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ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Hollywood Sunset Boulevard, famous boulevard...

glorified in movie, song and story.

The glitter street of movie town that winds its way from skid row through Hollywood...

past the luxury of Beverly Hills, and on to the sea.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* Where are you walking I've seen you walking *

* Have you been there before

* Walk down your doorsteps You'll take some more steps *

* What did you take them for

* There's a private In my boat *

* And he wears pins Instead of medals on his coat *

MARK MAHONEY (V.O.): I'm going to tell you a story of vice and of glory.

And how it was back in the day.

The yellow brick road it ain't, it's the street of sinners, not of saints.

It's LA's Champs-Élysées.

I'm going to make it funky in the style of super junky, poet of the Angola school.

And we'll ride east to west in a short that's the best.

So lean back, dig the ride and be cool.

When the city was dry, the Strip could supply the stuff of which dreams are made.

The pimps and the pushers, the hustlers and hookers

all had it made in the shade.

When the Garden of Allah had gone on to Valhalla and they opened Pandora's Box.

Where the kids with long hair flipped the wigs of the squares...

'til the party got squashed by the cops.

Then the teens made the scene, Arthur Lee reigned supreme.

'Til the doors closed in on him. But his coat of many colors made way for lots...

of brothers, like that light-skinned Hendrix named Jim.

( ROCK MUSIC PLAYING )

* So this ain't the end I saw you again today *

* I had to turn my heart away

* Smiled like the sun Kisses for everyone *

* And tales it never fails

* You lying so low in the weeds I bet you gonna ambush me *

* You'd have me down down down down on my knees *

* Now wouldn't you Barracuda *

SLASH (V.O.): I decided to run away from home at some point...

when I was like six.

And so I took a Big Wheel...

and I rode it all the way down Laurel Canyon to Sunset.

That was my first real adventure.

* No right no wrong You're selling a song *

* A name Whisper game

* If the real thing Don't do the trick no *

* You better make up Something quick *

* You gonna burn burn burn Burn burn it to the wick *

* Aren't you Barracuda *

I believe in sacred places and I believe that for a musician...

there are very few sacred places in the Western world.

This is. It's a sacred place. It's a place where you can stand and think, this is exactly

where Jim Morrison stood and figured it all out.

It's one thing to read some jerk off's version of what the Whiskey A-Go-Go

was like in 1966. It's another thing to stand there

and go, wow. This is, it was probably really powerful.

You can feel that resonant energy, it's right there.

It's a living history.

From Doheny to Crescent Heights...

there's a lot of ghosts, you know?

And a lot of history that I am familiar with.

And even the ghosts from times past, I feel that haunting, too.

Talking about even the smell of it and the sound of it.

And the, you know it's a very-- yeah, you can almost taste it.

A lot of these places are still there, you know.

The structures are still there. The history is still there.

The feeling is still there.

Hollywood itself is a magnet...

and obviously has great feminine appeal...

a sexual appeal.

And the Strip is kind of the personification of that.

Well, it certainly will draw you in, and, you know, fuck you up.

It's the one street that you gravitate towards...

no matter where you are, because you hear about it...

and your dreams can start out there and your dream will end there...

you know, if you don't watch your shit, right?

It'll end right there, because you will die that night.

You know, and it will be because of whatever dream you're chasing.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* On the first part Of the journey *

* I was looking at All the life *

* There were plants and birds And rocks and things *

* There was sand and hills And rains *

* I've been through the desert On a horse with no name *

The social milieu and the history of Los Angeles...

creates a unique atmosphere for a place like Sunset Strip.

I don't think it could happen anywhere else, not in the way that it developed.

When you go back from the 20's and the little dirt road...

to being this glamorous pathway of movie stars and night clubs...

segueing into this whole other era in the 50's...

of being, kind of you know, semi-hipster hangout...

and then segueing into the 60's where you know that legacy continues on.

Sunset strip is a civilization for the broken hearted...

the mistreated, the overlooked, the under-loved...

the underpaid and the doomed.

If you're gonna die, you might as well die here, die in front of all of us.

We'll write songs about it.

It was a very rough strip at one time. It was the outlaw place.

It's where some of the agencies set up shop...

because there was no taxation.

It's was kind of outside the police jurisdiction...

of Beverly Hills and the studios.

So it was always this kind of--

No man's land. No man's land.

In 1892, a French immigrant comes in and buys 220 acres...

a guy named Victor Ponet.

He then proceeds to turn this area around Sunset Strip...

and West Hollywood into poinsettia fields.

It was still you know you basically have a lot of undeveloped land...

with small trails that turn into small little roads.

Sunset Boulevard then becomes this place between the proper...

city of Hollywood where all the filming is being done.

It's now a gateway to a development called Beverly Hills.

Most people think that the Sunset Strip is named because of strip clubs on there.

Which happened later, but it really was because it was this little strip of road...

that went between the two cities.

We are in the center of the universe in the 21st century.

You see a city in ruins, Hollywood USA...

but once upon a time, it was great...

Crescent Heights and Sunset Boulevard.

And in 1946, I came to this exact location with my father.

And we went down to Schwab's, which was this way, going towards Hollywood.

What sort of fountain was it?

The one at Schwab's Drug Store, up on Sunset Boulevard.

Schwab's? Schwab's.

Schwab's, thanks a lot.

The only place I really miss is-- it was Schwab's.

Yeah, yeah.

Because it had the soda fountains from the old days.

ARCHIVE VOICEOVER: I drove down to headquarters.

That's the way a lot of us think about Schwab's Drug Store.

Kind of a combination office, coffee clatch and waiting room.

Waiting. Waiting for the gravy train.

That had that magic... I miss that place.

That vibe, you knew a lot of stuff was born there.

Yeah, you knew that's where all the actors were who you looked up to.

And that you would meet a million actors in there that would never make it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the vibe was there.

Yeah, the vibe was-- yeah.

You know, their elbows were on those counters.

You thought you'd go in there and have a fucking Coca-Cola...

and get discovered for sucking on a straw.

Then we came here, wait for the light to change...

and then we went behind me to the fabulous garden of Allah.

The senior Robert Benchly had a really nice villa there.

The guys wanted to smoke opium in his villa.

You're the lookout. I had on my miniature sailor suit.

There I am with my little boat and my dad says...

"When the cops come, scream and start acting like a moron six-year-old...

and we'll flush the shit down the toilet. You got it?

Yeah. They went upstairs...

and they laid down and did the pipe.

On my first visit out here, they threw a party for me at the Garden of Allah.

And I was very much aware of the history of the Garden.

And the many famous people and celebrities...

from the Algonquin...

and people from New York.

It was a Bohemian atmosphere...

which was named for Allah Nazimova...

who was a famous silent actress.

Her most famous film was called Salome.

And it's a beautiful film, but it ruined her...

'cause she used her own money to make it, which is not a good idea.

She owned the Garden of Allah...

which was a series of Spanish-style bungalows...

built around a swimming pool that was shaped like the Black Sea or something...

that reminded her of her past.

And she lived in the large house, and later she had to sell it.

and that's when I visited the place...

and she lived upstairs in a little apartment.

She wore a famous wig in Salome...

that was little balls on wires that jiggled every time she moved.

A fabulous thing, and that was in her apartment when I visited her.

I was lucky enough to be here when I came out...

to go around the Garden of Allah, which is really the history of Hollywood.

And that's where Robert Benchly used to stay...

and Errol Flynn would have a bungalow there...

and it was a great, charming place with huge banana trees, palm trees.

