Elmer Valentine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article does not cite any references or sources. (November 2006)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Elmer Valentine is the founder of two famous West Hollywood, California nightclubs: Whisky a Go Go and The Roxy Theatre. He also founded a third that preceded the Roxy, The Trip where famous acts of the time performed, including the Temptations, Joey Bishop, Shelly Berman and others. A former Chicago police officer, Valentine co-founded the Whisky in 1963 with partners Phil Tanzini, Shelly Davis, and attorney Theodore Flier.

The Roxy has remained a staple of the Sunset Boulevard club scene in the mid-2000s. The Whisky still exists but is no longer considered a prestigious venue, and is widely regarded as being in decline. The Trip lasted only a few years, but was very popular for a time.^{[citation needed]}

Valentine was apparently referred to on the Uncle Meat album by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. The album includes a spoken dialogue between Zappa and Pamela Zarubica (in character as the mythical Suzy Creamcheese), in which the latter says: "I remember Elmer telling me that you really had a lot of talent, but he didn't see how anyone could ever make it who insisted on saying 'fuck' onstage. And he used to drive by in his gold Cadillac and peer in the window. 'Cause he could never get over the amount of groupie status that you had and he didn't have, possibly because he's fifty years old and wretched."