Out In The Street

[worldlyman]

"Sidewalks of the city

And every theater there you've ever played

Your comic book impersonations

Your wish for cinders embers to keep

Over my head, so it' all"

UFO, "Out in the Street" (from the Force It album, 1975)

That dreamy semi-hard rock song from a great heavy rock album that sort of has an out-in-the-street-at-night vibe really makes me think of the old Montrose.

As far as sprawling, suburban-oriented, vehicular cities go...the Montrose of the 80s was a moment in time for some of us...before "revitalization" and "entertainment districts" really took hold in the Sunbelt.

My wife and I were just tooling around Main Street and the 3rd St. Promenade in Santa Monica two weekends ago...and just realized how Disneyesque 3rd Street is and how Main Street is commercialized (if you have no business to give to business, then you have no business loitering there.) Everything sort of looks like Main Street, the ones that the local tourist brochures just gush about. Sometimes I like Houston's Washington Ave better...some interesting stuff to congregate at but sort of a real untamed urban vibe there.

Ditto for the Gas Lamp in San Diego and other such concrete concoctions of today. Well, if you find a bench in the 3rd Street Promenade, maybe you can loiter since the 10 dollar parking is cheaper than the Disney admission.

Yep. In 2004 I remember wanting to see a movie specifically in Old Town Pasadena, CA. Something about the pretentiousness kinda of actually disgusted me and I simply got back in my car, drove off and decided to catch that movie at the Howard Hughes Pavilion off of the 405 freeway. But God, I love L.A. still.

Main Street Santa Monica and Colorado Blvd in Pasadena, CA...what's the difference? At least Santa Monica is liberal in comparison. Ah, well.

But the Montrose of the 1980s? Surely wasn't family-oriented. Not too many yup-scale hangouts then.

Still, when cruising, people sat and hung out, propped on porches, lawn-chairs or on the curb simply to be there. There was an organic vibe about all that, even if sleazy, the assorted nightwalkers and Asian spas and such. I remember all the lines to the clubs and stuff. It was just so different; it was an unpackaged pedestrian zone that Houston can say it enjoyed in the context of a sprawling Sunbelt city.

One time in 1985 when I was teen, I remember when my buddies and I went to some heavy metal concert in some bygone venue that probably was a two-story house once. The car got towed and we went walking around looking for it and answers. We wound up at some upscale hotel in the middle of downtown, probably the Sheraton or something.

Pedestrians and nightwalkers out the a-- in the Montrose when it was fun and untamed (and indeed dangerous). Lots of memories of those free-spirited teen nights.

"Out in the streets for just one more matinee..."

[gnu]

I don't think i can relate "out in the streets" to 80's montrose but i can relate to ufo.

Phil Mogg Rules! and that Schenker guy was decent too.