Gia wrote: Hi Tumbleweed - I am in possession of three Tony Mafia pics from my parents who owned the Whisky-A-Go-Go in the 60's. How can I find out about these paintings? Thanks.
That was the question I was asked so I asked a friend who was there when it all happened.Dale's answer: On the corner of Sunset Blvd. & Doheny Dr. near the west end of the fabled Sunset Strip, up until 1962, there was a Music Conservatory, where folks went to learn and practice dance, music, the physical arts. A fellow named Bill Gilbert bought it, 'cause he had an idea to start a nightclub which would attract neat young ladies after work, where he would give them a 'club' where they could freshen-up, come down a flight of stairs into a nightclub, making whatever kind of an 'entrance' they liked, and be served a free drink and snack food. His idea was, 'Where the chicks are, the guys will follow'. Great concept, but for a lot of reasons it didn't fly. Meanwhile, the disco rage was going in the east, with pole-dance-type chicks gyrating in cages, so Elmer Valentine, who owned and ran the Interlude, a club on the Strip upstairs from another famous LA nightspot, the Trocadero, joined with Phil Terrazini, who owned and ran the Losers, a hot spot on La Cienega Blvd just a block down from the Strip, and they bought the failed Party (Bill Gilbert's failed club), and turned it into the Whiskey a Go-Go (known as just 'The Whiskey').
While it was the Party. Bill had hired (used?) Tony to decorate and do paintings for the club, and I don't remember why, but one day while it was just being started to be built, I wandered in, and somehow got inveigled into doing the sound system for the place. Tony and I hit it off, and one day we got to feeling pretty good, and he was looking at my almost new '61 T-Bird convertible, and asked me if I'd like my car painted. I said. 'Are you nuts?!' The paint is perfect. (It was a medium to light blue). He said, 'No, I mean I'll paint it'. At that time, you could still buy lacquer paints, so we went to an auto supply store, and Tony picked out about six or eight different colors (Blue, White, Green, Red, Yellow, etc.) of half-pint cans of lacquer. Then we spent the afternoon up in the upper back parking lot of what is now the Whiskey (Which was designed as where the chicks would come into the Party women's club house), and Tony painted ladies, dancing girls, horses, flowers all down both sides of my 'Bird. This was way before kids were putting daisies and doing wild paintings on vans (except, maybe, for Ken Kesey), and the car attracted a lot of attention. In fact, the first time we took it across the border, it was as if we were leading a parade down the main street of Tijuana. Back to the Whiskey: The opening act was (damn, I can see him in my mind, and hear him, but can't remember his name. A little guy, but he could sing, had several top hits, you can probably look him up), and the crowd was great, Girls were dancing in cages suspended from the ceiling, the music was rocking. guys were picking up chicks in multiples to go somewhere and ball, chicks were picking up chicks and couples, and vice versa, it was a swinging place, long before the NY scene. Funny vignette, a couple of guys I knew from Hewlett-Packard were just developing the very first home TV tape-recorder/cameras, and gave me a demo to take to the opening, which was in the after noon, and I set the camera up on the balcony overlooking the front entrance and stage (Which at that time was right in the front corner of the building, exactly on the corner of Sunset and Doheny.) A lot of Hollywood type s came to the Party with their chicks and assorted ladies, and after a while, when they noticed the camera, a bunch of them went bananas and threatened to 'Burn this F***ing place down if you don't get rid of that camera and destroy the tape'. Everyone loved Tony's paintings, and I'm pretty sure that when Gilbert sold the place to the Whiskey, he sold a few of those works, and I doubt Tony saw any of the money. At that time, Tony had an apartment above a drug store on Santa Monica Blvd, just a few blocks east of Doheny, so he could easily walk, not only to the Party/Whiskey, but also to Doug Weston's Fabled folk-music club* which was right adjacent to the corner of Santa Monica Blvd and Doheny Dr. where Tony was Master of Ceremonies for the Monday night Hootnannies, where folks like Judy Collins, the Smother Brothers, and Joan Baez, et.al, used to perform when they weren't out on the road. Good times, Thanks for bringing back the memories. Tony was poor (financially, as usual) but you did not have to feel sorry for him. One morning I came in from Vegas, and picked up a couple of bags to food to take to Tony at that Santa Monica Blvd. apartment. He usually left the place open, and I knew where he 'hid' the key, so after I knocked and he didn't answer, I walked in and started putting stuff in the fridge and cupboards. 'Hey, what's up', I heard, and turned around to see Tony's head above the back of the couch. 'Just bringing you some breakfast and other stuff', I said'. 'Cool', he said, and 'Meet Darla', as a beautiful lady's head rose up next to his from the couch. 'I know her', I answered, for in the sack with Tony, gratis I'm sure, was the most expensive hooker in Las Vegas, at the time.
* the Troubadour.
For questions about the paintings, you need to send a picture of them and we'll figure out what we can tell you about it. Post a comment with your e-mail, I reply.
