You have probably heard about the legendary Tropicana Motel from the 70’s. It was a cool sort of run down motel with plenty of charm. All the bands wanted to stay there. Joan Jett was living at The Trop back in 1978 and one day I was over there at the pool with Joan snapping some photographs. Looking back now, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
Sparks was one of the coolest bands of the 70’s. It was the brothers Ron and Russ Mael who had lunch everyday at the Farmers Market and performed at The Whiskey almost every weekend. This photo was taken with the entire band outside the old Tropicana Motel in West Hollywood.
I call this Joan Jett photo “On The Phone With Lisa”.
Photographer/director Erica Lauren followed me back to the exact location where in 1977, I took this photograph of Joan Jett on Santa Monica Blvd. Check out all the details about the photo session and the legendary Tropicana Motel. Thank you Erica Lauren.
Photo by Brad Elterman
This is an early Ramones photo of mine back when the band would stay at the old Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Blvd. They adored The Trop and the coffee shop, Dukes where the specialty of the house was a frozen Snickers bar!
I need to get my mug on my blog this evening. That’s me on the left and Joan on the right. We were both still in our teens and we both had leather jackets. This was 1976 in her palatial suite at The Tropicana Motel on Santa Monica Blvd.
Take a look how Santa Monica Blvd looked back in 1978. That’s Joan Jett of The Runaways standing on the island in the center of the street. On this particular day, Joan and I were hanging at at the old Tropicana Motel which was right across the street. There was this legendary coffee shop called Dukes at the motel and we would eat these giant hamburgers and frozen Snickers bars. After lunch I would haul out my camera and take some photos of Joan before the sun would set off to the west.
