Riki Rachtman @ The Woodshed, Royal Park SA 3/6/2023
‘A lot of women who showed up at the Cathouse dressed like porn stars and strippers because…well they were porn stars and strippers’ Riki Rachtman, one of the most infamous characters on the Sunset Strips heyday informs the audience at his first stand up show in Australia.
Titled One Foot In The Gutter, the stand up tour has just completed a couple of dozen shows in the States and lands down under for the first time ever.
The Woodshed in Adelaide, a unique and character driven haven to the glory days of metal complete with a replica of the Elder door from Kiss, giant Marshall stacks, tables each showcasing a classic rock album of the past (I had Kiss Destroyer) and two toilets each with its own Use Your Illusion album cover for a door, is the venue for the first stop.
Guns N Roses feature heavily in a set that starts with a karaoke version of the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive, and thankfully builds from there.
You wanna know about Riki’s early days discovering music like Alice Cooper and Kiss? It’s here. You wanna know how to listen to vinyl properly? He teaches you. You wanna know what happened with Axl Rose and Vince Neil? Done. You wanna know what happened with Axl Rose and David Bowie? You’re told in glorious and humorous detail.
Riki is an engaging host, understanding that times have changed but the audience still wants the juice from the Cathouse days. If that means we now know childhood crush Lita Ford chucked up in the toilets, so be it.
It’s intimate and you really do feel you’re part of a secret society, sitting around the stage making it feel like we are truly getting the dirt.
Talking of The Dirt, Riki happily pokes fun at himself including how he ended up DJ at Tommy Lee’s and Heather Locklear’s wedding. It’s the photos of the hair that crack you up.
The hilarity of his own failed music career, is matched by the craziness of the Cathouse years. This culminates in showing the rarely seen GNR It’s So Easy video which was filmed there complete with scantily clad ladies chained up that ends part 1.
In part two, the wildness that is Rachtman’s life goes worldwide with Headbangers Ball. Interviews with Ozzy, Lemmy, Chris Cornell and Pantera are all cheered and laughed at with the audience who are enthralled by the behind the scenes secrets.
To Riki’s word though it’s not all fun and games. Showing a clip of an uncomfortable interview with Nirvana brings my own PTSD flashback of a terrible interview I’ve once did. Hey if the king of cool rock n roll interviewing can crash and burn and get over it, I can too. Thanks for the inspiration dude.
After around two and a quarter hours, Riki finishes with some rare death defying Alice In Chains footage and greets everyone for photos and chats with an audience that truly enjoyed the sneak peek into the hedonistic scene we all adored.
Headbangers Ball may not have been in Australia, but Riki’s influence is in everything we cherish from that time and to be given exclusive access to the man and his stories is not to be taken lightly. So if you want to laugh, gasp, rock out and have a fucking great time , you check out Riki Rachtman’s One Foot In The Gutter show.
Live Review By Iain McCallum