Celebrity Thin

“Everybody knows I give the best blowjobs in Hollywood, but there’s gotta be something in it for me too,” said a fairly serious, almost somber (sober? not sure . . .) Courtney Love at her unannounced Roxy show presented by MySpace last week. Might have seemed like a Love-patented rambling, but anyone who heard her impromptu KROQ call-in earlier that day knew what she meant. She was comparing her recent surprise gigs to the give and take of good sex: the fans get to see her in an intimate setting, and she gets to test the new material from her upcoming CD. Nightranger was standing up front, stage-right most of the set (next to Paris Hilton, ugh . . .), and we’d say everybody ended up getting off.

Though the singer denied being scary skinny (“not like [Scott] Weiland . . . he still looks too Skeletor”) on KROQ, she was, in fact, as wiry and pasty as those famous tabloid bikini shots the blogs went crazy for a couple of months ago. And despite some obvious nips and tucks, Miss World definitely looks her age, which actually works in her favor. Both her manner and her mesmerizing new material brought to mind later-era Marianne Faithfull and Patti Smith, more twangy torch-song swank than the punk-chick skank of yore. Co-written by Linda Perry (who watched from the VIP section) and Billy Corgan, the new stuff proved both catchy and powerful onstage, particularly the mostly acoustic encore, which Love wouldn’t begin till she was handed her coke (a-cola) and lit cigarette on stage. Still the diva.

The after party was at On the Rox, where revelers included America’s Next Top Model’s nutty punkette Jael, photog god David LaChapelle,Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba,The Used’s Bert McCracken, and Ms. Hilton, boogieing, trusty bottled water in hand, at a table with Cisco Adler. Even after the whole jail thing, she’s still the girl with the most fake . . . uh, cake.

Pussycats and a Cougar

Speaking of b.j.s, just down the Strip a few nights later we stood in a room full of ladies who surely could make the same claim as Courtney — and then some. The release bash for Pamela Des Barres’ tantalizing new tome, Let’s Spend the Night Together, at Book Soup last Thursday packed in young fans and Des Barres’ still-foxy older friends (ex Michael Des Barres,Duran Duran’s John Taylor and Bananarama’s Siobhan Fahey) to hear famed “rock muses and supergroupies” featured in the book, including Lori Maddox,Mercy Fonenot,Pleasant Gehman and Cassandra Peterson (a.k.a. Elvira), read from chapters dedicated to their romances and trysts. One particularly riotous read came from Des Barres GTO comrade Miss Mercy, who read her recounting of a romp with Al Green as though the info she was conveying was all news to her. (“Really?” she said after one passage. “Wow, I don’t remember it like that!”) Yes, these seductresses may be older, but they’re still hot as hell even if they do need glasses (as Gehman pointed out in her sassy cat-eyed bifocals, before serving up a steamy account of her night with Iggy Pop). And by the way, there’s even a chapter about a pre-Love Kurt Cobain from a mysterious gal named only as Miss B. Russ Meyer’s babe Tura Satana (who bedded Elvis), Cynthia Plaster Caster and Bebe Buell are just some of the other felines who tell all in the book. Talk about a hot summer read . . .

We’ve never been the groupie type, but after the reading, we hopped down the block to the Viper Room, and, ironically, discovered a band that just might turn us into one. Wounded Cougar, dude! Dunno how we never heard of these sexy, wacky, wigged/masked mashers before, but their headbangin’ masterpieces like “Touchdown on Your Ass” and “Please My Gun” left us giddy. We later learned that the group is actually made up of members of Beck’s band. But joke project or no, the cowbell-crazed glam-metal groovesters rocked so hard we didn’t even stay for headliner Har Mar Superstar featuring The Strokes’ Fabricio Moretti on drums (the reason we popped by in the first place). WuCu are pants-dropping perfection all by themselves. Catch their cat scratch fever at Safari Sam’s this Monday, July 30, and see what we mean.

The warmer months always come with a boatload of birthday parties to attend, and the past few weeks the candles have sure been a-blowin’ — luckily in the direction of nightspots we’ve been meaning to check out. Over at Sahara at The Hollywood Canteen last Wednesday, club writer Julien Leuthold and Weekly marketing maven Jessica Jerrick packed their parties onto the outdoor dance floor along with the club’s young and fashionable regulars. We choose to escape the cigs, hats and ginormous earrings in the comfy Airstream trailer on the patio, but we definitely liked the place . . . Teenacide Records sweetie Jim Freek had many rockin’ mateys over recently at downtown’s Redwood, a.k.a. “the pirate bar,” including members of Peachfuzz, The Thingz, The Glossines, The Shakes, The Plimsouls and Sisely & The Safety Pin-Ups (the band fronted by Search for the Next Pussycat Dolls’ contestant Sisely Treasure). Freek tells us his label’s release of her cover of the Saints’ “Do the Robot” was No. 1 on Little Steven’s garage rock chart in Billboard last week. Knew that lass — like all the gals we covered this week — had sass . . .

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