A Hollywood legend, immortalized in the recent acclaimed Elton John Biopic and countless other films, documentaries and biographies, Doug Weston’s The Troubador has launched a GoFundMe page, clinging to life in the coronavirus world and trying not to close permanently. The clubs has called it’s survival “a big if”, according to the LA Times. For 60 years, the historic club the Troubadour has anchored the western edge of West Hollywood, just south of the Sunset Strip has made it a kind of neighborhood spot for musically minded Hollywood Hills, Beverly Hills, and Hollywood residents. A presence in Los Angeles live music since the beatnik era, the club opened by Doug Weston has provided thousands of artists the opportunity to make magic on hallowed ground. But as Gov. Gavin Newsom was recently laying out the stages by which businesses may be able to re-open, Christine Karayan, the club’s general manager, realized the seeming futility of the Troubadour’s plight. Newsom has announced that music venues will be among the last to open, in Phase 4. “That means the middle to the end of next year to potentially open, and maybe a 25% cap” on crowd size, Karayan says. “I can’t foresee being able to ride this out like that.”
Outsiders commonly think of the Troubadour as a folk and singer-songwriter venue, but across the decades it has adapted and evolved. In the ‘80s, as heavy metal ripped through Southern California, the Troubadour served as a stage for early gigs by Slayer, Metallica and Motley Crue. In the 1990s and ‘00s, the club hosted Brit pop, grunge and alt-rock: Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Melvins, Dave Matthews, the White Stripes, Bon Iver and Weezer all played beneath the club’s iconic neon sign on their ascents to main stages.
The Troubadour brand in Los Angeles is so embedded into music culture that many fans misunderstand the mechanics of the club, Karayan says. Describing it as “a little bit forgotten,” Karayan says, “We’re lumped in with the big boys, and we’re not the big boys. We don’t have shareholders. We don’t have corporate money. We are what we are.”
Karayan’s father, Ed Karayan, owns both the club and the building that it’s housed in. He’s been sole caretaker since his former business partner Weston died in 1999. The club leases neighboring offices and storage space at market value, and insurance premiums are exorbitant.
Listing the costs, Karayan pauses. “The more I think about it, it’s just completely futile. At least a big seated venue has space where they can keep people apart. But I don’t know how that works for a general admission venue. Are you going to stop them from using the restroom?”
Like most proprietors, at first Karayan figured that the pandemic would prompt some temporary belt-tightening. She remembers her mind set: “At first, it was, ‘What is happening?’ And then we started canceling shows.”
The last gig was Glass Animals on March 11. YouTube videos show the band’s singer, Dave Bayley, singing from up in the balcony before moving his way through the VIP area and back onto stage. The place was packed. The next day, doom set in, Karayan says. “When we walked into the office on March 12, I thought, ‘Something horribly wrong is coming our way.’” So she decided to cancel shows through May. “And then it just started unraveling.”
When she read a month ago that Live Nation and AEG were predicting a fall 2020 reopening, Karayan was relieved. “I was like, ‘We can do that. We probably won’t have concerts until the end of the year, but it’s OK.” But, she adds, “Now it’s like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry. We’re talking, potentially, the middle of next year.’”
https://www.gofundme.com/f/troubadour-relief-fund