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ORANGE COUNTY | M O D E R N L U X U R Y ™ORANGE COUNTY | M O D E R N L U X U R Y ™

+PLUSBIKINI BACCHANALIAMUST-HAVE MUSIC!BAR-HOPPING, O.C.-STYLEALANIS IS OVER IT!GETTING SEXY WITH THE SHYSAND ALL THE BEST PARTIES...

THE NIGHTLIFE ISSUE ’08!THE PLAYERS!THE SCENE!THE CLUBS!THE BARS!+ MORE

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You think you know swing? You think you know swank? You thinknothing ever swam until you hit the tank? Wrong, wrong, ever so wrong.Let us tell you about some real dinosaur nightlife. Sex! Cocktails!Cigarettes! Swanksters swapping swanky sobriquets! It was all here, andlet’s not forget Pop Tarts! (more on them later.)

Suppose it’s the 1940s and you’re headed down from Hollywood toyour sailboat in Newport Harbor, you, Bogie and Spencer Tracy. Maybeyou’d pause for a steak at Huntington Beach’s Golden Bear, a requisitePCH pit stop from the 1920s onward. Once in Newport, you’d likelyseek liquid provision at the Arches.

“What, the Arches was around back then?”Buddy, it was here when the conquistadors arrived, right where the

new A is now. Or maybe you’d have cocktails at Balboa Island’s White’sPub (now the Village Inn). You’d have a few drinks, dinner and thenmaybe escort some local talent upstairs, where four rooms could berented by the hour.

Salacious? You should have seen HB in the 1920s, when it was theoilfield boomtown that inspired Upton Sinclair’s Oil, which in turn inspiredThere Will Be Blood. There was indeed blood in the largely lawless town, aswildcatters fought, drank and whored their way to oily oblivion.

Things were more quiescent in O.C.’s other coastal towns. You couldget a bite at Laguna’s White House Café, but not much else. The biggestnoise in Newport was the Rendezvous Ballroom. Built in 1928, in the1930s it was a frequent home to the swing bands of Benny Goodman,Artie Shaw and others. Fed a steady stream of revelers by the Pacific

Electric Red Line—which terminated at the Balboa Pavilion—theRendezvous was such a jumpin’ spot that when it was leveled by fire in1935, demand caused it to be rebuilt in three months. It was in the ’30sthat Bal Week began, with thousands of liquored-up youths convergingon Balboa over the Easter recess. In 1941 Stan Kenton and his new soundstook up residence at the Rendezvous.

By the late ’30s, HB was almost civilized, and in 1938 the PavalonBallroom—a WPA project nicknamed “the poor man’s Rendezvous”—opened next to the pier. World War II put a damper on things, when afear of Japanese submarines caused much of the coast to go dark. Whenthe troops returned home, though, they made up for lost time—1946 isremembered by many as “the party year,” and the party never quite let up.

Things were hopping by the 1950s. One popular coastal spot wasthe peninsula’s Beach Roamer with its indoor fire pit. Corona del Mar’sHurley Bell—where everything from the breadsticks on up was firstclass—was where you’d go to impress a date. The building was lovinglydesigned to resemble an 1135 English inn. If you lacked a date, maybeyou’d pop upstairs, where, like it was a Newport tradition or something,there were rooms with hookers. That trade ceased sometime before theHurley became the Five Crowns, but not before the mayor of NB gotarrested there one night.

The most swinging place along the coast was the Castawaysrestaurant, a very Vegas-like, non-family-oriented place reputed to rungambling on the side. It burned down in 1956; today a drably expensivehousing community on the site bears its name.

GLORY DAYS Sex! Surf! Rock! The history of Orange County’s vintage nightlife—it’s so last century!

CONTINUED...

LET’S GO TRIPPIN’: Dick Dale at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Newport Beach, 1961.

THERADARNIGHTLIFEBY JIM WASHBURN

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Other ’50s coat-and-tie joints on Goat Hill included theBlack Knight (where Pierce St. Annex is now) and Forrest Smith’s ElPescador, famous for its lobster thermador and its piano bar, the red vinylconfines of which remained a county staple into the ‘80s.

