Hello to all of you. Unconventional convention is out there. Welcome to Rocky Talkie, the podcast where we talk about anything and everything. Rocky Horror. I'm Aaron, I'm John and joining us on air this week, we've got Randy from the J C C P out in Pittsburgh. Hi, Randy. Let's go. Randy. Randy. Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your time with the Rocky Horror community? Sure. I've been a member with the J C C P for close to 10 years. I've been the treasurer for about five years and I love Rocky Hell. Yeah, dude. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are really excited to have you on air with us. So, before we get started with the show, you all know it, we like to take a moment and ask each other, how was your week? Did you get up to anything fun, John, what were you up to this week? Uh This was kind of busy for me. Well, I feel like the past like five weeks have been busy for me, but this week we had, we had a lot of things happen. Uh, but most recently the, the three really cool things that are sorry, I just had to do like a massive stretch in the middle of my description. Uh The, the three things that just happened to me recently that were really, really, really cool. Number one, I went ax throwing for the first time and I had so much fun. I want to be a professional ax thrower when I grow up now. Uh pivot number two uh Poop. Uh Secondly, I got to go see everything everywhere all at once. That a 24 film that everyone has been coming over and let me tell you, uh it is worth it. The cup is worth it. It is an incredible movie. If you don't know what it's about neither did I just go ahead and watch it. It drops on Amazon on, well, we're recording this on a Sunday. It drops on a Tuesday. So by the time this episode airs it'll be on Amazon. So please do yourself a favor and watch everything everywhere all at once. It's beautiful. And the third thing is that I booked a six day trip to Miami because yeah, Miami, I booked a six day trip to Miami because fuck you. That's why. So I'll be in Miami like the third week of June. So bye. I'm really excited. Uh I've been to Florida twice. One of the one time was to Pensacola, which there is nothing there. And the other time was to Disney so I've never been to like the beachy side of Florida. So I'm super, super excited to come back looking like a bronze God. Hell, yeah. What about you, Randy? Well, uh last night I threw a bachelor party for one of my best friends. He's getting married next week. So we went to Morton's for steaks and then uh we had a limo, so we were getting drunk in the limo and then we went and did an escape room and then we got some more drinks. It was a good time. Hell yeah. Sounds funny. Shit. I love that for you. Yeah, we had fun. Kick me John. Ok, so my week was pretty great too. Yeah. Um we finally uh got some tickets to go see Moulin Rouge. Uh We had talked about that last week that it was coming up and uh I, I loved it. I thought it was really cool. The uh the lights were amazing. The scenic design was amazing, kind of outshone the actors a little bit. But I mean, what are you going to do? It's a jukebox musical and oh my God, the I, I was amazed the amount of songs they shoved into this show that weren't in the movie. You know, there's like 30 songs in the I love medley. It blew my mind every other word or every other, you know, phrase was a different song and like it was super fun. It was, it was super fun. I don't know if I, uh, if I would have gone if I had paid full price for those tickets. But, um, it was, it was cool. It was cool if you get, if you get a chance to, to see it, uh, with some cheap seats, uh, that's, that's the way I recommend it. It, it was super cool. But did you love Ziegler's Rendition of Chandelier? You know, I didn't see that coming at all. So I was here for it. I was, I loved it. It's my favorite part of the show. Yeah, I think my favorite parts of it were the parts that weren't in the movie, the parts that were unique to the stage show. And I was like, ok, this, this is actually some unique, different things and like, you know, the big, the big dance number that comes in, you know, right after intermission. That was super cool. Oh, my God. Bad romance. Yeah, I did not expect bad romance. Um, so I didn't expect it to be good. That was my, like, when, when the Argentinians start singing bad romance, I was like, oh, no. Oh, why would they do this? And then I was like, oh, I'm actually kind of happy they did. This turns out bad romance works as a modern tango who does. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool. So, that was a lot of fun. Um, just last night, uh, we meg and I went to, uh, an eighth street reunion dinner. Um So we got to go hang out with a bunch of the cool fucking people that uh used to do. Rocky over at the Eighth Street Playhouse saw some old friends Madman Mike was there in town this week. So that was fucking awesome. I haven't seen him in probably six years or so. Phil was there. Yeah, our listeners will remember him from a couple of episodes ago And uh yeah, I got to hang out with all of the awesome folks from that and uh you know, listen to some old stories from Eighth Street that I'm sure I will be repeating on the podcast at some point. And uh had a great time. We had a show last night that went really well. It was hot as balls in the theater because they still haven't fixed our air conditioner in, in yet. So we talked to them about that because this is this, this, it's a bit like that. It's been broken for a month. Yeah, we're working on it. Meg Meg was able to finally get uh some answers from the management. They are uh having issues with their ac. So hopefully we'll get that sorted out and it won't be 90 degrees in our movie theater. Well, I have issues with them having issues with the AC, right? Uh It was, it was little Seltz, little, little, little heated. Uh but it was a great show. The audience was there for it. And you know, one of the, some audience members shouted out about the ac during dinner scene. So we gave him a proper yelling at uh Savannah was having absolutely fucking none of that and uh shoved it right back and I'm like, yeah, you uncomfortable sitting there in your seat the whole time? Yes. Uh When, when Sav came home last night, I asked him how the show was and they were like most chaotic I've ever played Frank. And I think it had to do with the fact that I had zero sleep under my belt and it was 90 degrees in the theater. And I was like, that is why I did not want to play Frank. Yeah, it was, it was, it was a time but uh it was a lot of fun. So yeah, that was uh that was my week. And uh yeah, now that, that's out of the way, let's uh let's