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A Walk Down Memory Lane: The Houses of the Holy


SteveAJones

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BBC Closing Its Historic Maida Vale Studios

Artists rally behind London complex that’s hosted BBC performances since the 1930s

BBC Maida Vale studios (Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)
BBC Maida Vale studios (Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images)

The BBC has announced that it will depart and shut down its iconic Maida Vale Studios in north London. The complex, built in 1909, has been utilized by the BBC since the 1930s, playing host to the BBC Symphony Orchestra and World War II radio news bulletins. The space has hosted performances from icons like the Beatles, David Bowie, Radiohead, Led Zeppelin, Adele, JAY-Z, Nirvana, Joy Division, Oasis, and so many others. It’s where John Peel hosted his classic BBC Radio 1 sessions and was home to the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (best known for creating the “Doctor Who” theme song). Geoff Barrow of Portishead and Beak> is rallying against the decision, backed by artists including Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.

BBC director general Tony Hall told staff in an email that Maida Vale will be replaced by a state-of-the-art facility in east London. It’s expected to be ready by 2022. “I understand how much our musical heritage at Maida Vale means to us, to artists and to audiences,” said Hall in the email. “We haven’t taken this decision lightly. But we’re determined to ensure that live music remains at the heart of the BBC and moving to this new development gives us the opportunity to do just that.”

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44367396

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https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/brian-mccollum/2018/09/13/grande-ballroom-national-register-historic-places-restoration/1280764002/

 

One of Detroit's cherished rock 'n' roll landmarks looks destined for the National Register of Historic Places.

After a decade-long quest by a determined group of supporters, the Grande Ballroom is set to make the federal registry, overseen by the National Park Service. It would join at least 18 other music and arts related properties in Detroit already on the list.

Approval would help the property qualify for tax credits, financing and grants — paving the way for restoration of the dilapidated building that was once the epicenter of Detroit's counterculture.

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Former city planner fights to save Fillmore West from wrecking ball
December 5, 2018

The Fillmore West lasted just three years, and Larry Mansbach saw just three shows there. He’s fuzzy on specifics, like which bands he saw, but he is clear on the significance of San Francisco’s most important rock venue during the crucial years of 1968-71, and he’s about to fight for it.

The two-story triangular building that housed the open-floor concert hall above an auto dealership where South Van Ness meets Market Street is facing demolition to make way for up to 984 units in one or two tall, mixed-use towers. The first public hearing before the Planning Commission is Thursday, Dec. 6.

There’s a public notice in the window of the closed Honda dealership, but it makes no mention of the Fillmore West or its predecessor, the Carousel Ballroom. It only mentions “demolition of an historical resource.”

Mansbach knows exactly what that means.

“The Fillmore West is part of San Francisco’s cultural history, and we are losing too much of it,” he said, pounding a fist on a conference table at his real estate office in the historic Hobart Building on Market Street.

Mansbach has the backing of a 78-page report compiled for the city as part of the draft environmental impact report, which the Planning Commission will consider Thursday. It declares the Fillmore West to be eligible for the California Register of Historic Resources.

“This is San Francisco, 1968. This is a disappearing species,” said architectural historian Debi Howell-Ardila, who compiled the report for SWCA Consulting. “It would be great if they could somehow keep the Fillmore West.”

62466903_DATEBOOK_fillmorewest12061-1024
Larry Mansbach looks over a notice for a public hearing posted on the building at the intersection of Market Street and South Van Ness Avenue where the Fillmore West used to be located on Tuesday, December 4, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle

The Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors cannot ignore the finding. The Historic Preservation Commission recommends an interpretive program, which could be as simple as a historic plaque on the new building or a website explaining the legacy of the concert hall, which hosted such rock luminaries of the day as Led Zeppelin, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Sly and the Family Stone.

Jim Abrams, attorney for developer Crescent Heights, said there are plans to honor the site. But to Mansbach, nothing will do short of preserving the Fillmore West, which is still intact and was leased earlier this year to NPU Inc., a venue management company.

The company cleaned up 40 years of motor oil and now rents out the hall as an event space called SVN West. Mansbach wants the second-floor space incorporated into the new towers, an idea the developer says is impossible.

