RETROSPECTIVE – The Cathouse

While CBGB dominated the New York punk scene during the 1980s, Hollywood’s hair metal bands had a pick of venues to showcase their act, from the Troubadour and the Rainbow Bar and Grill to the Roxy and the world famous Whisky a Go Go. In 1986 a new club opened in Los Angeles that in the space of a few months became the hottest hang out in town and the place to be seen for up-and-coming rock groups. The brainchild behind the Cathouse was Riki Rachtman, who had wanted to open a club where he could go with his friends to meet women. Rachtman was an avid fan of heavy metal and punk and had struggled through several local bands, including the Fairlanes and Virgin, although none of these ventures would prove successful.

By 1986 glam metal was at the height of its popularity, with arena acts like Mötley Crüe being joined on the club circuit by new groups such as Ratt and Poison. The Troubadour had become the most popular venue for rock bands to perform and Rachtman had no intention of competing, merely wishing for a club that would play the kind of music that he enjoyed. Rachtman decided to approach the owners of Osko’s Disco on La Cienega Boulevard in West Hollywood, a venue that had been closed for some time and was left run down and in need of renovation. Arousing their interest, Rachtman realised that he would need support in launching the club and suggested his ideas to his roommate, a young singer who had been performing with his new band Faster Pussycat under the stage name Taime Downe. Working part-time at the Troubadour, Downe also had a day job at a clothing store called Retail Slut, where he would distribute flyers for his upcoming shows. Eventually quitting the Troubadour in order to focus on his group, Downe saw Rachtman’s idea beneficial for his own ambitions.

If the club was to attract the right kind of crowd then it would need to play music from both established acts and new talent. To help with this Rachtman recruited the services of Joseph Brooks, a local DJ who had launched the popular record store Vinyl Fetish in 1980 with his friend Henry Peck, at first situated on La Brea Avenue and later on Melrose Avenue, close to Retail Slut. Vinyl Fetish specialised in alternative music, specifically gothic and punk rock, but Brooks and Peck decided to sell the store in 1986 and Brooks would later pursue a career as a jewellery designer. Rachtman and Downe’s hard work would pay off when the Cathouse opened in late 1986, and within a few weeks it began to attract the attention of several new rock groups, most notably Guns N’ Roses. The clientele for the Cathouse would be split into two halves, pretty boy glam rockers and scantily clad rock groupies, and before long it became a popular spot for members of Aerosmith, Metallica and Mötley Crüe, who had emerged from the local scene a few years earlier.

Around this time Guns N’ Roses had been signed by Geffen Records and had recorded a four-track EP called Live ?!*@ Like a Suicide in the studio, which had then been overdubbed to include an audience, in an effort to entice their fan base who had loyally followed them around Hollywood. They had wanted a release party for the EP and had suggested that the Cathouse would be an ideal location. Believing that any publicity would be good for his business, Rachtman approved and arranged a date for the band to perform. With a buzz generating around the upcoming show, Downe decided that he wanted Faster Pussycat to also play on the same night, but when news of the event spread around the club an additional two acts were added to the bill; L.A. Guns and Jetboy, whose bassist Todd Crew was a close friend of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash. The success of the show would ignite further interest in the club and soon the crowds began to grow each week. The “world famous” Cathouse, as it would soon become known as, had exceeded Rachtman’s expectations and was now rivalling the Troubadour and the Whisky a Go Go.

In early 1987 Faster Pussycat signed with Elektra Records, who had previously taken a chance on Mötley Crüe, and had recorded their eponymous debut album with producer Ric Browde, who had recently completed work on Poison‘s first album Look What the Cat Dragged In. On his record Downe had paid tribute to his venue with a song entitled Cathouse, whose lyrics portrayed the sleazy sex-filled world that the club had become (“I’m going back to the best cathouse in town, to get some more of that cheap little tramp right about now”). Both Poison and Faster Pussycat would be interviewed for a documentary by Penelope Spheeris called The Decline of Western Civilization Part II: The Metal Years, which took a rather biased look at the Hollywood glam metal scene and also featured the likes of Vixen, London, Kiss and W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes. The movie would not only feature two live performances from Faster Pussycat, Cathouse and Bathroom Wall (the latter had also been included on the soundtrack to Spheeris’ previous film Dudes) but Downe and Rachtman’s club would receive further exposure.

With Faster Pussycat taking off Downe began to lose interest in the business and so Rachtman eventually took over as the sole owner, while the Cathouse would relocate from La Cienega Boulevard to the Probe on 836 North Highland. The press would continue to write articles on the club, while celebrities from Cher and Michelle Pfeiffer to rock bands like Alice in Chains and Pantera would spent their nights there. Christina Applegate, then known as the airhead rock chick daughter from the hit sitcom Married with Children, would also work for a short time in the coat room. The club would operate a strict policy of no cameras, so that whatever took place inside would not become tomorrow’s headlines. Guns N’ Roses would continue to show their support for the venue that had helped launch their career once they had become a best-selling stadium act, with frontman Axl Rose wearing a Cathouse shirt in the video for their hit single Paradise City. Rachtman would return the favour three years later when he made a cameo in their nine-minute video November Rain. The fact that by the end of the 1980s the regulars had changed from Faster Pussycat and L.A. Guns to rising grunge acts like Stone Temple Pilots and Pearl Jam showed that a shift in the music industry was on the horizon.

As hair metal was pushed aside in favour of grunge, clubs like the Cathouse began to lose popularity, although by this point Rachtman had been hired by MTV to present their show Headbangers Ball. With the venue having been closed for several years, Rachtman finally attempted to relaunch the Cathouse in 1998, but the crowds that had once filled the club had grown up and moved on. In 2006 Rachtman celebrated the Cathouse’s twentieth anniversary at the Key Club on West Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, which saw a return of L.A. Guns and Faster Pussycat, as well as appearances from Metal Skool (now known as Steel Panther), Gilby Clarke and Motörhead frontman Lemmy. Rachtman currently sells Cathouse merchandise from the club’s official site, including shirts, baseball caps and posters, all proudly displaying its infamous slogan, “Riki Rachtman’s World Famous Cathouse.”