dive into our first segment. All right. First up in global news, all of our horror junkie listeners out there should get ready to check out a brand new documentary featuring none other than our favorite sweet transvestite turned creepy clown alien. Penny wise. The story of it will tell the in depth story of the 19 nineties Stephen King miniseries, including a lot of archive footage, interviews and behind the scene, stories from the actors and other exclusive never before seen content. We haven't got all the dates yet. But we know this film will be featuring interviews with Tim Curry who of course played Pennywise, the clown Seth Green, who played Richie, Tommy Lee Wallace, the director and Bart Mixon, who was in charge of special effects makeup for the miniseries. The documentaries is brought to us by John Kempa who brought us unearthed and untold the path Pet Cemetery back in 2015. And Christopher Griffiths who created Leviathan the story of Hellraiser also back in 2015. Honestly, these two sound like a perfect team to tell the most interesting version of this story. Absolutely. So a trailer was released just this past week. It's only a teaser, but it already looks pretty fantastic. Like we said the it mini series came out back in 1990 which was a completely different time as far as filming and production went, especially when you were working with child actors. The trailer seems to hint of a lot of stories from these kids about their time working on the set on such a like scary and intense movie. So John, I know you're not really a horror guy but I'm curious, did you or Randy did, did either of you see the original miniseries? Fuck you? I saw it. I know it might come as a surprise to everyone but I have indeed seen the it mini series with Timothy Curry in it. I talk about all the time. How much I am such a baby back bitch when it comes to horror. But honestly, I'm gonna be real with y'all. I don't consider the it mini series horror at all. It's not scary. Is it uncomfortable and off putting? Yes, absolutely. But I can deal with uncomfortable and off putting. I am an uncomfortable and off putting person and I think that it was great. I think it's incredible. It's one of my favorite little mini series is to watch. Uh, not something that, like, I would like to put on whenever I'm bored. You know, like, I don't have a hankering for that, but I quite enjoyed it and it's very uncomfortable to watch because Tim is, Tim is doing something that he had never done before because he was always in big comedic roles prior to this. And I mean, you know, you could argue that his Pennywise is the same is a comedic role. But, uh, at the same time, I feel like that's what makes him off putting is his level of comedy in the role. Uh, because you don't really see a lot of horror villains that have comedic backbones and it does and I loved seeing it. I thought it was, I think it's great. If you don't like it, then you're stupid. What about you, Randy? Uh Did you ever check out the original miniseries? I know it's sacrilege, but unfortunately I haven't seen it. I, um, I'm not a big fan of scary movies. That's fair. That's fair. I mean, I, I, I saw it, you know, I saw it way back when, um, and, you know, you know, the, the new remake, uh, was pretty good. I enjoyed that. Um, and, you know, I, I'm probably gonna have to go revisit the original miniseries because, uh, it's been a long time but Meg is a huge Stephen King fan. So, uh, we always enjoy checking out some of the adaptations and all that kind of stuff and, and this sounds cool as he like, I know that uh Tim usually gets interviewed about uh Rocky horror stuff. So it's cool to see uh something else that uh you know, he's incredibly well known for uh getting, getting in on it. Yeah, I think the remake is way, way scarier than the miniseries. I have not seen chapter two of the remake. Um because I was told that the first one wasn't that scary and that is the last time that I listened to somebody's subjective opinion on what is scary and what is not, I mean, it's fair. It got pretty freaking creepy in, in, in the second one. And I mean, speaking of creepy, I remember uh just watching the trailer for this documentary, a lot of what they were talking about is just how dialed back the original miniseries is from the book and from all the absolute insanity that happens in the book. Yeah, the book is way, way more creepy and intense and there's a lot of like, like if you're, if you're planning on reading the entire like Stephen King book novel of it, you're gonna need some trigger warnings. So just, just, just take care of yourself when trying to read it. But like, like you said, I don't usually fucks with the spooky shit, but this sounds like a cool watch. The miniseries isn't even that scary. Well, if any of our listeners are interested in finding out how spooky a documentary can be penny wise will be opening in select theaters on July 8th and will be available to stream starting July 26th. And of course, all the dates we've got so far will be linked for you in our show notes and that's it for global news because nothing is fucking happening. It's true. It's that June slump. Yeah. So we're just gonna move on to come unity news and first up in community news, did you see that? Rocky? Got some Air B N B Love this week. You know what else? Got Air B N B love this week. Me because I'm staying at an Air B N B in Miami and it's right on the beach and I am so fucking excited. Well, I hope it's still there when you uh go to check in. Well, Airbnb launched a campaign recently encouraging patrons to shoot photos and videos of their stays in like cool unique rentals. I will not be doing that in the studio apartment that I rented the platform, edited the footage together and they turned them into like cute little promos for the site and it showed potential vacation. You can go with the sorts of like awesome places that you can rent through the company. They have like a couple of castles featured some like very extra glamping excursions, a couple of really incredible pools and well here uh you, you guys take a look. So this is the youtube video. We'll of course have this linked for everybody in our show notes. Ok. So photos of this. Uh crazy. It's like a spaceship. Ok. Oh, that actually looks pretty cool at night. Oh, it's all lit up. Spaceships all lit up and stuff. That's neat. Yeah, I love how they're not showing the prices of these places. Yeah. Right. How much, how much does this spaceship cost me? Did an intern make this? Yeah. Wait a minute like it. I, I thought this was like a fan created video at first but then it transitions into like the full like graphics edited air B N B