A Love Letter To the Most Important Venue Of My Life
A disproportionate amount of my 20s were spent in dark, dank bars, drinking drinks I couldn’t really afford, listening to too-loud music performed by very bad rappers.
My subsequent hearing loss has a bone to pick with me on the things I deemed it worth enduring.
There was the basement of a coffee shop in Fargo where the only attendees were also performers, and everyone smashed into a room no deeper then 15 feet front to back.
I still remember the immortal phrase “I’ve tried every street drug” from one of the day’s performers.
There was the 2nd floor of G-Daddy BBC’s in Milwaukee (rest in peace to all the beautiful bars that were the intersection of North Ave and Farwell) where we hosted annual, sold out Christmas shows acting as mini-high school reunions.
That’s the place I once threw up before a show (nerves, I swear) and when the bouncer tried to kick me out for it I got to tell them I was the headliner.
There was the heart of Dinkytown, The Dinkytowner, where I went to one of Prof’s very early Drunk Shows, and where my band and I got to open up for Kanser once; its stage barely large enough for the 6 of us to fit while we had the time of our lives, sweating our faces off over the pit that was The Dinkytowner’s front row.
But of all the places I’ve seen shows or put on shows, Honey had the most profound impact on my life.
It is, looking back, the most important venue of my life.
Why Honey?
It’s hard to even imagine a venue being so well-loved by performers that never had shows on the weekends.
That’s right, while Honey didn’t like to think of itself as a night club, Fridays and Saturday nights were reserved for DJs and the kind of door fees associated with dancing, not personal, introspective local rappers.
Jon, talking to the Star Tribune,
“Some people call it a nightclub. We’ve never looked at it as a nightclub,” Provenzano, 48, said. “We looked at it as a community space that people danced at.”
The fact the owners never looked at it as a dance club might be the key to its success and unique space in the local music landscape.
And yet, there were times you could squeeze in a Friday night gig if you were done by 10.
You would, of course, only be able to start at 730 because an improv performance, or poetry open mic was booked until 7.
But you agreed to the terms and felt lucky to even have the opportunity to work with Jon.
Michaelangelo Matos, writing for The Local Current Blog,
In addition to the boisterous first-Friday dance party House Proud, Honey was notable for a slew of adventurous out-of-town DJ bookings, courtesy of the club’s soundman and occasional promoter, Jon Davis. Honey was a serious spot for dancehall and hip-hop fans, as well. Plus fans of stand-up comedy, and jazz, and spoken-word — even opera. Honey tried things that most clubs didn’t, and its legacy is solidly in place.
Thank you, Jon
Working with Jon Provenzano was an experience unlike any other for an aspirational artist.
He worked the way you thought all bar owners would work when you were starting out your dream in high school, and the way they never did in the reality of your mid-to-late 20s.
Most venues will not return your calls, emails, or in-person visits.
It’s demoralizing to not be responded to, an actual “no” becoming a refreshing, but often unrealistic, goal.
What Jon gave was generosity, an open ear and open mind, and his actual effort into finding a time slot in his space that will work for what you were trying to put together.
When you arrived early to set up he was there behind the bar to greet you with a handshake and a drink.
Honey gave people and groups a shot that would never get such a shot elsewhere.
And it paid off.
There are plenty of venues you can play where no one will actually want to spend their time at.
Honey had the benefit, behind Jon Davis and Jon Provenzano’s on-the-ground leadership, of being a place that names at the top of the scene would perform, and names no one had ever heard from, could realistically aspire to.
Because of that, it became a place where community could thrive.
A Few Quick Memories and A Look At What We Lost
I performed 2 separate shows at Honey on the nights of close friends funerals.
They might be the most spiritual moments I’ve ever experienced as an artist.
One year, a close friend, one well-liked across our friend group, died in a motorcycle crash.
His funeral was on a Saturday. The same day I had an EP release scheduled at Honey.
The thought of performing was overwhelming to say the least.
But something happened while I was on that stage.
As Patron bottle after Patron bottle was passed around the crowd in remembrance, I gave a eulogy in between songs that I cannot explain to this day.
All I can say is it felt like something was speaking through me, the pain we were all going through, the spirit of the man we had lost, the Patron.
I spoke what I felt (“the crazy son of a bitch died going fast, doing what he loved”) and I felt my words echoed back to me by the completely packed room of teary-eyed friends, collectively taking another pull from the bottle.
It was definitely a throw-your-voice-out performance.
People at the show unaware of the funeral must have been confused, but we carried on.
I’ve never felt more electricity on stage.
Except maybe the next year when a close friend, and intern for our music production company, killed himself.
Again, I had a Honey show scheduled for the night of a close friend’s funeral.
Again, electricity flowed through me, a Thor with a microphone for a hammer, for one night only.
That’s my personal story of Honey, perhaps my most personal, and there are thousands of such stories throughout the twin cities.
There were also less personal, more ridiculous stories:
The night of my album release where we had an artist paint on stage, which started a bidding war for his paintings, and, through the power of alcohol, led to arguments that found the paintings’ easels land in the bushes outside of Honey without a single painting sold.
There was the time Ant came to one of my shows! Thanks Ant!
The nights I just went to dance, the nights I went to watch friends I had made in the scene perform.
There was the night my hater arch-nemesis tried to call me out and I was able to level him with my witty comebacks, or at least that’s how I remember it.
Honey was alive in a way all small venues that cater to local artists hope to be.
What We Lost
With the closing of Honey will another spot open up with owners who take the time to open emails from artist’s they’ve never heard of?
Where the owner is often behind the bar, and will take time to sit down with you and talk ideas?
Where DJ nights become monthly meccas (Turnt Up, looking at you)?
With the next night drawing a completely different crowd?
People who have never tried to put on a show, to put themselves out there, probably think that because they’ve heard of an aritst, that that artist must be getting show offers hand over fist.
Or that when they see their friend’s name outside 7th Street, that it was destined to happen, “only a matter of time”,
Or that because one of their favorite rappers is talented at rapping, they are somehow making money.
Minneapolis is often thought of as a cold, aloof, too-polite, passive aggressive land closed off to outsiders.
As someone who did not go to High School here, I can say, the local scene seemed intimidating, everyone having grown up with each other.
Being a socially-anxious-to-the-point-of-paralysis wannabe white rapper surely didn’t help.
But Honey was a place that defied these, often unjust, stereotypes.
A place where community could grow.
Where you would run into people you only ran into there.
Where a handshake and a drink were always waiting.
Where the bathroom door of the only stall in the men’s room’s didn’t exist.
Where you could set up a photo booth and a drink special on your performance night (we ran them out of PBR one night, a personal point of pride).
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Honey opened the year The Dinkytowner closed, 2009.
That year was a passing of the torch.
Who will pick up that torch now?