Golden years

Jenny Marder

Mention the Golden Bear to any Surf City old-timer, and you’re sure

to get a story soaked with nostalgia and peppered with a little air

guitar.

You’ll hear about the time Steve Martin, clad in rabbit ears,

invited a crowd of 300 to hitchhike with him to the pier. You’ll hear

tales of Jerry Garcia jamming until 4 a.m. or Charles Bukowski

spewing drunken poetry beside a beer-stocked refrigerator that, at

his insistence, accompanied him onstage.

The Golden Bear was the place to be. It was the pulse of the city,

the heart of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s and ‘70s, an institution for

the Southern California music scene. And while the nightclub that sat

on the corner of Main Street and Pacific Coast Highway is long gone,

memories remain fresh for many in Surf City.

On Saturday, a piece of that history was posted on the wall of

Perqs bar Downtown,

when former Golden

Bear owner Carole Babiracki

hung a collage depicting the club’s golden years.

At the urging of Perqs owner Gary Mulligan and several former

Golden Bear groupies, Babiracki crafted the collage, something she’s

been planning to do for years. She spent weeks working on the collage

in hopes of keeping the club’s memory alive. Her bed is scattered

with old Polaroid snapshots, tickets, handmade posters and backstage

passes.

A shot of Stevie Ray Vaughan eating pizza propels her back in

time.

“I remember him doing honky-tonk music and playing the piano,” she

said, impersonating Vaughan, by hammering out an air piano solo while

jumping up and down in her socks, laughing. “What do you now when

you’ve done everything?”

The snapshots are a who’s who of jazz, folk, blues and rock ‘n’

roll.

Everyone played at “the Bear,” she said -- BB King, Neil Young,

Taj Mahal, Jackson Browne and Dizzy Gillespie.

So many big names, locals could hardly believe it.

“I could never believe that Huntington Beach would attract so much

for that hole-in-the-wall theater,” Huntington Beach resident Dean

Albright recalled. “[The line] came out, went to the corner, around

the corner, up the street and around the other corner. And those were

dedicated people. They came there for one thing -- to see and hear

the people that were playing that night.”

Behind the painted murals and cracked walls of the 1920s building,

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane would grace the

stage with guitar licks and throaty ballads. Artists and comedians

who normally played venues four times the size would play to an

intimate crowd of no more than 300.

“You were no more than 50 feet from the stage and you could see

things really close,” Babiracki said. Her favorite performer: Tom

Waits, who carried McDonald’s Big Macs in the pocket of his overcoat

and had strippers open his shows.

Van Halen, Oingo Boingo and Poison were unsigned when they played

at the Golden Bear. Robin Williams used the bar’s casual setting to

warm up for national tours.

“We just treated the bands really nice, set up water, set up fruit

bowls, fed them.” Babiracki said. “We were the mom and pop place that

took care of the bands.”

Babiracki ran the nightclub with her ex-husband Rick Babiracki and

his brother, Charles, for its last 22 years.

The three took over the club in 1964 from former owner George

Nikas and kept it running until Downtown redevelopment plans forced

them to close in 1986. The legendary building was torn down and

replaced with the more upscale Pierside Pavilion. Fragments of the

old building’s facade are still in city storage.

A few years later, attempts were made to coax the Golden Bear out

of hibernation. In 1990, Peppers Golden Bear, a new version of the

club, opened, but closed less than a year later, unable to book the

acts or draw the crowds of its predecessor.

Now, Pacific City developers are hoping to revive the old

nightclub as part of their proposed 31-acre development, which is

slated to stretch along Pacific Coast Highway, flanked by Atlanta

Avenue and Huntington and 1st streets.

Officials have carved out a 15,000-square-foot space that Michael

Gagnet, vice president of developer Makar Properties, said is a prime

spot for a revived Golden Bear.

“We’ve thought about a House of Blues-esque style,” Gagnet said.

“It would be two levels: the first level is dining, and the next

level is where the entertainment venue could be.”

Developers hope to find a way to integrate some of the history of

the old nightclub into a contemporary space that, true to its

ancestry, would host a motley array of music.

“The old Golden Bear brought in all sorts of entertainment and we

think that this could do the same thing,” Gagnet said. “I think it

would be fabulous. I really do.”

Babiracki, who owns the name, is open to the idea and may consider

selling it.

“I hope they do it,” she said. “But I want them to do it well, not

haphazardly.”

Still, nothing will replace the old nightclub. The day the Golden

Bear closed was the end of an era, a heartbreaking moment for

Babiracki and many others.