You'd walk into it and you would think you were in some kind of a paradise.

My first few days in Hollywood and at the garden...

were all that I had anticipated. It was party time, the entire time.

So, when I came out the second visit in LA, I actually made a point of staying at the garden.

By then, it was downhill and a little on the seedy side...

but you know, for me, it still had the mystique of its history.

They tore it down in the late 50's, and put up a parking lot and a bank.

You know it's kind of a shame. It really is.

When I first came out here in 1971, hearing from the locals you know well...

that was the Garden of Allah where you know Bogie and Bacall stayed.

The present and the past and the future you know, it all kind of...

kind of rolls into one because there's a colliding...

collapsing kaleidoscope of images and impressions from past times.

The feeling when you take that drive riding a Harley down the Sunset Strip towards the ocean.

( SURF ROCK PLAYING )

That strip is like where you leave and where you come back.

You know, taking Sunset to the beach to go up PCH.

You go for a ride, you come back and when you go, you know...

you come through Beverly Hills and then you're coming up...

on the Strip, it's like, that's when you go like, okay. I'm back.

Places have souls and it, and it was very clear that it had something.

And it has so much history. It feels a little haunted.

It had the allure, but in a strange way, you know, a lot of places in LA...

the Garden of Allah, which was across the street, have a lot of that history, too.

But it felt as though it had suddenly become abandoned. It was just sort of lost.

But it had all this history and people would say, oh, when I used to stay at the Chateau...

but no one was staying there any longer.

Right, I remember coming there as a kid, before you fixed it up...

and it was pretty funky.

The fact that I live so close to it is no accident.

I mean I-- I truly feel like my early LA roots are in and around the Chateau Marmont.

But back then, it was not hoity-toity, you know.

I mean the Chateau was, it was you know, it had those...

it was really a couple of layers of grim. All over it.

It was a little rundown. Like in room 21, there was Astroturf.

You know, you didn't really want to take your shoes off. But that was part of its charm.

When the Chateau started in 1929, it was just after the stock market crash...

so they'd intended it as an apartment house.

But they ran out of money and no one wanted to move in.

So they ended up furnishing it with all these furniture...

from all these estates up in the hills.

That's why the lobby had this look of very eclectic, old pieces that came from that time.

So when we sort of resuscitated the whole place...

it was very much looking at those old historical photos.

And then as you went up into sort of the penthouse...

and we sort of decorated it in the scheme of what...

for example, Howard Hughes lived there in the 50's.

So it was sort of like what would be...

the high glamour of the 50's.

There's nothing nicer for me, to feel like if I'm at say the Chateau...

sitting in a place where I know know 40, 50 years ago, great writers, great artists...

great musicians. Not just the whacked out stories and funny stories...

and the drug stories, but just sitting there writing a script or working...

you know, maybe working on a tune or working on new material, whatever. I love sitting there.

The Chateau Marmont became a kind of home; Thanksgivings, and having Christmas...

and then having friends stay. And, it felt like my unsafe, safe harbor.

Tonight it's quite cloudy, but I think you can see the view pretty well.

( JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING )

It brings out people, a dark, a side, a kind of fun dark side of people.

I agree with you. It's something I think a good hotel tends to do that.

I think unhinges-- It can be dangerous!

Yeah, there is that side.

It can be dangerous or it can be very creative and very productive.

However you want to cast it, but certainly it invites and encourages kind of an extreme.

And don't you ever forget it, you [BLEEP]fuckers.

As the children say nowadays.

You know, I've had some really great, crazy wild times there.

And some that probably overstep the bounds a little bit...

personally where you just have you know, some emotional blow back.

Back in the 80's, you know, late 80's, when I was living there.

Basically there was this one guy, he was the night guy.

He'd come in at whatever time and you know, "Good evening, Mr. Depp, how are you?"

The Chateau was loaded with characters, but you have those kind of guys still...

like in Dmitri, you know, certainly.

Dmitri's a-- he's a special one.

My name is Dmitri. I'm the maître d'hôtel at Sunset Tower Hotel.

My job is to create little moments, just a little snippets...

a little moment and they remember that moment.

And hopefully they remember forever, then I've done a great job.

It was built smack in the middle of Hollywood.

You know on Sunset and for many, many years it was sticking out.

It was one only tall building in neighborhood and was nothing else, you know?

And where, these people, you know, as apartments and even right now as a hotel, you know.

They're not these artists are not just staying for one night or two.

Normally they stay for awhile. You know to create.

Here in LA, people come to like, hang out, just like a retreat.

You know, people will kind of actually, locals will actually move in to the hotels.

I think that people will come into a hotel...

and sort of get lost.

And I think you told me that it had been Bugsy Siegel's room at one point, right?

Bugsy Siegel's apartment, yeah. At one point, right?

This whole floor was his apartment.

John Wayne lived right below there.

What is now the spa.

Somebody told me wasn't it John Wayne that had the, brought the cow out on his terrace?

Yep. That's absolutely correct.

Is-- that's a true story? Yes.

The penthouse, Howard Hughes lived there.

SHARON STONE (V.O.): I lived there.

Sharon Stone lived there. Elizabeth Taylor lived there.

Diana Ross lived there. It's a suite that obviously attracts a special energy.

On clear days, Mr. Marlow you can see the ships in the harbor at San Pedro.

There are things that aren't talked about, like the House of Francis.

That's really not talked about all that much.

In fact, it's forgotten...

by most contemporary Hollywood.

They wouldn't know what you're talking about.

That it was a glamorous house of call girls.

Lee Francis, really she traveled the world to find out...

the sexual fantasies that were being fulfilled...

in India, in Paris, in London, in Rome.

As sort of like the delicacies of sex.

In Paris, one of the practices was to pour...

nine different kinds of wines and liqueurs...

into nine orifices of a woman.

And to sip it out of each orifice.

Okay, I know you're counting.

And all of this she brought back in the very late 20's, early 30's.

And she began operating out of a luxury suite in the Piazza del Sol.

It was very elitist, but people that lived on the Strip knew about it.

They were very attractive, young ladies.

Francis was much more than a brothel.

It was like a private club.

Writers from MGM would take over a room, and spend the evening writing...

and being served food and cocktails by pretty women...

who were smart and educated...

who they could run lines and scenes by.

Sharing ideas, having fun, it was a pretty exciting place to be.

But there were some pretty dark sex going on.

Certain people went in for the bondage and that sort of thing.

And whipping, so there was a sound-proof room for that.

Anything you wanted, you could have there.

Women often were there in the lobby partying, eating, drinking.

Women also went there for sex. It wasn't just for men.

Jean Harlow had a voracious appetite for both men and women.

Sometimes Jean Harlow would come for a woman and end up going home with a customer.

Lee Francis was the reigning madame of her day.

Up until the 40's, and that's when she fell.

Lee was busted at the Piazza del Sol in January of 1940.

There wasn't a single soul that would help her out.

All the fun, all the high living...

that people did with Lee.

And she ended up without a dime and without a friend.

And it is so often the story in this fickle town.

( SOFT JAZZ PLAYING )

( MUSIC CHANGES )

If any of you people have never seen the Strip...

I'd like to show you a bit of it right now.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, please.

I'm referring to that fabulous street in Hollywood called the Strip.

It's only a mile and a half long, but there's more glamour and drama...

packed into this boulevard of nightspots and hot spots...

than almost any other street you could name.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

I thought it was very glamorous. Oh, yes, it was.

I used to wear cocktail dresses from Jack's and get dressed up every night.

