To get noticed you needed to play Doug Weston’s Troubadour and The Starwood, and eventually you got to play The Whisky a Go Go on Hollywood’s celebrated Sunset Strip. But it was a tough time for rock bands too. This made it a difficult time to be a talent scout in LA. The nexus of rock music earlier in the 1970s when singer-songwriters were all the rage, LA had yet to make sense of punk and new wave, and disco dominated the airwaves. In contrast, LA’s music scene back then was – in a word – confused. Clubs like CBGBs and Max’s Kansas City were home to new acts like Talking Heads, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie and Television. Strange DaysĪt the time, it was New York, not LA, that was on the rise. And after a week or two on the living room couch, I was the one who got the dog house. Short on space, even the dog house near the pool would be used as sleeping quarters. Lisle Kinney and Harry Lyon rehearsing in LA. I was there as the band’s unofficial photographer, taking shots of the band at pretty much every gig. There were just three bedrooms but often 15, 20 or more staying there, so the library, studio, loft room, pool and garden sheds were all turned into guest rooms.Īmong the entourage was Peter Adams, the band’s graphic designer, whose distinctive posters announced each new show. Pat Crowe (“Tiny Tina”), a one-time tour manager for the Paul Dainty Corporation, kept house. Others, fearing its reputation, simply stayed away. The house became well known to musicians, roadies and girlfriends, along with most of Hollywood’s wannabes. Hello Sailor lived at this address from the end of August 1978 to mid-February 1979. We continue past the ruins of the Harry Houdini mansion, turning up Lookout Mountain Ave and into Wonderland Ave. Turning up Laurel Canyon Boulevard, David points out the Canyon County Store (a one-time hangout for artists like Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Graham Nash and The Doors). Back then a billboard on Sunset Strip promoting your new record meant you’d really made it fast forward a few years and all that money would instead go into producing music videos. We weave our way through traffic, eventually picking up speed and turning into Sunset Strip with its monstrous look-at-me music billboards (one, a roller-skating Linda Ronstadt promoting her new Living In The USA album). Graham Brazier at a private Christmas party. When other stations were playing Donna Summer and The Bee Gees, K-ROQ would play new songs by Blondie, Elvis Costello, The Clash, B52s and Devo, mixed in with classic rock from Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, KISS and Led Zep. This was revolutionary programming for its time. It’s my first time in LA, my first time in the States, and everything’s good until we hit a massive traffic jam, all six lanes of freeway traffic going nowhere fast.Ĭut to the car radio, where one song blends into another with no ads, no interruptions. I don’t have sunglasses with me but it doesn’t matter. The sunshine’s so bright it burns your eyes. David’s son Richard is with us, and Lisle Kinney, the band’s bassist. I remember the day quite clearly, even now: I’ve just arrived in LA and I’m with Hello Sailor manager David Gapes, who’s driving, the sunroof down, radio on. Jeremy Templer was with them in LA for three months and tells the story. Instead, they went straight to Los Angeles in a bold bid for international success. The logical next step was Australia – that’s what every other NZ rock band had done. Hello Sailor’s debut album had gone gold and they had two Top 20 hits under their belt.
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