[jazzblues] Musical Chairs: Changes in store for live entertainment at local clubs

[Jeff Machota]

Musical Chairs: Changes in store for live entertainment at local clubs

By Kirby Pringle

News-Gazette - November 22-28, 2007

Tweaks are in store for live music offerings at the Cowboy Monkey and 
Zorba's, both in Champaign.

The Cowboy Monkey, 6 E. Taylor St., downtown Champaign, will no longer 
host live music after Jan. 1. A New Year's Eve show featuring 
Headlights, The Beauty Shop, Shipwreck and Common Loon will be the last 
show as the club emphasizes the restaurant segment of its business.

''The decision to stop doing live entertainment at Cowboy Monkey is 
essentially because the business model is not working. It never really 
has. Unfortunately, the band aspect and the restaurant aspect both seem 
to hamper the other just enough to keep each from being completely 
successful. So it simply became time to adjust the business model,'' 
says Ward Gollings, who handles the music bookings for the Cowboy Monkey 
and the Highdive, also in downtown Champaign.

The two clubs, as well as several other restaurant-bars in downtown 
Champaign, are owned by brothers Marco and Carlos Nieto and Tiffani Moot.

When the Cowboy Monkey opened in 2003, the owners moved much of the 
music schedule from the Highdive, located about one block away. Now, 
music from the Cowboy Monkey will be moving back to the Highdive, which 
has roomier accommodations for bands - and music fans.

"With the ability to send a good portion of the live music up the street 
to Highdive (from which it came), we decided to have Cowboy Monkey focus 
much more on the restaurant end of the business,'' Gollings says.

The original idea was to shift local bands
to the Cowboy Monkey and reserve the
bigger space for bigger names. But DJs*
have proven popular draws for nightclubs
- a trend that's true nationwide. As a
result, live music slowly dwindled at the
Highdive, and the emphasis was on DJs.

DJs will still be an important part of the Highdive schedule. Bands 
booked on weekends will have early starts, with DJs spinning CDs 
afterward. Local musicians will still be booked, and most weekday shows 
will be in the "main-room-only format ...creating a bit more of an 
intimate atmosphere for both the bands and the music fans '' Gollings says.

"And while many people may lament the fact that Friday and Saturday 
shows will still be early shows, there is a decent contingent that 
actually likes them,'' he adds. Gollings is excited about the prospect 
of the Highdive open six to seven nights a week and the renewed focus on 
live music. Ideally, he would like to have three local bands every 
Tuesday with an inexpensive cover charge and drink specials. Bands will 
also be booked for Thursdays and Sundays, and the Monday "open 
microphone'' shows at the Cowboy Monkey will also likely move to the 
Highdive.

The menu at Cowboy Monkey will be expanded and tweaked to draw in more 
lunchtime and dinner customers. Some
changes may be made to the interior, too, to make it more 
restaurant-friendly.

Meanwhile, Matt Mortenson, the owner of Zorba's, 627 E. Green St., C, 
which offers up gyros and other food items, has
decided he may go ahead with live jazz every Thursday. He has been 
contemplating dropping live music at the end of the fall semester. Now 
though the decision is not final, he is leaning the other direction.

"I would like to keep it going. I mean, I love the music. I wish I had 
all sorts of money, and we could do jazz a!l the time,''
Mortenson says.

However, the jazz crowd hasn't been big enough - or buying enough food 
and drink - to make live shows economically feasible to this point, 
according to Mortenson. To keep jazz shows on Thursday nights, "We have 
to get more food sales. We'll try to sell more food later to make it 
work. Things have gotten so expensive, utility bills, labor, food costs, 
insurance. We have to be able to pay our bills in order to keep doing 
this,'' he adds.

Jeff Machota has been booking the jazz acts at Zorba's for 14 years, but 
will step aside for now.

"l've done a lot of shows at a lot of different places that have come 
and gone over the years. I will still do my (jazz)
show on WEFT. But I'm not going to be actively pursuing anything - at 
least not for a while'' Machota says.

Live music in Champaign-Urbane goes through cycles, and audiences at 
shows have been inconsistent.

Crowds at the clubs Gollings books have been "average. It's consistently 
hit or miss,'' he says. And that has been true
genre-wide, with no one type of music that does better than others.

Machota blames the malaise on DJs.

"Unfortunately, now the era of the DJ is putting a dent in all live 
music. They're cheaper, and they make clubs more money,'' he says. "I 
definitely think there needs to be more venues that offer live music. 
There are enough bands; the question is whether there's enough of an 
audience to support live music. That's no knock against the places that 
offer live music; I'd just like to see more.''

Paul Wirth, the owner of the Iron Post in downtown Urbana, is doing more 
live music shows than ever, a strategy he came up with when Urbana 
instituted its smoking ban in bars. Jazz shows have worked well for the 
club, which has become a hub for the scene.

"The Iron Post has had the joy of hosting some incredible performances 
in the last few years: The U of I Jazz Faculty, Ray Sasaki, Astral 
Project, The Chip Stephens Quartet are shows comparable with cities much 
larger than ours,'' Wirth says.

He's also for more live music, whether it's at a bar or a library.

"There are never enough live music performances. Exposure to the 
cultural arts improves the quality of life in our community, raises our 
aesthetic bar, so to speak," Wirth adds. "I would like to see more 
public performances, street festivals, concerts in parks, more classical 
performances - maybe a string quartet Sundays at the library - 
especially in Urbana.''

Gollings has had people ask him whether the decision to drop live music 
at the Cowboy Monkey is the correct one. But the economics of owning a 
small business make it an easy answer for him.

''Yes? it is a very sensible business decision. It's a difficult and 
unpopular decision to make, but a good decision nonetheless,'' he says.

"I keep telling people to help me turn a negative into a positive. Let's 
get creative and find a way to make live music fun and exciting and 
well-attended and a viable business endeavor at the Highdive. Sure, 
Tuesday night isn't the greatest night of the week for many people to go 
out (for example). But let's put our collective thinking caps on and 
find a way to make it THE night to go see local talent,'' he adds.

With his years of experience in booking and promoting jazz arts, Machota 
knows well the ins and outs of live music.

"Sometimes the economics of doing live music is just not there. 
Sometimes people have to do it for the love of the music,'' Machota 
says. ''But love of the music doesn't pay the bills, and I understand 
that. The biggest thing is for people who enjoy live music to get out 
there and support it.''