logo. Ok. Interesting. Of course. The comments are turned off. I wonder why. Gentlemen. That is a UFO airbnb rental. It is a flying Saucer Yurt off of a farmhouse in South Pembrokeshire in the UK, available to rent for the low, low cost of over 2 50 a night. Uh That's actually not bad at all. Wait, it's a T Y Y for an out of this world glamping experience or something. There are a, a bunch of photos on the website. It's a round flying saucer shaped room inside is a bed, a couple of fed out couches and a kitchenette. There's a little table on in a TV, too plus some UFO themed Decor. But that's it. It's cool looking though. It's very clean and white. All of the Decor is like kind of chrome and futuristic looking, sort of a Buckminster Fuller thing. Hm. Ok. So what's the bathroom look like in this place? There is no bathroom. You got to go into the farmhouse. I'm sorry, this spaceship has no bathroom. Ok. But the farmhouse has snacks. Ok, cool snacks here for that. But what if I need to go pee in the right? The UFO lights where the fuck up? So you can illuminate your walk to the farmhouse. Aliens don't have bathrooms, I guess. Listen, it's a yurt for glamping. It's way cooler than sleeping in a tent. Nobody expects bathrooms in the woods. Plus it's got wifi so chill out. Oh, ok. Good. I mean, that is the only thing I need when I'm camping as long as it's got wifi. Ok. Well, then that's ok. I suppose. So. Why are we talking about this on the podcast? Where the fuck does Rocky come into this? The nice air B N B people use Time Warp as Becky music in the promo for this? Cool ass. Y which is kind of a stretch. I guess it makes sense because they're aliens. All right. I mean, honestly for 2 50. Yeah, it's a pretty cool rental. I mean, if you were ever going to camp, imagine a camping. Yeah, not me. But I mean, if I was, I'd want it to be in a space ship with wifi that's adjacent to some snacks. So. All right. Well, if any of our listeners would like to check out the Airbnb promo or look at photos of the UFO Yurt itself. We've got these for you in our show notes. But before we finish this one, I got, can we, can we talk about this video real quick? Like I'm not usually one to shit on corporate advertising, but, well, that's a lie. I'm gonna shit on corporate advertising all the time. This is, this is a little budget here. I mean, clearly they're doing the like crowdsourced community photos thing and whatever, but I'm getting real like I clicked slideshow and windows movie maker vibes out of this thing. They, they, they made this on like their iphone, right? I mean, it's just like at least Ken burns some of these photos or something, you know, to kind of give it a little bit of style. I don't know. I mean, it looks cool. I suppose if that's the vibe you're going for is the whole like, ha ha. You too. Could be the one taking photos of this UFO. All right. At least in this particular case they aren't stealing housing off of people that might like to live in the area. I'm sure nobody wants to live in this year. Full time. It's not like a studio apartment for instance. Well, that got a little real but yeah, check it out. It's in our show notes and, uh, you know, good luck uh ying it up. I'm gonna all over the place. Closing out community news. We are extremely excited to announce that the Rocky Horror Picture Show community is about to get a little bit bigger after much Antica Southern West Virginia community and Technical College in Logan County, West Virginia is finally starting up its very own Rocky shadow cast. Ok, guys, this is actually kind of a big deal. So Logan County, West Virginia, which is located in the southwest portion of the state right next to Kentucky does not have a shadow cast. In fact, as far as we're aware, there isn't a regular shadow cast anywhere in West Virginia. Yeah. If you live in Logan County, the nearest place to see Rockies by driving 100 miles to visit the colony crew or down home Decadence casts in Ohio or 100 20 to visit the tolls of midnight at the Virginia Tech campus. Damn. Not a corset or a fish net to be found in the whole damn state. Huh? That sucks. Well, I mean, to be fair. There are a couple of theaters that will put on, you know, one or two performances every year around Halloween. But if you're looking for Rocky in July, you have to get the fuck out of West Virginia in order to find it, which I just gotta say, I highly recommend getting the fuck out of West Virginia to begin with the directors of this production, Leah Clays Stone and Rachel. No, Maynard are incredibly excited from the time that they were teenagers, they've always wanted to bring the show to their hometown, but they were told that it would never happen. They are both over the moon to be part of the team that brings the show to their area for the first time to start with. There will be six performances which will be held at the performing arts center on the college campus every Friday and Saturday from July 15th through July 30th. So guys, if you live anywhere near this area, we cannot encourage you enough to go and to go with every single person, you know, buy tickets, sell out this fucking theater, go be amazing. Participants yell all the callback dance the time warp. You guys all know the drill. The way that we as a community can bring our show and our community's values to the places that they haven't yet been embraced is by showing up and just making a space for it. And we all know the party line Rocky is a place for people who need a place. It's a community that is accepting of everyone, especially those who may have trouble fitting in other places. We are certainly not the only organization that is welcoming to people who may feel like outsiders, not by a long shot, but more places like that is always going to be a positive thing, especially in places like West Virginia. Hey, everyone in West Virginia happy pride hats off to Rachel Lear for putting in the work to create one more in their community. If you want to attend the show, standard tickets will be $12. While ultimate admission tickets will be $17 and those will include an extra special audience participation pack. We've got all the details linked for you in our show notes and we ask that all our listeners spread the word about this one to anybody you might know who can attend. All right. So here's a question. Does anyone have some advice for these girls? Right? They're putting on not only their very first shadow cast performance, but the first one that their area has ever seen, that's a huge undertaking. I if you guys could give them one nugget of wisdom, what would it be, John? What do you got? Probably to be prepared for protests? I mean, it sucks, but that's