Venice in the Seventies

I had a studio, eventually a gallery and a theater, in the old Eagles Lodge building, which was two doors down West Washington, as it was known then, from the ComeBackInn... where the Canaligators played loud and long, I think it was on Sundays. We opened all seven front windows...

We only had that place a short time, about a year, but it was a pretty good year, looking back.

Well, I didn't have a theater, myself, personally, but we sublet to a theater group, another long story.

Slavin David is still around, he recently played a gig with Gary Mallaber (a drummer that was involved with the Steve Miller band), He's supposed to perform in a big event coming up with Dee Snider's cousin in an all star band. Bob Malone is also in the band.

http://www.hollywoodcureforpain.com/musicians.html

Re: venice



Answering a year and a half later - it's the Canaligators I remember. Our studio was two doors down from the Comeback Inn on West Washington, now A. Kinney Blvd - and they played nice and loud every Sunday for a while. The street was filled with great sounds. That was in '75.

Canaligators/Severance/Windance cirque 1975
Yo!
This was a surprise finding a discussion of old Venice musicians. I am Mike, the bassist from Windance. The group had Jeff Golden, flute/sax/clarinet/guitar. I think he is still in Venice. Janie Golden, Jeff's sister, doing sound. She has a Tai Chi business - Edit [Moderator]: Link removed . Harlan Tissue played harmonica and guitar, and lives on Hawaii now with what I believe is a landscaping business. Allen Schneider played violin/piano/guitar. Whereabouts unknown. Michael Brooker and Cher and Diane Osbourne helped and provided lots of moral support. Have misplaced them all.
You do not know how much I enjoyed listening to the Canaligators and Severance at Honky Hoagies Handy Hangout. The 4H Club had some of the best music out there. Absolutely great. I really enjoyed watching Zoom to see what riffs I could "borrow" from him.
Mike L.

Hi, MickL77, welcome to a2k...

Canaligators/Severance/Windance cirque 1975
Hi I just stumbled on to this site. I'm Larry Wiseman. Hook used to call me Mudshark because I was a boat cleaner in the marina. I was the skinny blond haired bass player for the Canaligators. I now live in Lake Worth Fl and have a band called The Rockadiles. Hows that!! I've wondered what ever happened to Hook, Jeff, Mike, Geno, Craig, Barbara and David, huricane Jake, and everyone else. Hope to hear !!

Re Venice Beach in the Seventies
I noticed this forum on Venice in the Seventies during my online travels.

I lived in Venice from the end of 1969 until April of 1977. My boyfriend Bob and I hitchhiked from Hollywood to Altamont at the end of '69 and we were part of the over 300,000 people there for the Rolling Stones, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and others! I still talk to Bob from time-to-time. He's in N. Carolina now.

Does anyone remember "Rickshaw John"? He had a bicycle hooked up to a rickshaw-type open cab, and he made money and met a lot of people that way. Rainbow was another hippie of note, who had the most beautiful long ripply hair. It was clear down to the middle of his back.

One of the old Venice hands I knew was Roger Gagnon. Is there anybody out there who knew him or knows where he is now? He worked for awhile as a cook at the cafe on Ocean Front Walk and Brooks Avenue. He lived in an upstairs apartment in the same building until he moved to Santa Monica.

The Venice Canal Festival was fun. I still have a really nice psychadelic design flyer from one. Can't remember what year, would have to dig it out and look at it. Gold's Gym started in Venice, and I used to see Arnold Schwartzenegger and other bodybuilders working out at Muscle Beach- just past Windward Ave.

I saw the Canaligators at the Sundown Saloon on Ocean Front Walk, many, many times. I remember me, some friends, and the band, (Hook and other band members) talking out on the beach in front of the place while the band had their break.

I have a lot of memories of my seven years there in Venice. Sometimes I wish I hadn't left, but I imagine it's really different now! I lived in Colorado for awhile and have spent the last 30 years or so in Oregon.

Hi, Orygone -- I lived at Windward and Ocean Front Walk for a while, or just back from that, at what was then called the St. Charles Hotel - that was before the studio on W. Washington. I didn't know the music scene, or even the hippy scene, so much, as I was older than many, a painter, had a day job, not a musician... but I like it all around me.

Venice in the Seventies
Hi Ossobuco,
I was in my twenties when I lived in Venice. I left for Colorado shortly after I turned 30. I was a working Venice resident/hippy. I worked at Brotman Memorial Hospital (Culver City) and later at St Johns Hospital (Santa Monica). Later, I worked as a Paralegal after I had four months of full-time legal training though UCLA Law School and UCLA Extension. I had a BA in Art (Graphic Design) but never had the opportunity to work in that area, unfortunately.

I lived at the Biltmore By the Sea apartment building right on Ocean Front Walk (just about four or five buildings south of Rose Avenue) for the last five years I was in Venice. It was an old building that dated back to the 10's or 20's. It had a Murphy Bed and a fantastic view of the beach.

I know the area where you lived. I remember arches in front of the sidewalk area on the North side of Windward. Was that building the St Charles? There was a bank (Bank of America?) on the east side of Pacific and Windward. I was in it when it was robbed. None of the customers knew until later. A very professional bank robber!

Well, I need to go now. Thanks for your response.

Hah, we have a lot in common, different times, but I'm not up to explaining right this minute. It's midnight here, back tomorrow.

