Getting the Long Beach women's Music Hall of Fame band together

We had our first official meeting Monday of the rag-tag committee to establish a Long Beach Music Hall of Fame in Michelle Molina’s Millworks’ future venue at the former Vault 350 (which won’t be the name of the future place) on downtown’s Pine Avenue.

In direct, almost belligerent, violation of the Brown Act, it was not open to the public, but we’ll leak this much: We discussed who’s likely to be in the inaugural class (and we discussed the likelihood that the opening ceremony can come as early as next February/March). OK, we’ve already said too much.

If Mizz Molina can pull off a February opening of the Not Vault, we could put together a stuing Women’s History Month lineup for the club, working under the assumption that everyone would show up, including those who are no longer, as we say, amongst the gigging, such as our drummer Karen Carpenter.

(And, yes, we know the tragically late Karen Carpenter hailed from Downey, but her attendance and devotion to Cal State Long Beach, as our committee agreed, warrants her induction eligibility. Ditto with Downeyites Dave and Phil Alvin, both individually and as members of the Blasters.)

We’ve got a million drummers lined up for Hall induction. Some among the best in the country: Josh Freese, the Wackerman Family of Drummers, Chris Reece, Russ Kunkel, Stephen Hodges and more, but Karen Carpenter is the only woman drummer on our radar.

Everyone else is accounted for, except vocalist Jei Rivera. Not to cavalierly dismiss Rivera, but the Long Beach Women’s All-Star Band is loaded with living vocalists. We’re not sure how world-class opera great Marilyn Hoe, out of Poly, would do fronting a band, but we’d pay “Hamilton”-high price for a ticket. Otherwise, on vocals, we have Poly Walk of Famer Thelma Houston and Long Beach-bo Michelle Phillips (of the Mamas & the Papas).

Doubling on vocals are rhythm guitarist Melissa Etheridge, who made her musical bones performing at the Que Sera on Seventh Street, and lead guitarist Lita Ford, who was melting faces on guitar since before her junior high days at Hughes (now Middle School) in Bixby Knolls.

In 2013, Ford told a heavy metal web site about her musical epiphany at he first concert: “It was Black Sabbath. I think it was 1971 because I was 13. It was ferocious. I walked into Long Beach Arena and saw Black Sabbath playing and I said, ‘That’s what I want to do with my life. This is it. This is what I want to be.’”

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At our Hall of Fame meeting, committee linchpin Justin Hectus said we could get Ford to play the hall, because she’s a relative of ours (but, then, so is Hectus).

We didn’t know we were related to Lita Ford, so we called our sister, who knows everything about our life and only drops bits of information about us to us every three or four years.

“Yeah,” said Debi like she was talking to an idiot. “She’s been at the house for a couple of Thanksgivings and Christmas.”

Tus out she’s Debi’s husband’s cousin, so, not really our relative. But that certainly doesn’t count against her in terms of getting into the Hall.

Contact Tim Grobaty at 562-714-2116, [email protected], @grobaty on Twitter.