You're born in a cocktail dress. I was, I was.

I'm overdressed when I'm naked, so it's perfect for me.

But I remember when I was a kid growing up there...

it was always so chic and then Bobby Darin...

was the opening night, and Tony Bennett.

I mean, there was a lot of glamour on Sunset Boulevard.

Oh, yes, it presaged Las Vegas.

There's a little speakeasy called the La Boheme Club.

And then in 1934, Billy Wilkerson comes up, sees this place...

decides that he's going to turn this La Boheme into a nightclub, the Trocadero.

So it becomes the first nightclub on Sunset Boulevard.

My father's Billy Wilkerson.

William Richard Wilkerson the second...

but he was known as Billy.

He got a tip from a government friend of his...

that Prohibition was going to be repealed.

So he took a boat to France...

and bought like 60 or 70,000 dollars worth of French wines and champagnes.

That was a lot of wine. It was-- yeah.

So that's when he decided to build a nightclub...

and then from there, his next venture was Ciro's, where we are today.

Mocambo, Ciro's, Trocadero, which were the triumvirate of the nightclubs.

And that becomes kind of key, because all the other clubs that are coming along...

are all kind of supporting those, and there's, it's rife.

There may be 20 or 30 really nice clubs on Sunset Boulevard.

So the reputation of Sunset Boulevard...

is pretty much locked from 1934 onward.

It was such a fabulous time and there were so many clubs.

I loved working there. I worked the Crescendo and the other one.

So the way it was that there was The Cloister.

Then there was the Crescendo and then the Interlude. They were next to each other.

I worked the Interlude, that's the other one.

Yeah, the Interlude was great. Yes.

These clubs were very exclusive.

They were small, a lot of them, you almost had to be invited.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

When my dad had the Troc, he got people to come in and eat at his restaurant.

He had his illegal card games in the back.

If they didn't like that, they could go for roulette or whatever.

And then there were the exclusive bordellos up here in the hills.

It was cpmpletely service-oriented.

Los Angeles being LA in the 1920's and 1930's...

you have a police force that is easily bought off.

And now you have anybody who's opening a nightclub clearly...

is going to be involved in some kind of crime syndicate.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): One of the most colorful and notorious gangsters...

in the United States in the late 1940's was Mickey Cohen.

An ex-prize fighter, he reportedly controlled politicians...

bribed policemen, and killed gang land rivals on the West Coast...

until 1951, when he was sent to jail for four years for income tax evasion.

Mickey, you say you've never mixed with prostitution, you've never mixed with narcotics.

You have made book, you have bootlegged.

Most important of all, you've broken one of the commandments...

you've killed, Mickey.

I have killed no men that didn't deserve killing.

Of course, there was an out and out war, it was called the Battle of the Sunset Strip.

That's where Mickey got shot.

Coming out from across the street.

Guy was across the street.

That was where they were waiting for him?

They shot-- they got Mickey in the shoulder.

He's out going from one club to another in 1949.

And it's 4:00 in the morning, you know...

and he's out with the writer from the LA Times.

She gets shot in the ass, and he gets shot.

There's a rumor around town that somebody's posted a bounty on your head.

Have you heard about this?

No, I haven't.

Are you much concerned with it?

Not too much. Well, he had a grip on it all.

Yeah, 'cause from what I'm hearing, it's pretty hard to get a grip out here, you know?

It always has been. I think this is the wild, cowboy element.

TONY (V.O.): I took care of all the numbers on the books.

I was a lieutenant and whatever he wanted done, got done.

That's it. No questions with him.

No questions. I learned that fast.

And the three big book makers, him and Marty the Nose and Pete Rooney.

Pete Rooney, remember Pete Rooney?

He's still going, he's going. He's still going?

Oh, stronger than ever.

So, he had Sneeky Pete.

Where your club is now, The Cat Club, yeah.

It was a steak house.

Yeah, a steak house. Yeah, Sneeky Pete's.

Mickey Cohen had a little casino in the back. He had a couple 21 games back there for a while.

The police were always watching him, following him and everything.

So he would walk around and stop traffic, 'cause everybody knew who he was, you know.

The Chief of Police was Parker at the time...

and he had the intelligence squad that didn't arrest anybody, watched everybody.

And the one fellow, the big guy from Oklahoma, Otis, was tough as nails.

I mean, he did what he wanted to.

Otis, oh, that son of a gun.

That son of a bitch, he was always on my--

They stopped us and they would take Mickey to the front of the car...

take me to the back of the car.

"Why don't you start running?" he said.

He's like, "I could shoot you."

He said, "Go ahead."

He was a piece of garbage.

Go ahead, run, he said.

And I just stand there and say nothing.

Otis, he used to call us, you "dago".

Oh, yeah. He was-- I don't know how tough he was, 'cause--

I don't know how tough he was, I didn't care how tough he was.

I never saw him in a beef or nothing.

Yeah.

But he was a nervy son of a bitch.

He had the badge and the gun. That's right.

He had that on him, he had this--

You gotta understand one thing.

When you walk into the fire, and come out unscathed...

you're part of the thing, and that's what you gotta expect.

You gotta be careful, you gotta keep your word.

Honesty to me, is the best policy in the mob.

I don't care how mad Mickey got, he's always honest.

Mr. Cohen has realized from his experience that he so told me...

that the one big lesson he's learned while he was in prison, was that crime doesn't pay.

( CROWD CHUCKLES )

( MUSIC PLAYING )

What is now the Roxy used to be the Largo, which is a very famous strip club.

Miss Beverly Hills performed there.

Candy Barr...

There'd be lines, am I right, lines to get in.

Did Mickey go there? Because he was involved with--

Oh, Mickey, he was into Candy Barr. He was in there every night.

He took out Candy, he took out Miss Beverly Hills.

He's funny.

One of the great things of 1930's and 40's era...

of burlesque was that, you know you had raids on the burlesque theaters...

and they would arrest certain performers who were breaking the law...

and it would be the classic like being taken away in a mink coat, still wearing the costume.

Like it was sort of a great way to get people to come see her show.

Everyone wanted to come see you if you were breaking the law.

So a lot of women climbed to the top billing...

by bringing the house down in what ever way she could.

It was about titillation and sex.

Burlesque had a whole style to it.

The important thing about the strip tease was not the strip, it was the tease.

And, you know, it was magic.

This was a nightclub per se.

Ciro's, they had the best acts.

Mocambo had good acts, but this had the best.

SAMMY (V.O.): The night I opened at Ciro's...

the excitement that happened could not have happened anyplace else.

Sammy Davis opened up here, when he lost his eye.

And he came and he opened up here. We were sitting over there.

And he put on a show you wouldn't believe.

This place went crazy, because they'd never seen anything like this.

And everybody after the Oscars was here.

He danced, then did impressions.

Then he played everything and the band.

I think he played every instrument except his coat.

Because he was supposed to do 15 minutes.

Somewhere around an hour and--

Yeah, right, The Hollywood Reporter said, "A star is born."

* My Ho-Bohemia is the place I want to be *

Sammy Davis Jr.--

He was the king of the Strip.

People loved it when he came in and that was the first black guy to really--

Could get in there, yeah.

And he'd be, you know, dancing with white girls and all of that stuff.

He did a lot of things for the first time.

He's so bad ass.

I don't hear any sound.

Well, good, you'll hear it in a minute.

It's gonna come up. Soon as it warms up.

There we go. Sounds like one of your arrangements, I think.

Isn't that wonderful to have my arrangements up and playing?

Sneeky.