For much of the 1950s, the inland hotspot for dancing and music wasAnaheim’s Harmony Park ballroom. Originally a German beer hall withoom-pah band entertainment, Western swing was now more in vogue,with Cliffie Stone’s band of red-hot pickers such as Jimmy Bryant andSpeedy West working out on their new Fender electric instruments.Harmony Park is also where rock and roll first got a foothold in thecounty, with Santa Ana’s Rillera Brothers plying their mix of rock, R&Band Latin rhythm. One 1955 night there, Los Angeles R&B singer RichardBerry added lyrics to a Cuban instrumental the Rilleras played and theimmortal garage rocker “Louie Louie” was born.

If you didn’t mind doing your drinking out of a hip flask, Disneylandwas a swinging nightspot. It only cost $1 to get in the park (ride couponsran from 10-cents to 35-cents) and that covered seeing acts like LouisArmstrong or Count Basie, and, increasingly, folk and rock and roll. Inthe years ahead, names like Josh White, the Nigerian drummer Olatungiand Creedence Clearwater Revival played the park, which also gaveemployment to young local talents like Ry Cooder, David Lindley, SteveMartin and Chris Hillman.

As we head into the 1960s, it’s time to meet Greg Topper, the king ofOrange County nightlife. Topper’s performed and caroused through morethan four and a half decades of O.C. after dark, isn’t done yet, and was ourgo-to guy for much of the info that follows.

In 1961, he was freshly arrived from Montego Bay, Jamaica, wherehis mother had built the Half Moon Hotel on 400 acres of coastline. ForTopper, it had been pretty much his personal Pleasure Island.

“I was 12 when my brother arranged my first sexual encounter witha woman, under the boughs of a seagrape tree,” he recalls now. “Thingswere pretty loose there, and by age 13 I was doing the whole package:cigarettes, rum & Coke, sexual intercourse, driving my own car, whilehaving room service at the biggest hotel around. Then the business failedand I came back from all of that… to Fullerton?”

...CONTINUED

He tried to make the placeswing: his first O.C. gig was in ’61with a surf/covers band called theCrescents at Anaheim’s TamashaClub, “sort of a private country club, minus the golf course.” He alsogigged at the hopping north county La Palma Drive-In, aka the Bean Hut,where the Street Sweepers car club hung out.

With such a marvelously dissolute young life behind him, the Bean Hutand rival Hillcrest Drive-In just didn’t cut it, so Topper lied about his age andjoined the Marines. Much of his time in uniform was spent lowering moralsin Subic Bay, and, on Okinawa, as the only white guy in an 18-piece R&Bband called the Downbeats. He mustered out in ’65, enrolled at Cal StateFullerton, and resumed gigging around the county, which was swingingmore with every passing day.

Clubs and nightspots of all stripes popped up. In 1958, O.C. got itsfirst folk music club, Laguna’s Café Frankenstein, followed by Sid’s BlueBeet, in Laguna only briefly before moving to the Balboa Peninsula. OwnerSid Soffer hosted everyone from Mississippi bluesman Son House tohipster raconteur Lord Buckley to jazz saxman Art Pepper, who got bustedfor heroin right outside the place. He should have stuck with Sid’s $2 BeefStroganoff. Ask for salt, though, and Sid threw you out. Sid bought hisglassware at thrift shops, so your beer might come in a glass half the size ofyour tablemate’s. Complain, and Sid threw

“I had a whole wall coveredwith confiscated fake IDs. We would catch people behindthe curtains smoking dope, or having a little oral love-in ina corner or a restroom.”

SUMMER OF LOVE From left: The king ofO.C. nightlife, Greg Topper; concert postersfrom shows at San Clemente High andAnaheim Convention Center.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 126...

