Thursday, March 06, 2008 |
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Column 163 -- The Waiting Room after year one; Phosphorescent tonight...
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Some leftovers from the Jim Johnson interview that didn't make it into Column 163 (below)... When The Waiting Room opened a year ago, I (along with others) told Johnson that he could kiss any free time he had goodbye. And that's pretty much how it worked out. "Whatever anyone said about the hours that it would take was right," he said. "I get to work at about 10 a.m., take a break in there somewhere, and leave between 1 or 2 a.m. every night, seven days a week." Grueling. So how can he stand it? "I just like it. I guess I like it so much because it's actually working. It's been a goal to do this for ten years. Now that it's happening I wish I would have done it a lot sooner, but if we had, I don't know if we'd be here or had these opportunities." As mentioned in the column, those "opportunities" involve property acquisition, which Johnson said provides a "light at the end of the tunnel," and would eventually allow him to slow down and turn the club over to someone else. "Not that I want to do that in the next 10 or 15 years, but there will come a time where I'll pass it on to some hip kid that knows about this new music." This prompted a discussion about Johnson's knowledge of up-and-coming bands (He obviously isn't a regular reader of Lazy-i and Omahype!). "It's so hard to keep up," he said. "I was at the store the other day and noticed Vampire Weekend was on the cover of SPIN. Vampire Weekend. We've done two shows with them, and I had no idea they were that big. I didn't know who Sara Bareilles was, and she's everywhere. So it's hard to keep up and stay in front of stuff. When I buy new records, it's The Kinks, The Who and '60s rock. That doesn't help." Johnson wasn't interested in talking about why One Percent had booked so few shows at Sokol Underground last year, deferring to Marc Leibowitz, who makes the booking decisions. "Without that place (Sokol), we wouldn't be where we are today," he said. So what's the goal moving forward? "To take it to the next level will involve building a reputation that's generated when bands go on the road and talk to other bands about where they've been and what's good," he said. "Everyone's heard of First Ave. and The Knitting Factory. That's where we want to be, but how many years have those clubs been around? It's just going to take time."
Tonight at Slowdown it's Phosphorescent, with Bowerbirds, Coyote Bones and Alessi. Phosphorescent's new CD, Pride, is one of the best slow-groove discs I've heard so far this year. $10, 9 p.m.. --Got comments? Post 'em here.-- |
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posted by Tim at 5:37 AM |
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