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here are some quotes taken from websites of some of the bands who played at the Onion!
Everyone has a favorite story to tell! SUBMIT yours for inclusion; bands, fans, innocent bystanders... Everybody wants to hear them all! Submit your story and get a prize!! |
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10PM Columbus Street, San Francisco
“Outside of legendary dive The Purple Onion, four vans are double parked, band members unloading equipment... There is so much gear in the tiny club, it looks like the Stones had popped in for a show. Onion owner and resident lunatic Tom Guido is in fine form, having added another band to an already packed bill. They are kind of an 80's jangle rock band, who will seem severely out of place as the night progresses into instro mode. The house fills up, and the cigarette smoke descends to the six foot level... ” CONTINUES - Pollo del Mar |
“Once a San Francisco landmark featuring the likes of Lenny Bruce, these days the Purple Onion is a small, vaguely swank club with outstanding live music on the weekends. While the stage is little more than one corner of the room and the sound system rates a C-, the owner, Tom Guida, books a strong line-up of garage rock, surf and other underground bands.
On many a weekend evening the Crispin Glover-esque Guida himself has been known to provide some pretty good entertainment, climbing the stage for impromptu tirades, delivered in a warbling nasal whine...” - Ken A. Miller (Citysearch) | |
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Subject: Mayhem
“...The special lighting effects were sparse. There was a lamp with a multicolored shade that the owner would spin once in a while. There was a disco ball, and from time to time the owner would climb up in one of the other booths and flip the switch to turn it on or off. None of the controls for anything appeared to be at all close to one another... The owner came back and picked out some more people to yell at and eject, and told various ones that they were the one who killed punk rock. He asked us to go outside and kill the people he'd thrown out... ” CONTINUES - Susan |
Phyllis Diller
“An irrepressible lady with an outrageous laugh... A working housewife and mother of five, Miss Diller first walked on stage when she was 37 years old. She was also a newspaper columnist, publicist, and writer for a San Francisco radio station. Her first appearance took place on March 7, 1955, at San Francisco's Purple Onion. Opening for two weeks, she stayed for 89!..” - Phyllis Diller website | |