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you out. Other folk clubs included the resurrected Golden Bear, Seal Beach’s

Rouge et Noir, the peninsula’s Prison of Socrates—where clean-cut TimMorgon reigned—the Mon Ami (soon renamed the Paradox) in Orange,the Mecca in Buena Park and the Four Muses in San Clemente. Allpresented folk in a bohemian—though usually alcohol-free—atmosphere. On any given night, you might sip your hot apple cider tothe sounds of local talents like Jackson Browne, Tim Buckley, JenniferWarnes, Steve Gillette or Jose Feliciano.

By 1961 the county had its own indigenous music, which wasn’tscratched out on some old banjo, but was blasted by Dick Dale throughFender gear made especially for his elemental attack. Dick played surfmusic, not songs about surfing, but music that replicated the sensation ofshooting the curl, with reverb-soaked, palpable waves of sound thatwashed over his audiences. Goodbye big bands: Dale, the Chantays andother surf bands now filled the Rendezvous, Harmony Park and thePavalon with teens doing the surfer stomp. Guys wore gray Levi cords,unbuttoned Pendleton shirts over white tees, and Jack Purcell tennisshoes. Girls wore something less dorky.

O.C.’s other early-‘60s musical powerhouse was the RighteousBrothers. The county’s black population at the time probably could havefit in a snapshot, but the local Marine base was more integrated. BobbyHatfield and Bill Medley’s initial audiences were the black Marines whofrequented John’s Brown Derby in Santa Ana, as well as the Club Gardensand Tustin’s Barn restaurant.

By the mid-’60s, youth-oriented nightclubs were flourishing. GardenGrove Blvd. had Harvey’s Gold Street—owned by Harvey Belisle ofBelisle’s Restaurant—where there was dancing seven nights a week to theFifth Calvary or Brit Invasion-inspired bands like the Sundowners orJamie and the Jury. The boulevard was also home to the Chatterbox, andeast of that at Harbor Blvd. was the Playgirl club, later a topless joint andstill later owned by Dick Dale.

Other mid-county clubs included the Plush Teen Beat Club, theCinnamon Cinder and the Dance Mod. You’d even find rock nights, withlight shows, at the Orange YMCA.

Former doo-wop singer Ross Malodia owned Daisy May nightclubs inSanta Ana, Westminster and Orange. These were big rooms where hehosted the likes of Bo Diddley and Ike & Tina Turner. The clubs were namedfor the scantily clad Li’l Abner character, and waitresses dressed accordingly.

Malodia recalls his mid-’60s clientele as being a slacks, sport coatand dresses crowd, which only changed as things headed into the hippieyears. “Everyone looked sharp, and everyone was dancing. It was ayoung crowd, there to meet each other. The times were pretty wild,though, and we really had to police our places or the police themselveswould. I had a whole wall covered with confiscated fake IDs. We wouldcatch people behind the curtains smoking dope, or having a little orallove-in in a corner or a restroom.”

If that’s not reason enough to invent a time machine, in HuntingtonBeach there was a block of nightlife to rival the Sunset Strip. For starts, theGolden Bear wasn’t just for folkies anymore. You could see BuffaloSpringfield with Neil Young and Stephen Stills, the Doors, the Byrds, theLovin’ Spoonful, Lenny Bruce or Janis Joplin’s acne up real close.

Across the street, the Pavalon Ballroom was still rockin’, while nextto the Bear were the Syndicate 9000 and Salty Cellar clubs. TheSyndicate hosted the Iron Butterfly, Them and a young Meatloaf, whilethe house band was an early version of War. In a basement directly belowwas the Salty Cellar—which literally had seawater seeping through itsmildewed walls. The big attraction there was watching local bands getshocked whenever they touched anything.

Up PCH in Seal Beach, a double-Quonset hut housed the Marina

...THE RADAR NIGHTLIFE CONTINUED FROM PAGE 80 Palace, where Van Morrison, John Lee Hooker, Alice Cooper and othersplayed. Heading south, Newport Beach was rock-resistant in the hippiedays, though one club, the Bacchus, had a short life on the Mariner’s Mile.Owned by Jerry Roach, the acts included a solo Bobby Hatfield, the heavyrock Snake Drive and an East L.A. R&B outfit called Elijah whose leadsinger was none other than future Galactica admiral Edward James Olmos.