There still are a lot of ties...

between Sunset Boulevard and Las Vegas.

And so, pretty soon, you start in the late 40's, early 50's...

Vegas starts to suck all the entertainment off of Sunset Boulevard.

The Strip had its own personality...

and it certainly dramatically changed from decade to decade.

It evolved, but always reflected what was going on.

I personally have a prejudice related to the fact...

that I grew up during a much more romantic time.

And a much more glamorous time.

And without question I miss it.

I think that with the social, sexual changes that I very much played a part in...

and embraced, you also pay the price.

And I think we did lose some of the sophistication and romance.

Ciro's kind of closed down, in the dark period of my family.

The family and the nightclub kind of went down at the same time.

Early 1958, that was in my memory as a young girl...

the dark period of the 50's. And nightclubs were kind of over.

But something bigger was changing in the culture...

and it took a while to see it really change.

Once the glamour of the 40's and early 50's started to fade...

I think it was headed for a youthful explosion.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

I was the first television teen idol.

You know it was like, at the height of the popularity...

it was probably almost like Elvis at his top of his game.

There's not much you don't dig.

Way I dig it, you dribbled out of your place looking real bombed out like traumatized.

You'd had it, Dad. Do I always have to bring you on?

Kookie, Kookie, man with the comb.

Kookie, yeah, Edd Byrnes, man. Yeah.

We all remember that shit.

Remember his fingers snapping, yeah. But we all had them little combs back then.

Don't use them anymore, do they? I do.

Yeah, you do, you're the last.

Don't leave home without it.

You got it on you?

Yeah, I do, let me see.

Oh, that's old school, you're going-- give us the--

Handkerchief and-- perfect.

The whole thing might shift.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

September 30th, 1955, drove out here with a friend of mine from New York...

to become a movie star... not an actor.

A movie star, and I arrived up here on the Sunset Strip actually.

Oh this is the Edward Brynes costar of Warner Bros...

TV production, 77 Sunset Strip. A Kookie comb.

And get a free wallet photo.

That was it.

I mean, I would get the view...

of the Sunset Strip as a kid...

from that TV show. And whenever the show started off...

you'd see this T-Bird pulling out.

This is the parking lot of 77 Sunset Strip.

The view hasn't changed at all, it's the same view that we had.

Da, da, da, da, da, Sunset Strip.

( THEME MUSIC PLAYING )

Everybody thought of the sunset Strip as being the hip place in the world.

And that was-- for some reason, the golden highway.

When we first got here, I remember we all going, let's find number 77...

'cause we thought it was a real place, you know.

I don't know-- is there a 77 Sunset Strip?

So people would just come from everywhere because it had that magical name.

For some reason 77 Sunset Strip it just clicked.

77 Sunset Strip.

Click, click, you know.

That address does not exist. There is no 77 Sunset Boulevard.

NEWSMAN (V.O.): The days of the super glamour stars seem to be gone.

And the super nightclubs have changed into hangouts for hippies and teeny boppers.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Tonight, recorded live at the Whiskey in Los Angeles...

Johnny Rivers and the Whisky A-Go-Go.

That's February, early '64.

And you know, "Live" at the Whisky was the album that went to number one.

Every night lines up and down Sunset Boulevard...

which hadn't happened in those three or four blocks...

that became famous as the Strip with the Roxy and the Whisky...

and the Rainbow later on.

So that opened up the club era to rock and roll.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): And here's the world famous Whisky A-Go-Go on the Strip.

A favorite dancing spot for both the mods and movie stars who want to get it on.

Let's drop in and see what's happening tonight.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

Elmer, my godfather, my dad told me this story...

he went to Paris and he saw that they were doing it for the first time...

with just a DJ and people dancing.

And he brought that back and sort of created the nightclub in Los Angeles.

Before that it was you go out and you see a band.

But he was like, no they're going to come just to hear music and have a good time.

And that was sort of the birth of this crazy scene.

For 15 years I was a detective in Chicago and I'd always liked nightclubs...

being in them, being a customer, working in them, even when I was a policeman.

So I decided to move to Los Angeles.

Elmo was a crooked cop in Chicago during like that whole gangster era.

Mario was a crooked bailiff. I don't know if I should be saying all this.

But this is my family history.

Mario was a crooked bailiff, and my dad was born in Chicago...

so I think they had some Chicago connections when they met.

You know I think they were the thugs running the night.

And I think he brought the music and together they would make this whole thing.

They already made their money in chicago, and then came here.

And then with their capital, were able to, you know, Lou was able to bring the art into that.

* California dreaming

* On such a winter's day *

* I stopped into a church

People started coming in to LA...

seduced by not just like the Beach Boys and Good Vibrations...

but like California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas.

It was like a siren call, I think, for so many people.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): The neon Neverland that the mod set calls home.

Hundreds upon hundreds of cars inch their way up this fantastic boulevard...

every Friday and Saturday night...

fighting their way through teeming throngs of people...

that are drawn here every weekend, like moths to a flame.

It can mean only one thing.

That this is the place. This is where it's at.

This is where it all happens.

The new sound, the excitement, the pulsating fever that blocks out the humdrum existence.

Honestly I mean, it was so packed with kids, you couldn't walk down Sunset Strip.

You had to actually walk out in the street on a Friday or Saturday night.

It was so alive.

Suddenly all these hip teenagers...

kind of invade the place and start to sort of take over.

Mountains of people walking back and forth, back and forth.

And people standing around at certain restaurants and parking lots and even in gas stations.

People would be standing around meeting each other, chatting up and just a really cool scene.

There was nothing like it anywhere.

It became a real magnet for kids, not simply inside the clubs, but on the street.

And that became I think a major problem for the city...

and they, in effect, chased the kids off the street.

POLICE OFFICER (ON P.A.): The curfew law is now in effect.

Anyone under the age of 18-years-old remaining in the area will be arrested.

( ROCK MUSIC PLAYING )

There were at least three big buses full of sheriffs, there had to be a lot of these guys.

And I could see them, they had their helmets on and everything and I thought...

"Far out. Looks like it's gonna go bad."

I can see these guys all running, but like soldiers on a run, marching run, enforcement.

Running west. Tons of these guys.

I don't know. All with their little helmets and batons.

And I got some close looks, you know, cranking the telephoto.

You watch, click and you see scared eyes, really, these guys were scared shitless.

Because some of them were 19-years-old...

and they'd never been in this kind of thing...

and they believed everything they had heard in the papers.

That there were massive riots going on and cops were getting clubbed and stoned and all...

When you smoke a joint, you don't go out to the club and stone people, period.

The protest was against closing our club, the Pandora's Box.

It was like a little house on an island in the middle of Sunset Boulevard.

And it was our favorite place to go.

There were a lot of local bands played there and we had this gigantic protest...

and you know in those days there were no cell phones, or phone machines or anything.

We had to, it was all word of mouth.

And somehow the thousands of kids who hung out on the Strip all showed up that night...

and we had signs, and were chanting and it was all about us against them, you know.

They didn't understand us and we thought we were going to change the world. It was a revolution.

Well I was coming in from Laurel Canyon and we got about a block away and I see kids...

and I see a line of cops lined up like they were Roman Centurions.

And I went, "Turn the car around."

I didn't even want to go in there.

I've seen all I need to see and I wrote "For What It's Worth" on the way back.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

People were really running by me.

I hid behind one of those cement stanchions for a light post.

So people wouldn't hit me as I was photographing what going on...

until, suddenly, I was ripped away from the lamp post and this young cop...

with his baton, whack-- he tried to hit my cameras.

