My Favorite Music Venue Is Closing And I'm Sad
Photo by Amulya Datla
I grew up in San José, California - a city probably best known as either being the home of Adobe software or something else tech industry related since it went from an orchard town to a tech hub in less than 30 years. The city's official logo has a fucking slogan that says “Capital of Silicon Valley” lmfao
When Cohost shut down I thought a lot about what that site meant to me in terms of artistic creation and the feeling I was stuck with was all of the music venues I've performed at or seen shows at over the years and how most of them have closed; I wrote at length about it in a post here and don't wanna re-tread but one shining light through all of the “Venue is closed to build apartments” and “Venue's landlord raises rent exponentially to starve out 50-year old business so it can sell to a tech company” horror stories was the SLG Art Boutiki.
Still from a GoPro promotional video by Jason Cayabyab
Depending on who you ask, the Art Boutiki is either: a comic shop, a comic publishing house (where things like Johnny the Homicidal Maniac originated), a music venue, a coffee shop, or just a great weird place to hang out - and all of these things are accurate. Dan Vado and his family have been running this place for decades, surviving rent hikes, a full closure and relocation across town, warring with food and alcohol permits to keep it an all-ages venue, and the whole “existing as a public place in 2020 and beyond”
To me (and my band, really) it's home.
All seven official members of Curious Quail (I took the photo) in the backstage green room
Dan welcomed us with open arms back in like 2012 when a third party booking agent screwed us over on a show we were supposed to play there that turned out was never actually scheduled. It's been so long that I don't even remember the details but Dan (as the owner) found out about it, and went above and beyond to take us in and offer us whatever slots we wanted on any future shows. We became fixtures in both the crowd and on the stage at so many events over the next few years.
Dan presenting us the photo of our band on his stage before it's added to the 'wall of performers' art gallery. Hilariously our lead guitarist was out of town that night and Devin Nelson of devindecibel / Gloomy June was our ringer; I'm pretty sure Gloomy June has a photo on the wall also so he's on there twice lol
Halloween shows, fundraisers, hell we had our huge Kickstarter album release concert there (complete with custom, one-time only shirts printed by Dan) and for a long time that show held the “yea so we hit the goddamn fire code” record for number of people in attendance.
After The Lights Failed CD Release; footage by Jason Cayabyab
The place isn't huge but it's got the fucking energy, man. (Here's a quick video I took from the stage during load-in one day in like 2015 while Alan noodles to the Shire theme from Lord of the Rings lol) The murals painted by his family, the stage wall lined with vinyl albums (many classics but also many artists who've played there over there years, us included; we never even pressed vinyl, Dan just printed the covers himself because he's that kinda dude), BOB THE PENGUIN!! The Steinway upright in the corner!!
Erin performing at her 'farewell' show, photo by me
Joey filmed and tracked the finale track for our Twelve Months project at the Boutiki on the Steinway
You can see the album cover for our 2012 record INSTANT GRATIFICATION up and tho the left of Joey's head. (This is also from the GoPro promotional video from earlier)
The Art Boutiki is like DEEP in my band's DNA. We've played there so many times just as Curious Quail, not even counting various member's side projects and we all had a permanent 'backstage' pass privileges regardless of who was on the books that night. It's where I saw the dutch band Snowapple for the first time (and found kittens the next morning, hence us naming one of the cats Snowapple) Hell we were approached by GoPro to do a promo video and their idea was “half rehearsal performance, half live performance at a concert”; Dan let us use the Boutiki after-hours for the rehearsal section, like gave us the keys to lock up and drop them by his place after. (The video cuts between us practicing on his stage and then live footage from us playing at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco). We had another large performance at a local Theater Company and Dan let us use the Boutiki to run the rehearsals. Heart of gold on this motherfucker.
Boutiki is also where we started our tradition of ending shows with inviting members of every band on that night's bill to the stage to do an unrehearsed cover; the song and ideas of 'who wants to do what part' would be decided in advance but we never had a chance to actually practice it and the chaos was enduring. When we joke that the formal definition of who is in the band Curious Quail is really flexible, this is what we mean. The most iconic was either doing Sia's Chandelier with Bent Knee or doing Bohemian Rhapsody with members of like six different bands.
I think about how many San José (or south bay in general) musicians got their start going to shows at Boutiki, making connections and getting on that stage as an opener or at an open mic. I think about how many bands I've photographed there regardless of if I was playing that night or not. I think about how important it was to Dan to make sure he could keep it an all-ages venue to prevent the further slide into “Live music at 21+ bars only”. I think about how it became a de-facto “Hey, live music isn't dead in San José” destination for so many people while the rest of the city was closing things down and steering people to San Francisco. It was the site of the first Freq.Fest chiptune festival outside of Los Angeles; it was a fixture for Fanimecon concerts, they held movie screenings there. There's a monthly jazz jam. It truly is an incredible place.
Again though - for our band it was truly home. We played the closing ceremony at the old Market Street location before it shut down for the move across town. It's where we introduced new members of our band and it's where we said goodbye to Quails who were moving on.
The reason I'm so fucking on one right now is that Dan posted to the venue's Patreon this week that he's finally going to call it quits
You can read the whole thing here if you subscribe to the Patreon but the gist is that they've never fully recovered from COVID era downturn and the utility costs to keep the place open are spiraling out of control. It's really fucking heartbreaking but also kind of expected. I don't think the man's had a day off since like 2009 (maybe even longer) and the place just cannot offset the costs of operation to keep it open.
When I first moved away from San José to the desert in 2017, in the back of my head I always planned on making one more stop at Boutiki at some point when our new album dropped. Well, COVID happened, more life happened and I knew the window was closing but it's hitting me really hard to know it's finally happening.
He's going to honor existing bookings for the remainder of the year and do some fundraising to repair some damages to the building before they clear out but it's not like there's an active “SAVE OUR VENUE” effort - and I don't think there will be since he kinda needs the break.
But hey if you're reading this, have an ungodly amount of money and want to keep live music as a fixture in northern California's bay area - go give Dan a call.
I wish I could say “AND ON X DAY WE'LL DO ONE MORE SHOW THERE” but I live 3000 miles away now and have so much going on that I just don't see it happening. Never say never though? It'd be nice to be able to say goodbye properly.