Quote:
Originally Posted by Handsome Stranger
Yes, I saw many shows at Madame Wong's in Chinatown as well as Madam Wong's West in Santa Monica. Around 1982 I was in a band that played at both clubs about a half-dozen times. I'm trying to recall the names of other clubs I went to. Hong Kong Cafe, Mabuhay Gardens, Cathay de Grande, Club Lingerie, The Anti-Club, among others. I'm sure I was at Club 88 once or twice but it didn't leave much of an impression on me. The venue I went to more than any other was the Starwood, at Santa Monica Blvd. and Crescent Heights. I saw around 50 or 60 shows there...great memories. Never got to visit the legendary Masque in Hollywood, alas.
I once paid $4 for a show at the Whiskey A Go Go with Devo, Blondie, and the Ramones on the same bill. They were all relatively unknown at the time.
I was never a punk per se. The local alternative music scene was incredibly diverse and attracted all manner of odd ducks, myself included.
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Ah Madame Wong's, as immortalized in the Circle Jerks' "I Just Want Some Skank," "Let's go to the Hong Kong/Breaking glass at Madame Wong's/Let's go get a pint of booze/getting drunk getting loose" i.e.
here at 3:25.
When we were old enough to pile into my RX3 and head from Santa Barbara to LA in the mid-80s for shows, the hardcore scene was pretty much over, though we saw some good gigs at the Olympic (Circle Jerks, Vandals, Fear et al) but mostly the postpunk thing was happening, Butthole Surfers and Alien Sex Fiend and those characters. I was there for the July '86
riot at a Cramps show at the Palladium (there was a
similar incident at a Ramones show about two months later). The LAPD, whom I now revere, were very quick to hassle kids and crack heads, God bless 'em. Here's five-0 at the Palladium in 1984:
lapl
My impression of LA at the time? It was pretty bleak. And comparatively treeless—few of the now-giant sidewalk-destroying ficus had been planted, or at least had grown much. The smog was like pea soup. I just recall thinking it a giant concrete hellscape.
In another clip from The Decline here's Eugene, at 8:15, summing up life in LA, 1980:
Q: The pent-up aggression, where does that come from?
Eugene: Well with me it just comes from, like, living in the city, just seeing all the ugly old people, and just the *ing buses, and just the dirt, that's what I see all the time, so I'm just *ing bummed, thinking about that.
When I moved here in the mid-90s it was still the LA of the riots, crack, and you had to seek out your fun. LA seemed just emerging from the intellectual vacuity of the 1970s. Yes, now we have immigration and homelessness and overdevelopment, but my God has this place gentrified. And has trees. More to the point, in relation to the NLA thread, barely a day goes by, certainly not a weekend, where there isn't some amazing LA history-related activity, whether it be tours or lectures or film screenings or what-have-you. I'd say we're living in a golden age, but of course we wouldn't recognize it as such, during.