62472988_DATEBOOK_fillmorewest1206-1024x
SVN West, an event space for rent and community programs at the old Fillmore West. Photo: NPU Inc.
62473076_DATEBOOK_fillmorewest1206-1024x
SVN West in June, on the night of the first event hosted by NPU Inc. at the old Fillmore West. Photo: NPU Inc.

“I’m getting fed up with San Francisco history being demolished by the highest bidder,” Mansbach said.

There is much confusion about the Fillmore West, owing largely to the fact that it is not on Fillmore Street, not in the Fillmore district and not the same place as the flourishing Fillmore music hall on the corner of Geary Boulevard.

When the “San Francisco Sound” took hold in the mid-1960s, the two large concert venues were the Fillmore Auditorium, run by Bill Graham, and the Avalon Ballroom, run by Chet Helms. The Avalon, at Van Ness and Sutter, held about 500 and the Fillmore about 1,300.

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Rock promoter Bill Graham at the Fillmore West, which was formerly the Carousel Ballroom, on July 2, 1968. Photo: Peter Breinig, The Chronicle

There was a third venue, an upstairs dance hall from the swing era originally named El Patio — “the Ballroom of Distinction” — and later changed to the Carousel Ballroom. It had a capacity of 1,500 and was sitting vacant. So the Big Four of San Francisco bands — Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother & the Holding Company — came together to open their own concert hall.

“It was a complete hippie outfit. You could use barter to get in,” said rock historian Joel Selvin, who has written many books about the scene. “It was also a slap in Bill Graham’s face.”

The Carousel didn’t last a year before Graham took over the lease. His first show, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band and Ten Years After, was on July 2, 1968. Once Graham opened the Carousel, he closed the Fillmore Auditorium and soon changed the name of his new club to the Fillmore West, a reference his other club, the Fillmore East, which he’d opened just three months before, in New York City.

Mansbach is certain that he saw the Grateful Dead at the Fillmore West, and it’s a good guess because the city’s house band played there something like 65 times.

53372086_DATEBOOK_fillmorewest1206-455x1
An ad for upcoming four Fillmore West shows, featuring the Kinks and Elton John in the Nov. 8, 1970/ Photo: The Chronicle

But he missed Big Brother & the Holding Company’s final San Francisco show with its soon-to-be-departed singer Janis Joplin there. He also wasn’t there to see the Who perform the rock opera “Tommy” or to see Santana, Aretha Franklin or Miles Davis, who all made live albums in the room.

“The albums were recorded there because the Fillmore West had a worldwide reputation as the most important stage in the rock world,” Selvin said.

The place had decorative arches and an open wooden floor that doubled as a basketball court. No alcohol was served, and the cover charge was usually $3 or $5.

During its glory days, Mansbach was in school at George Washington High in the Richmond and wasn’t able to attend shows until he was a freshman living in the dorms at UC Berkeley, in 1971.

“I only caught it at the end, because there was an age issue,” he said.

By then, the building had been sold and was slated to be redeveloped into a 400-room Howard Johnson’s motor inn. Graham found a larger space at a ground-floor ice skating rink called Winterland Ballroom in what is now called Lower Pacific Heights. Graham had already been putting on shows there, but then he made it the center of his weekend operations.

16966852_DATEBOOK_fillmorewest1206-208x3
John Entwistle of the Who in August 1969 at the Fillmore West during a performance of the rock opera “Tommy.” Photo: Courtesy, The Chronicle

It had a balcony with fixed seating all the way around and was three times the capacity of the Fillmore West, which Graham closed with an epic four-night flourish leading up to the Fourth of July, 1971.

It became a boxed set LP called “Fillmore: the Last Days,” and a documentary film. There is footage of Graham on the phone with band managers explaining why he was closing.

“I want it my way, and that’s why I am getting my f— ass out of here,” he shouted into the mouthpiece. “I’ve had to put up with too much for too long. Why do you think I want out? Because these groups have gotten too authoritarian.”

To make his point, Graham closed the Fillmore East simultaneously.

