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Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
Your posts have been a breath of fresh air Scott Charles. Pleeeeeeaze keep contributing.
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Thanks, ER!
It's nice to feel welcome!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ethereal_reality
I’ve made abysmal mistakes (and some silly ones too) Early in the thread I wrote that I could see an airplane’s entrails in the sky of an old photograph. GW pointed out, rather gleefully, that I must have meant contrails.
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Okay then, allow me to use this as an excuse to comment on some of my favorite posts in this thread, ones that stir personal memories:
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This post of yours,
ER, about the Stardust Ballroom. I went there in the late 80s to see a live show. The band performing was Einstürzende Neubauten, which in German means “tearing down new buildings” - an idea I’d bet that many here would like to take literally!
Lead singer Blixa Bargeld began the show by walking out holding a jerry can style gasoline can, which he then emptied all over the stage. Then he lit a match. As people started shifting uncomfortably and eyeing the exits, Blixa tossed the match down into the puddle and yelled out "It's WATER!" Then the band erupted into their first song.
For decades I’ve thought of that venue, but had no way of finding
any information about it - I didn’t remember the name of the venue, and nobody I knew even remembered the place. I couldn't believe it when I found it in this thread!
I guess the place finally shut down in 1989. It sure wasn't in very good shape when I was there.
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Any pictures of the old CBS Columbia Square building at 5121 Sunset Blvd. My mom worked at CBS for 34 years, and I spent countless hours in that building, since the time I was five until I was maybe 20. I was a real quiet, polite kid, so nobody minded it when my mother brought me in with her. I still remember everyone’s names there, including a 25 year-old Keith Olbermann (I know he's a polarizing figure, but he was always extremely nice to my mom and I).
My mom told me that some time in the 60s, the Rolling Stones did some kind of recording in the building, on the fourth floor (which was where the audio studios were - my mom worked on the third floor... the TV news studios were on the first floor... TV
shows were filmed at a different location, over at "TV City" on Beverly).
The walls on the fourth floor were
carpeted at the time (groovy, man)... and the Stones
peed on them. The Vice President and General Manager of KNX (CBS radio) George Nicolaw was furious. Everything had to be torn out and replaced, and the Stones were forever banned from the building.
All these decades later, I can still remember my mom's phone number at CBS - area code 213, 460-3350, extension 350. Nowadays, with cellphones, I don't remember
anybody's phone number. Remember how we used to memorize all of our friend's phone numbers by heart?
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Or
this post by HossC - my first real job was working at that exact Standard Shoes store, I was 15 or 16. Of course, the decor was a lot less
psychedelic by the time I was working there, but other than the colors, it was absolutely identical to those photos. Seeing those photos was a real flashback!
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Or
this other post by HossC - I used to be a regular at the Dresden, as well as at the Onyx coffee house (1802 N. Vermont), so it was quite a thrill to see what those places looked like back in the 1950s.
I knew the Dresden's original owner,
Carl Ferraro, and have been seeing
Marty and Elayne perform since the early 90s. I still know people there, in fact I just got a text message from one of them who's working there right now.
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So yeah, it's been great rekindling all these old memories in this thread - and that's
in addition to the subject matter of the thread, old LA buildings, one of my greatest interests! So thanks once again, ER, for giving us all a place to reminisce about old time LA!