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| The trick, Pat would say, was not getting your drumstick caught in the fishing net. |
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| BLaM on stage at Madame Wongs in Chinatown in the autumn of 1979. |
MADAME WONGS
The occult philosopher and author Gary Lachman was in the '70s and '80s the New York Rocker, Gary Valentine, 'Valentine'
being his middle name. After being kicked out of Blondie for, he would tell me years later, throwing a fit in their manager's
office, he came out West and —you might say— christened the LA New Wave scene by being the first band to play
Madame Wong's, Chinatown.
Gary's band was called The Know and Madame Wongs soon became simply THE place to play. Esther and George Wong had been looking
for something to attract people to their restaurant and bar and the new wave scene was looking to concieve itself in some
new incongrous way: a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown was exactly it. And by being the first to play there, Gary infused sunny
Los Angeles with his considerable and swift New York wit. Up till then, LA's rock intelegentsia —and New Wave was, to
me, Punk intellectualized or at least cleaned-up— couldn't shake the fringe leather spectre of the Eagles and CSNY.
So it seemed to me.
The Know was a three-piece built around Gary's intellectual art/pop songs which which he had built upon the legacy of Lou
Reed, early Modern Lovers, early Kinks, and early Who. He and bassist Richard D'Andrea and drummer Joel Torissio (SP?) dressed
in black straight-legged pants with black blazers with, often as not, a shirt and tie. And often as not, with black high-top
converse sneakers. The Know was one of my favorite bands because, in part, I felt the greatest affinity for Valentine as a
songwriter.
To see the Know as LA's most likely band to get signed gave me hope that the music drummer Pat Meehan and I had been playing
since 1975 was now acceptable. We should find a bass player quick, I admonished myself, and get up on that magnificent stage
in Chinatwon.
For six months in 1977 or was it 1978, my friend Phil Kemp and I would go to Wongs on Wednesday or Thursday nights or both;
any band we would see during that brief window of genuine creativity was good. (So were the eggrolls) I remember a band called
the Adaptors,a three-piece like the Know, who were very good. Other favorites were Code Blue and the hilarious Rubber City
Rebels. The Motels played there often and before they got signed, when the Jourard brothers were in the band, they were musically
the most interesting band on the LA scene.
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| BLaM at Madame Wong's teackwood bar |
I played there a handful of times, first with Wild Oscare and then with BLaM and a few years after that, with the De De
Troit Band. Since Phil and I were regulars, George made sure the club's booking agent would book us and he made sure that
his staff would save good seats for "Bald-headed man and his friend" when the Police and then the B52s played surprise engagements.
You ascended to Madame Wongs by way of a long staircase which brought you into a large open room with the restaurant and stage
to your left and the bar, slightly cloistered, to the right. The closed off kitchen, as I recalled, was in front of you. The
stage had a Polynesian theme with fishing nets, shellaced fish and bamboo. It faced the bar with its great carved Chinese
teakwood bar. The Inner Sleeve of, REGATTA DE BLANC the Police's second album showed them relaxing in front of this bar. BLaM
relaxed between it and a photographer, too.
A restaurant across the way, the Hong Kong Cafe, catered to more punky bands and audiences. Still, Esther was displeased with
this unwarranted competition. One evening, some pirate slipped a tape of hip songs into the PA cassette deck between sets.
However it also had an audio add that said something like: "Tired of this boring skinny-tie New Wave music? Come hear the
real thing accross the way at the Hong Kong Cafe." A few minutes after this unauthorized promo aired, Esther got wind of it
and haraunged the innocent sound man about it, eventually kicking him down the long staircase, "Go back to Hong Kong where
you belong!" she screamed.
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| Bugbee and Lloyd at Club 88 |
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CLUB 88
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| and Meehan. (Our last 88 show) |
The other club that everyone played, BLaM included, was Club 88 on Pico near Bundy. It was run by a retired Air Force pilot
who had flown jets during the Korean War. He seemed to be an amiable fellow, especially since what he had really wanted to
do was start a jazz club. An irrascible old bar maid seemed to run the place. (And by 'old' I mean the age I am now if not
a little younger.) Neither of them liked our name, our sound, or our look. "Jeans are out," she told us. "Nobody is wearin'
'em on stage any more." Even so she booked us often. Perhaps our fans were good tippers.
Club 88 smelled of cats and mildew. The sound was awful. It had none of the cache of Madame Wongs. Not until...
WONGS WEST
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| ...Bugbee (obscuring Meehans) at Wongs West, downstairs |
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| dancing to BLaM, Wongs West downtown |
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| Cathy and Bill Ohanesian enjoy a drink with BLaM at the Wongs West bar |
Esther Wong purchased a huge place in Santa Monica calling it Madame Wong's West. It looked as if it had been designed by
the dad from the BRADY BUNCH. But, unlike the Chinatown venue, it had no anti-hip hipness to it. Architecturally it was everything
Punk and its polite older sister New Wave stood against. And nobody seemed to notice.
There was a downstairs stage and an upstairs stage. Bands were required to play the downstairs stage for free and if enough
people came to see you, you could play upstairs for a cut of the door. BLaM, despite succesful bookings in Chinatown, was
required to undergo ordeal by Downstairs. This should have sent a loud and clear message that the New Wave scene had ceased
being about music. It was in fact dead. Curiously, the sprawling Wong's West complex had been built as a funeral home.
Nevertheless, BLaM were triumphantly graduated to the upstairs stage, once being lavished with three encores.
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| Lloyd and Meehan at Wongs West |
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| Backstage, between a 2nd and 3rd encore |
(all pictures by Corey Harris)
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