[Slauson Slim]

Weekend before last my wife and I went to LA for a friend's wedding. We stayed in a hotel on the Sunset Strip across from The Comedy Store.

I recognized The Comedy Store building as formerly housing Ciro's nightclub, and also in the '60s It's Boss and Kaleidoscope. And then struck a memory of an evening 52 years ago....

In June, 1966, the night before I went to the USAF - made the memorable 4:30 am trip to the induction center in Downtown LA - my then girlfriend and I went to Ciro's to see the band Love. We shared a booth with a US Marine about my age in dress blues - post-basic on his way to combat training - and his girlfriend.

Bittersweet recollections. I had just turned 18, the end of my being a teenager and my life at home with my family - I went right from high school to the USAF, the uncertainty of my future, I never saw that girlfriend again - she spotted me in Berkeley years later a friend told me, what a great live show Arthur Lee, Johnny Echols and the band put on, and the undercurrent of the Vietnam War. After the show and leaving Ciro's the Marine and I wished each other good luck.

On another note, good to see recollections of relatively recent - well, the '80s - music memories. I played at Madame Wong's SM in 1979, and went to Club Lingerie a couple of times in the mid-'80s. Early '80s LA was also home to the wonderful Paisley Underground scene - Rain Parade, Dream Syndicate, Three O'Clock, Opal - later Mazzy Star, Bangles and others.