By Damien Gabet
Damien Gabet went on a pilgrimage to Los Angeles in search of the dive bars of the 1990s bands that shaped him
Sometime in the winter of 1999, my friend Danny rode over to my childhood home with some hash and three albums, all by LA-based bands. Mötley Crüe’s Dr Feelgood, Chili Peppers’ Californication, and Deftones’ Around the Fur. He put the first album on and turned the volume up as far as it would go.
There are albums that influence you and then there are albums that permanently change the mechanics of your mind. For better or worse, Dr Feelgood did the latter. As a green 15 year old, I began wearing leather and makeup and drank (my dad’s) whiskey from the bottle. I also started playing bass guitar in a band.
In Motley Crue’s outrageous biography, The Dirt, they talk a lot about their high jinx on Sunset Boulevard in late-80s Los Angeles. They’d play almost weekly at the Whisky a Go Go, a notorious venue that is still letting bands misbehave to this day. That was it, I had to get to LA and play a show at the Whisky.
The day I realised that would never happen, I became a travel writer. “If I can’t go as a rocker, I’ll go as journalist and write about rockers,” I thought. This year, I finally made the bitter-sweet pilgrimage to West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. Danny moved there a few years ago and had agreed to join in on my tour of its old rock ‘n’ roll haunts and hotels, famous restaurants and…brunch spots.
While I’ve long suspected that brunch is the ultimate harbinger of the West’s decline, I remain somewhat addicted to its flavours. Being jetlagged, the hunger timing was perfect too, and so over I went to The Butcher, The Baker, The Cappuccino Maker. My enthusiastic waiter served me a multicoloured latte on its sundappled terrace, before explaining that “WeHo” had smartened up. Indeed, I’d seen more folks in aspirational athleisure than studded leather.
“There are so many good places to eat,” he said. “You have to try the asian fusion at Wolfgang Puck’s Merois. So I did. And it was lovely. As was the view on the rooftop of the Pendry hotel, which the restaurant occupies. But I wanted some grit and grease. Enter Jon D’Amico of Rock ‘n’ Walk tours, a mettlesome (and secretly lovely) man who’s been in bands and stage managed – wait for it – Motley bloody Crue.
“Now, guys listen up – I’m going to tell you some serious s**t on this tour,” he said. “But don’t f**k me! Don’t you f**k me by sharing this stuff!” I agreed to only write things that wouldn’t f**k him as we started our three-hour stomp.
This was more like it. The tattoos, tall tales and bad-ass attitude I was looking for. First stop was Barney’s Beanery, a diner on the edge of West Hollywood that Tarantino wrote Pulp Fiction in and that Jim Morrison was ejected from for urinating on the bar. The place is drowning in memorabilia and does a mean chilli. I just wanted a beer and to soak it all in.
But before my last gulp, D’Amico had us back on the road, ducking into Los Angeles haunts and buildings that used to be haunts, all with stories to tell. “Jim Morrison recorded the vocals for L.A. Womanbehind that door. Now it’s a restroom,” said D’Amico as we walked round historic hotdog joint, Tail O’ the Pup. As we scudded down Sunset, he virulently high-fived a few locals coming the other way, assuring us that he knew “everyone”. By this point, I believed him.
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And then, there it was. The hallowed Whisky. A huge billboard advertising video game Halo on its front spoilt the view somewhat, but we were let inside and looked around the backstage area before the bar manager kicked us out. “I saw Motley Crue’s bassist play so hard his fingers bled!” said D’Amico. The venue was prepping for a gig that night, so the manager made us leave. Cool.
The tour ended at The Rainbow Bar and Grill, where Motorhead’s Lemmy whiled away his final days, playing the fruit machine, necking Jack Daniel’s. I stuck around for a pizza, lured in by a waitress’s assurance that “the food was great and service was terrible.” The singer from London-based band Bob Vylan was sat one booth up and so I went over and fanboyed.
Later that night, I’d been promised an audience with Tommy Black, the legendary bar manager at live music venue the Viper Room. At one point, Johnny Depp owned the place; later the Pussy Cat Dolls were its resident burlesque performers. He showed me around the back office, which “hasn’t been touched since the days that Depp and Kate Moss hung out in here” and then gave me a Viper Room T shirt.
The band we saw that night were a little flat, “probably a pay-to-play outfit”, my local pal Danny assured me, but we still had an appropriately loose night out. News that the venue – and the block around it – are destined for redevelopment next year feels like reason enough to pay it a visit before it goes.
My lodgings for the weekend were at Guns n Roses guitarist Slash’s favourite hotel in the world, The Sunset Marquis. The hotel manager, Rod Gruendyke, sat with me at breakfast, reeling off his favourite anecdotes. Pop-punk band Green Day putting washing up liquid in the fountain stands out; as does Billy Bob Thornton living there – for six years.
You can see he’d want to stay: it’s a 3.5-acre oasis in the middle of the city, verdant and tranquil. Maze like garden paths skein to recently refurbished villas, while its open-air restaurant is surrounded by running water and tropical flora. A soothing space, it’s hard to believe that this was – and still is – the place that rockers misbehave in.
The best food was at Dan Tana’s, a no-window, former Rat Pack haunt with classic American-Italian dishes. I loved everything about it: our celeritous waiter, the free-flowing fire-water martinis, the utterly unfashionable red-and-white decor. My enormous veal parmigiana nearly put me to the pillow, but I came round (with another martini) before heading to the Troubadour next door.
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Another storied spot for live music – Elton John played his first US show here in 1970 – it seemed to still have the pulse of a contemporary venue. That evening we saw Jensen McRae, who wittily delivered songs full of progressive sentiments. About as far from Motley Crue’s weltanschauung as you can imagine.
After the show, Danny and I bought some edibles from a local dispensary and went back to Mama Shelter Hollywood, where I was staying for a few nights. We let the sound of contemporary LA – McRae and her contemporaries – score a quiet night of catching up on the rooftop terrace. No permanent changes to the brain, alas. But my bass guitar has been played since.
Rooms at Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles began from £320 per night; Mama Shelter Hollywood has rooms from £103 per night. Virgin Atlantic flies direct from £462 per person return; virginatlantic.com; visitwesthollywood.com.