Winterland closed after a televised all-night show by the Dead and the Blues Brothers, with John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, on New Year’s Eve 1978. It was leveled for apartments, and the only tribute was a restaurant named Winterland, which wasn’t even on the same site.

To Mansbach, that remains a travesty and an embarrassment, and he doesn’t want to see the Fillmore West vanish the same way.

“San Francisco was the international capital of music,” he said. “It is known wherever I travel, even now.”

Mansbach said he was a staff planner with the city Planning Department from 1977 to 1980 and that one of his old colleagues slipped him the historical report on the Fillmore West building, which was prepared in September 2016.

“I saw the address ‘10 South Van Ness’ and was shocked,” he said. Mansbach read the report, then cleared his calendar for 1 p.m. Thursday to be in the Planning Commission chambers at City Hall.

“This project, which is going to add hundreds of housing units, is a good project,” he said. “I’m going to testify that it incorporate the preservation of the Fillmore West.”

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/former-city-planner-fights-to-save-fillmore-west-from-wrecking-ball

 

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Kooyong: Demolition taking Australia’s spiritual home of tennis back to basics

The former home of Australian tennis – Kooyong in inner Melbourne – is being taken back to its original form, with demolition work now well under way. The horseshoe-shaped arena is being stripped back to the low-line level of the early 1930s, removing upper echelons added in the 1950s.

Unlike the razing of the Sydney Football Stadium and major re-design of Sydney Olympic Park, Kooyong’s redevelopment acknowledges and celebrates its storied history. Billed as “the spiritual home of tennis in Australia”, Kooyong is the nation’s most original major sports stadium.

Although pre-dated by the MCG, SCG and Adelaide Oval, for example, it retains more of the original structures than our most revered stadia.

Kooyong’s upper stands are being removed as part of an $18 million upgrade of the private tennis club’s facilities. Built in 1926 and upgraded in 1934, Kooyong hosted 28 Australian Opens – the most before Melbourne Park took over in 1988. Kooyong was the permanent AO venue from 1972 to 1987, as well as the post-World War II venue of choice for Davis Cup finals.

To make more space for car parking for club members, Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club has won council approval to demolish the upper western and southern stands. Kooyong’s significance is that the green concrete bowl hosted many of Australia’s biggest international sports successes of the 20th century.

It also hosted sell-out concerts in the 1970s and ’80s featuring Elton John, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and David Bowie.

Historically, its preservation is as important as keeping iconic football/cricket and Olympic/Commonwealth Games stadia as monuments to our great sporting heritage.

Full article:
https://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/tennis/2019/07/18/kooyong-demolition-taking-australias-spiritual-home-of-tennis-back-to-basics/

 

 

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On 2/9/2018 at 8:37 AM, sam_webmaster said:

Saving the Oakland Coliseum
 
The fading reputation of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum has damaged its ability to survive, let alone compete with newer Bay Area facilities. Here's how the sports complex's image, and perhaps its future, can be salvaged.

https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/saving-the-coliseum/Content?oid=13112916

 

good article but I noticed it says Zep played there in 1979.

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8 minutes ago, sam_webmaster said:

Kooyong: Demolition taking Australia’s spiritual home of tennis back to basics

Very surprised by this. One almost never hears of scaling a venue back to it's original form.

Edited by SteveAJones
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Youtube has been giving me so much grief over getting this video posted. My first cut got pulled because it included copyrighted material (but I see a TON of zeppelin videos on youtube - but whatever). 

Anyway - some short clips of Laugardalsholl, from my recent trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. Also got some footage of the Saga hotel. Pardon the shit editing and narrative. Casey Neistat makes it look SO easy. Enjoy and happy birthday Robert Plant!

 

Edited by The Only Way To Fly
mistake
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14 hours ago, The Only Way To Fly said:

Youtube has been giving me so much grief over getting this video posted. My first cut got pulled because it included copyrighted material (but I see a TON of zeppelin videos on youtube - but whatever). 

Anyway - some short clips of Laugardalsholl, from my recent trip to Reykjavik, Iceland. Also got some footage of the Saga hotel. Pardon the shit editing and narrative. Casey Neistat makes it look SO easy. Enjoy and happy birthday Robert Plant!

