Today brings some big news on the all-ages front, which we were talking about only yesterday. The Ice House dudes are relocating to El Torreon, which has been closed all summer following a liquor permit fiasco. Now, I've been in the "Radiant El Torreon Ballroom" within the past week, and the place is in pretty bad shape. I'm not saying a few enterprising lads can't clean the place up properly, but if they're going to half ass it, then I can't say I'm very excited. There's junk everywhere inside — in fact, at last look, both the El T and the Ice House had a stockpile each of rusty, second hand bicycles. Recently, when it rained, there was a giant puddle right where a concert audience would have been. The bathrooms are atrocious. It was actually a lot nicer when it was hosting all-ages metal shows than it is now. There's no reason not to have a nice venue that bands enjoy playing and people enjoy going to, even if it is under-the-radar, all-ages punk, metal or unheard-of local band shows. Good business practice shouldn't be sacrificed merely to host shows that would skip town otherwise (and that only a handful of people would go to anyway).
Then again, those historic punk venues that everyone remembers — the Foolkiller, the VFW Hall, etc. — were certainly legendarily filthy, as was CBGBs in New York. It's a matter of striking a balance between cool dinge and nasty-no-want-wants-to-go-there dinge. I wish them luck.
All shows that were booked at the Ice House are now scheduled at the El Torreon, beginning Tuesday, October 3 with Fight Like Hell, CDC, Nervous Wreck and Bullyrag. Check out the lineup through the end of November here.
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Thanks for your comments, Drew. Feel free to employ any tone you like.
Think about the bathrooms. The bathrooms are a metonym -- that is, a symbol -- of the cleanliness of the rest of the club. If you have the kind of johns that make people want to vomit immediately upon entering, then chances are the rest of your club will be deemed a "shithole." I'm not saying the bathrooms have to be immaculate -- nor am I trumpeting the cleanliness of facilities over the quality of the music, or, for that matter, the actual niceness of the main room. The music, of course, comes first, then the house, then the loo. It's just that potties are kind of funny, so maybe that's why I talk about them so much.
Anyway, my overall suggestion is that once you have secured the music, then you should bust your ass making the place a nice, welcoming place to see a show. News of yet another dusty, dingy, smelly all-ages venue opening is not going to get people to line up at the door. That's my sense, anyway. Granted, I'm not an underage punk who's bored as hell in this town. MY preference would be for a touch of class to appear in the old ballroom, and that basically means keep the place clean. Scrounge for half-used buckets of yellow paint and slap some on the walls or whatever. Revitalize as best you can on your budget. Strive for good vibes. I feel that simply opening the door and booking bands (however cool on the underground tip they may be) isn't necessarily going to get the amount of bodies in the club that you'll need to stay open.
I'm just trying to give the perspective of someone who'll check out a show at any given place and react to the experience without a helluvalot of sympathy for the owners of the place, you know? I'm envisioning the kind of place I know I'd want to see more than one show at -- and the place would not be a shithole. In fact, the goal of any club should be to become a go-to place, so that when you're bringing in some band from the hinterlands that no one's heard of, you can at least be sure that your usual Friday night crowd will be there. That's my opinion, but it's your business, so do what you think will best behoove you.
As for the Hello Stranger thing, I'm sure your side of the story is as legitimate, if not more so, as theirs. The only thing that upset me was the people going loco on them in the parking lot.
Thanks again for posting your comments, Drew. Dialogue is the essence of democracy.
You have to realize we are just a bunch of poor broke musicians, trying to make a place to play, we got screwed on the Icehouse, I read the other posts, and it is sad to me, we do the best we can with what we have, we put our all on the line to try and provide the best venue we can.. and all I hear is " the bathrooms aren't very nice...." ????
I have been in a lot of bathrooms at a lot of places, and I've SURELY seen worse, And the other "link from the whiny band from CA who only made $20... They didn't sell ANY tickets, NO ONE came to see them play, Beautiful Bodies carried the entire show and they acted like a bunch of Prima Donna "Rock Stars" who looked down there nose at us as a bunch of backwards hicks... In short THEY came into OUR place turned up there noses at us and then had the gall to bitch we didn't do enough for them.... We can't help it if no one came to see them... MAYBE their band isn't as popular as they think....
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