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24-461: The Starwood was preceded by P.J.'s, a fashionable jazz and pop music nightclub during the 1960s, which attracted a large number of film and TV personalities, and some old school jazz musicians. Established in February 1961 by Paul Raffles, Chuck Murano, Bill Daugherty, and Elmer Valentine , it hosted such acts as The Bobby Fuller Four , The Standells , Rufus Thomas , Trini Lopez , and Kool &

48-599: A Go Go on January 15, 1964, with three partners: Phil Tanzini, Shelly Davis, and attorney Theodore Flier. In 1965, he launched The Trip, with beginning house bands The Leaves and The Grass Roots . It was a small rock club on the Sunset Strip. In 1972, along with Lou Adler , Mario Maglieri and others, he started the Rainbow Bar & Grill on the Sunset Strip. A year later, Valentine, Adler and original partners David Geffen , Elliot Roberts and Peter Asher opened

72-489: A fee to play at clubs, diminished its appeal to groups, other than as an industry showcase. As of the 2010s, the music industry establishment continues to dominate the clubs on Sunset Strip. In November 1984, voters in West Hollywood passed a proposal on the ballot to incorporate, and the area became an independent city. Increasingly, the western end of Sunset Strip was occupied by office buildings, mostly catering to

96-639: A hangout for musicians, including the Stooges and the New York Dolls . Clubs on the Sunset Strip at that time, Rodney Bingenheimer's in particular, were notorious for allowing teenage patrons. "Nobody carried or cared about ID's. Thirteen-year-old girls could walk in dressed like sexy 25-year-olds, and kids could sidle up to the bar and order a cocktail, so it wasn't a big stretch for us to get up and play there", recalled Quiet Riot founder Kelly Garni . The 1979 Donna Summer song " Sunset People ", from

120-604: A late-night comedy sketch show performed at a fictional theater on Sunset Strip. Premiering on January 27, 2006, in Los Angeles at Vanguard Hollywood , the Rock of Ages stage production inspired the 2012 film of the same name . Its story line is centered along Sunset Strip in 1987. The opening credits of the HBO TV series Entourage featured shots of Sunset Strip. Los Angeles-based artist Edward Ruscha created

144-449: Is the 1.7-mile (2.7 km) stretch of Sunset Boulevard that passes through the city of West Hollywood, California , United States. It extends from West Hollywood's eastern border with the city of Los Angeles near Marmont Lane to its western border with Beverly Hills at Phyllis Street. The Sunset Strip is known for its boutiques, restaurants, rock clubs, and nightclubs , as well as its array of huge, colorful billboards . Prior to

168-725: The Doors , the Kinks , the Who , and Buffalo Springfield ., Oingo Boingo, The Go-Go's, Tom Petty, The Ramones, New York Dolls, and Blondie. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Whisky was known as a stepping stone for bands such as X , Guns N' Roses , Mötley Crüe , Van Halen, Ratt, and many other iconic bands. Both the Whisky a Go Go and The Roxy Theatre remain staples of the Sunset Boulevard club scene. Sunset Strip The Sunset Strip

192-634: The Ramones , the Dead Boys , The Stranglers , AC/DC , Slade , Vince Vance & the Valiants , Rush , Rory Gallagher , UFO , The Fleshtones , and Judas Priest , who did three nights at the Starwood in 1978. The Starwood had two rooms with a hallway between; one room was a small dance floor and the other was the concert venue. Paid admission allowed access to both rooms, although the concert side

216-540: The 1984 incorporation of the city of West Hollywood , the Sunset Strip lay in an unincorporated area of Los Angeles County . Because of this, the Sunset Strip and all of West Hollywood gained a reputation for being a loosely regulated area, in large part because it was not under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles Police Department . Gambling was illegal in the city of Los Angeles, but legal in unincorporated Los Angeles County, which fostered

240-559: The Chicago police force. Valentine moved to Los Angeles in 1960, where he became co-owner of P.J.'s , a successful West Hollywood restaurant-nightclub. He sold his interest in P.J.’s three years later and took a trip to Europe. While he was in Paris, he visited a discotheque called Le Whisky à Go-Go that was packed nightly with crowds of young dancers. Impressed by the club's success, Valentine returned to Los Angeles and opened his own Whisky

264-824: The Doors , the Byrds , Love , the Seeds , Frank Zappa , and others played at clubs like Gazzarri's , the Whisky a Go Go , the Roxy , Pandora's Box and the London Fog . In July 1965 Go-Go dancers also began performing. The Hyatt West Hollywood (now known as the Andaz West Hollywood) became a popular hotel. Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco , influenced by Britain's glam rock movement, opened in 1972. It became

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288-511: The Gang , all of whom recorded live albums there. Other notable performers at the venue were The Flying Burrito Brothers , and Tim Buckley . The club was managed by Valentine until he left to cofound the Whisky a Go Go in January 1964. In late 1971, P.J.'s was bought by alleged organized crime figures Eddie Nash and Dominic Lucci, together with Hal Glickman. After receiving a light renovation,

