Tommy Lee, Gypsy Bar, March 1, 2007
By JIM SULLIVAN | March 6, 2007
Tommy Lee may be one of rock’s best-known drummers, but drumming isn’t really what he’s known best for. No, Tommy Lee’s best known for being Tommy Lee. It all started when he inadvertently co-starred in a very naughty videotape; now he’s the star of tommylee.tv. He played in the University of Nebraska marching band as part of an MTV reality-TV series. He designed a line of clothes based on his tattoos. He’s become an animal-rights activist, and a key member of a band built through another reality-TV show, Rock Star. He wrote about his adventures in Tommyland. And last Thursday, this hard-working man in the celebrity biz was at the Gypsy Bar to spin discs with his partner DJ Aero in what they’ve dubbed “big ass analog.”The occasion was “Party like a Rock Star,” and it celebrated the Boston launch of P.I.N.K. vodka — the 80-proof, five-times-distilled spirit from Holland that has caffeine and guarana, so you can get two jolts at once. “There’s a new vodka coming out every day,” said the P.I.N.K. rep. “It’s all about lifestyle.” The target market? “Post-college kids who want status but will drink anything. We’re fighting for our share of the stomach.” A P.I.N.K. martini ran $12. Or you could buy a fifth for $30. The club encouraged the wearing of pink pajamas to gain access to Lee’s lair. Some ladies did wear pink, but it seemed anyone could roam anywhere, and as best I could tell no one got into Lee’s DJ booth.
The Gypsy Bar, at the old Pravda 116 location, was comfortably full with undulating bodies and pumped with propulsive high-octane party music. Lee, in a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt and a black cap pulled down over his face, remained in the booth, throwing his multi-tattoo’d arms in the air now and then so you could say, “Yep, sure looks like Tommy Lee.”
“It’s my second time here,” said Hugo Duran, one of a group of sailors just off the JFK aircraft carrier. “I like the atmosphere . . . ” Armando Billalta added, “A lot of the girls here are showing us the love.” Sky Matthews, dressed in a blue-and-white babydoll dress with eight-inch platform stilettos, was there because, as she put it, “I’m a novice drummer and I was raised on Mötley Crüe. I was kicked out of Christian camp for writing Mötley Crüe lyrics on the wall.”
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