Got a Head and a Foot in a Garbage Can…

Double Talkin’ Jive is a song that appears on Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion I album.  The song wasn’t a hit.  But it was popular enough that the band regularly played it at their live shows between 91′ and 93′.

In this post, we’re going to take a closer look at the very first line in the lyrics, and the real event that inspired it.

 

Found a head and an arm in da garbage can
Don’t know why I’m here
Livin’ on the run for oh so long
I gotta go collect
Double talkin’ jive
Get the money motherfucker
‘Cause I got no more patience
Double talkin’
-I got (lies)-
No more patience man

 

Here’s Slash’s account, from his autobiography:

One event that got everyone talking during the recording of Illusions I and II was the day there was a huge commotion in the alley. It turned out that the cops found a dismembered arm and a head in the Dumpster behind the studio. All I know is that we didn’t do it, but Izzy turned the event into a lyric on “Double Talking Jive.”

Drummer Matt Sorum:

So…just who was this unfortunate soul?

As far as I can tell, there’s nothing on the net that explicitly connects the event mentioned by members of the band, with a documented real-life event.

But, maybe we can figure it out?  First, let’s try to establish a location.

The band utilized several different L.A. recording studios in the making of the Illusions records.  A&M (now Jim Henson Studios), Record Plant, and Studio 56 (now defunct), among others.

 

 

In 2010 Sorum appeared on the show “Celebrity Ghost Stories”.  He discussed a series of creepy encounters he and an associate had late one night in the mid-nineties, at Studio 56.  Sorum attributes them to the person who’s head and arm(s) were found outside in a dumpster, a few years earlier.  So, it would seem, he’s talking about the same event.  He was there with GNR when the body parts were discovered.  Then, a few years later, at the same location, he and a friend have their strange encounter, and he connects the two in his mind.

So, we definitely now have a firm location – Studio 56.  Now let’s try to pin down the year.

In the Ghost Stories clip, Sorum mentions the original event happening in “about 1991”.  As I’ll propose in a minute, I believe the event in question happened in 1990, so I’m going to disregard Sorum here.

Guns’ played just two shows in all of 1990.  They were busy working on Illusions. The bulk of the recording work for Illusions was completed in 90′, and starting in January of 91 at Rock in Rio II, they began touring again, and generally getting on with the business of promoting a record.

So for now, let’s go with that.  Year: 1990.  Location: Studio 56, located at 7000 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.  Let’s see if we can find anything that matches up.

Not having access to police records, the obvious thing to do would be to check the L.A. Times.  The crime, and especially the murder rate, in L.A., in the early 90’s, was a lot higher than it is today, but you’d think something as gruesome as a human head and arms showing up in a dumpster would still be worthy of a paragraph or two, even back then, wouldn’t you?  But, maybe not?

The entire archive of the Times going back to 1881 is available, and searchable, on the site newspapers.com.  I spent hours and hours searching for something even remotely connected to the details we’ve established: location, time period, the loose specifics of the event, etc., but got nothing…nada.  And as far as I can tell, the OCR used on the scanned newsprint is near flawless.  Super-computer-like.  It’s really remarkable.

Maybe I’m overlooking something, but I think the truth of it is, is that this event didn’t even make the paper.  

 

 

But what if it wasn’t a head and an arm?  What if instead, it was a head and a foot?

 

Sometime between October 28th and October 30th (sources vary – s. 1, 2, 3, 4 – #1 and #2 nsfw), the head and feet of gay adult film performer William Newton were found in a garbage dumpster in an alley behind Santa Monica Blvd., in West Hollywood.  His murder remains unsolved to this very day.

What are the odds that this is the guy?  How many human heads and feet (or arms for that matter) showed up in back alley dumpsters, in West Hollywood, right behind Santa Monica Blvd in 1990 or 1991?

I think this might be the guy.

Interestingly, October 30th, 1990, and the days leading up to it, were rather eventful in the world of Guns N’ Roses.

First though, let’s see if we can pin down the exact date of the discovery of Newton’s remains a little tighter.  Of the sources I linked, the most trustworthy I think would have to be this one.  The author spoke directly with Newton’s father.  Presumably, he was able to double check the dates with him.

So let’s go with the 29th being the day Newton goes missing, and the 30th being the day his head and feet were discovered in the dumpster.  Now moving on to those interesting GNR related events:

1 – With Newton’s head and feet either sitting in the dumpster behind Studio 56, or about to be deposited there, Axl Rose was getting into an altercation with a neighbor in his apartment building, in which she accused him of hitting her over the head with a wine bottle (1, 2).

This dust-up with the neighbor, and the general situation leading up to to it, were the inspiration for the Axl penned song Right Next Door to Hell, the opening track on Use Your Illusion I.

2 – Just a few days earlier, according to a Rose interview conducted on the 30th (video below), Rose’s wife Erin Everly (Sweet Child O’ Mine) suffered a miscarriage.  In his book Watch You Bleed: The Saga of Guns N’ Roses, Stephen Davis says the miscarriage was on exactly the 29th.  Davis can be an entertaining read, but I don’t know how much importance he places on facts.

Strangely enough though, on the front page of the October 29th Times (1,2), there’s a story about miscarriages – scientific advances to prevent them, etc.

Six years later…Can’t help but mention this…

October 31, 1996.  With wildfires around the hills of his Malibu home having been extinguished just a day or two prior, Axl fires off a fax to MTV, letting the world know that Slash is no longer a member of Guns N’ Roses.

Wrapping things up, for now anyway….I suspect it indeed WAS the remains of William Arnold Newton that Sorum, Slash et al., have been unknowingly referencing all these years; the real life event that lives on forever in Double Talkin’ Jive.  But I might be wrong.  I guess the only way to know for sure would be to get those police reports.

(Likely) to be continued…