If you have photo's to add here, please email them here.
|
If you have photo's to add here, please email them here.
|
|
LAZY DAYS, CRAZY NITES HOLLYWOOD TOUR 2008 Thursday 21st August Arrived to perfect sunshine after leaving freezing Melbourne. Drop bags off and hit the pub across the road that we would adopt as our local, The Saddle Ranch. Because they want your tip they do some pretty nasty mixes and the two dumb Aussies were pretty toasted and in love with our beautiful barmaid Brigette Bomb. Boz had proposed after 10 minutes! By 4:00 pm we were tucked up in bed trying to get rid of our afternoon binge and jetlag before hitting The Strip. By 7:00, slightly hungover, it was time to rock. Up The Strip to THE CAT CLUB to see THE STARF*#KERS made up of Dizzy Reed (Guns N Roses), Eric Dover (Slash’s Snakepit, Alice Cooper) and Stefan Adika (LA Guns, Dee Dee Ramone Band). An all star jam playing all kinds of hard rock classics. Awesome fun band. Again if the tip is right …. the drink is strong!!! Got our first taste of the world famous rock club The Rainbow Bar and Grill and then onto Mel’s Diner …. A trek we would walk many times in the following evenings. We also had our first encounter with Mike Dick who claims to be America’s answer to Rodney Rude. He sells lighters, knives, stun guns and I guess anything you want out of a brief case and is a very funny man whose stories would entertain us each night on our walk home. He also has a self filmed and burnt DVD of his stand up – Boz and Turtle both bought one – Boz’s had a chicks phone number scribbled on the inside!!! Friday 22nd August Another perfect summers day, a slow start, we stopped in at lunch at the world famous Carney’s Chillidogs before wandering down to The Guitar Centre. Loved all the cool shit like Peter Criss’s first drum kit, Paul Stanley’s boots and Ace Frehley’s Guitar. Also Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, rockstars hand prints and signed pavement bricks – cool as! Afternoon and night saw us at The Saddle Ranch, which was absolutely pumping – we didn’t move from there, got smashed and became known as “The crazy Aussie dudes”. Saturday 23rd August Had lunch at Barney’s Beanery – a place where Jim Morrison use to hang out and Janis Joplin partied the night she died. Started chatting to a few locals, one guy Brad was a Doors geek. At 4 ft 3, with Jim Morrison on his business card, I think the Aussie boys had bigger shits in the morning than this bloke. He did give us a lift up a steep hill saving our well walked on legs and extended the offer that if we ever went back to Barney’s to give him a call and he’d come up for a drink. We didn’t take him up on the offer!! That night - POISON, DOKKEN and SEBASTIAN BACH at Universal Amphitheatre – We had front row of this awesome venue. Sebastian was awesome as he always is, Dokken rocked but it was surreal seeing POISON. One hell of a rockin night – Poison played all the hits, all the crowd favourites ….. it was 1988 all over again!!!! Back to the Rainbow after the gig – two things happened here – firstly the street was blocked off with about 20 cop cars cos there had been a stabbing in the street – the blood was still on the road! Secondly we had a brief chat with SLASH. We also saw Mike Duda from WASP. Sunday 24th August Boz called in his LA connection and we had lunch with Gavin Wood (Countdown, Tattslotto). Lots of laughs here and before you knew it the afternoon was gone and it was time to rock again. Tonight we headed down to THE KEY CLUB (formally Gazzarri’s ) Got some pics at the world famous Whisky and The Roxy on the way. Tonight’s entertainment – LA GUNS (Tracii Guns version) and FASTER PUSSYCAT. Tracii’s LA Guns was far superior to the version that toured Australia earlier in the year and to see FASTER PUSSYCAT singing “Bathroom Wall” in a club on Sunset Strip was awesome. Some local dude asked Turtle if he knew of an Aussie band called “The Deadthings” which was very funny. Finished the night at The Rainbow and then Mel’s Diner for a feed, along with another story from Mike Dick. Monday 25th August Woke up whenever we wanted, perfect sunshine again – we haven’t seen a cloud …. or a fly since we got here. Caught a taxi down to Hollywood Blvd and did the tourist thing with the stars on the pavement. Boz got the ultimate