Vanity: Our favorite performances from the Gong Show

mainstategop said: "My favorite was the Mike Mccollum band singing Down at Greasy Lee's. I'm told it is based on a true story over in Huntington beach."

Mike McCollum is my cousin. We grew up next door to each other on Dow Ave. in Redondo Beach, CA. Lee's Cafe, or Greasy Lee's, was actually on the corner of Marine Street and Strand in Manhattan Beach. It is indeed a true story, severely abbreviated in the Gong Show rendition due to time restrictions. Lee threw a party for the local surfers who were his mainstay customer base, only he was the only one drinkin' because the rest of us were mostly underage. What Mike couldn't sing on the Gong Show was that Lee pinched that sweet young thang on one of her 17 year old breasts. Not the kind of thing I endorse, mind you, especially now that I'm in my 60's, but I'd be lyin' if I didn't admit that I laughed my ever-lovin' backside off as the girl ran out with her arms crossed across her chest like the bikini she was wearin' had been ripped clean off, which it hadn't.

Anyway, Greasy Lee really did go to jail that day and a dozen or so locals really did picket in front of the Cafe yelling, "Free Greasy Lee! Free Greasy Lee!" trying to raise money for his bail, which, if they didn't raise it all, they raised enough to contribute significantly to the cause.

The offending tongs ended up mounted on a wooden plaque displayed prominently for years behind the bar at Critters, which, looking at the map now, appears to have changed to North End Bar & Grill, so they may not be there anymore. I'd only be guessing, but I'm pretty sure that the incident happened 8 - 10 years before the band's appearance on the Gong Show. It was at least five or so years before that, I know that for sure. Mike is about 6 years older than me and was my first guitar "teacher." I started playing at 11 and Greasy Lee's was one of the first songs he taught me, so he would've been 17 or 18 around that time. By 1977 he was 28, and the rest of the band on the show were about the same age give or take. The song was a South Bay cult classic for several years before the Gong show appearance, having gotten airplay on the Doctor Demento show some time before the Gong Show from a scratchy recording that nobody seems to know the actual origins of, but which might be thought of as the "Mike McCollum Band Bootleg Basement Tapes." LOL So I was doing a Google search on just the name "Mike McCollum" to see if I could find an archive of the Demento shows and this thread/post came up in the results. I've been registered here for many years but hardly ever post, so I figured I'd test to see if my misspent youth had really destroyed my brain cells like the other cult classic, "Reefer Madness" said it would, and lo and behold, I actually remembered my login and password, so I went ahead and corrected the Huntington Beach mistake and got all nostalgic with y'all. Oh, and speaking of Reefer Madness, Mike's dad, Warren McCollum, played "Jimmy" in that movie. Look it up. Anyway, cheers, and thanks for the walk down Nostalgia Lane. Blues

HA! Well, she appeared blond as did nearly every sweet young beach-bummin' thang in those days, but only her hairdresser knows for sure! Well, and probably her boyfriend too. LOL

Wasn't sure if you knew it or not, but the Mike McCollum Band was one of the few acts on the Gong Show that got invited back. The second appearance was the only one uploaded on YouTube before last night when I cut out the first appearance from the link you posted earlier in the thread and uploaded just Greasy Lee's from that show to my own channel (BluesStringer1955). The link for the return show is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCOBo1WCjoY

Thanks again for the nostalgia. I've got this thread bookmarked, but I probably won't be hangin' out here much. If you'd like to get a hold of me I'd be more likely to get notified if you comment on one of the Gong Show videos, or any other one that I mirrored/uploaded to my channel for that matter. Take Care,

Blues

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