That’s where the young crowd went. Their parents headed to theLucky Lion to hear J.J. Mack do Johnny Rivers-ish renditions of Creedenceand Chuck Berry songs. “When J.J. Mack hit Newport, he had a Porsche,an amp and a beautiful head of hair—a magnificent-looking guy,” recallsTopper. “There’d be a line maybe 150 deep to get into his show, and thegirls were just waiting to pull their pants down.” Mack—real name VictorCulmoni—was the proverbial big fish in Newport’s small pond for years.

Elsewhere, you’d find Lee Farrell and a Hammond B-3 organ holdingsway at the White Horse (where Smokey Stover’s later was), Lanie Kazanat the Boondocks (most recently Bistro 201) and Greg Topper in his briefsensitive folkie phase, strumming Tim Hardin tunes on a stool atNewport’s Dry Dock (where Joe’s Crab Shack sits today).

Perhaps you’ve read about or seen films with clubs so rough therewas chicken wire in front of the stage to protect the bands from flyingglass. Topper played one: Duane’s Pirate Cavern on Brookhurst, wherebikers wore their colors and mayhem often resulted. Rivaling it forunnecessary roughness was the Cowboy on Harbor Blvd. near Heil. Ithad a dirt floor and, says Topper, “the roughest crowd I ever saw: realserious kick-your-ass cowboys. You just knew that as a collegiate-lookingguy you had no business there.”

Less bloody bistros for grown-ups in the north county included thePalms, the Del Rey, the Trappers, the Ranch House, Ciros, and the Brook,a joint that even in the ’60s was so fast and loose that, as Topper put it,“Karl Malden could’ve got his nose sucked in there.” The Brook was longhome to O.C.’s first lounge king, singer/pianist/comedian Joe Tatar, whopacked the place with his sing-alongs and skits about Placentia Airlines.Tatar didn’t go too “blue” in his comedy. If you wanted that, there was theX-rated DeMarco & Day “The Two Jokers” at the Gaslight on Beach Blvd.

The 1960s-1970s impress-a-date destination was the Chez Cary inOrange, with its Continental menu and high tufted velvet chairs. Womengot velvet footstools and menus with the prices omitted, so they could orderwithout regard to what it cost the swells who brought them. Some nightsthere, you could hear a young brother-sister duo called the Carpenters.

Other posh dinner spots included the Stuffed Shirt (later Cano’s) onthe water in Newport, Victor Hugo’s in Laguna, the Cellar in Fullerton,Nieuport 17 in Santa Ana and La Cave in Costa Mesa, then and now a fineplace to get a buzz on. “It’s quiet and dark, like watching a golf game whenyou’re hung over,” is how musician Chris Gaffney described it.

On the other end of things were what might be called your “shut upand drink” bars, which included Newport’s Snug Harbor, Costa Mesa’s theFling and Helm, and Fullerton’s venerable Melody Inn, where earlymorning drinkers included “burned-out yacht dealers, postal workers andHarbor Court judges having a couple of snorts of attitude adjustmentbefore taking the bench,” says Topper.

We’ve scarcely touched on all the hippie fun, such as the love-in atHillcrest Park—or, as the Register reported it, “Communist Dupe NegroesInvade Park”—or the whole Laguna scene of midnight concerts and theMystic Arts; or rock festival/mud bath at the O.C. Fairgrounds; or thecopulatin’ couples (allegedly!) on Anaheim Convention Center’s lawnwhich led city fathers to ban concerts there for years.

There is much more to tell about 1960s O.C., but we have the 1970sand 1980s yet to traverse. Please join us in a future issue as we continuethe tale of O.C.’s nightlife, with discos! Streakers! Punkers! Cocaine! And,yes, be patient, Pop Tarts! R

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