While waiting in the isle to pay on my normal Sunday morning shopping trip to the grocery store, my attention was drawn to the Los Angeles Magazine’s July issue featuring, as its headline, The 80’s — The Decade That Changed LA. Dramatic right? I saw the magazine a couple of weeks ago when my family was visiting, but I didn’t buy it. Today, in that magazine holder right next to the cash register, there was one copy left. I picked it up and flipped through it thinking if some photo captured my attention, then I’d buy it. I love magazines, but this one was a hard sell. After all,I lived in the 80’s; I picked trends in the 80’s, in my mind anyways, so much so that people followed me. Well that is in the time before I spent everything I had or made on school. Before, I proudly tied my stone-washed-white-leather-trimmed jacket around my waist and walked in to lead my dance classes, with all the class patrons doing the same within a week. But forget fashion. Forget trends. Music: any magazine touting the 80’s as a decade of change had better do that right. The trouble was … in my flip-through of this magazine, I saw nothing but ads. No way was I wasn’t going to pick through the ads for whatever tiny content I supposed they would get wrong; so I decided they wouldn’t get my four ninety five. But… when I got home, I did look it up, on line.
I searched first for that issue, then read down, surprised that the hits on that search did not include music. So I refined my search, this time mentioning the magazine and the term music, then the term “hair bands.” Still, there was no mention of music. Now, mind you I didn’t actually read the issue, but it seems the magazine totally skips rock music, 80’s rock music in particular, save for an article that popped up in that second search about the Rainbow — the famous bar on Sunset Boulevard frequented by the 80’s rockers. The article’s writer claims the article to be an interview with the owner, but for an interview, the article is way too short. The article did have a telling quote though, one worth a mention, contrasting the Whiskey, where people went to see a show, to the Rainbow. Said of the Rainbow, “they weren’t coming here to see a show, they were the show.” The article mentions the 80’s from the sense of the Rainbow’s patrons then. Those patrons were special, “show” special. Plus, apparently, they liked getting kicked out. Axl Rose got kicked out 11 times. David Lee Roth got kicked out 13 times. Getting kicked out must have been very front man behavior or something. For me, that line “they were the show” sums it up. It sums up the fashion, the trends, the music, the attitude. It was all such a good show, the sum of all those parts.
Bringing this point to the present-day, the owner says it still the same, meaning at the Rainbow, the patrons are still the show. I’ve been there, probably not enough to judge, but I’m not sure I would agree. Still one thing remains: every time I go there, I see someone famous, and sometimes there are people in outfits straight from the ’80’s; thinking the guy with the captain’s hat over his mid-back length long hair with two girls sitting at the table behind Dave Navarro the last time I went. Isn’t it nice to know some things stay the same even if my own personal outfits are no longer jackets with fringe? So, as I spend the rest of the day cleaning closets in preparation for a little work that is to be done on the other side of that wall, and knowing that very many years ago my 80’s clothes, even my precious stone washed jean jacket with the leather fringe, were sent away to Goodwill, I keep hoping I’ll find just one little jacket, just one little something I had from then, tucked under … something else. You know what? That might just make me want to go get that cleaning done!
Link to Los Angeles Magazine article:
http://www.lamag.com/the80s/2014/07/16/motley-crue-was-here