PJ on Vice - and the power of its ways

Muso PJ Powers has lived the life of a typical rock star and suffered from the vices that have claimed many a superstar - booze, sex and drugs.

How she managed to keep the sordid details of her life as related in her new memoir, Here I Am, out of the tabloids is a miracle.

Just like Billie Holliday, Hank Williams and Amy Winehouse, who all suffered from similar problems and died, Powers was on her way to death.

The alcohol and drug abuse became her comfort, "a space where all the sharp edges and cliffs were smoothed over and made easy".

"Soon I couldn't move without having a supply of alcohol at hand and would stash some in my car," she writes.

"I would hide bottles in my boots in the cupboard or in the pockets of my dressing gown."

She also revisits her several trips to rehab and AA meetings, and the night she woke up and decided to ingest Flex hairspray. Before that, her sister Priscilla had drunk "industrial-strength" aphid poison after a squabble, and subsequently fell into a coma in hospital.

She admits that in her "blind rage", probably fuelled by alcohol, she "assaulted" her partner, marketing guru Yvonne Johnston.

But Powers also offers some hilarious encounters with local and international celebrities during her more than three-decades-long music career, including:

• A light moment between the late Brenda Fassie and Eric Clapton, who were performing in Mozambique in the "most luxurious" of tents erected for the performers. Fassie got wind of the fact that Clapton had a Persian carpet in his toilet and allegedly said to him, "Do you think your shit smells different to mine?" to which Clapton responded, "Go ahead, you're welcome to use it."
• At the Saxon Hotel, Oprah Winfrey attended Madiba's birthday afterparty in her pyjamas. She writes: "I recall looking at her and saying, 'You're in your pyjamas!' and she replied, 'They're cashmere.'"