'The Roar of L'Amour'

MIKE TRAMP - His influence on L'Amour and the scene

Mike Tramp's pre-fame story is documented. He was a European teen idol that saw America as somewhere he needed to be and at the age of 21 he visited with the band Lion and never left.

In 2025, I rekindled my friendship with Mike, and it dawned on me how influential he was to the legendary club called L'Amour.

I don't think he even realizes it.

When White Lion formed it was through L'Amour and when L'Amour owners George and Mike Parente saw the duo they knew something was there.

Along with Richard Sanders they started to manage Mike/Vito.

In 1982/83, L'Amour was in transition to the club many of us look fondly back on and in looking back, I firmly believe their commitment to Mike/Vito was the spark L'Amour needed.

L'Amour began as a disco and morphed into rock because the owners were smart enough to jump into a scene. 

2001 Odyssey in Brooklyn (Saturday Night Fever disco) was already doing decent with rock nights (HERE) and the owners smartly saw that and adapted.

But in 1982/83, the above owners weren't getting into their Cadillacs and putting an Anvil cassette in, but once White Lion formed, they were playing their demo cassettes constantly ... trust me I know because I knew every lyric by heart from driving in with George when we worked L'Amour East together.

The Parente's were passionate about White Lion. It's easy to say they saw Tramp and figured he would make them rich, but it was more than that. They saw Tramp as a lightning rod to a potential scene.

The more attention the burgeoning rock star brought, the bigger the scene became and the main club in that scene was L'Amour.

I remember one day being in an owners meeting over George's house. When it came time for them to discuss business above my paygrade, George told me (in his Brooklyn accent) to go "play with Tramp" - his way to say go talk to Mike and kill time. Mike was staying with George at the time while White Lion situated themselves.

So, on this November morning in 1984, I introduced myself to Tramp and we hit it off immediately. In our 10–15-minute discussion we talked about music and where we saw things heading. Tramp told me that George/Mike were very excited to get me more involved in the club and that he heard my name mentioned a lot.

The next time I saw Mike Parente, he told me that "Tramp said to give you the keys to the (L'Amour) car.", and to the owners that were investing time and money in Tramp, that was a huge endorsement.

George and Mike would always tell me, "Tramp said this", "Tramp said that" and in hindsight his influence on them was immense.

In order to break White Lion locally, there needed to be a scene and if there wasn't one already then one had to be created and that scene was L'Amour.

I had zero to do with the management of White Lion, but whenever it came to L'Amour, Tramps name was brought up constantly and his opinion was paramount.

Would L'Amour have been successful without Mike Tramp?  Of course, but you cannot discount the symbiotic relationship that Tramp had with the venue and his major influence on the two main driving forces in George and Mike (as well as Rich).

Tramp has been very supportive of my return and in a weird way, we will always be connected through the club's lore.

Recently I played him a theme song that someone made for me (out of nowhere), before I committed to using it, I wanted the opinion of someone that wrote two top ten hits and Tramp said it was "outstanding" and laughed that his inclusion in a song about me in 2026 was something neither of us would have thought 40 years ago.

There ya go Tramp ... you are still influencing L'Amour - 4 decades later!

Chuck Kaye

Ah Yes Indeed

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