 

Very cool. Thanks for posting this.

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Keep your fingers crossed for one of the "Holiest Houses", the LA Forum.

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-03-02/steve-ballmer-buys-forum-future-clippers-inglewood

The e-mail from businessman Irving Azoff to Lakers owner Jeanie Buss and top advisor Linda Rambis three years ago laid out Azoff’s vision for the future of the Forum and the Lakers.

“Here’s my dream,” he wrote in an email reviewed by The Times’ Nathan Fenno. “Rebuild the Forum from scratch. Lakers plus music. Boom.”

Rebuilding the Forum from scratch would have meant demolishing the home of the Lakers and Kings from 1967 to 1999 that both teams left for Staples Center.

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Talking Stick Resort Arena Has a New Name, at Least for the Moment

Benjamin Leatherman - November 16, 2020

talking-stick-resort-arena-renamed-phoenix-downtown-phx-aren.jpg.9b7c64fbb082c383dde8119bdae0eeb0.jpg

 

Good news for anyone who thought Talking Stick Resort Arena was a weird or awkward name for downtown Phoenix's pro basketball stadium/concert venue: You won't have to call it that any longer.

The 18,422-seat venue -  home to the Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Mercury, and a ton of high-profile concerts including Paul McCartney, Justin Timberlake,  and the Jonas Brothers - became PHX Arena last week after its five-year naming agreement with Scottsdale's Talking Stick Resort and Casino recently ended.

Talking Stick's owners announced on November 6 they declined to renew the deal after negotiating with the Suns since earlier this year, according to a press release from the resort.

It's not the only recent change to the arena, which is currently undergoing a $150 million interior renovation and upgrade that's adding better seating, revamped bars and lounges, and numerous high-tech amenities.

This is the arena's third name change since it opened in 1992 as America West Arena. In 2005, it was rechristened as US Airways Center after the airlines merged before becoming Talking Stick Resort Arena in 2015.

The latter renaming wasn't popular with either sports pundits or NBA fans. Bleacher Report included it on a 2016 list of the "Strangest Stadium Names in Sports"

while a hoops fanatic on Reddit said after the change was "fucking trash and anybody who was remotely involved in the naming of it should be waterboarded."

Ouch.

So what's the deal with calling the venue PHX Arena? If we had to guess, it's a placeholder until a new naming deal can be made (much like State Farm Stadium in Glendale was just Cardinals Stadium for a few weeks after it opened).

Suns fans have a few ideas. A recent Reddit post in the Phoenix Suns subreddit included corporate-affiliated monikers both serious (PayPal Arena, which stems from the company's marketing and sponsorship deal with the team) and jokey (Filiberto's Arena or the "Fucklakers Arena")

Whatever name the team decides to go with, Suns fans are glad it's not Talking Stick Resort Arena any longer.

"Fuck that was such a mouthful [for announcers to say] every broadcast," said one person on the Suns's subreddit.

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/music/talking-stick-resort-arena-is-now-phx-arena-at-least-for-the-moment-11514258

 

Edited by luvlz2
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When hippies converged on Lewisville’s Texas International Pop Festival
In the last summer of the sixties, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, and communal spirit took the Texas International Motor Speedway and Lewisville Lake by storm.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/from-the-archives/2021/08/26/when-hippies-converged-on-lewisvilles-texas-international-pop-festival/

 

Headliners at Texas International Pop Festival

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/from-the-archives/2021/08/26/headliners-at-texas-international-pop-festival/

G4BITB4LXZAMPJ5A6XA4MVNZ5A.jpg

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Framingham was the bomb.' Carousel Theatre drew Jack Benny, Jimi Hendrix

Cesareo Contreras | MetroWest Daily News | Sept. 17, 2021
 
FRAMINGHAM — LD Glover was 16 years old when he started working as a house crew member at the Carousel Theatre.  

He was one of many local residents in the late '60s who helped set up the stage for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Supremes, Led Zeppelin and others. 

"We were all 16, 18 years old and it was the best job ever," he said. "We would put up the tent, take care of the grounds, load the bands in and out, take care of the dressing rooms, do security, stagehands for the shows and roll the tent up at the end of the season."

