
He also reminded Dave that he was standing on a public street.
It was a genuine First Amendment moment.
Until Dave started shoving him...and the guy shoved back.
Then Dave started punching him...and the guy punched back....and then...and then...

Their fistfight was a precursor for what was to come.
"SHOCK TREATMENT" and "THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW" would be competing against each other.

I saw the film on it's opening weekend on October 31, 1981 at the Vista Theater in Hollywood.
The film was being marketed as a "midnight movie", and it had a "limited" release.
A second viewing only re-affirmed my original thoughts and feelings about the film.
Although no one else said anything, we all knew that it was a major disappointment.
I haven't seen it in a theater since.
The film eventually found it's audience. I'm not one of them.
I still have my original vinyl LP of the soundtrack, and I did buy the DVD.
I will always LOVE the music from "SHOCK TREATMENT".

At that same time, things were changing rapidly for me, and not at all for the better.
The crowds had really wound down, and we were seeing empty rows in the theater during the Midnight shows.
There was just too much hype and overexposure regarding "SHOCK TREATMENT".
ROCKY HORROR was now very "mainstream". It wasn't the same anymore.
Audiences were burned-out on all things related to ROCKY HORROR, and it really showed.

"ROCKY HORROR Politics" again raised it's ugly head.
It made the petty bickering of EROTIC NIGHTMARES seem like child's play.
Bad energy had infiltrated The Tiffany, and it was pervading itself into every aspect of our lives.
I didn't know who to trust anymore.

I never thought that it was possible, but for the first time, ROCKY HORROR was NO FUN.

In October 1981, Van Nuys Freight & Supply Co. was evicted from The Crossroads Of The World.
The business aspect of things was a total failure.
The parties had gotten WAY out of hand, and we all ran out of money.
I wound up in an office at Victory Boulevard & Woodman Avenue in Van Nuys.
I got separated from my friends, and the woman I loved. I felt that I had no control over my life.
I was drifting in a dazed, downward spiral.
I started cheating on my girlfriend.
I knew it was wrong, but my new friend was awesome in bed, and her oral skills were exceptional.
It wasn't long until she moved on to the next guy or girl. And I felt like a fool.
The next thing I knew, 6 months had passed, and I was living in the back of a pickup truck in Torrance.

The only high point of this time was appearing in another Rick Sloane masterpiece.
It was called "The Sins Of Prostitution", and I played a pimp in a funny scene with Elizabeth Pacela.
I was very much influenced by Wings Hauser as "Ramrod" from "Vice Squad".
We filmed on location at Crossroads and "down at the Sunset Grill".

"THE SINS OF PROSTITUTION"
ELIZABETH PACELA, TROY MARTIN
DIRECTED BY RICK SLOANE
Hollywood - 1982

In April 1982, my life came crashing down within 2 hours at the "Rocky Alive" event in Hawthorne.
The event was being run by a self-styled ROCKY HORROR impresario/mail-order business owner.
I knew most of the people that were there that day.
I had paid for an advance ticket with a money order, but it never arrived in the mail.
Soon after I arrived, I realized that I had been ripped off.
Security was handled by a nasty little group of quasi-tyrants from out of town.
A bunch of jerks that thought they were "Hell's Angels At Altamont".
"They didn't like me...they never liked me!"...and they could not find me on the list.
So they threw me out and tried to have me arrested "for trespassing".
The cops knew it was all bullshit and a waste of their time, and told them so.
They left and I waited outside in the van.

And then came one of the worst moments of my life.

She came out to the van to talk to me. And she was really pissed-off at me.
She cried only for a moment, and then very quickly regained her strength and composure.
She made no qualms about pointing out how much I had hurt her, and how much of a loser I was.
And she was right. I had let her down. She deserved better. And I had completely fucked up.
Someone like her only comes around once in a lifetime...beautiful, smart, classy, and creative.
And I had been a puerile, self-absorbed, fool. I was a loser. And I had no one to blame but myself.
In that moment, I felt for the very first time, a new, powerful, and very painful emotion.
The pain of realizing that I had really hurt someone that I loved without even trying.
I was ashamed of myself and my behavior. I hated who I was and what I was doing.
For the first time in my life I knew what is was like to hit rock bottom.
I had lost everything...my self-respect, my honor, my home, my job, friends, and now, real love.

I was outside in the rain.

I wanted to get as far away from ROCKY HORROR as I could.

I was done with ROCKY HORROR.

Or, so I thought...

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