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Southern Hospitality
Charlottesville's newest venue, the Southern, is set to welcome new artists to town
Thu, September 10, '09 |
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Charlottesville has seen its share of problems with music venues since the 2007 closing of The Satellite Ballroom, but Andy Gems thinks he has a solution. A former employee of both Satellite and The Gravity Lounge, as well as an experienced sound technician who has toured extensively, Andy has taken over the now defunct Gravity Lounge space in order to open up his own venue, entitled the Southern, on the downtown mall. I spoke with Mr. Gems about the trials and tribulations of opening his own spot.
- The Dec: How long have you been in Charlottesville, and how long have you been involved in the music scene here?
- Andy Gems: I got to Charlottesville in 2002, but at that time I was doing a lot of work on the road, on tour, and out of town. I didn’t really start working in Charlottesville music until the end of 2006 or early 2007. I started hanging out at The Satellite Ballroom and working as the back-up sound guy there. They already had someone, but I really just wanted to put myself in that position of opportunity and I still had another job. I was on tour most of the summer of 2007, but when I got back I went full time at Satellite.
- So was opening The Southern something you’d wanted to do for a long time or was it mostly an opportunity?
- Totally a product of opportunity. The Satellite Ballroom closed in May 2008, and the owner sold the building to CVS. I got a phone call a few weeks later saying the Gravity Lounge needed help, and I definitely wanted to keep being involved in the music scene, so I moved over and began working there. When Gravity finally closed down, I realized that I had this chance. A lot of people in Charlottesville, myself included, complain about the music scene and problems here and there, and I sort of had an imaginary conversation with myself. I said, “Here’s a chance to put my money where my mouth is, and to see if I can do a better job instead of just bitching about it.”
- What issues or problems did you run into in the process of opening up?
- To be perfectly honest, it’s been a nightmare. I worked there for a while and I understand that some of the things going on there were questionable, but I never realized how illegal and illegitimate it actually was. I had always wondered why we didn’t have a liquor license, and there were a lot of fire code violations that ended with us getting written up. The biggest challenge we had was finding out that the zoning code totally prohibited Gravity Lounge from being an assembly place of any kind, like a bar, restaurant, anything. It was only zoned for retail. It took a long time to get building permits. Gravity closed April 9th, and we couldn’t clear the space with the city until August 20th. We had to hire an architect and fix a lot of fire safety issues ourselves, specifically making sure there was a safe separation between us and the building above us.
- What improvements do you hope to make to the venue and the way it’s run?
- Well, I really feel like Charlottesville has a pretty cool music scene, but I thought I could do a better job than the guy who ran Gravity. The person in charge did a great job creating something out of nothing and totally putting the place on the map, but there were a lot of logistical things. I think the biggest change we’re making is splitting the room into two sections, because we want to have a café/restaurant section and a bar/venue. There are actually two different addresses that the building covers. The old place was only open during shows, and you can’t really only make money if you’re selling food four days a week from seven to eleven. We want to have regular hours regardless of how many shows we have, and be able to have half of it be a café and a restaurant and then have the other half be for shows, with extra space for big shows in case we need things to spill over.
I feel like Gravity had an identity crisis with antiques and funky chairs, like you came in to see a show and there was a lot of other stuff there that didn’t really make sense.
- What do you feel like you can add to Charlottesville music?
- One of our biggest goals is having a place that has the ability to showcase local music as well as to bring in great national, touring acts. We don’t want Charlottesville residents and students to have to drive to D.C. just to see good shows. That’s something that’s important to me. We feel committed to the legacy of Gravity Lounge, and we want to offer folk, acoustic, and indie rock, but we also want to be eclectic. If we can have spoken word, poetry readings, comedy, and maybe even theater, I think that’d be great. Really I’d say that the biggest contribution is providing a great place for local music fans to see the bands that they want to see.
Unfortunately, since we had so much trouble with the city zoning board, we have to move our first weekend of shows in September on the 18th, 19th, and 20th to Fry’s Spring Beach Club off of JPA. It’s a little more convenient for students. We wanted to start booking early because fall tours are organized early in the summer, but we needed a contingency plan because we can’t just wait until we open for good to start booking shows. That’d be awful. Obviously we want to open as soon as possible, but that’s a really good venue too, they have a great ballroom. Still, Starr Hill Presents has just started back up, and that’s been incredibly helpful with booking and everything we’re trying to do.
It’s kind of a bummer that we’ve had so many problems in opening and we won’t be able to meet our schedule, but we’re still very excited about all the work there is left to do, and I doubt that people will even remember by the time everything gets up and running.