Then it went out of business and the lease was sold to the Haven Social Club for the price of a sandwich. Journal Article
Blackspot good news for gigs
Could ease crunch for small music venues
Sandra Sperounes
The Edmonton Journal
Thursday, April 19, 2007
David Black and Lain Hacienda, along with Sebastien Savard, are opening the Blackspot Cafe to showcase live music. CREDIT: John Lucas, The Jo
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David Black and Lain Hacienda, along with Sebastien Savard, are opening the Blackspot Cafe to showcase live music. EDMONTON - At long last -- some good news for Edmonton musicians looking for gigs. A new west-end venue, spearheaded by gig promoter David Black and several friends, will open its doors on Saturday, April 28. The Blackspot Cafe, located at 15120A Stony Plain Rd., will eventually double as an Internet cafe, catering to students who attend Grant MacEwan's west-end campus. Black, who prefers to be known as "The Guy Who Does Stuff," says the city is starved for smaller music spots. No kidding. Local musicians lost two venues -- The Sidetrack and The Studio -- in the last four months. Three more spots are either temporarily closed or their futures are uncertain:
- The Urban Lounge is still undergoing renovations after part of its roof collapsed in March.
- The Powerplant, which lost more than $200,000 in 2006, will close at the end of April. The University of Alberta venue will power down for the next four months. The students' union is still deciding what to do with the space at the end of August.
- The Econo Lodge Hotel's pub, which was quickly becoming the downtown hot spot for punk bands, will get a facelift as of May 1. The hotel's manager says the bar will be run by new tenants, Empire Entertainment, but it's not yet known if live acts will be part of the mix. By booking local artists and touring acts, the brains behind Blackspot Cafe hope to fill the void left by the loss of those venues. Black, Sebastien Savard and Lain Hacienda also plan to run the cafe as a co-op, based on the "anti-preneurial" principles established by Adbusters magazine. Blackspot's founders say they aren't motivated by profit -- there isn't much of it in the live music business -- but by the desire to help the city's musical community. They initially hoped to open a larger venue in the Mercer Warehouse on 104th Street -- with band rehearsal rooms, screenprinting services and a music store -- but the building is being turned into condos instead. Blackspot will offer services such as band management, design and tour booking. It will hold about 200 people. "Everybody operating by themselves may or may not succeed, but if we all work together, it will only make us stronger," says Black, a second-year MacEwan student. Blackspot's gig schedule is posted on www.myspace.com/blackspotcafe. Several of their first shows, including the Knee Jerks and Eamon McGrath on May 4, are fundraisers for the cafe. Existing clubs are also picking up the slack in live gigs by booking local artists. Eddie Shorts, a newish bar on 124th Street, is hosting Saturday shows, including Devilsplender this weekend and Cockatoo on April 28. And BarWild, a club on Whyte Avenue, will hold two upcoming CD release parties. The Fat Dave Crime Wave will release Brothers & Sisters, This Is Rock & Roll on May 4, while Down The Hatch will unleash I Got a Bad Feeling About This on May 12. [email protected]
Source Link
http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/culture/story.html?id=dd9b4fd9-b1a8-466a-b9a5-8a649640151a