souvenir – a four hour tattoo of the Hollywood sign, Rainbow Bar & Grill sign and B.I.T.D stamp. That night it was off to the Key Club again – this time to see STEEL PANTHER (aka METAL SKOOL) Corey Taylor from SLIPKNOT got up and sung a few songs with the band. Finished night off pretty smashed with a couple of drinks at the Rainbow and Mel’s Diner for a feed. Tuesday 26th August Boz’s birthday, we wandered down to The Rainbow for lunch. Arranged to meet up with a fellow Aussie traveller, the very beautiful Raquel from BITD, who had 4 hours to kill before a flight elsewhere. We also met and got books signed by Mario Maglieri, the man who managed The Whisky, The Roxy and The Rainbow, basically built the strip into the famous debaucherus stretch it is. That night saw us venture into THE HOUSE OF BLUES to see EXTREME. The HOB was a really cool venue, set up for music, a great sound and you could see from any spot in the joint. EXTREME where great. After the gig we went to THE RAINBOW. Ran into the scariest man on earth Andy who was Leatherface in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. He wanted to sing Black Sabbath and Judas Priest songs to us. He was scary! Met up with a dude Wayne from Wretched Child (Aussie band) on the run from his wife, who wants a divorce, but can’t find him. If he can hide from her for another 8 months, he can get a green card. Popped into Mel’s Diner for our late night feed. We also had an interesting character eying us off here – A Shirley Bassey Transsexual that spent quite some time admiring the hunk of Aussie meat in front of IT. Wednesday 27th August Made use of the LA Connection and got Gavin Wood to take us in his car affectionately known as “Black Betty” for some tourist stuff. Another day full of laughs we went down Hollywood Blvd, Chinese Theatre, Hollywood sign, popped into the Roosevelt Hotel for a drink (playground for the likes of Marilyn Monroe to Paris Hilton) Gene Simmon’s house, Ozzy Osbourne’s house, The Playboy Mansion, Santa Monica Beach, Route 66, Santa Monica Blvd, Beverley Hills, Pretty Woman Hotel etc. Last night in L.A so we did a “farewell tour” – Saddle Ranch, up Sunset Strip to the Rainbow til close then off to Mel’s Diner and our last chat with Mike Dick. Thursday 28th August Hung-over and hassled we had to somehow gather our shit together and check out. Somehow we got out without leaving anything important behind (we had lost 15 lighters so far tho!!!). LA connection Gavin picks us up and after a brief stopover at Farmers Market (Caribbean Gardens on steroids) we headed to the airport for part 2 of our tour. We end up smack bang in the middle of some workers rights protest but made it to Las Vegas no dramas. Arrive out our hotel and find out two things- Firstly, its Labour Day Weekend and half of America is in Vegas and secondly our luxury hotel is owned by Hugh Heffner and we have playboy bunnies running around after us! A 1 cent HAPPY DAYS machine attracted our attention and we would later clear that machine out, both of us comfortably covering our accommodation expenses for the trip! Relatively quiet night, drinks in the bar where Doc McGee was enjoying a beveridge. Friday 29th August Rose mid afternoon and went down to pick up our KISS tickets from the box office. Here we were asked if we wanted to be in a KISS video clip. Fuck Yeah!!! Upstairs we go and sing “Lick it up” with a ‘green screen’ behind us and a camera in front. A few pre gig drinks and it was off to the show. We had floor tickets and were 2 rows from the front. Turtle scored a Tommy pick while Boz got a Tommy and Paul pick. Awesome, awesome, awesome show!!!!!! Ron Jeremy and Marilyn Manson guitarist John 5 were in the crowd just to our right. Pumped after the gig, drinks flowed until the wee small hours. Met a couple of lovely ladies at the bar. One affectionately referred to everyone, in that loud American accent, as “Dog Fucker!” Saturday 30th August We ventured outside for the first time in Vegas and damn it was hot!!! Walked up to Caesars Palace and down the main strip of Vegas. Too damn hot and too many people! Back to our hotel to drink, gamble and party the afternoon and night away and reflect on the mad fortnight we had just survived! Sunday 31st – Tuesday 2nd – Into the void lost in the air before we begin our detox!!!
|