And handcuffed and pulled off to one of the buses.

Photographed with a Polaroid 1A.

As I looked at it I thought, did they reserve this for me?

Is this the position they're giving me? Far fucking out.

All right, I don't like this, but here I am on the bus.

How do I get out? So, shackled I am in the bus, or handcuffed.

And I looked out the window and I saw Bob Denver, and his wife Maggie.

So I thought, screw it, I took my handcuffs and I banged them against the chain,,,

that was up against the window, enough until he looked up.

And yelling, get help!

Call somebody.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

You hear the legends of Sunset Strip and you hear the, well of course the riots...

put it on the map, I think.

But it was all part of that whole 60's revolution, music revolution.

And it all seemed to come out of LA.

I mean a lot of the people that, the beginnings of rock and roll...

with not show business backgrounds.

You know, we were babies in that sense. You know we were trying things, you know...

because we didn't have any rules.

You didn't know that you couldn't do that.

You didn't know that you could do Pee-Wee Herman on a Monday night.

and you could do Bob Marley...

and Cheech and Chong...

the rest of the week, you know.

So we just mixed it up.

It's fabulously freaky.

Rocky Horror, Pee-Wee Herman, they all did stem from music, though.

I mean there is this culture of music on the Strip...

and I think that box is not this big, it's really this big...

and I think you're able to fit a lot of stuff into it.

At the bottom of it, there's a song there.

I think as a musician, what we learned about this building...

and a lot of what was going on in this area was the art of sharing.

And our musical legacy of, certainly Fleetwood Mac...

was greatly affected by being more open, less judgmental...

and entertaining that anything could go.

And I learned that here. We learned that here.

That's how it was in those days, you could actually sort of make a living at these places...

playing every night and you really got to hone your songs...

in front of people, which was great, because you can see which one works...

and which part of one doesn't work.

That's why our first couple albums were so good...

because we really had them down to a T before we went in to record.

You know over the period of a year or so, playing the songs every night.

When your house band is Jim Morrison and the Doors or Love...

or The Buffalo Springfield or Iron Butterfly, I mean that was pretty amazing.

You know rock gods were walking the earth here.

Rock gods filled this room.

And that, that will never happen again.

You know this small space, I saw The Who play, Jimi Hendrix...

Led Zeppelin, I mean in this small, tiny, little space.

The Who, can you imagine how they filled it up?

I mean it was just, you were pressed against the wall, you know.

This booth right here is the Mamas and Papas' booth where they would hang.

Right where you're sitting is where I was sitting...

the night Hendrix played for the first time in LA.

And that was amazing.

Everybody was standing on the tables, so you had to stand up in order to see him.

This is Miss Pamela direct from the heart of Hollywood...

the heart of rock and roll and I really mean that today...

because look where I'm standing, in front of the Whiskey A-Go-Go...

Hollywood's rock and roll landmark.

Every 24 hours was like a month, because so much was crammed into it.

Every minute, honestly I'd get up that day, and I had no idea what was going to happen.

And it was always anything-can-happen day.

I think we should take a little walk over here to the Rainbow Bar & Grill.

Now this is where everybody winds up, every night of the week to just rock out...

hang out, have a wonderful time, and just get loose.

The first time I came to the Rainbow was like '73.

The year after it opened.

If you've been coming here for a while, you get into it.

You know, the ambiance, if you'd like me to say an artistic word for it.

The ambiance of the place, yes. It's got a lot of history in it for rock and roll, you know.

I mean it's the whole history of rock and roll, just about, you know?

And it goes back even further than that.

I mean, Judy Garland met Vincente Minelli here.

And Joe DiMaggio met Marilyn Monroe here when it was an Italian restaurant.

Sinatra and Dean Martin used to hang out here, so it goes back a long way, you know.

You know, I used to park my bike outside the Rainbow on a Friday and Saturday night.

Literally just sit on the bike and ten minutes there'd be a bird on the back and I'd be off.

We'd be gettin' blow jobs under the table at the Rainbow.

It's a fucking dinner place, you know, like what is-- like, I can't--

Because they had these little nooks and crannies where you could creep...

go back in the corner and you'd be having a just, a raging party...

and nobody would ever come by and be like, you guys can't do that here.

Are you crazy? No one would say anything.

The bathroom, under the tables, out in back, in the alley, like nobody...

like I can't even imagine that happening right now.

I mean I had my cock sucked everywhere, behind the Roxy, in the bathroom at the Rainbow...

behind the Whisky, you name it.

There weren't one place I didn't get me cock sucked.

Nothing mattered.

There wasn't AIDS, there wasn't--

People just ripped it, man.

( ROCK MUSIC PLAYING )

The Hyatt House was the party place.

I don't know if anybody actually--

I think they got rooms just to go from party to party to party to party to party.

And, it was, it was like the Old West. There was no law at the Hyatt House.

You'd go to any floor, get off the elevator and there was some kind of party going on.

And you'd go to the next floor and there was another party going on.

But this was 24 hours a day.

It was the insane asylum.

I am under the influence of a dangerous drug and I'm liable to flip out at any moment...

and kill you or myself. LSD does funny things.

And then they were looking and laughing right, I was like this myself and I said...

Shut up or I'll squirt every one of you with tear gas.

We gotta do something to them.

Two flipped out groupies kill pop star.

Wouldn't that be something?

It was called the Riot House, you know.

I mean, the crazy stuff that went down there.

It was, it was like, I mean, here in England...

when a guy meets a girl, he asks her out and goes to the movies or whatever...

and eventually things happen, you know. Not here.

It's just straight in the sack, you know?

It was just like, wow. What disease have I got now?

I stayed with Led Zeppelin there, a lot.

And they had the entire sixth floor.

They always rented out the entire sixth floor, and you know, took over.

Everyone knew in Hollywood that Zeppelin were in town and those guys were so fucking wild.

They'd abuse the chicks, they'd like to push it to see how far they could go.

Burning them, cutting their hair off, handcuffing them.

I mean, leaving them handcuffed for a couple of days in the room.

And they'd be riding motorcycles up and down the hallway at the Continental Hyatt House...

and they'd have these wild, wild parties. Up all night, throwing TV's out the window.

All that stuff is true.

Like Led Zeppelin did a lot of stuff.

Richard Cole, he took this leather strap and he started beating me...

and I didn't even know him.

They threw Cynthia in the swimming pool and ruined all her velvet clothes.

They were really weird.

They were probably the worst, but there were many that abused loads of people on the Strip.

But that would never, ever, ever have been tolerated anywhere else but America.

In America, they were like, oh, do you want to hit me some more?

Do you want to burn me?

Do you want to fuck me with a fucking you know, rod of iron?

We'll do it. And that's how it was.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

If you stay insane, and you stay in a magical place...

and you float, you're not gonna ever die.

Don't be afraid, come on in.

I needed bars, I needed clubs, I needed places like this...

to feel like there was a purpose to what I was doing.

I mean it's hard enough to think that there's a purpose for anything...

when we're spinning around in infinity.

So forgetting about that show, I-- got a little scared for a second didn't you?

I know you did.

It's a frightening profession. I was a schmuck, I could've been a caterer.

I realize now, no, I don't want to be negative. It's too hot, it's too nice up here.

Uh, I am, I'm, well I got to tell you something, my mother lives in Jersey.

How does she get the Roxy backstage number? It's really unbelievable. I just tell

No one knows who the fuck we are. We don't know why we're even doing anything, you dig?