MikeL 77 --

No, I didn't know Jeff Golden - or really any Venice musicians. I just liked the music a lot, expecially when the Canaligators were blasting away on W. Washington on Sunday afternoons in the summer. If you read back on this thread, you might find some people posting that you do know...

Well im back on my nastalgia kick...
Things I remember most. Paloma Ave and the Krishas (good food). Walking/skating to either pier. Hinano Burgers. Pinball. Flamming Diamond (windance) ... The Canaligators. Huge parties on the Pennisula ... the Nude Beach (early 70's) ClubHouse ave we lived back house....Windance guys lived in the front house....lots of fun there. Used to room with janie and harlan before clubhouse I think.

My friends were Uly Hall, Sean, Christian and Aaron, Shauna (hooks step daughter), Diana and Sarah Hahn (sheila hahns daughters)... and many more...

Pinball at Buffalo chips and hinano....uly and I would live on the machine... singing at the bar next door to hinano (or across the street)...maybe sunset something.... I had to sing Puff the Magic dragon....not sure if this was Windance or Canaligators....it was scary getting Flaming diamond and Puff the magic Dragon banned from Hinano for playing it too much.

Hanging on Dell while the mural went up.... Don Unziker.... helping build the park. The festivals and the parades each year.... parties on the canals... the Hahns .....

Playing Army at the destroyed POP.... watching it burn on last time (the night King Kong was on TV).... going to Grandview and taking the city bus home... Area D school (for a year).... the Pavilion ... Zippys pizza.

Doc who would give all us kids tennis balls he collected from the beach each morning.. woudl throw us them fromthe balcony (second floor) on his house on the boardwalk.

the guy who used to drive up and down on his piano and play music...

Skateboarding in the big parking lot halfway to SM Pier. Getting Cashews from the store on the boardwalk.

Selling painted rocks and snails and trying to make raisins out of grapes found in the empty lot (still empty) on Paloma and two up from speedway.

getting to stay out until the street lights came on. And roof top jumping instead of walking ont he boardwalk...

the boat place next to the comeback inn... the cool mural on the side of the wall that had the mirror in it so it would go on and on and on... (tripped me out then )

wow much much more.... I lived there from 72-77 or so.

Hey, Ib..

people may not answer here for months, but then, they might.

the guy who used to drive up and downwith his piano and play music...


Yeh. Absolutely.

Before becoming the Comeback Inn, it was a blues club called Rick's Bar,
complete with a Rockola 78 jukebox on the stage and vintage cars on the
patio that Rick would rent to the movie studios. One night there, Alberto
Gianquinto, who played piano with James Cotton, took me to the Sweet Pea
Cabaret at the Washington Square to meet the Canaligators, who he would
sit in with. When they eventually became a full electric band around 1974,
I hooked up with them and played all those great Sunday afternoons at the
Comeback Inn, as well as many other memorable events. This pre-dated
the plethora of musicians who worked with Hook in later years. He was
the most unforgettable character I've ever known, and that's saying
something considering I'm still here playing 35 years later. I parted ways
with Hook a few years later after he burned down the clubhouse of the
local biker gang after a gig at the Blue Lagune Saloon. - Steve F'dor

Well, thank'ee, a little late, for those sunday afternoon concerts for us.

wow..
see you never know what you'll find if you google something on different days. don't know why but this page never came up before but it's been fun to read. i moved to venice in 1978. it was one of those "well-i-think -i'll-hang-out-here-for-awhile" type things. don't ask me how that turned into 30 years worth but it did. sounds like a lot of you are talking about earlier times but lots of the things mentioned here were still around after '78. i lived on ocean front between clubhouse and westminster in the one story white depalidated building that had one of the aforementioned pagaodas in front of it. an ex-boyfriend had opened the first skate shop on the boardwalk called cheap skates. there was a group of us locals that used to hang out and skate all day before it got really big. we ate at the meatless messhall, lafayette's or nupars all within one block of the beach, we hardly left ocean front to go east of pacific. not sure if they owned the comeback inn in the early 70's but will and his partner jim owned it at the end of the 70's. my neighbor jack was
the chef there for awhile in the 80's. i remember that guy with the piano and have a picture of him in one of my picture drawers somewhere. slavin' dave used to play on the boardwalk on the weekends ..in fact there's a youtube video that shows him still tearing it up not that long ago. thanks for the memories. if you don't still live here, believe me...you wouldn't recognize the place. i live here and i don't. i miss the old venice, but what're gonna do? life goes on.

Hi, deezee! I moved in 1999 up to northern california and then more recently to new mexico - so I do know what you mean about change in Venice. I'm kicking myself for never doing kind of a photo pan of the boardwalk in the seventies. I did do that on w. washington/abbot kinney - huh, I forget when, but probably early nineties. I'm sure I'd recognize that white building; I remember cheap skates, though I never skated myself. My old gallery partner did back in the seventies. We did sometimes eat at the meatless messhall and lafayette's - I recognize the name nupars but I'm blanking on it.

Glad you found the thread.

Some time later, eighties, I guess, my husband and I used to walk up the boardwalk just about every sunday to the "cafe" at the corner of the boardwalk and Rose. It was run by a guy named Ali and his wife - they made good coffee and had terrific croissants.

Let's see - I still have jewelry I bought at Reckless Woman, I loved to go in there. I remember a wall of earrings for a dollar a pair...