Mark, living in SoCal back then was awesome!
There were (now famous) bands all over-playing every night of the week. The girl who lived across the street from me in Anaheim dated (and married) one of the members of Social Distortion. Lots of the band members were always hanging out there.
A guy I worked with younger sister dated Don Dokken for a while. The clubs on the Sunset Strip like Gazzarri's, Whisky a go-go, the Troubadour always had great bands. There was also Madame Wongs, Club Lingerie, the Palomino, the Starwood...and on and on.
Check out a piece of mail sent to the LA Times from Gazzari's on the Sunset strip after the Times snubbed them on an article about local bands...look who Mr. Gazzarri was talking about! (From the Van Halen archives)
Check out some of the bands on this add from the Starwood in the 80's. The Go Go's, Wall of Voodoo and Berlin...
And from this ad for Madam Wong's-the band playing on March 1st called "Picture This" . One of the members worked with my oldest brother at Nuclear Pharmacy in Orange County-so we went to watch them play at Madame Wongs. These guys were financed by Lindsey Buckingham of Fleetwood Mac-so I was able to meet Lindsey very briefly that night.
