The Walls Have Ears.

I can hear Alex Trebek reading the following three places out loud, “Mason Inn (Washington DC); Static Nightclub (Pittsburgh, PA); 161 Hudson St Apartment Building (New York, NY)”.  And then my friends who all know music saying in unison from the live audience saying “What is currently occupying the space of the Grog & Tankard; Rosebud and Wetlands?” 

Then immediately cue the sad violin music.  Music venues of my youth that no longer exist.  I know that currently there are not a lack of places to see and hear concerts, but as I do my best to keep up with live music there is part of me that wishes these places were still around.   With cassettes and vinyl making a comeback, it would be great to take my boys’ to these places and share both the stories of the bands and shows that I have seen as well as talk about the successes of the musicians/bands who at one point graced the stages.

Walking along Wisconsin Ave with my cousin Anne recently, I recounted the $37.50 I was paid for the first-ever show I put together as a “professional” booking agent. I distinctly remember the manager of the club giving me 50 cents, and not in the form of 2 quarters.  Or the time that I saw the Spin Doctors (before the success of 1991’s ‘2 Princes’) just outside of famed performance space on the NYC-side of the Holland Tunnel.  Recounting an evening, Chan Kinchla (Blues Traveler guitarist) had the following to say about sharing the stage with the Spin Doctors in those days, “It eventually got to the point where one night we'd all go there, take their places one by one, and then they'd go back to where we had been playing and end up playing there for the rest of the night!”

There was a time in which a majority of my evenings (specifically the years 1996-2002) were spent inside the walls of venues plastered with posters advertising future shows and stickers of bands that had passed thru en route to another gig.  Sometimes I can still see the places while daydreaming or hear the songs from those years play in my head and of course, the grass is always greener.  I have to try very hard to forget about the people more interested in playing pool and talking at the bar than listening to the music.  And of course the images and grisly sights and smells of the bathrooms are hard to erase. 

But thankfully it is the music that brings me back.  I continue to listen to new music (to me), like Hayden Calnin or The Lone Bellow and maybe, just maybe you will see me on the South Side at the Rex Theatre.

Thanks for reading.