Music, cinema, current affairs, sport, fashion: all Rolling Stone digital covers.Sign up for the Rolling Stone newsletter and enter the world of music, culture and entertainment.Everything changes in Los Angeles except this place where time seems to have stopped.A ride in the club where Lemmy was at home, Alice Cooper sipped with Lennon, the Guns shot 'November Rain'The entrance to the Rainbow Bar & Grill, in Los AngelesWhen you cross the door of the Rainbow, you are struck by its history: the entrance is covered with photos of those who have frequented it, a mosaic of clippings yellowed by time with any famous face that passes through the mind.In a city in constant transformation like Los Angeles, where nothing is spared in the name of progress, this is one of the few buildings where time seems to have stopped: in the 1930s it was called the Mermaid Club, from 1944 to 1968 Villa Nova (yes says that Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio met here), while on April 16, 1972 it officially becomes the Rainbow Bar & Grill with a party dedicated to Elton John.Its founders are Elmer Valentine, Lou Adler and the very Italian Mario Maglieri, born in Sepino, in the province of Campobasso, on 7 February 1924, then moved to the United States with his family.Maglieri, who died at 93 in 2017, became a legendary figure himself, so much so that he earned the nickname of King of the Sunset Strip or The Pope of Sunset Strip.Even before founding the Rainbow he was the manager of Whiskey A Go-Go, located just a couple of blocks down, along the legendary Sunset Boulevard, which in this section becomes the Sunset Strip.Someone will surely remember the scene from the film The Doors, by Oliver Stone, in which Jim Morrison is thrown out of the Whiskey: the one who pushes him into the street, in the representation of Stone, is Maglieri.Until the later years of his life, meeting him smoking his cigar sitting at some table in the Rainbow was the norm.And he never stopped telling the endless anecdotes that saw him as a protagonist within those walls.The main room of the restaurant looks like that of an old tavern: it dominates the wood, there is a large fireplace, and only recently the crank cash register has been replaced with a more modern one.The walls are lined with photos and memorabilia.When you first enter, you don't know where to look.For those who love rock, it's like visiting a museum.Or maybe temple is the right word.Too bad those tables are unable to talk.Mikeal Maglieri and friend.Photo: Enzo MazzeoBehind the fireplace, the stairs lead to the upper floor, another place with a retro flavor, with its secluded sofas, which in the 70s had welcomed all the great rock stars of the time and their groupies.Here Alice Cooper reunited the original Hollywood Vampires: not the band he founded with Joe Perry and Johnny Depp, but a hard drinking club that included John Lennon, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, among others.The 1980s, on the other hand, saw the explosion of the hair metal phenomenon and the Rainbow became the home of those who helped spread the myth of Hollywood and the Sunset Strip worldwide: from Guns N'Roses to Poison, from Van Halen to Mötley Crüe, all the great bands of that period, which were usually baptized in equally legendary clubs such as Whiskey, Roxy, Gazzarri's or Troubadour, pitched their tents at Rainbow.Lemmy of Motörhead had bought a house just a stone's throw away and spent a lot of time at the Rainbow.In fact it was very easy to see him on the patio, in front of a video poker machine, several drinks and a solid supply of Marlboros.After his death in 2015, Mario Maglieri's descendants, including his son Mikeal, wanted to have a statue of the English musician erected in that same patio, renaming that area Lemmy's Lounge.The video poker machine is still there, unlit, and at the bar you can order a Lemmy and be promptly served the rocker's favorite drink: 2 ounces of Jack Daniel's and 10 ounces of coke, with ice.In order not to be mistaken.Lemmy's statue.Photo: Enzo MazzeoMarq Torien (Bulletboys) in front of Lemmy's mural.Photo: Enzo MazzeoRainbow turns 50 this month.An eternity if we think about how the music scene has transformed in the meantime: rock, at least in the traditional sense, is far from its golden age, many of its great protagonists are more than elderly if not even disappeared, and they are years that there are no new recruits able to stand up to comparison with the past.The Sunset Strip itself, which in the collective imagination still represents the Mecca of rock, has actually undergone and continues to undergo radical changes, which have profoundly transformed it: clubs, tattoo shops, liquor stores and record shops have given way to luxury hotels and restaurants, the characteristic buildings of old Hollywood, the luminous signs and the wooden lampposts that were covered with flyers, are now increasingly rare, supplanted by high-rises dominated by glass and metal structures, similar to those they see in any other city.It is recent news that the entire block that houses the Viper Room, another historic club on the Strip, will be razed and yet another hotel erected in its place.In short, a massacre.In all this, the Rainbow represents a lifeline: despite the recent and infamous decision to erect a huge advertising panel in front of its entrance, which almost hides the famous sign with the rainbow, once inside the restaurant everything takes on a more comforting dimension: same furniture as always, same menu as always, same people as always.Nowhere else can you see such a high concentration of backcombed hair, spandex and studded leather jackets.But not only that: at the Rainbow you can come across the lawyer in a suit and tie who came down from one of the offices next door to have a beer, the rapper who passed by by chance or the tourist with the Scorpions shirt who photographs everything. whatever happens to him.And if you turn around, you can see Priscilla Presley sitting at the side table eating or Dennis Rodman walking drunk through the front door or Slash just outside calling an Uber (any reference to real events is purely coincidental).Everything is normal in these parts.Glenn Hughes sitting at the table of the video for 'November Rain' by Guns N 'Roses.Photo: Enzo MazzeoThe party for the 50th anniversary of the Rainbow.Photo: Enzo MazzeoOn April 24, the Rainbow celebrated its important anniversary with a party in the parking lot in grand style, a free concert-event, held in the parking lot of the club, which attracted a huge crowd of hardened rockers come to pay their respects to their sanctuary.Those who managed to win one of the entrance tickets were thus able to spend a memorable day, among old glories of the Sunset Strip (Stephen Pearcy of Ratt and Pretty Boy Floyd) and of the nu metal era (Crazy Town and Orgy), the interesting Sometimes Y (the new band of rapper Yelawolf and singer-songwriter Shooter Jennings) and the headliners Steel Panther, who started their climb to success right in the clubs around here.Sometimes Y. Photo: Enzo MazzeoShifty Shellshock (Crazy Town).Photo: Enzo MazzeoOne would think that, given the current times, even this legendary bulwark of rock could have a bad end.But don't worry, Mikael Maglieri thinks to reassure us: "We won't leave here," he said during a recent interview for the site of the city of West Hollywood.«We own the property, so we don't move.Before they make me close the Rainbow they will have to pass over my body ».Enter the world of music, culture and entertainment© 2022 Web Magazine Makers SrlWe promise you a curious and attentive look at the world of music and entertainment, forays into politics and current affairs, certainly no spam.