The Insomniac also became a home away from home for Venice Beach artist Earl Newman, who took to capturing the greater LA area beatnik scene on canvas in the spirit of Toulouse-Lautrec. Newman moved from Berkeley, CA in ’58, and after seeing an art exhibition at the famed Gas House in Venice, he drew his first poster capturing the beat explosion in Southern California. However, it was Newman’s
Once the Insomniac closed its Book & Art Fair, the Either/Or Bookstore was the place to go for experimental literature in Hermosa.
three silk-screen posters for The Insomniac Café that took his beatnik- beach style to its head-spinning peak. Newman’s life-long interest in jazz later made a connection with the producers of The Monterey Jazz Festival, and some 46 years later, Newman still cranks out a new poster annually for the event.
In the early ’60s, a hailstorm of SoCal
surfing culture hit heavy in Hermosa Beach, where surf legend Greg Noll already had his board factory and filmmaking studio. Rick Griffin created poster art for Noll’s Search For Surf film series, as well as ads for the various Noll shapes. Greg Noll even succeeded in forming a business alliance with Mickey “Da Cat” Dora (AKA the “Angry Young Man Of Surfing”), to manufacture and sell Da Cat surfboards, creating one of the most successful ad campaigns in surf history. In the basement of The Hermosa Biltmore Hotel, a group named The Lonely Ones (personnel unknown) cut an EP titled Live At Stub’s Pub, which featured blistering surf instrumentals, including a raunchy take on the surf standard ‘Miserlou’. The flipside of this EP has a preacher giving his gospel invitation to a group of kids who’d previously waded themselves in scuzz- guitar sin. Hail Satan!
Brian Wilson (right) hangs out with eden ahbez (left), the man who wrote the proto-hippy classic, “Nature Boy,” and who played at The Insomniac Cafe regularly. In 1966, Brian Wilson tapped songwriter Van Dyke Parks and artist Frank Holmes, two other Insomniac alumni, to help him create the legendary unreleased Beach Boys album, Smile.
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Also at this time, Hermosa Beach boasted beatnik emporia such as the longstanding Either/Or Bookstore (124 Pier Avenue) and Greeko’s Sandals (1120 Hermosa Avenue), both tailor-made for the budding counter culture that was exploding on The Sunset Strip during the mid-60s, and was primed to go international by the decade’s end. Sadly, two factors were instrumental in bringing The Insomniac
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