I was in a local library the other day looking through some bound People magazines from 1980 - 35 years ago - when an article in the May 12, 1980, issue (cover shown below) caught my eye. There was a page headed "A ROUNDUP OF ROLLER-DISCO RINKS" and one particular entry caught my eye, the one describing the Hidden Valley Disco Skate Center in Houston. The entry attracted me not only because I am a Texan who has visited that city several times, but also because of the venue's unusual characteristic. I'll quote directly from the article: "Hidden Valley's unique feature is Garcan II, a remote-controlled robot made of garbage cans, with a tape-recorded voice. Garcan bumps and grinds, literally sometimes, and his remote mike acts as a gentle bouncer, reprimanding obstreperous patrons." Unfortunately, there is no visual record online of what Garcan II looked like. One blog claims to have done research finding that Hidden Valley was located out in the middle of nowhere, burned down in 1984, and was never rebuilt. Other highlights from the article include a paragraph covering New York's disco Roxy, where Keith Richards "disco-skated for the first time" (there's an image for you to imagine) and this politically-incorrect quote from Britt Ekland (Bond girl in The Man With the Golden Gun and whose bedpost notches would eventually include Peter Sellers, Rod Stewart, and Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats) describing the atmosphere at West Hollywood's disco Flipper's Roller Boogie Palace: "I like it a lot," she said. "It's one of the few totally up places in L.A. that isn't totally gay. And people can't be too stoned or drunk because they'll fall." According to the piece, the decor of Flipper's was "simulated Amazon jungle," and patrons included Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. As far as I'm concerned, that's still no match for Garcan.
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Walburgh's BlogMostly retro, mainly music, but generally whatever's on my mind. Archives
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