As a child, I spent nearly every weekend with my best friend shooting hoops and jumping fences throughout Hollywood.
It was always amusing seeing tourists — especially foreigners — line up around buildings and outside nightclubs and lounges that held no meaning to me, at the time.
These monuments I ignored as a youngster became the must-see places of my teenage years and early 20s.
It was at the Viper Room where a 20-year-old me was tossed out of line trying to crash the same venue where Pearl Jam had played.
I was first scandalized by the price of a drink for a date’s $10 cocktail at the Troubadour in West Hollywood (I think I was making $6.50 an hour at the time). But I had to visit one of Jim Morrison’s favorite haunts.
So I was delighted when The Times entertainment team compiled its list of 26 legendary music sites in L.A.
It was fun to see favorites, but more importantly, to read about new places and legends.
Hopefully, there’s a spot that intrigues you. Let’s take a look at a few selections.
Capitol Records (Hollywood)
The most famous tower in all of music was never overtly intended to look like a stack of LPs and a stylus needle.
“The building was not designed as a cartoon or a giggle. To have it trivialized with the stack-of-records myth is annoying and dismaying,” architect Louis Naidorf has said of his Capitol Records Building. “There’s not a thing on the building that doesn’t have a solid purpose to it.”
That was no obstacle for it becoming emblematic of both Los Angeles and the record business. It’s still home to one of the most renowned recording studios on Earth, and its silhouette remains a Hollywood icon and a symbol of Los Angeles on par with the Hollywood sign nearby.
(Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times)
Elliott Smith Wall (Silver Lake)
The beloved singer-songwriter Elliott Smith posed at the swooping mural outside Solutions speaker repair in Silver Lake for the cover of his LP “Figure 8” in 2000.
After he died by suicide in 2003, the wall became an unofficial memorial for Smith, where fans left touching notes, song lyrics and nips of liquors mentioned in his songs.
While the wall has been cut out in spots to make room for various restaurants — and it’s often covered in more flagrant tagging — it’s still a living connection to one of the city’s most cherished voices.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
Chaplin Studio (Hollywood)
John Mayer calls it “adult day care”: the historic recording studio behind the arched gates on La Brea Avenue where famous musicians have been keeping themselves — and one another — creatively occupied since the mid-1960s.
Known for decades as Henson Studios — and as A&M Studios before that — the 3-acre complex in the heart of Hollywood has played host to the creation of some of music’s most celebrated records, among them Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” and D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah.”
Charlie Chaplin, who was born in London, began building the lot in 1917 in a white-and-brown English Tudor style; he went on to direct some of his best-known films, including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” on the property.
The Lighthouse Cafe (Hermosa Beach)
The Lighthouse Cafe might seem familiar from its cameo in the Oscar-winning movie “La La Land,” but this jazz cafe was once instrumental in shaping the West Coast jazz scene.
The beachside spot first opened as a restaurant in 1934 and was changed into a bar by the 1940s. It first started to play jazz in 1949 when the owner let bassist Howard Rumsey host a recurring jam session. The jams quickly began to draw both a vivacious crowd of listeners and a core group of budding jazz musicians.
Over the years, musicians like Chet Baker, Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis and Max Roach all made regular appearances at the Lighthouse. Today, the venue still hosts jazz brunches every Sunday and other musical gigs throughout the week.
For more, here is the entire list.
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