Key Club to Close This Month

PART 2.

This isn't just applicable to the Key Club. I've seen an entire night of bands WITHOUT BASSISTS. Yep, just screechy guitar and vocals and drums, sonically horrible. How many people have to fail for this to happen? The promoter and the band memebers themselves don't realize this is ridiculous? Other than a few cases, THAT is not a band and you'd have to be an idiot not to realize it. One other thing. If you are going to bitch about noise, or parking, or crowds, DON'T move to Hollywood. Hollywood was and is supposed to be music and show businesss. Live bands, strip clubs, a party scene. If you want peace and quiet, and a wholesome place to raise a family, move to Santa Clarita, Burbank, or somewhere similar. Don't ruin Hollywood. In closing, this is really sad and I really hope that the rumours I'm hearing of it coming back as hip hop and rave shit are false. While they do take SOME ability, it's nothing like singing, playing an insrument or writing actual songs. REAL musicians need venues. You put nothing but great bands here and establish a tradition of quality, and this place can come alive again.

PART1

Very sad to see YET ANOTHER rock club close. I've been out here 4 years and seen the Knitting Factory, Cat Club, and now the Key Club close here, along with The Doll Hut, and Brixton further south. I do think mismanagement was a problem to some degree. When attendance is down, you drop prices to get more people thru the door and have a larger customer base. The pay to play thing hurts as well, back east, I really didn't see much of that. You had your bigger clubs that had the "A" circuit bands, you never saw a bad band there, so in addition to the people the band drew, people would go there because they knew they'd always see great rock and roll. Here, anyone with a rich daddy can get just about any slot on any bill if they can cough up the presale ticket money, even if they suck, which some do. You can be awful and end up as direct support to a national headlining act. So, after you've paid $10 to park, $20 cover, and $8 for a drink, almost $40, you walk in and see absolute shit on stage. What the hell happened to quality standards? You'd never see that at say the Machine Shop in MI, or the old Hammerjacks in Balt. Sometimes you also have poorly constructed cards with bands that do not remotely fit together so say band 1's crowd would love band 3, but band 2 drove them out. 

Saw one of my favorite ever shows there, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and Stolen Babies. That was the only time I'd been there, and it seemed like a nice enough place to hang out..... but I used to play out in clubs way back in the 80s and remember how shitty management in those places could treat musicians much of the time; I don't imagine things have changed all that much since. It's unfortunate that the options for original artists to play out in the area have slimmed down so much, leaving people with no choices but dance clubs with DJs anymore.... but that's where the money is, and fledgling musicians can only take so much abuse in these meat pits.

Best sound, lights, and staff. We had a blast everytime we played there opening up for David Allen Coe. - Tex "Groovy Rednecks"

Kitty you are dead on with your comment, my band Warhead used to be a house band when it was Gazzarri's good times!

At the end greed always gets you, high priced drinks, pay to play bullshit, parking sucks, bouncers are pricks. Oh we'll long live rock n roll!!

Yeah just because the physical address is the same does not mean the Key Club is the same as the legendary Gazzarri's. It's not the same building. Gazzarri's was completely torn down and Billboard Live was built from the foundation. Very misleading to say it's been around for "decades" and has seen the likes of the Doors, The Byrds, Van Halen, etc... do a little fact checking.

Nobody to blame but themselves, I mean who in their right mind is surprised when your booking bringer bands and 80's metal bands who mostly are down to one original member and 3 guys who were not even alive in the band's prime and I use the word prime very loosely.

wow.

No, the Doors the Byrds and Van Halen did not EVER play the Key Club. The Key Club Building was built in 1996...

:(

Noooooooo :(

some of you are missing the fact that the Key Club is not in LA but in WeHo. whole different administration here.

Went to some great shows there. Can't say this is a total surprise though, unfortunately.

Let's blame George Bush!!!!

Wow

Very few clubs last forever especially in LA. Unfortunately it's managements fault. Either you constantly reinvent yourself or die

Another cool spot bitten the dust..... Saw some good shows there..........\,,,/

Sad to see it close but not suprised. Last time I was there during the Sunset Strip Music Fest the security guys there were total pricks.

even the cheap Chinese stores are closing in my suburb. We are seeing only 1 new type of eatery open: lunch truck with either tacos or Korean bolgogi; some dinner places open but don't last.

horrid place , glad its going o;d rock shit hole,

Awww maaan

I'll miss it a lot. Only rock venue still standing is the Whiskey

EVERYTHING I have ever liked in Los Angeles is gone!

Wow LA is getting increasingly boring.......................... can't wait to move

key club sucks. good riddance

Meh. Hardly an "institution." LA venues fall in and out of favor over the years. Right now the Troubador and the El Rey seem to be really popular again.

So long dump!

its tough to stay open when you don't book bands people pay money to see.

Good

The place inside is pretty cool with the underground lounge. GOOD TIMES. HOWEVER, as a nearby resident, walking up along the Strip, this venues facade is very uninviting. it just doenst look good with the rest of the strip. If they did a whole facelift of the building, things might change.

Let's just hope that in its place won't be a dream of Eric Garcetti and his love of Skyscrapers aka Gentrification...

: (

again???

Everything is changing...

Wow one of those places I always ment to go to but never did.

uGH another Hollywood institution Lost to SOme BS.....really LA is SUCKING

Cool place & that sucks. But for "Decades"? I remember when that place opened in like '95 or '96. Kind of hard to use the word decades when it hasn't even been opened for 2 decades.

Too bad. What is going in its place?

That sucks! Key Club is/was a good venue.

whoa backstage there is like underground good times ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Sa_TWwx8LE&list=UU-iB6RoqJBti7WlNkueNpNA&index=87

Oh WOW!

That sux! I had good times there! Now it will just be another memory

damn.