For the last few years, I’ve known local soundman Andy Gems as something of an unavoidable techie, a man who feels as fondly for his sound equipment as he does for the bands that push its limits. He’s been omnipresent at many of the gigs I’ve enjoyed most in town—prowling the floors of the now-defunct Satellite Ballroom and Gravity Lounge spaces in his customary black cap, checking cables and microphone placement, then resuming his space behind the mixing board as the lights dim. When I asked him for his most memorable shows during his tenure at Gravity Lounge, he answers as a fan (My Brightest Diamond’s gig for 15 or so people) and a sculptor of sound (folk musician Ben Taylor needed a very precise mix; Gems delivered). He’s detail attentive, if not obsessed.
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Andy Gems and Lauren McRaven refashion the old Gravity Lounge space from the ground up, with hopes to open the venue for music and food as early as this summer. |
When Gems stopped working at Gravity Lounge in late February, then—after a brief tenure as the room’s soundman—I should’ve guessed that change was afoot. Now, two months later, Gems is back in the space, ready to resurrect Gravity Lounge under a new name, with what he hopes will be a more precise mix.
“You ever see that brick? I love that brick!” he exclaimed as he led me between stacks of boxes, a few housing collector’s objects left by former manager Bill Baldwin. “Nobody saw that brick in five years. It’s really a killer space.”
A bit more brick inside Gravity is the least of Gems’ plans for the room. The borderline-bloated Gravity Lounge calendar will be a bit more trim, according to Gems: “The days of throwing 40 events per month on the calendar are over.
“The double-headers I like a lot…I love that the space is flexible enough to accommodate a seated, listening room show, then turn right around and accommodate a loud, rowdy rock show,” he added. “But I definitely don’t like the nonstop cavalcade of events. I think it weakens the better shows; it doesn’t allow them to float up to the top, you know? Too much clutter.”
In addition to his usual touches on the room’s sound (“Gotta have a new PA. Big PA. Too much PA.”), