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The
most fascinating aspect of this documentary is not the fall into
drug addiction of former Saigon Kick drummer Phil Varone, but
the fact that while opening for Kiss during his stint as
skinsman for Skid Row he was making $20 a day. Yes, you read
right. $20 bucks! Opening up for Kiss might have been a dream
come true for Varone but I am sure his children’s stomachs
weren’t as amused. Then again, that miserable sum may just have
something to do with his status as a hired hand in the band; a
status that apparently doesn’t even give him the right to show
the other member’s faces or even the band’s logo, which
throughout the documentary are blurred to avoid recognition.
Varone’s claim to C-list fame
goes back to the early 90’s, when as drummer for Florida’s half
alternative/half cock rockers Saigon Kick he experienced mid
level success. Four albums into a fading career, largely due to
the rise of grunge, the band split and Varone got fucked out of
any royalties. A fact that, he’d be eager to tell you, he is
still quite bitter about. I mean, how could you not be? Those
monthly royalty checks from Saigon Kick must be huge!!! But
that’s not the point, the problem comes from Varone’s erroneous
and immature decision making. Post Saigon Kick Varone finds
himself at a crossroads, with no education nor plans for the
future and with a family to support he signs on to playing for
Skid Row, a band that’s been spiraling down into oblivion for
the better part of the last decade and a half. Such position
might have been a good move if what he was looking for is to
score with strippers, but for a man with two kids and a wife to
feed and support, the move was just plain irresponsible. What
happens next is the textbook example of the clichéd rocker; he
hangs with big boobed girls, fucks a lot, has a ton of fun, and
inhales cocaine with the speed of an anteater. On the way of
course, he cheats on his wife, his child support checks bounce
higher than a basketball, scores with more chicks and (and
sometimes their mothers too), forgets about his kids, moves in
with his porn star girlfriend (who doubles as his sugar mama),
divorces his wife, starts seeing a therapist, sells his drums to
his drug dealer in order to avoid eviction and subsequently
moves form the therapist onto a real doctor who slowly explains
to him that if he continues on that path death is inevitable.
Then he heads back home, and snorts all the coke he can find.
About four years into his addiction and in the middle of a show
Varone gets heart spasms. With death finally facing him, he
makes the only wise decision we’ve seen him take, he quits the
music business for good.
If there is something I did not
like about Waking Up Dead was the lack appearances from more
important people in Varone’s life. What about his relatives and
more colleagues? I can imagine that during his years on the road
he would have amassed more friends than the two that show up
(Saigon Kick vocalist Matt Kramer and Skid Row’s Dave Sabo).
The addition of whom may have given us more background on the
musician and a higher contrast between the person and the
irresponsible drug addict. What’s most striking about the documentary is that Varone is by
the end reduced to a caricature. His story is that of the
clichéd rocker, who starts off clean and enthusiastic and ends
up with a broke ass, a cocaine addiction, and who has isolated
himself from apparently the only people that truly cared about
him, his family.
Waking Up Dead Site |
