Golden Bear nightclub had quite a past

I've been out promoting my new book, "Led Zeppelin Crashed Here, The Rock and Roll Landmarks of North America," and a Huntington Beach landmark keeps creeping into the conversations — the famed Golden Bear nightclub. At a book signing recently, someone told me that not only did he frequent the Bear; he was also part of the 1986 demolition crew. Dropping his voice to a whisper he confided, "A lot of the debris was dumped down by dog beach, to help shore up the seawall — I grab a brick or two whenever I surf down there, man."

While being interviewed on National Public Radio, the host told me he'd seen a number of shows at the Bear (including Patti Smith and Peter Gabriel) and that it was his favorite Southern California venue. Then, on a KOCE-TV show, I met audio engineer Robert Carvounas, who may just be the biggest Golden Bear fan of all. In fact, the Huntington Beach local has been hard at work on a book about Huntington Beach's famed musical landmark and over a recent cup of coffee near the club's original site he showed me a bunch of his artifacts — photos, tickets, posters, matchbooks, brick and other memorabilia.

"I think it's the most interesting place in Huntington Beach history," he says. He wasn't of age in the 1960s so he couldn't see Jimi Hendrix or Janis Joplin perform at the Bear, but he did attend several shows in the '80s before it was demolished.

Some background: The Golden Bear opened at 306 Pacific Coast Highway (just across from the pier) as a restaurant in the 1920s. Designed by renowned Southern California architect Ernest Ridenour, movie stars back then would motor down from Hollywood for dinner after a day at the beach. By the early 1960s the space morphed into a music club. The Doors, Dizzy Gillespie, the Byrds, the aforementioned Hendrix and Joplin plus many others played the Bear.

Junior Wells cut a live album at the Bear. Peter Tork was a dishwasher there just before being cast as a Monkee. Under new ownership in the 1970s, the Golden Bear continued to grow as a seminal performance space. Linda Ronstadt, Steve Martin, Blondie, The Ramones, Neil Young — dozens of major label acts visited Huntington Beach to play the Bear.