Local music takes hit with venue closures

By Maggie Beidelman

Looking for a place to experience some live music for all ages in the San Jose area? Good luck. Go ahead, scour the Yellow Pages. Tirelessly surf the Internet. Make any number of calls.

The truth is, there has been a mass extinction of all-ages venues in the San Jose area, and the city of San Jose is sadly apathetic.

In the last three years alone, the Cactus Club, the Chemical Free Zone and the Outhouse have closed, either being forced to by the city or doing so voluntarily.

The city seems to needlessly worry about public places where teens can gather. So the venues get shut down, and the teens have nowhere to gather and have some innocent, legal fun.

After 37 years of successful business, the Gaslighter Theatre in Campbell will get added to this weighty list of lost venues.

"When you think of Campbell, you think of the Gaslighter," said co-owner Susan Gaetano. Now it will be gone. Gaetano and her husband, Mark, are the current owners of the venue that seats nearly 200 people.

Many small bands that have played a live show at the Gaslighter have since become well known, such as Papa Roach, Incubus and Insolence.

With the pressure from city officials over the last several years to strengthen security, decrease the number of shows and purchase multiple permits, the Gaetanos decided that keeping this venue open was more trouble than it was worth.

Many local bands cannot afford to rent out a place to play. The Gaslighter had provided a lucrative venue for them, as 50 percent of the profit went to the band after standard expenses were covered.

"The bands can make hundreds of dollars per night," said Gaetano.

Even the Gaslighter, one of the few left of these types of local venues, has bands perform only one or two nights a week, typically on Fridays. Other days of the week are mostly filled with vaudeville-type performances. Yet, "local bands seem to be dying out," said Gaetano.

Whether it's because of the rise in popularity of dance clubs, DJs, techno music or simply because local bands can't find anywhere to play, there appears to be fewer small bands around, or at least fewer trying to get a gig.

"There was a time when our phone was ringing off the hook" with bands wanting to play at the Gaslighter, Gaetano said.

An obvious trend toward hearing bands in local coffee shops, skating rinks and even nickel arcades has become more visible within the last decade.

The Cave, a concert venue located in Calvary Cathedral in San Jose, is perhaps the most well known of these places.

But these venues can only hold so many people, and they lack that certain exciting atmosphere that a real venue gives.

A block down from the Gaslighter is Orchard Valley Coffee, a quaint coffeehouse with free live music on the weekends.

With everything from light rock to bluegrass, this place can often become "packed with standing room only," said Night Shift Manager James Calland.

Unfortunately, places like Orchard Valley can only hold so many people, the bands do not get paid, and, first and foremost, it's a coffeehouse.

Calland expressed disappointment about the inability to get money for music equipment so that the coffeehouse could become a more valued venue for live music.

Like many others in the area, Calland, who has been at the coffeehouse for three years, is "sad to see it (the Gaslighter) go."

The venue is not just good for business in the surrounding area; it is central to Campbell, an icon soon to be alive only in memory. This is the same for the other venues that have gone out of business.

What we're left with is merely a graveyard of vanished venues, buried hopes of musicians ever making it big and the demise of a generation that is appreciate of small bands and live music.

Contact Maggie Beidelman at (408) 551-1918 or mbeidelman@scu.edu.