3cubed

Sunday, March 06, 2005

 
The end of an institution...

Tonight was my friend Alan's last night DJing at The Art Bar. So sad. It goes way back to the Moto Lounge days, almost 10 years ago. There used to be a really cool bar called the Moto Lounge, which coincidently is where I met Bobby (my ex-husband & baby's daddy), he worked the door & sometimes bartended there. That was when I lived with Chuck & Willis, and we used to go up there every Saturday night (we actually went every Tuesday & Thursday too, but that's irrelevant to this story) because our friend Alan was the DJ on that night & we went to support him & plus he played the coolest music. When Moto Lounge closed down, The Art Bar opened soon after, but that was in 1999, which was the year Maggie was born, so I didn't go those first couple of years it opened. But, when Art Bar opened, pretty much the same crowd that used to frequent the Moto Lounge just transferred there, along with Alan on Saturday nights.

Saturday night at the Art Bar was just a dependable thing. You knew you were going to hear great music, some old, some new, some obscure, but all good. For example on any given Sat. night you might hear: Weezer, The Smiths, Beastie Boys, Rolling Stones, Pixies, Public Enemy, Elvis, Juliana Hatfield, The Strokes, Dandy Warhols, Coldplay, The Killers, Prince, Men Without Hats, Quiet Riot, Tom Petty, The Charlatans, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Built to Spill, Franz Ferdinand, Missy Elliott, Matthew Sweet...so you see, a good mix and variety and all danceable. It is the only place in town that plays music that I actually like to dance to. I can't stand that top 40 crap and that seems to be what the majority of the clubs in Jax. play, well besides country, which I hate even more than top 40.

But now that is all coming to an end. Alan decided to retire from DJing, it was restricting his free time since he has a regular job during the week, plus he and his wife are trying to have a baby. They are replacing Alan with some DJ that plays hip hop :( Not only will I miss him & the music he played, but the whole crowd of people that go there on Sat. will now change. I stopped being a Sat. night regular a year or so ago, but when I did go on occasion, I could be sure to see the same people that are always there, catch up with old friends, often running into people that I went to high school with and haven't seen in years. When I think about moving away to go to school and coming back to visit my family, I always envision being able to drop in at the Art Bar while I'm home to re-live my Jacksonville days.

This whole thing is bittersweet to me. It's something that won't be here when I come back, but also something that I now, won't be leaving behind.
Tina 2:20 AM

Comments:

don't worry tina. that scene will continue somewhere else in riverside if not at art bar. the hip hop will probably not go over there anyway.

# posted by  Anonymous : 9:32 PM

 

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