Another one of my favorite music venues is closing and I'm sad again
Reflections on the impending closure of iconic independent San Francisco music venue, Bottom of the Hill from a dude who both played there AND went to shows there a lot
Earlier this year I was sent an article by bandmates, friends, family, and members of bands we've played with over the years about something I knew would happen eventually yet reading it gutted me. The owners of iconic music venue Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco announced they'll be closing at the end of this year.
Our band's primary promo photo for years was this one taken backstage in the cactus garden at Bottom of the Hill - Photo by Della Shirley-Donnelly
It's a good piece, the one linked - you should read it. Ramona and team give their reasons and it makes sense, they've been at this for longer than basically anyone and it's time for them to move on - but for those of us who gathered around this place as a bastion of independent music both in terms of the artists predominantly booked there (trending towards indie or artists earlier in their careers) but also it being one of the few places not locked into horrific contracts with the ticketmasters or livenations of the world - Bottom of the Hill was a music venue unlike any other. (Not to mention they were able to acquire necessary permits to allow people under-21)
I can't stress enough how many people have played this 250 capacity nightclub over the years of its operation. Take a look through the meticulously maintained list, look someone up and you'll be shocked. Like, fucking Alanis played there on the Jagged Little Pill tour in 1995:
Phone snap of this from the wall of fame at Bottom of the Hill
Wait, why write about this now?
It's Blaugust! I get that the announcement of impending closure was from months ago but when I wrote about one of my other favorite music venues of all time, the Art Boutiki in San José, California announcing that it was closing up shop, shortly after that post and by complete coincidence things happened that I was able to visit it in-person despite living 3,000 miles away (and wrote about that too) to say goodbye. Since I'm having a very similar "awwww fuck" feeling about BotH I thought I'd put it into the ether. Blaugust is apaprently when I write about music venues I love.
And like, maybe "love" is an understatrement: if Art Boutiki was our home in San José, Bottom of the Hill was the closest thing we had to that in San Francisco.
When the independent, worker-owned social media site Cohost.org ["COHOST MENTIONED" ALARM SOUNDS] shut down at the end of 2024 I wrote about how it reminded me of going through each music venue I spent time at earlier in my music career and how few of them were still open. In the back of my head while writing that piece I thought "hey at least Art Boutiki and Bottom of the Hill are alive and kicking" - both are now joining the list of closures which means this'll probably be my final one of these.
Going through the list of venues I frequented as both a fan and a performer, Slim's, the DNA Lounge, The Cactus Club, The Gaslighter (Campbell and Gilroy), the Outhouse, Nickel City or fuck, even San José Skate!! all of the above have closed down. (If those last three don't date me for any bay area readers, I don't know what will)
The infamous green room detached fridge door, circa 2016 - thar be a quail sticker in the middle-left
Bottom of the Hill's website (which hilariously still has an earthlink.net favicon) has kept a detailed history of every show that's ever happened in the history of the venue and it's all online, so I went back through the calendar and was both heart warmed and saddened by seeing our name on there so many times (and the names of so many other bands we shared memories with that mostly no longer exist)
This final one is funny because it was a 'one time only' reunion show for our longtime bassist / vocalist Erin's other main band Please Do Not Fight; they'd disbanded years earlier so not only was she going to be pulling double duty singing for both bands, but the morning I was supposed to drive up from southern California for the show, my partner got hospitalized with a mystery illness so my band went ahead and did the show without me, using rehearsal guitar and vocal tracks pipped into the sound system.
Adam Davis from Gnarboots / Link 80 / Omnigone was in attendance and ended up jumping on stage for me on one song, and we'd been planning to cover a PDNF song that we knew wasn't gonna be in the PDNF setlist for the night...so lead singer Aurora Zenith ended up coming on stage for that before their set.
4/26/2019 - Erin of Curious Quail singing with Adam Davis of Omnigone - Photo by Loni Lonzo
But despite missing that show, I have so many fond memories of being both on and in front of that stage; a highlight being Rin Tin Tiger's (Prior project of Kevin from field medic) annual Haunted Hoedown Halloween show. One year we did a whole Street Fighter set, complete with costumes and covers of character stage songs:
10/31/2016 - Rin Tin Tiger's 6th annual Haunted Hoedown - photos by Della Shirley-Donnelly)
Alan almost got us banned for doing this in the green room
Starting around 2013 we'd established this ritual where any time we were the headlining act on a bill, we'd end our set with a cover - but we'd conspired in advance with every other band or artist on that night's bill to join us. Everyone would be told the song, the key we were doing it in if not as written, and they would put their claims into what parts they wanted to take. Given the nature of schedules and tours etc, there was never a rehearsal. Not even during soundcheck; we'd be doing it live.
05.28.2016 - Members of Curious Quail, Ghost Parade, Gloomy June and Septacy - photos by Della Shirley-Donnelly
This often lead to chaos in some way or another, but Bottom of the Hill in particular was so community-focused that you'd have situations like the above where even people who didn't perform that night ended up on stage with us; Alexi from The Y Axes grabbed one of our quail logo lite brites, jumped up on stage from the crowd and joined on Erin's mic.
It was just such a magical place and I have too many memories that mean the world to me; I'm sad to think that future generations of musicians in the Bay Area aren't going to have this place to look forward to. Yes, there will be others (and there's probably a sick-ass place in San Francisco already that is picking the torch that I don't know about cuz I don't live on that coast right now) but it's very surreal to be saying goodbye.
Here's a bunch more random photos from over the years:
10/31/2016 - Rin Tin Tiger's soundchecking for the 6th annual Haunted Hoedown - photo by me
I could probably do a whole separate blog post just of photos I took of other bands who played there but I'm allowing myself a little self indulgence here because, well, my blog and also my feelings.
To close out, here's some sage advice from a sticker I saw in the green room about a year after the icon passed, which hit me like a ton of bricks as I'd seen No Use For a Name perform there and Tony was a regular at the Starbucks I worked at in the early 2000's. Never forget Tony Sly, man.
08.23.2013
Anyway, thanks for reading. Here's your end-of-post cat. Her name is Skitters and she never has to worry about her favorite entertainment sources shutting down.