The Carousel was a popular music venue in the 1950s and 1960s
 

The Carousel was a popular summer music venue on Old Connecticut Path that was in business from 1958 to 1969. Travelers on the Mass Pike could see it from the highway. The large theatrical tent, which was reportedly the largest in the United States at the time, could accommodate between 2,500 and 3,000 people, according to former Daily News arts writer Bob Tremblay. New England theatrical producer Francis Connelly was the owner.

The venue was a theatre in the round, meaning the stage was surrounded by the seated audience. The first performance at the venue was the musical "New Girl in Town" with Joan Blondell on June 30, 1958. 

Glover said Framingham was a popular nightspot throughout the 1950s, '60 and '70s — a "hub of entertainment."  

Mr. Know-It-All: When music made the rounds in Framingham

Alongside Route 9, popular spots like the restaurant and nightclub Maridor were very popular, he said. 

"That area was jumping back in the day," Glover said. "Framingham was the bomb. In between Ken's Steakhouse and the Maridor and the Carousel, you had the season." 

Glover found his love for the concert scene just a year before he started working at the Carousel, when his dad brought him to see American pianist and composer Duke Ellington there. 

An advertisement from 1967 showing the schedule of upcoming concerts at the Carousel.
 

"About a year or so later, I went up to the Carousel to buy some tickets to Simon & Garfunkel, and there was a little note on the box office that said 'Help Wanted,' so I applied. Four seasons later, we were still there." 

Glover, now 70, went on to have a career working as a roadie for bands throughout the country. He attributes the Carousel for setting him down that path. 

To celebrate the Carousel Theatre, Glover created a Facebook page that now has 459 followers.   

Music in modern times:Boch Center offers rapid COVID-19 testing before Saturday's performances at Wang, Shubert

One of them is Richard Alberty. He was 13 when he saw his first show at the Carousel. He snuck out of his house to see Hendrix. He jumped from his bedroom window in Southborough, then walked several miles from his house to the venue.

It was a life-changing experience, he said. 

"It was a magical place," Alberty said. "They really had a lot of great talent." 

Crews get to work building the Carousel Theater one summer
 

He went on to see numerous shows at the Carousel, including Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin and Orpheus.    

He compared that area of Framingham to the Las Vegas Strip. Like Glover, he pursued a career working as roadie for a number of popular rock bands. 

"It was just magical," he said of the Carousel. "It was a real cool place." 

Ruthann Tomassini, a volunteer at the Framingham History Center, worked as a hostess at the Sea n Surf Restaurant along Route 9 between 1960 and 1970. She remembers people eating at the restaurant before heading to a show at the Carousel. On occasion, musicians and other celebrities stopped by. 

'As cautious as possible':Framingham's atac requires proof of vaccination

Italian actress Anna Maria Alberghetti, who won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress (Musical) for "Carnival," would often rent a room in the back of the restaurant, Tomassini recalled. 

"It was exciting times for sure," she said. 

Mary McCann worked as a property mistress at the Carousel. She was in charge of making sure the talent had the props they needed when they were on stage. She worked throughout high school and college, she said. 

The grounds at the Carousel Theater on Old Connecticut Path in Framingham
 

She loved the job and did it for about five summers. McCann saw the Carousel change from having more Broadway and classical music to rock concerts. She kept a few of the printed programs, but recently donated them to the Framingham History Center. 

One of her most memorable moments was getting to meet entertainer Jack Benny. 

"He was huge at the time," she said. "Instead of being this arrogant jerk who had something to prove, here was this guy who everybody in the world knows and here he is just sitting here chatting with me and being nice and low-key."  

After closing in 1969, the venue was destroyed in a fire shortly afterward, according to Tremblay.  

Today, office buildings sit on the property, which nevertheless pays tribute to its history — the Carousel Office Park at 500 Old Connecticut Path.

 

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/2021/09/17/framingham-ma-carousel-theatre-facebook-group-concerts-jimi-hendrix-supremes-led-zeppelin/8257240002/

 

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15 hours ago, sam_webmaster said:

Framingham was the bomb.' Carousel Theatre drew Jack Benny, Jimi Hendrix

Cesareo Contreras | MetroWest Daily News | Sept. 17, 2021
 
FRAMINGHAM — LD Glover was 16 years old when he started working as a house crew member at the Carousel Theatre.  

