Esotouric and Amoeba Music offer rock history tour

Amoeba Music Pairs with Esotouric for Hollywood Rock History Tour
WHAT: Amoeba Music presents Esotouric's Where the Action Was Tour
WHEN: Saturday April 5, 11am-2pm, departing from Amoeba Music in Hollywood
COST: $55/person (15% off for KCRW members)
INFO: http://www.esotouric.com, 323-223-2767

This April Amoeba Music pairs up with Esotouric, recently named "L.A.'s coolest tour company," to offer a special edition of WHERE THE ACTION WAS, the Hollywood musical history tour. Passengers will board atAmoeba Music at the corner of Cahuenga and Sunset, kitty corner from the studio where the Rolling Stones recorded "Satisfaction," and return to Amoeba where they can shop for music by artists featured on the bus. Many tours will feature special guest stars with unique connections to the scenes visited.
This three hour tour, co-hosted by pop critics Kim Cooper and Gene Sculatti, explores the musical history of Hollywood and the Sunset Strip through visits to celebrated nightclubs, recording studios, record labels and other places of subcultural importance. Illustrated with an elaborate onboard slide show featuring rare vintage photos, live performances, album art and ephemera, and hosted by a pair of historically minded music fiends eager to share fascinating tales, WHERE THE ACTION WAS is a must for rock fans or Hollywood dwellers who've heard the famous names, but need some help figuring out where is all happened.
On WHERE THE ACTION WAS, passengers will take a fascinating journey back in time, from the mid 1960s through the punk era, when Hollywood was ground zero of a series of cultural explosions that started in the music industry, but quickly spread to film, publishing, fashion and lifestyles. The area covered is relatively small, but packed with important spots including nightclubs (Whiskey A Go Go, Pandora's Box, Rodney's English Disco, The Masque), record labels (Capitol, A&M, RCA), teen hang-outs (Ben Frank's, Canter's, Tiny Naylor's) and some familiar locations with unexpected rock and roll connections.
Artists featured include The Beach Boys, The Buffalo Springfield, The Byrds, The Doors, The Bobby Fuller 4, The Germs, Jan & Dean, Janis Joplin, Arthur Lee & Love, The Mamas & Papas, The Monkees, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones, Sonny & Cher, Phil Spector, Iggy & the Stooges, the Velvet Underground, Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention, and many, many more.
The tour visits the unassuming intersection where teens rioted over an unfair nightly curfew (inspiring the Buffalo Springfield's Stephen Stills to write "For What It's Worth"), the hotel where Janis Joplin died, the one-time roller disco parlor where Prince made his L.A. debut, the notorious Continental "Riot House" hotel in which Led Zeppelin partied with teenage groupie queens, the Hullaballoo Club (later the Aquarius and now Nickelodeon), Ciro's, the Troubador, and many more. It explains how Canter's Deli's continued popularity as an after hours gathering spot is directly tied to its willingness to serve hairy weirdos in the 1960s, reveals how Elvis Presley's shopping trip to Wallich's Music City influenced L.A.'s surf and hot rod music scene, and recalls a time when the Tropicana Motel was simply THE place to go for star spotting.
WHERE THE ACTION WAS is a long overdue celebration of the people and the venues that made Southern California the center of the rock and roll world for more than two decades.
Available for purchase on the tour will be autographed copies of Gene Sculatti's "The Catalog of Cool," Kim Cooper's books and issues of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture.
ABOUT THE HOSTS: Co-host Kim Cooper is the editrix of Scram, the acclaimed journal of unpopular culture that over 22 issues has celebrated neglected musical genius, and spawned the anthologies "Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth" and "Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed." Her latest book is the best-selling volume of the 33 1/3 series of little books about great albums, on Neutral Milk Hotel's "In the Aeroplane Over The Sea." Kim is creator of the 1947project time travel blog, spearheaded the successful preservation campaign to save the Union 76 Ballsigns, and writes and hosts all Esotouric's true crime tours.
Co-host Gene Sculatti is a writer, editor and music-business veteran whose work has appeared in USA Today, Rolling Stone and Creem. Gene was Editorial Director of Warner Bros. Records and Director of Special Issues for Billboard magazine. His book "The Catalog of Cool" was the bible of pre-internet hepcat exploration. Gene is also author of "Too Cool," "San Francisco Nights: The Psychedelic Music Trip" and "The 100 Best Selling Albums of the 60s," and hosts a weekly internet radio show on LuxuriaMusic.com, Atomic Cocktail (Wednesday's, 6 pm Pacific Time).

Upcoming Esotouric bus tour schedule:
Sat Mar 15- Vroman's Bookstore - Pasadena Confidential
Sat Mar 29 - The Real Black Dahlia
Sat April 5 ­ Amoeba Music - Where the Action Was rock history tour
Sat April 12 - Wild Wild West Side
Sat April 26 - Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: The Many Downtowns
Sat April 26 - Main Street Vice (90 minute tour, $30)
Sat May 3 - Raymond Chandler's Los Angeles: In A Lonely Place
Sat May 10 - Blood & Dumplings
Sat May 17- Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles: Route 66
Sat June 14- Vroman's - The Birth of Noir: James M. Cain's SoCal Nightmare
Sat Aug 9- Vroman's Bookstore - Charles Bukowki's LA
Sat Oct 11- Vroman's Bookstore - Raymond Chandler's LA

For more info on Esotouric, visit http://www.esotouric.com