Morbid Rock Landmarks We’d Kill To Check Out
SEPTEMBER 4, 2007
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (TNA) – If there’s a morbid rock ‘n’ roll landmark in your neighborhood, Chris Epting is dying to see it.
Epting is a Southern California-based travel writer who specializes in bizarre celebrity-oriented landmarks. Which means that when Epting visits, say, 6060 Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles, he’s more interested in seeing the spot where the Notorious B.I.G. was shot in March 1997, rather than the nearby Petersen Automotive Museum, the site of the Soul Train Music Awards party B.I.G. (a.k.a. Christopher Wallace) attended just before his murder.
Epting has compiled a selection of his favorites in “Led Zeppelin Crashed Here: The Rock And Roll Landmarks Of North America” (Santa Monica Press), and admits there’s a certain thrill in visiting the spot where an infamous moment in rock history took place.
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Chris Epting is dying to see where his favorite rock stars perished. |
For instance, Epting says visitors to the Joshua Tree Inn near Joshua Tree State Park in the Mojave Desert can stay in the exact room where 26-year-old country-rock pioneer Gram Parsons died in 1973 after mixing morphine with tequila.
Or, if you prefer, you can dine at Delmonico’s restaurant in Encino, Calif., and relive that fateful day in July 1995 when Paula Abdul’s car was stolen as she tried to obtain a valet ticket.
Epting admits music memorials like Graceland have their charm, but says you really “feel something” in a place that’s a part of morbid rock history, like finding the exact location of the tree Sonny Bono slammed into when he was killed while skiing at Heavenly Ski Resort in January 1998.
In fact, some sites tied to rock infamy proudly trumpet the connection. For instance, there’s a memorial at the cornfield near Clear Lake, Iowa, where the plane carrying Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens crashed in February 1959.
“It’s probably the toughest rock landmark to get to,” Epting said. “It’s really remote.”
By comparison, the Comfort Inn at 1800 Euclid Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio, is more accessible, but no less notorious. The motel used to be called Swingo’s, and numerous rock stars engaged in all sorts of debauchery while staying there.
For instance, the members of Led Zeppelin once marked their visit by tossing trays filled with food out their hotel windows, then calling the front desk to blame the chaos on another Swingo’s celeb, Elton John.
While Epting has a special place in his heart for the death sites, he also enjoys visiting some less macabre rock landmarks, such as the Benvenuto Café at 8512 Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood, Calif. The restaurant was formerly the main office for The Doors, and the unisex bathroom served as a makeshift studio where Jim Morrison recorded the vocals for “L.A. Woman.”
He also enjoys visiting the Foster’s Freeze franchise in Hawthorne, Calif., reportedly the hamburger stand cited in the Beach Boys hit, “Fun, Fun, Fun.”
Epting says such places are usually more willing to play up their connection with rock history than those businesses that played host to more gloomy events.
“The folks at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood – where Janis Joplin died – won’t tell you the room,” Epting said. “I guess they don’t want to attract a certain type of sightseeing. And the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas still won’t reveal the exact room where [The Who bassist] John Entwistle overdosed.”
However, employees at the Chelsea Hotel in New York are much more forthcoming, and freely tell visitors which rooms housed Bob Dylan and Sid Vicious, as well as where Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin did the nasty.
As new rock stars run the gauntlet of fame, Epting figures plenty of infamous landmarks will emerge for aficionados like him.
For instance, his new book features just one Britney Spears marker: the pet store in Santa Monica, Calif., where she bought a puppy in 2004. But he figures future editions will likely include, among others, the hair salon where she shaved herself bald.
For more information, visit www.chrisepting.com.
Five Morbid Rock Landmarks That Will Rock Your World:
• Janis Joplin’s overdose site – The Landmark Hotel (now the Highland Gardens Hotel); Room 105; 7047 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, Calif.; (323) 850-0536. (Joplin died here from an accidental overdose on Oct. 4, 1970, after scoring a particularly potent batch of heroin.)
• Jerry Garcia’s death site – Serenity Knolls; 145 Tamal Road, Forest Knolls, Calif.; (415) 488-0400. (This is the substance-abuse center where Garcia checked in on Aug. 7, 1995. Two days later, the Grateful Dead frontman checked out of this world.)
• Shannon Hoon’s death site – 440 St. Charles Ave., New Orleans, La.; (Hoon died in the Blind Melon tour bus on Oct. 21, 1995, when it was parked next to the Hotel Intercontinental.)
• Johnny Thunders’ death site – St. Peter House; Room 37; 1005 St. Peter St., New Orleans, La.; (504) 524-9232. (The New York Dolls guitarist died of a heroin overdose here on April 23, 1991.)
• Britney Spears’ puppy purchase – Aquarium and Pet Center; 826 Wilshire Blvd.; Santa Monica, Calif.; (Spears purchased a pair of puppies here in 2004. In the process of leaving, she hit a paparazzi photographer with her Toyota Scion.)
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