real. Yeah. Like a place like like suburban West Virginia, one of the Reddest areas in the country. Yikes, bro. Best of luck. Y'all, I mean, they're on a college campus that should help a little bit, but that will help. I mean, make sure that, like, you know, you're not having people line up outside, make sure that you're getting them in as quick as you can, you know, all the stuff that makes it so that you get into that inclusive space as quickly as possible. Yeah, exactly. And despite the fact, um, I'm just, I'm just looking to see exactly where it is in West Virginia. Oh, yikes. Yeah. So it's in a county of 36,000 people. Like, I'm sure that Aaron's block has more than 36,000 people. Not wrong to say this. But that said from my experience in rural West Virginia because I don't live that far from there. Sort of, I, I think that maybe things are, aren't, aren't, aren't as bad as they may seem. West Virginians from my experience are very, uh, sort of libertarian and don't really care that much about what other people do. Maybe, I don't know unless you're in, like, the snake handling parts where they still handle snakes as part of their churches. But anyways, um, I, I'm optimistic about this. I'm, I'm hoping that it's gonna be good for the cast and, and really you gotta figure at a community college in a town of 36,000, that community college is a very significant portion of the, like population of the county at that point. So hopefully it won't be too bad. And if, if it is, uh there's probably a lot of space around this community college where you're certainly not near any neighbors, I would assume. Yeah. And from like just a, a general logistics perspective, you know, I mean, for anyone who's starting up AAA brand new shadow cast, uh y y you know, nail down your, your, your essential first. Get, get your actors, get them some costumes. They don't have to be perfect screen accurate costumes. You know, this hit up your local goodwill. Get all of that stuff. Don't focus too much on, you know, making it big crazy and outlandish. Just get your people on the stage, get the movie plan, make sure that you, you know, have the audience there and that they're all having a good time and that um you set the expectations for them, explain the stuff like audience participation, explain that there's gonna be people screaming stuff in the middle of this movie. So you don't get any weird walkouts because somebody goes, I couldn't hear it with everybody screaming. It's ridiculous, you know, make sure that you set the expectations for it and that you kind of, you know, give everybody an atmosphere where they know what's going on, less accuracy, more audience engagement. Absolutely. I would probably even plant some people in the audience to do callbacks. There's nothing wrong with the plant. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh Especially when you get a dead audience or a new audience that's maybe never seen the show before. I think that another thing that I would focus on, uh, for new cash starting up, it sounds like they are going to have $5 prop bags that are included in the more expensive ticket here. And if you're doing that, I think that it's important to actually pay attention to what you're putting into the prop bags. Like there is no reason that you can't make 300% on a prop bag. Absolutely. Like, for instance, a, a tip, if you're, uh, near a place that has a game store that sells like magic to gathering cards, especially like the collectible magic to gathering cards if you go to them. And you say, um, do you have any, like, bulk, uncommon is what they call them or bulk commons? They can sell you, like thousands of cards for, like, $8 and then you're paying less than a penny a card. Yeah. It, it ends up cheaper than, you know, going to Costco and buying decks of cards. Like, that's how little people value basic lands for magic. The gathering 100 percent. And they're actually a higher quality card and they, you could reuse them theoretically or they're so cheap. Why would you? But they're nice. Yeah. Tons of options there. Um, you know, and, and make sure, you know, that, especially if you're in a new venue, like, run this stuff. By the venue. Ask them. Are you ok if we're squirting, you know, uh, water pistols in the air check and make sure before you invest in stuff like rice or toast that they're ok with it, they may not want food thrown around their auditorium. So make sure you double check on all that stuff. Yes. And I wouldn't allow hot dogs to be thrown no matter what. Especially because the grease from the hot dogs can screw up your costumes. And I, I don't do that. Does anybody even do hot dogs anymore? I think that's got, like, where would even allow that at this point? I do hot dogs if you know what I mean? Oh, shut up. I've seen one cast that allowed it. What they did was they rented out an old apartment store and it was just a big empty room and they did Rocky in an old empty room with like folding chairs and they allowed you to be as messy as you wanted to be. And people brought £50 bags of rice and hot dogs and you know all that. Oh. Oh, that reminds me. Actually last night we don't allow toast in our theater, uh, at all because they don't want to clean it up and stuff. But last night somebody managed to bring in an entire, like, one of the family size bags of Ritz Crackers. But here's the thing. They didn't make a mess with them at, at when Frank goes a toast, this guy just lobs the entire unopened bag straight at the head of our brad and fucking beams Jacob in the face. Jacob was sp M Brad last night hits him in the face with this whole bag of Ritz crackers. He's like, he, you could see the shock go over him where he's just like, what the fuck? And he gets angry for a second. He picks up and he goes, guys, this isn't even opened, so he just bust it open and we're just eating Ritz Crackers on stage. It was fucking stupid. That's hilarious. Literally gold. We've had people throw cheeseburgers before which was, oh hell, it's a clean up but a great time. Oh man. Well, look out for all that stuff. Maybe, maybe you want somebody who's doing security there who can also check some bags and make sure that they're all not bringing in those £50 bags of rice. Uh If any of our listeners have any insights or tidbits that they'd like to share to this new baby cast or anyone looking to put on a show in an area where they don't exist yet. We would love to read them on air. Maybe they'll be helpful to people like Leah and Rachel. Yes. Send them our way and we'll be happy to read them on the show and hope that they find their way to people who could benefit from your words of wisdom or you know, you can also write in