Saying Goodbye To Tritone
(KeN at Plain Parade’s final Tritone show.)
Just heard the news about Dave Rogers selling Tritone. As someone who once booked events there, this is an emotional moment — even if my last few visits to the space were less-than-stellar.
I know we’re all oohing and aahing over new spaces like Union Transfer, which pretty much take every complaint anyone has ever had about a venue and turned it into the most desirable space to watch live music. But not every band gets a chance at the 600+ capacity venues. The majority of bands are lucky if they can play the 100-capacity spaces and, hell, even better if they can fill half the room. That’s the reality of being musician, and it’s not getting any easier.
Enter spaces like Tritone. It’s a step up from the world of house shows and alternative space (which are completely necessary for new music movements to emerge/sustain/etc), and the step before entering the world of professional rock clubs. Not that Tritone wasn’t professional, though it had its quirks. Sara and I (OK, mostly me) scuffled on more than one occasion with a difficult doorman (his problem: women in positions of authority). I learned how to run (and ruin) the sound for plenty of bands on the teeny PA. (Thank heavens for Scotty Parker, who has made the club sound good for a few years now, and has recorded every band to grace its stage.)
For us, Tritone was ideal because it allowed us to accomplish our mission of supporting great music. It had extremely low house costs (>$100 or free if we handled sound & door), bands received a good chunk of drink tickets, and it was one room, so it had moderately decent sight lines. For a three band lineup that brought in a crowd of fifty, bands were pretty much guaranteed to walk out of there with a decent wad of cash. Pretty great deal for any young band.
That’s how a band gets from Point A to Point B to Point Z in the music world, and it is sad to see these intermediary spaces disappear. If you want to see good music keep happening, it’s not going to be Kickstarted — it’s the network of tiny clubs and independent promoters who really make the industry vibrant. When those go, so does the music. Whether you played at Tritone or not, you should feel sad about these spaces closing up. In Philly, it seems like a couple of other spaces are there to fill the gap — Little Bar, Jr.’s, The Station — but personally speaking, it is hard to say goodbye to Tritone. It was in this room that I learned a lot of priceless lessons.
