[HossC]

Originally Posted by Martin Pal

This past week I've been trying to figure out the names of the places located at 8433 Sunset Blvd. location after Ciro's closed in 1957 until The Comedy Store from 1972 - present. There's a lot of mis-information online, much of it from random memory.

I found that photo you posted E_R online, too. I'm beginning to think that whomever or whatever the owners of it were, that it was often rented out for periods of time under different names, because nothing seems to have lasted there for very long, 18 months at most from my findings so far, and on at least one occasion it was being shared by two different places...I think. Heh!

I'll post what I have found so far, soon. Thanks for the CD info HossC. That lends credence to my notion that different entities were using it for club space with different names.

This excerpt from an article about Art Laboe in the May 4, 1974 edition of Billboard seems to confirm the ephemeral nature of the tenants of 8433 Sunset in the late-60s.
NB. I've OCR'd the text as the layout wasn't screen-friendly.

Back to the 1960s, Laboe left radio in 1961 because the station he was on at the time (with Alan Freed) went to an all-black format and he felt the record label demanded his full attention.

"Being a disk jockey was my first love," he says, "but the company had grown to a point where it required full attention.

"At one time Larry Finley and I had done an interview show in the lobby of Ciro's, a popular club on the strip. We talked to movie stars like Clark Gable, Tyrone Power, Gary Cooper and so on.

"Anyway, the club had run through a succession of failures and by 1967 was being used primarily for private parties. I went to a New Year's Eve party there that year and decided that I wanted to do something with the club. But I was busy with the label at the time and a group called Dyke & the Blazers, so I temporarily shelved the idea."

In June, 1972, however, Laboe opened Art Laboe's Club. It was launched as an oldies club, open 8:30 p.m. to 2 a.m. weekends, featuring as many as eight acts a night and including a $3.50 admission price with no requirement to buy food or drink once inside.

A house band provided music for continuous dancing, and artists included Ron Holden (now M.C.), Don Julian and the Larks, the Medallions, Coasters, Penguins, Shirley & Lee, Bob B. Sox, Jesse Hill, and Tony Allen.

"I used my name," Laboe says, "because I felt I had a strong local following and I thought a club with my name would do better than a club that simply stressed oldies. Besides, most of the artists do contemporary songs as well as their big hits."

In October, 1972, an upstairs section of the club opened and ever since, Laboe has been broadcasting from 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. weekends over KRTH-FM, an oldies station. He takes dedications just as he did in the old days.

"We don't get the typical Hollywood crowd," he says. "We have a lot of Mexican-Americans, who have been so important to rock in L.A., a lot of kids from the Valley and a generally older crowd, running from about 28 to the mid-30s. If I had to depend on the Hollywood crowd, I'd be out of business."

What is the need for such a club? "People of that era," Laboe says bluntly, "really don't have anywhere else to go. They don't like current hard rock but they don't like Vegas-type material either. We give them the music they want and what we hope is a relaxed atmosphere. Basically, we have found a need and we are try-ing to fill it."

The club holds some 400 people. Liquor and food are served; there is a stage and dance area as well as bars upstairs and down.

The club is used for more than oldies, however. Johnny Rivers has stopped in to play, as have top musi-cians such as Jim Gordon. Dean Parks and Tom Scott as well as comedian Redd Foxx.

Joni Mitchell, Harry Nilsson, Jim Capaldi, Rivers, George Harrison, Richard Perry, Karen Valentine, Patti Boyd and Mickey Dolenz have showed up as customers more than once.

"Nobody bothers them here," Laboe says. "Most of our customers don't know who they are and if they do they let them alone."

In addition, there is a weekly Songwriter's Showcase at the club to spotlight new talent (Thursdays), a good amount of record company parties from firms such as Elektra/Asylum and MGM, parties for movies such as "American Graffitti" and "Let the Goodtimes Roll" and radio station parties.

Laboe has also started a new record label, Now Records, to deal with the contemporary product. One result of this is Ron Holden's soul hit, "Can You Talk." It is Holden's first chart disk since 1960.

Original Sound still issues one LP a year, and starting this year the covers will all be double fold. Old covers will be redone and some cuts will be updated on the older product. The ma-terial is still aggressively merchandised through rackjobbers such as J.L. Marsh and Handleman and chains such as Sears and K-Mart. There is still N and radio advertising.

"K-Mart does an ideal job for us," Laboe says. "They don't place the product in the record department; they put it in the aisles in main sections of the store. We've found that it's not the kids, but the housewives with kids who buy our product. The 24 to 49 age bracket is the one that works best for us."

As for getting the product. Laboe says he still has a lot of masters and that others are no more difficult to purchase than they were 15 years ago. They are simply a bit more ex-pensive because their value is recognized more.

What about the old days? "I think everyone believes they were better and in a way. maybe they were," says Laboe. "I tend to think of carefree summers and more of fun atmosphere. Maybe this is just because this was a very happy time in my life. There were more clubs, people got out more and things just seemed healthier. I still have a lot of people from El Monte come in, and they feel they're seeing an old friend.

"But," he emphasizes, "you can't live in the past. This is why I keep the club going with oldies and contemporary things, market old and contemporary products and have just built a brand new studio. We're thinking of an indefinite run for the club, with all kinds of things going on."

For the moment, Art Laboe seems like someone with the best of both worlds.

A sign for Art Leboe's club appears very briefly at the start of this video called "1970s Sunset Blvd Drive, Hollywood, Old Los Angeles in HD from 35mm".

• Video Link

I had planned to post a screengrab, but Photobucket is once again refusing to let me upload anything (it had been working again for nearly a week!).

ETA. After about 20 minutes of trying, I finally got the image to upload!


YouTube