with any projects you're working on or just cool stories from your time within the rocky community. You know what to do, visit rocky talkie podcast dot com and fill out the contact form. And with that it's time for a snack. It's time for a snack. Hey, Randy. Yes, Sean got a snack for us, buddy. You know, I do. But sorry to say this snack might be a little stale. Oh no. Oh that's no good. Yeah, I wrote in this question weeks ago like weeks and weeks ago a buddy. Yes, John, why are you getting Randy snacks all stale? Listen, I, I swear I was saving this one for exactly this special occasion when Randy was going to be able to join us on the show. Yeah, just like I was saving your mom for last night. Got him. Seriously. I, I promise it's not a big deal guys. I'm pumped for this. Hi Pump to John. Let's just not. Ok, Randy, what do you got? Ok, so everyone out there knows about Lou Adler as the producer who turned Rocky Horror into a movie and if you're an even bigger fan, you know him as the man who brought Rocky to the US from London, maybe you even know him as a big time record producer or perhaps as the guy who directed Chi Chong's up in smoke. You nailed it. Yep. That's where I know him from. But there's another angle to Lou that I think really gives some important context to why he was the guy to shepherd Rocky Horror on its way to the big time. And that's Lou Adler gatekeeper to the L A rock scene. Damn it, Randy. I had such high hopes for you. I'm sorry, Randy John's just like that. Please continue. Ro was one of the owners of the whiskey A go go, the Rainbow Bar and grill and the Roxy Theater. The Roxy, as listeners may remember is where Rocky Horror made its first debut. Stateside with Tim Curry and Meatloaf, Jamie Donnelly, Kim Milford and so on. And it was a pretty huge success. Celebrities flocked to it. The cast recording is even today, probably the best known recording of the Rocky Horror Show and part of that success I think has to be attributed to the most important rock club in the world. The Whiskey A go go sitting just on the block and it was conveniently owned by the same man who owned the Roxy Mr Lou Adler. Heck yeah, Lou Adler episode, baby. All right, nerds. Keep it in your pants. We're gonna have to give you some context here. We're talking about the Sunset Strip, that slice of sleaze between Hollywood and Beverly Hills and right in the center of it all Lou Adler's Empire, the Roxy Theater, the Whiskey A Go Go Nightclub at the Rainbow Bar and Grill. But the Sunset Strip certainly didn't start as that cocaine fueled L A rock destination. And to tell this story, we've got to talk about two men in particular, Lou Adler, of course, and his longtime business partner, the now deceased Elmer Valentine. Now there's a proper Bobster name. If I've I ever heard one. You're not far off. Actually, the story starts in Chicago where Valentine was born in 1923. He served as an army air force mechanic in England during World War two. And after the war returned to Chicago and joined the Chicago police force, a cab, a cab is right. When Vanity Fair reporter David Kemp interviewed Elmer Valentine for the publication's first ever music issue. He asked Valentine, what kind of cop was he, you know, like was he a detective? Was he a beat cop? Valentine cheerfully replied, corrupt for fuck's sake. Yeah, Valentine was on the take from the mob. He worked as what you'd call a captain's man collecting bribes and payoffs on behalf of the captain. He also moonlighted running nightclubs for Chicago Gangsters. Eventually, some slightly less corrupt authorities on and Valentine was indicted for extortion though he was never convicted. His wife left him and that's when he knew he had to get out of town. So he packed it up and moved to Los Angeles in 1960. Meanwhile, Lou Adler was getting his feet wet in the music business in 1957. He was studying journalism at L A city college after faking his paperwork to get in since he hadn't graduated from a local high school. Lou and a classmate, a young trumpet player named Herb Alpert wrote some songs together and they cut a demo. They tried to submit their songs to keen records, which did not get them a record deal, but instead got them gainful employment while working at the record company after about a year or so learning the business. Lou connected with Jan Barry who partnered with Dean Torrance forming the duo, Jan and Dean. They recorded a demo for a song that Lou produced called Baby Talk. It went on to be a hit. But when Lou took the record to his bosses at keen, they rejected it and everyone decided that they would just rather strike it out independently. So this was in 1958 and Jan and Dean Sound was unique. They were on the cutting edge of the California surfing sound. Think like the Beat Boys. Which fun fact, Brian Wilson would later collaborate with Jan. So that's what Lou was doing in 58 59. Adler joined Alden music, a songwriting outfit that wrote for artists like Carol King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. This is where Lou learned the business of professional songwriting and publishing. In three years time Alden music produced 36 top 10 hits. The company was cranking up professionally mastered and produced demos so polished that many were released as is and became hits. But as the tail end of the fifties happened, surfing music kind of lost its momentum. Adler worked with the Everly Brothers while waiting for the next big thing in 1963 he found himself at a club called Gaza and on stage was a musician named Johnny Rivers. The audience reaction was something that Lou Adler had never seen before. He said it was like an adult Dick Clark show. Meaning that the club full of adults was not just sitting at their tables drinking and having hush conversations. They were actually getting up and dancing, they were moving around and they were making noise that created an ambience. Like most other clubs in L A at the time, Rivers approached Adler to cut a live recording and while they tried recording at the club, Lou wasn't able to get the proper atmosphere live in the venue. So he faked it. He packed a studio with tables and chairs and 100 and 50 people and recorded their claps and reactions on Q. Unfortunately, Lou's bosses at Alden music didn't quote dig the feel of the album and it was shelved at this point. Lou was really getting frustrated with all the corporate infighting and left the company les recording with Johnny Rivers was never released. Instead, the first live nightclub recording ever was one featuring Trinny Lopez and was recorded at another L A club called P J S the second live Night club recording ever released was produced by Adler and featured Sherry