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Join the clubs: Three new venues aim to boost live music scene

Katjusa Cisar  —  8/11/2008 12:08 pm

Brad Van smashed his guitar onstage during a Droids Attack show at the Frequency on June 6, the day after it opened. He said it'll go up on the wall there as a "good luck charm." After all, the band pulled the same stunt at the High Noon Saloon when it opened in 2004, "and they're still in business."

Music venues in Madison need all the smashed-guitar luck they can get. After a string of closings in recent years -- King Club, the Klinic, Adair's Lounge, the Slipper Club -- the music scene is getting a boost with three very different venues opening just in the past six months.

Besides The Frequency, 121 W. Main St., two other venues have sprouted up: R&B/jazz/funk club 'R' Place on Park, 1821 S. Park St.; and the Project Lodge, an experimental space at 817 E. Johnson St. that fuses art gallery with indie rock venue.

The music scene in Madison loops through "the same wax and wane effect," said Darwin Sampson, 38, owner of The Frequency. "I'm hoping we're hitting the wax."

'R' Place owner and longtime Madison musician Rick Flowers, 51, misses the "good karma" of the scene in the '70s and '80s. In the past 20 years, he's seen a shift to DJ-ed parties and expensive "mega arena concerts," but that's slowly changing. "Live music at smaller shows is coming back," he said.

Owners of all three new venues agree that their business fills a much needed niche in the Madison area.

The Frequency has been fashioned as a hole-in-the-wall rock club in the spirit of the beloved O'Cayz Corral, which burned down in 2001. And not only does 'R' Place on Park create an oasis on the south side corridor, which has long been an arid spot for nightlife, Flowers said he'll be "providing a much needed service here in Madison" by bringing in soul and R&B acts.

Kendra Larson, 26, and her boyfriend, Christopher Buckingham, 30, opened the Project Lodge to "fill that gap of small music venue for all ages with experimental art gallery," as Larson put it. Both are recent transplants from Portland, Ore., where they would periodically push all the furniture in their house into one room and open the rest up to artists. "It would be one night of art explosion. I missed that kind of independent art thing in Madison," she said.

What's The Frequency?

Darwin Sampson of The Frequency has learned a lot in his years working in the local music scene, from organizing basement punk shows in his hometown of Fond du Lac to booking national acts at The Annex on Regent Street. He's dealt with moody bands, angry promoters and unreliable staff who cared more about dealing cocaine on the side than working. He's also performed with local bands like The Skintones, Helliphant and The God Damns, among others.

"I've learned more about (the music scene) than anyone should really know," he said. How this knowledge will manifest at The Frequency, he added, is clear and honest communication, being upfront with promoters, and not taking money out of a band's door sales to cover the club's other expenses.

Van of Droids Attack said this last point makes a big difference for bands and has become rarer in the Madison area: "I don't know how it became common for the sound guy and door guy to get paid out of door sales." When Droids Attack performed at The Frequency, "it was the most we've been paid at a local show in a long time," even with the same sized crowd as at other venues -- a telling sign, he said.

"The Frequency is more what my scene -- the rock scene -- has been waiting for," said Van. "A lot of people say it has the O'Cayz Corral vibe. I feel right at home."

Although the 99-person-capacity venue attracts mostly rock bands, Sampson wants to branch out to other kinds of music, like hip-hop. It's a point he and his landlord disagree on.

"It's in my lease that I'm not supposed to have hip-hop," he said. "I'd like to change (my landlord's) mind. It's not about getting in his face about it."

In the meantime, Sampson has been working 18-hour days for weeks but said they "go really fast when you're having fun." This summer, The Frequency will have live music on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays only. A funk and soul jam kicked off last week and will continue on alternating Thursdays throughout the summer. After losing its home stage with the closing of the Slipper Club in 2006, local variety act Mad Cabaret will perform at The Frequency on June 26.

Starting in the fall, Sampson wants to slowly expand. He's hoping to get a regular blues jam on Tuesdays and revive the "Funky Mondays" gig that drummer Clyde Stubblefield ran for years at the King Club. A pending under-21 license aims to lure the elusive student crowd from State Street and house parties.

Sampson worked for years at a couple of local record labels, but he said that running a club is "100 percent more gratifying" because successes are so tangible.

"The very first, grand opening night -- seeing all those smiling faces -- that's when it kind of hit me: Everything is pretty much worth it," he said.

The iPod culture of shuffles and instant gratification has changed how people consume recorded music, Sampson said, but he sees a lot of promise in local, cross-promotional ventures (like mixing burlesque with live bands). On one hand, iPods cause people to consume albums like magazines instead of "absorbing a full body of work." On the other hand, they allow people to discover wide varieties of music.