He was one of many local residents in the late '60s who helped set up the stage for the likes of Jimi Hendrix, The Supremes, Led Zeppelin and others. 

"We were all 16, 18 years old and it was the best job ever," he said. "We would put up the tent, take care of the grounds, load the bands in and out, take care of the dressing rooms, do security, stagehands for the shows and roll the tent up at the end of the season."

The Carousel was a popular music venue in the 1950s and 1960s
 

The Carousel was a popular summer music venue on Old Connecticut Path that was in business from 1958 to 1969. Travelers on the Mass Pike could see it from the highway. The large theatrical tent, which was reportedly the largest in the United States at the time, could accommodate between 2,500 and 3,000 people, according to former Daily News arts writer Bob Tremblay. New England theatrical producer Francis Connelly was the owner.

The venue was a theatre in the round, meaning the stage was surrounded by the seated audience. The first performance at the venue was the musical "New Girl in Town" with Joan Blondell on June 30, 1958. 

Glover said Framingham was a popular nightspot throughout the 1950s, '60 and '70s — a "hub of entertainment."  

Mr. Know-It-All: When music made the rounds in Framingham

Alongside Route 9, popular spots like the restaurant and nightclub Maridor were very popular, he said. 

"That area was jumping back in the day," Glover said. "Framingham was the bomb. In between Ken's Steakhouse and the Maridor and the Carousel, you had the season." 

Glover found his love for the concert scene just a year before he started working at the Carousel, when his dad brought him to see American pianist and composer Duke Ellington there. 

An advertisement from 1967 showing the schedule of upcoming concerts at the Carousel.
 

"About a year or so later, I went up to the Carousel to buy some tickets to Simon & Garfunkel, and there was a little note on the box office that said 'Help Wanted,' so I applied. Four seasons later, we were still there." 

Glover, now 70, went on to have a career working as a roadie for bands throughout the country. He attributes the Carousel for setting him down that path. 

To celebrate the Carousel Theatre, Glover created a Facebook page that now has 459 followers.   

Music in modern times:Boch Center offers rapid COVID-19 testing before Saturday's performances at Wang, Shubert

One of them is Richard Alberty. He was 13 when he saw his first show at the Carousel. He snuck out of his house to see Hendrix. He jumped from his bedroom window in Southborough, then walked several miles from his house to the venue.

It was a life-changing experience, he said. 

"It was a magical place," Alberty said. "They really had a lot of great talent." 

Crews get to work building the Carousel Theater one summer
 

He went on to see numerous shows at the Carousel, including Iron Butterfly, Led Zeppelin and Orpheus.    

He compared that area of Framingham to the Las Vegas Strip. Like Glover, he pursued a career working as roadie for a number of popular rock bands. 

"It was just magical," he said of the Carousel. "It was a real cool place." 

Ruthann Tomassini, a volunteer at the Framingham History Center, worked as a hostess at the Sea n Surf Restaurant along Route 9 between 1960 and 1970. She remembers people eating at the restaurant before heading to a show at the Carousel. On occasion, musicians and other celebrities stopped by. 

'As cautious as possible':Framingham's atac requires proof of vaccination

Italian actress Anna Maria Alberghetti, who won a Tony Award in 1962 as Best Actress (Musical) for "Carnival," would often rent a room in the back of the restaurant, Tomassini recalled. 

"It was exciting times for sure," she said. 

Mary McCann worked as a property mistress at the Carousel. She was in charge of making sure the talent had the props they needed when they were on stage. She worked throughout high school and college, she said. 

The grounds at the Carousel Theater on Old Connecticut Path in Framingham
 

She loved the job and did it for about five summers. McCann saw the Carousel change from having more Broadway and classical music to rock concerts. She kept a few of the printed programs, but recently donated them to the Framingham History Center. 

One of her most memorable moments was getting to meet entertainer Jack Benny. 