Wright and was also recorded at P J S. That album didn't do so hot. However, one of the owners of P J S was, you guessed it, Elmer Valentine, he had used some of that. I would have to assume delicious mob money to become part owner of the club in 1960 ran the venue for 61 62 schmoozing with customers and the acts and managing the business and getting up to some extra curricular activities. There's a newspaper article from July 1961 that describes an intramural baseball game played in Hollywood's Point City of Park between a team called P J S Cloister Lushes of the P J S Nightclub and the U J I S or the United Jewish Italians, which sounds a little bit like a good old mob baseball game if you ask me. And this article notes that through some unexplained mix up, the water bucket is always filled with screwdrivers. And that over the course of the day, the umpire had devoted so much of his time to lowering the water line in the bucket that he insisted on calling games on the account of darkness despite the fact that it was still high noon, sounds like a baseball game between Rocky Casts pretty much. So in 1963 Valentine sold his stake in P J S for $55,000 and decided to travel to Europe with the intent of opening a nightclub there. But while he was in Paris, he happened to visit a trendy discotheque called Whiskey A Go Go. And he was blown away. Young people were lining up the block to get in and they just danced the night away in this trendy club. He knew he had to get in on this. So he returned to L A and invested $22,000 of his profits from selling his Sharon P J s into the refurbishment of a failing nightclub whose lease he took over for the new club's name. He nicked it straight from Paris. It was called the Whiskey A Go Go. And to fill his new nightclub, he needed an act and he stumbled on none other than Johnny Rivers. And when he went to book the young musician, who else did he stumble across. But the man who was already working with Johnny Lou Adler, the Whiskey A Go Go opened in 1964 with Lou booking the talent and Valentine overseeing the operations for the club in between live sets. The audience would dance to records spun by a DJ but not just any DJ. A girl DJ. She was suspended high above the audience in a glass walled cage. But this wasn't a lofty pardon. Theon idea. It was a pragmatic response to the club's limited space. The only way Valentine could fit the DJ booth was to mount it on a metal support beam that ran alongside the performing area. On opening night, the D JJ dressed in a slit skirt was in the booth playing records and dancing and it was a smash success so much so that Valentine formalized the position added two more dancing cages in the club and hired two more dancers, one of which Joie Leben wore a fringe dress and white boots. And thus the Go Go girl was born, the stylistic trend would sweep the country and the world. The Whiskey A go Go was an instant success with Johnny Rivers. Built in following and the spectacle of Go Go girls dancing in cages and the novelty of rock and roll on the strip. The club gained national media attention and began attracting Hollywood stars. There was a write up in life magazine, a feature on national television and Steve mcqueen and Jane Mansfield quickly became regulars at the club and where one celebrity goes. Others are sure to follow Cary Grant, the Beatles, Johnny Carson and countless others. As we enter the mid sixties, the L A music scene explodes and at the center of it all on Sunset Boulevard is the Whiskey A Go Go. Adler starts booking up and coming, touring acts for the venue. We're talking led Zeppelin, the Jimi Hendrix experience the Velvet Underground Cream, the who the animals, the kinks and just countless others. And when there wasn't a huge name in town, they went to unknown local acts that served as the Whiskey's house band, most notably among them, Love Buffalo Springfield and a rowdy band featuring a 22 year old Jim Morrison. Named the doors. Along with the success came a lot of attention from Elmer Valentine's Chicago Connections. One night, Adler recalls, he was summoned to Johnny rivers' dressing room where he found two very large gentlemen insisting that Rivers signed some paperwork, turning over a percentage of his earnings, Adler had refused and he had recalled that one of the goons replied, how would you like me to rip off your arms and choke you to death with them? Yikes. It was an open secret that the club's finances had ties to the Chicago mob and Valentine wanting to preserve his L A rock paradise. Quickly traveled back to the woody city and smoothed things over throughout the sixties. The whiskey is home to some of the biggest names in music and Hollywood. Anyone who is anyone shows up and a large groups of regulars form Sonny and Cher Keith Moon Mick Jagger, Elton John, the list goes on and on. But as the sixties came to a close, the party began to wind down. The whiskey started mostly featuring touring acts. The Sunset Strip had become infested with acid tripping, hippies, drugs, prostitution and violence. In 1966 you had the Sunset Strip riots centered around the whiskey and in 1969 the Valley is rocked by the Manson family murders Manson himself once thrown out of the whiskey after crashing the club in the middle of the afternoon and set up camp in one of the DJ booths. So for Adler, the late sixties saw him explode into a record producing mogul. He had hit after hit after hit with stars like the mamas and the Papas, Peggy Lipton name Carol King. He dabbled as a filmmaker producing one of the best sixties concert documentaries of all time Monterey pop. But with the decline of sixties rock and roll, Elmer Valentine and Lou Adler began looking for new opportunities for a venue. The whiskey was still going strong doing its thing but it wasn't quite the hub of activity that was during its heyday in the sixties. So in 1972 Liu and Valentine along with several other investors opened the Rainbow Bar and grill on the Sunset Strip. This is just a block down from the whiskey. A go go. It quickly became a chic hotspot. And a year later in 1973 just across the street from the Rainbow Bar and grill. Valentine and Adler opened the Roxy Theater hoping to create a state of the art venue with a focus on spoiling the artists that were going to perform there. The grand opening was celebrated by a three night performance by Neil Young. The first year featured headliners like Chi Chi Chong, Jerry Lewis, The Temptations and Frank Zappa, the Roxy was not only a stage for musicians but for comedians and actors alike. During the first few years, the opening acts mainly consisted of emerging comedians. These uh fresh faced performers included