So, anyway, it's good to have a clubhouse.

And there were a lot of clubhouses on the Strip.

When this was Ciro's, I'm telling you this place was jumping.

The thing that the different eras had in common...

were you had cocaine, you had young people, you had alcohol, you had free--

He keeps going back to the drugs.

The people who made this thing happen, the public came to see all of this.

We were all crazy.

I was studying for the ministry, I have no idea what you're talking about.

The Comedy Store, I mean walking in there when you're 20 years old...

and you're, you know, like this kid from Iowa.

And seeing those names on the wall, and the pictures...

and there's Letterman and Robin Williams and there's Steve Martin...

and it's just impossible, it's impossible that you are there.

There was a method to the madness. You had a place to work.

You had to fight to be a part of it.

You had to fight to be a part of it, you had to be good.

And that's why the people packed this place.

When Pryor would play here, you know, on like a weekend?

It was like attending a heavyweight prize fight in Vegas.

I was a cocktail waitress at the Comedy Store from October of 1980...

until October of 1981.

And that was the explosion of stand-up comedy.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

This man's a genius.

Now who else can take all the forms of comedy, slapstick, satire...

mime and stand-up, and turn it into something that will offend everyone.

Richard Pryor was at the Comedy Store every single night back then...

preparing for his film "Live on the Sunset Strip".

He was the god that we must all obey. Whatever he said, went.

Thank you.

I want to know the two people, the two people who first did coke.

And one looked at the other and said, "We're not gonna tell anyone about this."

I think it was me and Richard Pryor.

When I first came out, it was Sam Kinison and those guys...

and they had guns and they were always doing coke and they, I'd never seen it before...

and I thought, I thought, man, this stand-up is a lot tougher than I thought.

SAM KINISIN (O.S.): I think I did too much! Oh!

I did too much!

No, uh, I don't do drugs.

Was it Kinison or Dice, somebody shot a car or something.

Dice didn't do it. It was Kinison.

And people, you hear these stories of bowls of cocaine and stuff.

You say that's bullshit, you know, that's bullshit, that's whatever.

But no, they actually, that happened.

And then people started getting greedy.

Listen, you think that they're ballers now?

These kids now don't know what balling is, they don't know.

That stuff was pure, and they had it--

These kids today, they don't know drugs.

No, I would be in limos and with Richard and with the gang...

and they would, I mean, they would have thousand dollar bills...

they would put the cocaine and snort it.

And pass it around. When it got to me, I'd wipe it off and put the money in my pocket.

I was so rich during that whole era, I loved it. It was the best.

I believe him.

Yo, free cocaine, come on in.

You know, I used the Strip for many other things that had nothing to do with my craft.

The Strip, you know, for me was a source of--

It's hard to delineate what was just fun and recreation...

and what was like, I should die tonight, but I made it through, you know.

TED KOPPEL: John Belushi careened at a breakneck pace...

between the irreverent and the outrageous.

It was not only his comedy that was unpredictable...

there was always a strong sense that the act was a reflection of the man...

and the man a bizarre reflection of a generation.

Now John Belushi is dead.

FEMALE ANNOUNCER (V.O.): The Chateau Marmont sits just above Sunset Boulevard...

in the Hollywood Hills.

It is a landmark in this town.

A hotel where many actors stay while in Los Angeles and where some live.

John Belushi was among the hotel's frequent visitors.

He had checked into bungalow three last Sunday.

And it was in the bungalow's master bedroom where Belushi was found dead...

just after noon today.

We were kind of excited that Belushi was popping in, and then he did come in.

And he just looked like shit.

He just looked like hell.

He was trying so hard not to do coke.

He actually had to hire people to keep people with drugs away from him.

On March 5th, 1982, my partner passed away.

Or was taken by a, what we can say is an accidental drug overdose.

You know Belushi was a workhorse.

He could smoke more than anybody else. He could drink more than anybody else.

He could eat more than anybody else. He could take more drugs than anybody else.

And Belushi died? I mean, people were freaked.

And Richard Pryor was one who was freaked.

And Paul Mooney, his writer and dear friend...

who had tried so hard to keep him sober...

had Richard up against the wall saying...

"Man don't you get it? This is what they're saying about you!"

Everybody thought that would be you.

Richard Pryor was on the wagon. Richard was clean.

I know what that means. I've been on it a couple times.

Okay, good.

When Belushi came in, loaded out of his mind...

he came up to me and said, "Paul, is Pryor coming tonight?"

I said, "Yeah."

He said, "Well, I'm at the Chateau Marmont."

Tell him to come to the house, blah-blah-blah.

And then he left, and then Richard came in, and I gave the message.

I said, "Richard, don't go up there to the Chateau Marmont...

"because they're all up there and you're on the wagon, you'll get offered it if you go there."

So you saved Richard Pryor's life.

No, I said go home, and he did go home.

That's for real. He went home when the rest of it did happen.

Yeah, Richard would've went up there and been in the middle of all of it, too.

I don't know what to say to you, you know? I mean, I see you here, y'all look beautiful.

And I'm sober, and it's still a strange feeling being sober...

because I got nothing to do tonight but go to sleep.

Well, there are two instincts we have, the instinct to live...

and the instinct to kill ourselves. You do know that, that's for everybody.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

Living or dying in LA, it all happens here it seems like.

Hey, man, what is this place?

I got something better for y'all.

( PUNK ROCK PLAYING )

You feel as though Jack Kerouc was down in Venice Beach, you know.

Or Jim Morrison was over here and Otis Redding was over there.

And you feel like, yeah, I'm a part of that and it's sort of true...

and you're sort of blowing smoke up your own ass, so.

But I think everybody had a sense that we were doing something.

Punk rock fans, between '77 and '80...

you were making a flyer or you made a fanzine, or you were writing for Slash Magazine.

So in that way it was very Bohemian.

'Cause people had jobs, but they, that was secondary.

It was pretty crazy. It was pretty scruffy.

You know, there was a lot of runaways.

We were totally outside of society and all the bands were and the fans were.

We didn't fit in anywhere. It was clique-ish.

But it was still us against them, so the cliques would unite...

against people from the outside, and I think it was more supportive.

If one band succeeded a little bit, it was good for all of us.

We'd be at a show, we'd say...

what's happening tomorrow night?

And everyone would congregate...

at that club the next night.

They'd have acts, you know, The Bags and The Weirdoes and The Germs.

And stage diving. It was packed. A lot of noise, loud.

Angry, violent, Germs, X were good, though.

It was an angry, violent scene.

In the punk rock days, hanging around, the police would come and clear everybody away.

You know, they seem to like the hair bands, because they-- I don't know, they were--

Girls wore skimpy clothes and the guys were loaded.

I don't know what--

The Sunset Strip! And it's time to go round and round. Yeah.

Early 80's, '80, '81.

'81, '82.

It turned from the punkers walking the streets and everything...

into all the like rock bands, like over a summer.

I mean, those were the good days, because it was all new.

You know, we were just--

There's Sunset Boulevard... have at it.

Between the Roxy and the Whiskey, it was just like a parade of freaks...

walking up and down Sunset.

Metal head!

The Rainbow being kind of the epicenter of the whole thing, the meeting place.

So there's like a whole scene of people just like walking from show to show.

Come in here to get a drink, going to another show, and it just...

It was like a street festival every night.

I mean, there was a time when hanging out in front of all the venues...

was probably more fun than actually being inside.

I mean, I would say the street life of Sunset Strip was really, really happening in the 80's.

All through the 80's, actually it was great.

