Talk to any Singaporean who had a band in the 60's and you'll get a story or two about the Golden Venus, a now defunct nightclub once run by the Orchard Hotel. Every Sunday, the Venus hosted its "Beat & Blues Sessions", where you could find some of Singapore's best rock'n'roll and R&B bands ever, including The Checkmates, The Straydogs, Pests Infested, Barbed Wire, Fried Ice, and High Ground. These bands pioneered the 60's entertainment scene, blazing a trail of exciting music that drew from the British invasion, Woodstock, Motown, and the folk/ blues revival. The path widened as later generation bands like Heritage, IGTA, and Calcutta Blues Experiment ventured into jazz-fusion, reggae, and rockabilly blues respectively. In legends of the Golden Venus, Joseph C. Pereira presents a fascinating collection of interviews, commentaries, and photographs that chronicles a lost era of Singaporean music history.
This is the first documentary book to recognise the unsung heroes who gave Singaporeans their first taste of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley. Their story covers three decades of rocking and rolling, hit records and dud records, breakups and reunions, shindigs and stadium shows, playing at home and abroad. This is history, music and nostalgia with the amplifier cranked to 10. - Joseph C. Pereira.
4 comments:
Those in the 60's era will definitely heard and known about the defunct Golden Venus niteclub. Tea dance held every weekends and was an "in" thing for those in that era.... and of cos with fantastic local bands performing there. Sad to say all good things come to an end but the local music still lingers on in most of our minds. Cheers.
I was in a band called 'The Hellions' that played the Sunday afternoon gigs at the Golden Venus in the 1960s. 1964 I think (it was a long time ago) What a great venue. I'm sad that it has gone but music styles as well as time moves on. I had a great time taking part and have some good memories of the place. I'm pleased that someone else has good memories of the place as well
It was also said about "Golden Venus" that a photographer was very often present and his photographs were passed on to British Army authorities so that they knew which of their servicemen were in attendance.
That was in the days of the First "Orchard Hotel". Today we have the Third establishment but no more "Golden Venus".
We played there many times as the Toadstools , what great memories I have of the Golden Venus
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