312-707: The Roxy Theatre with a three night appearance by Neil Young and the Santa Monica Flyers as its premiere act. Lou Adler bought into the Whisky in the late 1970s. Valentine sold his interest in the Whisky a Go Go in the 1990s, but retained an ownership in the Rainbow Bar & Grill and the Roxy Theatre until his death. During the 1960s and 1970s the Whisky was one of the most important rock clubs in Los Angeles , hosting acts such as The Byrds ,

336-452: The Whisky a Go Go and The Roxy, became home to numerous LA-based heavy metal bands such as Van Halen , Quiet Riot , Mötley Crüe , Ratt and Guns N' Roses . The scene became synonymous with glam metal , with many fans mimicking the hair and clothing worn by the bands. The many heavy metal fans who would congregate outside the clubs along the strip became a defining feature. The adoption of "pay to play" policies, in which bands were charged

360-496: The album Bad Girls , was about the nightlife on Sunset Boulevard. Sunset Strip continued to be a major focus for punk rock and new wave music during the late 1970s. During the latter part of the 1970s and well into the 1980s, the Sunset Strip would become synonymous with the Los Angeles heavy metal movement, commonly referred to as the West Coast Metal Explosion. The clubs on the Sunset Strip such as

384-456: The already established California-based band Y&T . Sixx had performed at the Starwood prior to forming Mötley Crüe with his former band, London . Some of the acts from outside of California who played at the Starwood include Blue Öyster Cult (under the name Soft White Underbelly), Aerosmith (under the name Dr. J. Jones & the Interns), The Damned , Devo , The Jam , Cheap Trick ,

408-494: The club and recorded their set for their live album, Starwood Club, Los Angeles. 02/23/1977 . Mötley Crüe , one of the most successful bands to emerge from the Sunset Strip music scene, played their first concert together as a band at the Starwood on April 24, 1981, with help from the band's bass guitarist, Nikki Sixx , who was employed by the Starwood as a janitor and convinced his boss to let them play there, opening for

432-638: The club was reopened to the public in January, 1972. In 1973, after Nash bought out Lucci's and Glickman's ownership interests in the P.J.'s club, it became the Starwood, which was managed by Gary Fontenot until the club closed permanently on June 13, 1981, by order of the Los Angeles County authorities due to too many citations for underage drinking and noise abatement issues, among others. In May 1982, before its scheduled demolition, it caught fire, though not burning totally. The blaze occurred while unexplained fires befell other Nash-owned properties at

456-547: The development of rather wilder nightlife in West Hollywood than was found within the city limits. In the 1920s a number of nightclubs and casinos moved in along Sunset Strip, which attracted movie people; alcohol was served in back rooms during Prohibition . In the 1930s and the 1940s, restaurants and nightclubs on Sunset Strip, like Sherry's, Ciro's , the Mocambo and the Trocadero , were patronized by people working in

480-671: The early 1960s, Sunset Strip had lost favor with the majority of movie people, but its restaurants, bars and clubs continued to serve as an attraction for locals and tourists. In the mid-1960s it became a major gathering place for the counterculture and was the scene of the Sunset Strip curfew riots in November 1966, involving police and crowds of young club-goers. Those riots inspired the Buffalo Springfield song " For What It's Worth ". Sunset Strip became popular with rock musicians and their fans. Bands such as Led Zeppelin ,

504-406: The entertainment industry, as well as hotels. During the 1990s, the center of the alternative music activity in Los Angeles shifted further east to areas like Echo Park , Silver Lake and Los Feliz . 77 Sunset Strip , a 1958–1964 TV series, was set on Sunset Strip between La Cienega Boulevard and Alta Loma Road. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a behind-the-scenes television drama of

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528-581: The movie industry. Some of its expensive nightclubs and restaurants were said to be owned by gangsters like Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel , earning Sunset Strip a place in Raymond Chandler 's 1949 Philip Marlowe novel, The Little Sister . Also on Sunset Strip are the Garden of Allah apartments—Hollywood quarters for transplanted writers like Robert Benchley , Dorothy Parker , and F. Scott Fitzgerald —and Schwab's Drug Store . By

552-547: The time. Subsequently, the structure was torn down, and a mini-mall replaced the nightclub. The Starwood was highly instrumental in the careers of many regional bands and artists including Van Halen , X , the Germs (who played their legendary last show at the venue), The Go-Go's , Fear , Circle Jerks , The Knack , W.A.S.P. (known as Circus Circus at the time), The Motels , Quiet Riot , Dokken and The Runaways . Ray Manzarek 's short lived band, Nite City , appeared at

576-761: Was always crowded. The venue was small, what is commonly known today as 'shoebox' size, and configured with a long stage. Elmer Valentine Elmer Valentine (June 16, 1923 – December 3, 2008) was the co-founder of three famous nightclubs on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California : the Whisky a Go Go , The Roxy Theatre and the Rainbow Bar & Grill . Valentine was born in Chicago on June 16, 1923, as Elmer Alfred Valentino. After serving as an Army Air Forces mechanic stationed in England during World War II , he returned to Chicago and joined

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