You didn't have to go anywhere, you could just walk down the street...

and it was fun, everyone was hanging out, flyering, it was good.

Poodle heads on the Strip. It was a nightmare.

It was like post-Motley Crue now, so it was a nightmare.

Pay to play, that whole fucking nightmare.

Just when everyone would like-- What year?

This is 1988.

I moved here in '88, that's when I moved here, yeah.

That's when like every idiot wearing--

We're playing the Roxy April 7th, headlining, we have pins for you.

But you gotta wear 'em.

There you go. That's the band to see.

You really, if you wanted to come to LA and you didn't have anything to do...

you could just come to the Sunset Strip...

and there were so many people. Talk to people.

And people dressed crazy, you know, of all different types of rock genres.

It's just like toast.

Too many long-hairs. It's no more punkers and turf rockers.

Too expanded, too much of the same thing.

Too many glam dudes.

Yeah, yeah.

But it's basically just all sex, just all sex.

That's the basic feeling along the Strip, sex.

Sex and rock and roll, it's total decadence, you know.

Total sex and decadence, you know?

There was that one point in the 80's there where like...

people kind of stayed away from the Strip because it was so that like glam rock era thing...

you know what I mean?

So if you didn't have teased hair or whatever...

they had kind of taken over this whole part of the Strip.

Well, I think that's why we all hung out here, because we weren't in that scene.

Yeah, so we had to have a little place to, you know, hide out.

We were lost in the past. Yeah.

Ladies and gentlemen, you fucking broke it, you fucking bought it.

Give it up for Steel Panther!

It's been 11 years we've been on the Sunset Strip.

Every single-- we're the longest running heavy metal weekly show...

in the history of the Sunset Strip.

I want to fuck some bitches tonight, two, three, four.

Ugh! Like that. That's fucking awesome.

If you're into heavy metal, like we all four are...

it's the only place to be is right here.

Right, or during the day, you could, if you're not doing anything...

you could go to the zoo.

It's just a place where you can come and fucking be whoever you want to be.

You can wear like lip gloss... if you want.

Yeah.

I wear sparkly kind of lip gloss, because sometimes the lights glisten off of it.

Plus, the glistening, actually it comes off on some of the cocks that you suck.

You're an asshole. Glistening kind of cocks.

Asshole, I was in jail.

'Cause that's his other band.

He's in a solo band called Glistening Balls. Awesome!

The whole hair thing happened with the hair bands.

100 of them, and I actually got into that whole scene.

I had long hair, I had the Harley Davidson.

I was in shape and I had a couple of solo albums out...

and now this is pre-AIDS...

and all the birds looked like strippers.

And it was great.

It was rocking, there were people just up and down the street.

Everyone was making out flyers. It was the best time.

I wasn't in that kind of band, but I lived around here, loved it around here always.

And that's what was going on at the time.

It was truly rocking back then.

All the bands were kind of in like a community.

Handing out flyers to their next show, and every bar had something going on in it.

That went on for about four years maybe? Three or four years...

And then Nirvana came along and it all ended.

Then the whole grunge thing, dirty looking people, started.

And just yeah, somehow gave the perception...

that it was uncool to be, you know, here.

Which was-- we all know it's all the same stuff.

Instead of spandex, it's flannel, it's all the same, it's-- you know?

But that is a time and it's because people dying of drugs...

and people getting AIDS, that time is just gone...

because when you hear the term "sex, drugs and rock and roll"...

that was it, I mean, that really, really, really was it.

That was the last time it was like that on the Strip.

And people won't-- now it's not cool to say hey, I got drugs.

You're like, yeah, you're a weirdo.

It felt real hollowed out.

People would come back and be like, you guys want to do some blow?

And I'd be like, no, and they'd be like kind of depressed, like nobody to party with, you know?

Grunge at that time, although it seems very cozy and cute now...

completely anhilated everything that hair metal stood for.

It was sort of a joke. It was more like cartoon characters coming through the door.

We didn't want to be part of the cartoon. We were sort of blowing the cartoon up.

And so the Sunset Strip we encountered was the sad-face clown version of it.

You know, like, it used to be so much fun, now it's not fun anymore.

When grunge took over metal, and it did, it really knocked it out.

We were kind of--

Why do you keep saying that? You keep reminding--

It's like having-- being dumped by a girlfriend...

and somebody keeps bringing it up, how you got dumped by your girlfriend.

Well, this is how-- It's been 20 fucking years.

I don't want to hear that anymore.

Let me finish, Jesus!

I swear, I see people walking up and down Sunset Strip...

I'm like, seriously, have you been in a fucking time capsule?

I mean, there's been so many different generations of things that have gone on in music...

and things that have happened but you still stuck in like 80's hair metal bands.

And that's kind of what I love about the Strip...

because it's, you know what you're getting.

( JAZZ MUSIC PLAYING )

What I wanted out of the Viper Room, I mean, first and foremost...

wouldn't it be great to have...

a place that you could go to where...

you weren't necessarily...

on display all the time...

or you didn't feel like a novelty, you know?

Um, you didn't have to sneak in and sneak out...

you know, hide, all that, and you could listen to the music...

you know, that you and your friends like.

We wanted to hear Louis Jordan and we wanted to hear Cab Calloway.

And we wanted to hear old blues, Robert Johnson and Howlin' Wolf.

So that was the initial thing, you know.

Let's make this place feel like it should have been or like maybe it was back then...

you know, in the 30's, a speak-easy.

It was called The Melody Room then, which is at that time...

I mean, the people that I heard, that had played there were like, you know...

Charlie Parker, Coltraine, you know, all these amazing, amazing players...

from back in the day, you know?

So, yeah, we were all very excited about the history of the place.

It was a really cool time, it was definitely something that was so different.

The Viper Room paved the way for everything from where I am today with the Pussycat Dolls.

There's something so amazing about the intimacy performing for such a small crowd.

And every single person is just feeling it.

The Pussycat Dolls started as an underground cabaret act really.

I remember Johnny saying this is why I opened the club.

This is-- I wanted this, you know?

And it had only been open for like six months.

He said, oh, I'd love for you guys to come and perform here and maybe...

you can do like once a week kind of residency, and I'm like, oh, my god, this is amazing.

And that's how it started, and then we were there for ten years.

Johnny helped me live out my dream, and it might sound cliché...

but it's real, that is real.

ANNOUNCER (V.O.): Young film star River Phoenix...

died early today outside a popular West Hollywood nightclub.

Among the films...

He came with his girlfriend and his guitar.

He wanted to play music.

You know, for me, you couldn't erase what had happened.

You couldn't erase the memory, you couldn't erase the tragedy.

And also this place that was...

basically just a bar, a club...

that started for all the right reasons.

Suddenly there was this cloak over it, you know.

I mean, talk about mystique, talk about, you know...

the idea that wow, you know, there's something weird at the Vipor Room.

It became this kind of dark entity for a lot of people, you know, it's mystery...

that they, you know, you know, for an artist, there's something evil there.

There's something weird there, you know?

And when Johnny Cash came and played in '94 I believe it was...

It was like a great cleansing.

It was like he'd performed this, this exorcism.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* I got a friend Named Whiskey Sam *

* He was my boonie rat buddy For a year in 'Nam *

* He said I think my country Got a little off track *

* Took him 25 years To welcome me back *

* But it's better than not Coming back at all *

* Many a good man I saw fall

* And even now every time I dream *

* I hear the men and the Monkeys in the jungle scream *

* Drive on it don't mean Nothing it don't mean nothing *

* Drive on

Thank you.