"He was huge at the time," she said. "Instead of being this arrogant jerk who had something to prove, here was this guy who everybody in the world knows and here he is just sitting here chatting with me and being nice and low-key."  

After closing in 1969, the venue was destroyed in a fire shortly afterward, according to Tremblay.  

Today, office buildings sit on the property, which nevertheless pays tribute to its history — the Carousel Office Park at 500 Old Connecticut Path.

 

https://www.metrowestdailynews.com/story/news/2021/09/17/framingham-ma-carousel-theatre-facebook-group-concerts-jimi-hendrix-supremes-led-zeppelin/8257240002/

 

Very cool Sam. 
 

Thank you. 

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Grande Ballroom, onetime Detroit rock palace, listed for sale at $5 million

Brian McCollum | Detroit Free Press

Detroit’s most famous counterculture hot spot is on the market.

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The former Grande Ballroom, at 8952 Grand River, has been listed for sale at $5 million. The property, which fell out of use in the early '80s, is owned by nearby Chapel Hill Missionary Baptist Church, which purchased it in 2006 for $60,000.

A sale listing went live Sunday from Detroit's Dorsett Brokerage Development & Management Group.

A church representative who spoke with the Free Press declined to elaborate on details about the prospective sale.

The long-dilapidated building has been a source of some of Detroit rock’s most enduring mythology, long immortalized in song and film, including the 2012 documentary “Louder Than Love.”

From 1966 to 1972, the Grande reigned as Detroit's leading rock hall, the nerve center of hippie music culture in town. Touring guests included Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Who, while homegrown acts such the MC5, the Stooges, the Frost and Ted Nugent’s Amboy Dukes were regulars.

In October 1968, the MC5 — the venue’s house band — recorded its explosive debut album, “Kick Out the Jams,” during a pair of Grande shows. A 2,000-square-foot mural commemorating the MC5 was painted on the building's east side in 2018, in conjunction with the album's 50th anniversary.
MC5 guitarist Wayne Kramer in front of the new MC5 mural at the Grande Ballroom in Detroit.

For a previous generation of Detroiters, the Grande was best known as an elegant west-side ballroom, home to big-band dances and socials. It was the sister venue of the east-side Vanity Ballroom, which has been eyed for extensive rehabilitation and development in the Jefferson Chalmers district.

In 2018, the Grande secured a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, overseen by the National Park Service. Though that status doesn’t offer the protection afforded by some other state and federal historical designations, it might offer some financial benefit to a developer via Michigan’s new State Historic Tax Credit Program, enacted in late 2020.

Longtime Grande Ballroom advocate Leo Early, author of 2016’s "The Grande Ballroom: Detroit's Rock 'n' Roll Palace," said Chapel Hill Missionary officials have discussed a possible sale for several years.

But the church had also entertained the idea of restoring the idle, vacant building itself — potentially for mixed residential and commercial use — including a new venue space on the second floor, site of the former ballroom.

Demolition was cost-prohibitive, Early said.

This week’s sale listing asserts that “this is a major project for a serious minded developer who's familiar with large scale projects; thus understanding the history associated with the building and having a vision to restore a monumental piece of real estate iconic to the city of Detroit.”

It also asks that the $5 million price tag not intimidate prospective buyers.

“The seller will consider all intelligent officers,” the listing reads.

Contact Detroit Free Press music writer Brian McCollum: 313-223-4450 or bmccollum@freepress.com.

https://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/brian-mccollum/2022/04/06/grande-ballroom-former-detroit-rock-palace-sale/9487236002/

 

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Five million dollars?! The owners would do well to get fifty thousand. The building fell into disrepair decades ago and is little more than a rotting hulk. As for mixed used development, the Detroit market arguably doesn't need another downtown entertainment venue, it needs affordable housing. I'm skeptical this structure could be rehabbed to offer it.

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On 4/7/2022 at 7:04 AM, SteveAJones said:

Five million dollars?! The owners would do well to get fifty thousand. The building fell into disrepair decades ago and is little more than a rotting hulk. As for mixed used development, the Detroit market arguably doesn't need another downtown entertainment venue, it needs affordable housing. I'm skeptical this structure could be rehabbed to offer it.

and clean, uncontaminated drinking water too

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