FRIDAY MAGAZINE

ROCK AROUND THE TOWN  ALMOST EVERY NIGHT

Text by Milt Petty 
Daily News photos by Ed Magnus

   You've got your $12 concert tickets in your coat pocket, tickets that three weeks ago cost you an hour and a skipped biology class to get. You're off to see one of your favorite bands in an oversized basketball arena. Gas has already cost you $4, now the attendant wants $2 for parking.
   So you haul out another couple of bucks, fight the parking lot traffic for a space, and in you go… but not before you've waited in another line and endured an embarrassing skin search, administered by a local wrestler.
   Now to find your seats. Let's see: section 26, row ZZ, seats 99 and 100, "Follow that stairway to the top row and turn left," the usher tells you.
   That's when you begin to wonder: Is rock 'n' roll really worth all that effort?
   And that's when you start looking for alternatives.
   Lucky for you, Los Angeles has a lot to offer in the form of nightclubs. You may not see Led Zeppelin or the Stones, but chances are the band will be fair to good, admission reasonable, drinks no more costly than at a concert and you'll actually be able. to see the players (usually within hook shot range).
   With the advent of the less-is-more ethic, and since it takes so much money to put a band into a tourful of concert halls, clubs are attracting even the most successful bands.
   Just as the new rock bands, circa 1976, took time to develop, so has the ever-expanding club scene that gives these artists a chance to play.
   And just as bands have come and gone, sometimes before you can memorize which has a nearsighted singer and has a left-handed guitarist, the clubs change formats faster than you can say Whiskey Alexander…
   Not too long ago local rock bands were hard up for play space and the L.A. rock scene was discombobulated at best. If a band wasn't sufficiently established to rate a date at the Roxy it could easily get discouraged. The Whisky A-Go-Go, Starwood and Troubadour were about the only rock nightclubs and even they weren't doing good business. The once-dominant Troub, in fact, was closed for a while.
   But in garages and warehouses across town, performers were experimenting with a new music, a punk-inspired reaction to disco and soft rock.
   Some of them booked their own dates. For example, The Nerves, a band comprising players who have since gone on to greater things, found its own places to play and also helped introduce LA. staples such as The Weirdos, The Germs and The Zippers.
   By 1977, 26-year-old Brendan Mullen was booking concerts in a place called The Masque, located literally underneath the Pussycat Theatre in Hollywood, offering the first few gigs free and still only able to draw maybe 50 people. That house closed that same year (a result of police and fire department pressure), so Mullen booked shows at the Other Masque near Santa Monica and Vine.
   That one fared much better and suddenly Mullen was a trend-setter.
   The Whisky, under the direction of successful concert promoter David Forrest, began to book these new rock acts. The Roxy had taken over from the Troubadour as the top rock showcase at the time, but because of Forrest's daring venture into new rock the Whisky today has reassumed its position as the L.A. club for new music.
   But perhaps the most significant date in recent L.A. rock club history came in October 1978. That's when Esther and George Wong, owners and operators of Madame Wong's chinese restaurant in Chinatown, dropped its Polynesian entertainment and began booking new wave acts.

(continued on page 23)
<page 23 missing>  

Page 39.
"Rock Around Town..."