You really start to have a history with these people.

You see people come, you see people go, you see people sadly die, you see people succeed.

And it's all happening in one place.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* 13 men and me the only Gal in town *

* There were 13 men and me The only gal in town *

This club means so much to me, because it was not only on the Sunset Strip...

but it's the first place I ever actually sang in my life.

* I won't tell you where I've been *

* 'Cause if it's just a dream I hope to dream it again *

I did everything for the first time on Sunset Strip. Everything.

Everything.

I even feel like I probably-- yeah, I lost my virginity on the Sunset Strip even.

I had my first getting drunk, I went to my first club.

We weren't Hollywood kids, we were Sunset Strip kids.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* Friday night The weekend crowd

* Move on in to get on down On Sunset *

( PAPARAZZI YELLING )

* Sunset people

* Sunset people

* Sunset people

It used to be so much fun. I used to love going out on the Sunset Strip.

( CROWD SHOUTING )

Bizarre. No doubt.

It's all paparazzi down here.

We all used to be able to roll around...

and the guys that moved up here, and got their houses here.

You weren't worried about being followed home.

You didn't worry about where you lived. You had people over.

It just was pretty provincial.

And I've seen plenty of people become prisoners of their own whatever.

But I also do think there is a debasing of it on the strip.

The paparazzi culture and the tabloid culture has changed everything.

You leave your house now, you go to get a hot dog, it's a press junket.

So a lot of folks don't want to go anywhere.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

It is what it is, and I came up here and I call this home.

So even if it was just a bunch of burned out shop windows...

and whatnot, I'd still feel a sense of belonging here and all that.

I think one of the biggest things that changed you know, Tower Records closing.

That was a major, that was when you really had to accept that things have changed...

massively in this town.

The Tower Records, even from when I was a little kid...

was like almost a home away from home.

And a lot of people, tons of people sort of identified with Tower Records...

as being the music store that we all used to hang out at.

There was conversation, community.

There was nothing like driving out of that parking lot and holding up the CD...

on my way out when my friend was going in and being like, I got it.

You know, and that was, you know, things were more local.

They were more in-- you know, right here.

Tower was much more than a record store.

It was really a haven for music lovers everywhere.

Just seeing the listening booths.

Seeing the immersion in music.

It was so special, so that the original Spago, right across the street.

I would go there with my family or colleagues...

and immediately go into that parking lot and spend an hour or two hours there.

When you're used to seeing a certain building with a certain color...

it's imbedded in your psyche.

And you go there and it's just gone. It's like, what happened, you know?

Like something blew it up or something? You know, it's just, it was sad, very, very sad.

When Tower Records closed, I think...

that was definitive proof that Sunset Strip changed forever.

The places do go every 20, 25 years.

The same places ain't going to be there...

but the streets gonna always connect to heaven or hell or where you're gonna go.

I could've ended up living in Ohio...

and my dad owned the hardware store on the corner...

and he said son get down here, you're on the register today.

It just happened to be on Sunset Strip and Guns N'Roses was playing.

The artists, the manager, all those people should be treated better.

That was why the Roxy opened.

But Elmer had done that at the Whisky for years before that.

And Nic has seen it, seen how it was operated.

And it was very easy for him to then be that kind of a club owner.

Then at the end of the day you have the Rainbow, which is a combination of our family.

And then you have the Roxy is a family business and the Whisky is a family business.

And Tenmasa, the Japanese restaurant is a family business and believe it or not...

Hustler, they live in the community, they're a family business...

and the Cat Club's a family business and not for a year or two years or five years...

but for 20 years and 30 years.

It's like this tree and the roots of this tree...

and how this handful of families have now...

our generation led to our kids' generation, and then it's going to go again, hopefully.

So it's like all these generations of us have grown up together...

and if you were to do like a family tree of Sunset, it would be very incestuous.

I think we all kind of realized that we are a family.

And it's pretty cool to see you know, the clubs initially made the Strip.

Now it seems as if the Strip and its history is making the clubs.

I think we were kind of forced to make it something that we thought was cool.

And something that we were all into and not something our parents showed us...

or grandparents showed us. It was like, we want to make this our thing.

It took for a new generation to come in and make that happen...

machine and we were churning.e a

It just kind of wore on itself and then we kind of looked and was like...

Oh, well we actually have to start discovering music again.

It seems like there's a new iteration of the essential fantasy...

of what the Sunset Strip represents every few years.

I don't whether there ever will be again.

We're now at a place where it's sort of sponsored and commodified...

and the Sunset Strip has just become like a kind of museum in a sense.

I'd love to think that it could be revived and reborn in some way...

but I'm not quite sure how that's going to happen.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

I've been playing on this street now almost 20 years.

It's not the same as just playing in another show in a city.

It's a place where you can measure things against other things.

Maybe that's not always a public understanding.

But, personally it means something.

She's probably like some rumbling going on under there...

it's going to burst out again anytime. It has to.

Because of the incredible history and energy that's boiling up underneath here...

and will always be here.

It was creepy and exciting, really dangerous, you know?

Like tonight we were going to bring a little bit of that back, man.

We're going to suspend some women from the ceiling by their flesh.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

The person that comes in tonight and is standing in the front row...

and is looking at their favorite artist...

and they can't believe that they can touch their shoe and they can hold their hand...

and that's all that matters, that one moment.

You know, and that moment will live with them forever.

And they'll look back and say it's never going to be like that.

You know, it'll never be that great, but in that same moment...

someone's reliving that experience.

There's another 23-year-old kid that's standing in the front row...

and having the greatest music moment of their life.

And then that's going to happen again the next night.

And I think that's been happening, probably for--

Since Frank Sinatra.

Yeah.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

God has provided a place where you can make mistakes, be hated, be loved...

be ignored, and then come back, just because it's within your right...

as a magical human being to do so.

You make your last stand in Eden. And this is Eden.

( MUSIC PLAYING )

* We was a-d-d-d-drivin' D-downtown L.A. *

* About a midnight hour And it almost b-blew my mind *

* I got caught in a colored shower *

* All those lights were t-t-twinkling on Sunset *

* I saw a sign in the sky

* It said T-t-t-trip a t-trip, I trip, trip *

* I couldn't keep up up if I tried *

* Ah we stopped down To reality company *

* To get some instant sleep

* And the driver turned I said welcome back *

* He smiled and he said Beep beep *

* What goes on Chick-a-chick *

* What goes on I really wanna know *

* What goes on all around me What goes on *

* I really wanna know

* When in should come-a My dream woman *

* She got sequins in her hair

* Like she stepped out Off of a Fellini film *

Straw chair *a white

* But I thought I'd take a Second look *

I could see * what

* And my scene had popped out Like a bubble does *

* There was nobody there But me *

* I said Girl you drank a lot Of drink-me *

* But you ain't In a Wonderland *

* You know I might-a be there To greet you child *

* When your trippin' ship touches sand *

* What goes on Chick-a-chick *

* What goes on I really wanna know *

* What goes on Chick-a-chick *

* What goes on I really wanna know *

* A silver goblet of wine

* Is-a to be held In a bejewelled glove *

* And her knights they toast

( MUSIC CHANGES )

( MUSIC CHANGES )

Action!

* What goes on? Chick-a-chick *

* What goes on I really wanna know *

* What goes on all around me

* What goes on I really wanna know *

Well, come on!

( MUSIC CONTINUES )

( MUSIC ENDS )

One, two, three, four!

( MUSIC PLAYING )

( MUSIC CHANGES )