some little known comedians like Jay Leno, David Letterman, Arsen O, you know, the forgettable ones and suffice to say this is the world that Lou Adler lived in when he took a trip to London in 1974 and discovered a little musical called the Rocky Horror Show. You guys discuss this a lot in your episode about the producers, I think it was episode 46. So if listeners out there want the lowdown, go check that out. What I want to do is pivot this into some speculation. All right. So that's the back story. That is how Lou Adler created this empire on the Sunset Strip throughout the sixties and into the seventies. But as you get into the seventies, they're looking for a new venue, they decide to open up this theater and Lou finds what he thinks is the perfect show to go into it. The Rocky Horror Show. So he gets all of his contracts in place. He brings over the show. He brings over Tim Curry who he thinks is arguably the most important thing uh holding the show together and the show opens in L A and it's a smash success like it is the hottest ticket in town. Everybody is clamoring to get in there and there are celebrities all over the place. But here's the thing is this why there are so many accounts of so many famous rock stars at the early shows. What with Adler owning a piece of the whiskey A go go and the Rainbow Room? I mean, I have to think so, right? Like just look at the people that were mentioned early on as going to the Rocky Horror show, Cher Keith Moon Elvis, David Bowie, like all of these people were regulars at the Whiskey A go go. And they also attended the exclusive club the rocks that was directly above the Roxy. You'd also like Bowie, right? He'd always be at the Rainbow Room. Like these people were just in the area already partying it up on the Sunset strip. So it kind of makes sense that those are the ones that got dragged over to see Rocky Horror and kind of created this celebrity appeal around it. Oh, absolutely. So when Rocky opens, uh there's a couple of things that happen. First of all, everybody loves the thing. They all want to clamor to get tickets to see it the day after the opening night. There are two front page reviews in the L A times, two separate reviews, both the theater reviewer and the music reviewer for the L A Times wrote articles about the opening of the show. They're exactly what you'd expect from a theater reviewer and a music reviewer. They loved it. It was already a smash success. So it's, it's fantastic here, Tim Curry is amazing. Meatloaf sings like his life depends on it. Like they're fantastic reviews of the show and they just kind of added to the celebrity appeal because they also mentioned that, oh, there were tons of stars in attendance and all of this kind of stuff. So it really was building this just kind of clamor around it that had evolved from the sixties iconic kind of presence on the Sunset Strip. And now Lou was channeling this in to his new venue and as part to the Rocky Horror Show. So how did the Whiskey play into the phenomenon of Rocky? So I think a lot of it comes down to the the celebrities with that were there and just kind of the environment that this area of the strip had. So some of the people that were there, right? Uh At least that we know from the community talk about this a lot over on the Tiffany Theater, Facebook group. The Tiffany was one of the, the theaters that very early on started showing Rocky uh before it was even a midnight movie. And Lisa Kurt Sutton, one of the people who was there talks about how they'd go to Rocky, you know, on Friday or Saturday night and then they'd go to the whiskey a go go or they'd go to the Roxy. So they would hang out on the Sunset strip and it was this like area where seventies culture just kind of was at its height, right? Like it was the place for kids to go hang out. It was the place for everybody to go party and it was where all of the action was. So you had this, you know, epicenter of everything right there. And Rocky was, you know, what started as the stage show quickly became, you know, just a rock and roll paradise for everyone that makes sense. And I could definitely see how people that wanted to. I, I could definitely see how people would want to go see a show that, you know, David Bowie was seeing or that Keith Moon was seeing or Elvis or anybody like that. Like, of course, if he, if, if the celebrities that you love are loving something, you are also going to love something. It's, it's no different than Hamilton today, for instance. Sure. And I mean, and you get all of these outlandish stories about it, right? Meatloaf always talked about how they knew when Keith Moon was in the audience because he'd line up champagne bottles, one for each of the actors along the front of the stage. There's a story that he tells where Keith comes backstage drunkenly after the show and tells Meatloaf, you know, I'm gonna play your role in the movie, which uh that didn't work out so well for Keith apparently. Um, but you get just these cult of personalities that are there and everybody wants to, you know, see them and be seen seeing them at this place. And I think that that's kind of the atmosphere that lasted well past the stage show that that lasted all the way into the tail end of the seventies and into the early eighties where these venues are, where you go to see the biggest touring acts. They're where you go to see Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa And you know, the Whiskey A go go would kind of evolve after this point, right? As the tail end of the seventies happens, you see it kind of declining in incredible popularity for pop rock music and they don't really know what to do with it. So Adler and, and Valentine kind of shifted over to the punk scene. So they rip out a bunch of the tables that are in there and like it becomes this like moshing punk environment. And then as you get into the eighties, you get hair metal that takes over L A and this is when stuff like Motley crew plays at the Roxy and the Whiskey A go go. And it, it an unknown band that would go on to be one of the biggest rock bands of all time is discovered and this just happens over and over and over with these bands that explode after performing at these couple of venues. Oh, absolutely. A lot of bands would do anything to play at the Whiskey a go go because it's the place where you had a best chance of getting discovered and, and getting to cut an album. Um, even like, not just motley crew, but I, I think Rat was another one. There was so many in the eighties, especially that were discovered, not even just by Lou Adler, but by other people that knew Lou had good taste and that Ernie had good taste and they went and, and