"Live music has suffered for a long time, not only in Madison, but people are starting to wake up," he said.

'R' Place or yours?

On a recent Wednesday night at 'R' Place on Park, Rick Flowers took to the drums with a group of local musicians -- the house band -- for a blistering funk and soul set in the vein of Bootsy Collins, George Clinton and The Parliaments. The audience was tragically small. Wearing sunglasses and a crocheted skull cap, Rockameem the congo player pounded a mean beat, his elbows sticking out and popping up and down to the rhythm. Rounding out the band were Bruce Alford on bass, Fred "Wizard" Mosley on guitar and Raphael singing his lungs out.

At the set break, Rockameem sucked down an ice water at the bar and caught his breath. A self-described "straight-up mercenary" who plays for "anybody who can afford" him, he joked that he should do advertising for 'R' Place: "There's no other place like this in the city of Madison where you can hear R&B, old-school jazz and disco. The house band is excellent. It's the kind of music you just don't see performed anymore."

Flowers opened 'R' Place in January after a six-year fight to get a liquor license from the city. He ended up suing the city to get the license but used the wait time to build a recording studio in the back of the building. He's been recording cuts for local artists like Stubblefield and Rob Dz in the studio.

Live music is the focus at 'R' Place, Flowers said: "Two turntables and a microphone -- that wouldn't excite me." He wants to bring in local musicians and touring groups on their way from Chicago to other cities, like Minneapolis.

The house band can back traveling singers as well. "No one in Madison does that, but we will," said Flowers. "I'm not worried about musicianship. The level of musicianship for a city this size puts it on the map."

As soon as he tunes the room's acoustics (which already sound good now), he'll bring in another layer to 'R' Place: recording live shows by running an electrical snake from the studio to the main room, which looks like it holds about 100 people.

Although Flowers hopes that 'R' Place will become a "destination" like the Club Tavern in Middleton, what excites him most about the club is its potential as a place for the immediate neighborhood to gather.

"It's a nice neighborhood, and it's nice to have a bar you can walk to," he said.

Art, music shack up at the Lodge

At a show at the Project Lodge this past winter, a crowd filled the small near-east side storefront, a former pie shop. While each band set up its gear, people checked out the artwork hanging on the walls. Co-founders Kendra Larson and Christopher Buckingham handed out handmade buttons with silly photos and phrases ("Call me, I want to talk dirty") from cut-up magazines. Some people shared wine or a six-pack they brought from home or got at the nearby Cork & Bottle Liquor Store.

Putting music and art together in the same space "gets artists out of their studios" and attracts people who might not otherwise visit an art gallery, said Buckingham, who divides his time between Portland and Madison. "Art and music are entwined in Portland, but they still seem pretty separate in Madison."

Shows at the Project Lodge start early -- 7 p.m. -- and Larson said that although she tolerates the drinking, she keeps a close eye on it because she really wants the space to be an all-ages venue where families are welcome. Though she winces at how corny it sounds, the lodge is a "labor of love." She and Buckingham share a small studio apartment so they can afford rent on the space.

Meghan Hamilton, who played a set with local electro-pop-indie band Crocheted Machete at the Project Lodge shortly after it opened in February, said it has a "pretty laid-back, closer-knit atmosphere."

"It wasn't initially set up to be a venue, but the sound quality was nice. As far as the indie scene, it seems to draw in a big crowd," she said.

Larson, a graduate student in painting at UW-Madison, wants to see more direct collaboration between artists and music. "A video and music installation is on our radar," she said. On Sunday mornings at 11 at the lodge, she hosts "coffee and waffle" brunches where artists and musicians are welcome to chat and plan joint happenings. The next brunch is June 29.

Allowing for spontaneity and experimentation is what the Project Lodge is all about, said Buckingham. One of his favorite nights at the venue happened when the Brooklyn-based band Phosphorescent got stuck in traffic. The audience created its own show while it waited. One person showed videos, the sound guy played an impromptu set of psychedelic folk music, and "this guy Noah came out of the audience and played a few songs he had never performed before outside his bedroom," said Buckingham.

"Phosphorescent eventually showed up and played a quick set, but I honestly enjoyed the night when we were just playing it by ear and letting whatever happen, happen."

At another show, the acoustic/ambient group A Paper Cup Band took the audience down to the basement and stuffed everyone into an old brick meat cooler "cave" for an intimate concert.

"That's what we hope the Project Lodge becomes -- a place where something unexpected might happen," Buckingham said.

Katjusa Cisar  —  8/11/2008 12:08 pm