TYLER MCGEE / The Bull
It’s 10 p.m. on a chilly March night, and the occupants inside the old Reseda Country Club are now leaving the Thursday church service.
The Reseda Country Club was home, to many an escape during the 1980s and 1990s as a concert venue and boxing arena.
The club was originally opened in 1980 by Chuck Landis as a concert venue for country music acts.
The real escape for many came when promoters Steve Wolf and Jim Rissmiller ran shows there. During that span they attracted many artists who are still recording today. The list includes: U2, Culture Club, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Roxy Music, Bad Religion, Metallica, Megadeth and Slayer, according to Tom Hamilton and Kevin Estrada, who were former concert regulars.
From being a frequent stage crew kid, to being the lighting and stage manager, Hamilton remembers his eight years spent there well.
“I’d be talking for hours about the list of shows I saw there,” says Hamilton. “Three bands a night, multiplied by seven nights a week, multiplied by 52 weeks a year, multiplied by eight years.”
“I can look back fondly at how it changed my course, from Crespi (Carmelite High School) and Loyola Marymount (University) majoring in psychology to finding a love and passion for music and production,” says Hamilton, who is now the operation/technical director at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts.
Even now, after being away from the Country Club for 15 years, Hamilton can’t seem to escape it.
“I have to drive by when I’m out there once or twice a year,” says Hamilton.
Estrada, who works as a concert photographer and music video director, began his obsession with photography while attending shows at the club — an art he secretly practiced by sneaking his camera and accessories into shows.
“I had the body (of the camera) in my friend’s hair and the flash in another friend’s bra,” says Estrada. The early days he spent at the Country Club have shaped Estrada’s adult life into the current way his photography career works.
“I can’t even watch a show without my camera,” says Estrada. “I need to see it through my lens.”
Estrada can still remember the escape he felt back when he attended shows at the Country Club.
“It separated me from the danger around me,” says Estrada.
The danger he spoke about came in the style of music he loved. While staring through the lens of his camera, the crowd around him moved violently. Estrada escaped into the fray of the pit, which helped fulfill his art.
Estrada not only spoke of his own escape, but that of the people around him.
“We all had problems,” says Estrada. “At 14, 15, 16, you feel like the world is crashing down on you.”
Soon after, the concert venue began to host boxing matches.
The Country Club once hosted the World Boxing Federation’s World Heavyweight Championship, and countless fighters starting their careers. A lineup of matches alone had two people making professional debuts while five others had less than 10 professional fights.
Jimmy “The Stump” Buffo, Effi “The Israeli Bomber” Schneider, Richard Calvillo, Monroe Brooks, Dominic Sherman, Alfredia Gibbs and Maria Recinos were among the fighters who fought at the Country Club on Jan. 23, 1997.
The escape has changed again inside the old halls of the Country Club, portrayed now through religion. Currently home to Iglesias De Restauracion, the church provides service on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The service starts out with a countdown on the three flat-screen televisions that hang above the stage. As the countdown timer reaches zero, people applaud and the band begins to play music.
People who have emotional outbursts are broadcast to the rest of the congregation as the ushers rush to them with a microphone.
Jose Moreira, a host at the church, explained why the congregation meets.
“We’re here to worship God,” says Moreira.
After the main prayer, the band and choir play before the main service begins. A host or usher begins to pass out translators to those who need it, as the entire service is in Spanish.
The building has undergone several changes.
“People don’t know,” says Hamilton. “Driving by and seeing the building and corner, they don’t know what used to be there.”
The Reseda Country Club offers an escape for anyone, whether they’re a photographer shooting a secret Metallica show in 1987, or ten years later a fighter working his way up the world rankings, or nowadays a religious individual.
If you are looking for an escape, just visit the Country Club on Sherman Way now, tomorrow or 20 years from now.
An usher shows her emotion during a song on the Thursday night church service. (AMBER-ROSE / The Bull)
Keel performing live on Oct. 5, 1984 (Courtesy of Kevin Estrada)
Chris Cornell of Soundgarden on stage on Feb 17, 1990. (Courtesy of Kevin Estrada)
