Frequency blog: Music news and reviews from Bend and Central Oregon, by Ben Salmon | The Bulletin

The rumors are true: A new nightclub is opening in Bend, in the spot (under the Spotted Mule on Third Street) that used to house Club 97, which has been closed for six or seven years, depending on who you ask.

The Underground will open on Friday night with a concert by local funk-rockers El Dante. You can find all the details about that show in Friday’s GO! Magazine.

As for the club, the new management team gave me a tour last week, filled me in on what they’ve done and what they’re planning, and let me take a few photos. After the jump, I’ll fill you in.

The new owners are Todd and Diana Larson, who moved to Bend about eight months ago after living in Texas for about four years, Todd Larson said. Before that, they owned Kane’s Marina in Detroit, Oregon.

The family — Todd’s son Kyle Ostwald is also involved in The Underground — “got tired of Texas,” Larson said, and came back to Oregon to try to find a business to open. They looked in Salem and Portland, but when they found the old Club 97 space, they jumped, Ostwald said.

“We thought this space had the most potential,” he said.

“We had a bar at the marina,” Todd Larson said. “We like dealing with people.”

The family first walked through The Underground 18 months ago, when they met Jason Costa, who plays in the local rock band Tentareign and ran Club 97 for five years. The group got along, and Costa was brought into the fold, bringing his concert sound and lighting company, Electric Audio, with him. His partner at Electric Audio, Tom McCutcheon, is also part of The Underground’s management team.

Larson spent the next 18 months in negotiations to lease the space. “We had to get things into my price zone,” he said. Almost three months ago, the group got the keys and moved in.

Since, they’ve said goodbye to Club 97′s “cowboy bar” look, Costa said, repainting walls and generally sprucing the place up. The team did some remodeling work to create a VIP area that has its own bar, seating area and outdoor/smoking spot. VIPs will pay a fee (that hasn’t yet been determined, McCutcheon said) and that will give them cover-free entrance to the club, a separate door to avoid lines, early notice about concerts and early opportunities to buy tickets, McCutcheon said.

The Underground has four bars and 18,000 square feet, of which about 15,000 is accessible to the public. There’s also about 2,500 square feet of outdoor space that’s open to the public, including an outdoor bar that’s sheltered from the weather. Club 97′s capacity was in the “upper 800s,” McCutcheon said, but the new owners have done some things to try to push that closer to 1,000.

The club’s size makes it one of the largest in Oregon, and comparable in size to the Showbox in Seattle and the Knitting Factory in Boise, McCutcheon said.

The Underground’s size is pushing the management team to spend lots of time, money and effort on details, McCutcheon said.

“We are the biggest, and we have to be the best,” he said. When asked what he meant by “the biggest,” he replied: “The biggest venue in Central Oregon. Maybe not biggest square-footage wise, but we definitely have the nicest sound system, the best lighting rig, the biggest dance floor. No one else has a VIP area. No one else has the square footage of bar top that we have. No one else has six pool tables.”

The Underground is refurbishing its pool tables to meet the specs of local pool players, McCutcheon said. They’re going to install “big, billowy curtains,” lots of green plants and projected graphics on the walls, a la the old Bend bar The Grove. They’ll have a dressing room for bands with showers, laundry facilities, exercise equipment, and so on.

“We’re bringing in all the elements of what people like from all over,” McCutcheon said. “People like a warm and inviting atmosphere where they can come and hang out and talk to their friends and get a bite to eat and then have club music to dance to. This isn’t our venue. This is Central Oregon’s venue.”

The bar is working with many alcohol distributors, including locals Silver Moon, 10 Barrel and Three Creeks, McCutcheon said. He said drink prices will be “extremely competitive,” and there will be a menu of tasty food at reasonable prices. The club is also working feverishly this week to make sure it’s compliant with all the regulatory agencies, including the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

“We’ve had a wonderful experience with all the agencies,” McCutcheon said.

As for music, The Underground has booked El Dante for Friday’s opening and local hip-hop crew Person People for a show in August. Beyond that, the club is hoping to fill out its upcoming schedule with regional and national touring acts.

The Underground will work with independent promoters, but will also do in-house booking. That job will be handled at first by McCutcheon, but will slowly transfer to Ostwald as he learns the business, McCutcheon said. Neither would name bands that may be coming to the club, but McCutcheon said the same level of act that Club 97 hosted — from Merle Haggard and Junior Brown to Coolio and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony — is possible at The Underground.

The new team has purchased high-end soundboards and lights in an effort to provide equipment that would suit almost any band, Costa said.

The team has also installed new, temporary stage pieces that can be used to increase the size of the main stage for big acts, or can be moved against a different wall for smaller acts. A large curtain will also be installed that can be pulled across the club, effectively cutting its size by more than half. When a less-established local act plays The Underground, it could play on the temporary stage with the curtain drawn and not have to worry about playing to a cavernous, empty club.

Ostwald said he has no particular aim in the kind of music he hopes to bring to The Underground.

“Whatever Bend wants is what I’m thinking,” he said. “It’s not about what I like. It’s about what everybody else likes.”

Costa and McCutcheon both said the club will host a diverse set of sounds.

“This is a place for everyone in the community,” McCutcheon said. “We’re working on putting together a jazz night for the fall. We’ve got … a couple of comedians that want to come play the club. We’re not just a rock ‘n’ roll club. We’re planning on bringing in country, pop, hip-hop, R&B, reggae, jazz…”

The club will also bring in DJs from around the West, and has already hired local DJ Harlo as the house DJ. McCutcheon said the team will work to keep ticket costs down as much as possible; they’re thinking in the $30 range for national acts, $10 to $15 for smaller acts, and $5 for a typical DJ night with no band.

“We feel strongly that a cover charge is necessarily to keep the environment (we want),” he said. “But we want people to be able to afford to come here.”

Speaking of which, what about that whole recession thing? McCutcheon said the club is comfortable taking a risk in tough economic times.

“If someone doesn’t start it’s never going to happen. We’re never going to rebuild Central Oregon’s economy unless someone gets out there in front and says, ‘Come follow us,’” he said. “We’re putting over 30 people to work. We’re using almost entirely local vendors. We’re doing everything we can to rebuild the local economy.”

Todd Larson, the co-owner of the business and a self-avowed country music fan, said he loves a challenge, and he thinks The Underground will be not only a challenge, but also successful.

“They’ll come. If the economy gets worse they’re gonna drink more. If the economy gets better they’re gonna be happy and drink more,” he said. “You look at this place, and … if you can advertise it right and do it right, it’s gotta make money.”

That’s the whole team’s hope: The more people show up, the more music they can expect, McCutcheon said.

“The more they support the smaller local acts, the harder we’re going to push and the bigger risks we’re going to take on the big stuff,” he said. “If we pack this building for El Dante and Person People, the next thing you’re going to see in here is a national act. We’re ready for that.”

(Note: All photos by Ben.)

Tags: The Underground

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 1:35 pm and is filed under news, venues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.