El Rey Theatre

On our list of the best live music venues in Los Angeles.

Clifford Balch designed this Art Deco movie palace on Wilshire in 1936, and it ran as a single-screen cinema for nearly fifty years before a stint as the dance club Wall Street and, briefly, a Russian restaurant and banquet hall. It holds about 770 people across the main floor and a VIP balcony at the back, with a full bar and a diner inside, and Goldenvoice has booked it as a live-music room since 1994. The building still carries its original lobby, terrazzo floors and neon sign, and was named a Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Monument in 1991.