Thursday, August 18, 2005
When two worlds collide
For the second time in less than a year, something close and personal was on CNN.com (a space mainly reserved for national and international concerns).
The last time I found something, I sent Billy Zoom an e-mail. "Did you know you were on CNN this morning?" "No, where?"
This time it concerned a place I had played at on more than one occasion.
Most people outside of California would have probably never heard of it. People in town (non-musicians) probably never gave it a second glance. Just a stone's throw away from UCLA, it competed with dozens of local attractions including Westwood itself.
A part of the excerpt read like this:
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Esther Wong, who booked a who's who of punk rock and new wave bands at her popular Madame Wong's clubs in the 1970s and '80s, has died. She was 88.
She died Sunday at her Los Angeles home, her daughter, Melinda Braun, said Wednesday. She had suffered from emphysema and cancer.
Wong, who earned the nickname the "godmother of punk," showcased such popular groups as the Police, X, the Go-Gos, Oingo Boingo, the Motels, the Knack, the Textones and Plane English early in their careers, giving many groups their first major break.
The native of China originally booked Polynesian bands to play at her restaurant, but when hardly anyone showed up to hear them she decided to take a chance on rock acts. Almost overnight in 1978, hundreds of people began showing up at her Chinatown restaurant to hear the new sounds, and she opened a Madame Wong's West in Santa Monica that same year.
The first time I ever walked into Madame Wong's was on a busy Saturday night. I don't remember much about that first visit except that it was crowded. On two other occasions I saw Brian Wilson's ex wife's band (woo hoo) and a post rockabilly band where the guitarist played a left handed Strat not strung to facilitate easy playing.
The last band I saw there was the Red Devils (that was cool).
At this point in time all the new wave bands had already made it and were playing the Universal, Pacific or the Greek. The remainder of my visits were constituted of the dates that I played with various bands.
One one or two occasions we had a good turn out. Because most of these nights were Sundays, turn outs were usually small. I don't remember other bands or even much of an audience. Even the sound man was nameless and faceless (usually disappearing somewhere in the middle of your set).
Remember the Peanuts cartoons where you never see the adults and they usually sound like trumpets? That pretty much sums it up for me.
I read an article once where Mrs. Wong said they usually gave the bands free beer and wondered why they never came back. Maybe because they never got paid (or was that just me?)
The last time I found something, I sent Billy Zoom an e-mail. "Did you know you were on CNN this morning?" "No, where?"
This time it concerned a place I had played at on more than one occasion.
Most people outside of California would have probably never heard of it. People in town (non-musicians) probably never gave it a second glance. Just a stone's throw away from UCLA, it competed with dozens of local attractions including Westwood itself.
A part of the excerpt read like this:
LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Esther Wong, who booked a who's who of punk rock and new wave bands at her popular Madame Wong's clubs in the 1970s and '80s, has died. She was 88.
She died Sunday at her Los Angeles home, her daughter, Melinda Braun, said Wednesday. She had suffered from emphysema and cancer.
Wong, who earned the nickname the "godmother of punk," showcased such popular groups as the Police, X, the Go-Gos, Oingo Boingo, the Motels, the Knack, the Textones and Plane English early in their careers, giving many groups their first major break.
The native of China originally booked Polynesian bands to play at her restaurant, but when hardly anyone showed up to hear them she decided to take a chance on rock acts. Almost overnight in 1978, hundreds of people began showing up at her Chinatown restaurant to hear the new sounds, and she opened a Madame Wong's West in Santa Monica that same year.
The first time I ever walked into Madame Wong's was on a busy Saturday night. I don't remember much about that first visit except that it was crowded. On two other occasions I saw Brian Wilson's ex wife's band (woo hoo) and a post rockabilly band where the guitarist played a left handed Strat not strung to facilitate easy playing.
The last band I saw there was the Red Devils (that was cool).
At this point in time all the new wave bands had already made it and were playing the Universal, Pacific or the Greek. The remainder of my visits were constituted of the dates that I played with various bands.
One one or two occasions we had a good turn out. Because most of these nights were Sundays, turn outs were usually small. I don't remember other bands or even much of an audience. Even the sound man was nameless and faceless (usually disappearing somewhere in the middle of your set).
Remember the Peanuts cartoons where you never see the adults and they usually sound like trumpets? That pretty much sums it up for me.
I read an article once where Mrs. Wong said they usually gave the bands free beer and wondered why they never came back. Maybe because they never got paid (or was that just me?)