saw all these bands there and basically were hunting for people to give record deals to at the time. Yeah, I mean, you, you had on top of it, you had all the private clubs that were there right? There was the private club above the Roxy that, uh, when it went up for refurbishment a few years back, uh Lou's son runs it now. Uh, he tells the story where it's like everyone would come up and hang out, you know, at this private club that you had to have a key as your VIP access to get into it. And he'd say that like it was like walking into Lou Adler, his dad's living room where he was just holding court with all of these famous musicians and, you know, some nights it would be a little dead and he'd go there after school and just hang out with the, the chef who was making big hamburgers and whatever and other nights you'd have Elvis and whoever else just coming to this and that was where you could kind of let your hair down if you were a celebrity and you didn't want to be in front of the paparazzi all the time and all of this, these were the places that you went to and you hung out with your friends and it was the hottest ticket to get in because once you did, you'd be hobnobbing it with all of these incredible musicians and that's how you get record deals, you know. Absolutely. And it was also a big haven for like, groupies and like, not just, um, groupies that would go there, but also groupies that would, uh, like get jobs there in hopes of meeting people. I know that, uh, Pamela De Bears, uh, talks about it in her book. Let's spend the night together and some of her other stuff about all the people going to the Roxy and very much to the whiskey a go go hoping to meet young rock stars to marry, which did happen or to obviously hook up with or whatever. And, um, it was just this crazy atmosphere of, you know, people wanted these guys and it really made them famous in a lot of cases. Yeah. And getting back to the, the Rocky Horror connection, um, the Roxy obviously played a huge role in getting the movie made right when Lou Adler went and signed his contracts with Michael White in order to bring the stage show to the US he also put a bunch of provisions in there about, uh by the way, I'm gonna hold the film rights for this thing. And it was him putting it on in L A that he used to get Fox executives to come and see the show. It was this important venue that all of these celebrities went to and Fox executives knew about it. So he even created a special performance of the Rocky Horror show just for these Fox executives to come. And he even recruited a bunch of the early fans of the stage show to show up. These are the fans that like really built out Rocky Horror as a phenomenon, Rocky Horror, the show as a phenomenon in L A. They were the ones that would dress up and they would sing all the songs, you know, right there in the theater, he brought all of them in for when he brought the Fox executives. He also was really smart. He brought one of the Fox executives, sons to come see the show. And while he said later that he wasn't sure if the Fox executive knew what he was seeing. His son went gaga for the damn thing. And was it was that that convinced him that, yeah, this movie should be made. So it was really just kind of this atmosphere that he had created and brought all of these things together to create kind of the the catalyst for showing Fox that this was a thing that could be made into a big giant crazy musical movie and that's how he got it. Green lit. So cool. So this is kind of the peak of the Whiskey A go go. It still exists. It's still a venue in L A. You can go to it today. Obviously, it's not the same as it was back then. There's no longer cages on the walls. There's not, you know, go, go dancers, but it's still a venue that lots of artists want to be in. I mean, in the early two thousands you had bands like Papa Roach and uh system of a down playing there. Like it's, it, it's still a venue that everybody knows and is, you know, vibrant within the music scene. Um It's not quite the same kind of, you know, everybody's got to go there that it was in 1965 but it's, it's still relevant, you know, to this day, the Roxie is managed by Lou's Son and the Rainbow Bar and Grill. What happened to that? Is it still open? Oh, yes. The Rainbow Bar and grill is still open. John Belushi ate his last meal there in the eighties. It was a haven for hard rockers like guns and roses and poison Anthony Keti of red hot chili peppers said that he often sat with his father alongside members of Led Zeppelin and Kiss and is still going to this day in 2017. It was inducted into the hall of heavy metal history for introducing the world to new heavy metal acts. Are you two done yet? Yeah, I think we're done. I'm hungry. Well, have you tried the Rainbow Bar and grill? You know what? I haven't let me look it up on. Yelp really quickly because I didn't listen to a goddamn thing. The two of you said, well, you know, when you get us going, I didn't get anybody going. You got yourself going. Yeah, I did. Yeah, you did. You like that, don't you, bitch? Oh It's just so fascinating man. This like entire scene that was in L A is, is so crazy and it makes sense. It makes sense that Rocky was a part of it all. Oh Absolutely. It's to me, I, I feel like the L A rock scene is very much what like Broadway is for New York. Um And it's just so elemental to the fabric of L A culture and of course, Rocky was a part of that. Shut up and that's it. Yeah. No, that's, that's actually great. And that's our show. We absolutely want to thank Randy for being a gentleman, a scholar and an amazing co-host. Thank you so much, Randy. You're a homie. Thank you. I've really had a great time. And as always, we'd like to thank our writer Jacob and our editor Aaron from Tennessee. We appreciate all of your work. If anyone has a question that they'd like Aaron to answer on air for Nicky asks a question or for some community news that they'd like us to talk about or even a cool story to share with the community. We would love to include it on our show. Just go to our website rocky talky podcast dot com and fill out our contact form to tell us about it. If you're enjoying Rocky Talkie, please help us out by rating, reviewing and subscribe to the show. It makes the podcast more accessible to new listeners, which really helps us to grow the show. And if you want even more Rocky talky content, check us out on Facebook, youtube, Instagram and tiktok all at Rocky Talky Podcast. We'll talk to you all next week. Bye. I'm hitting some chipotle. Fuck you guys. The documentary is brought to us by Jan Jan. What? That's literally my name. The, the documentary is brought to us by John Kempo.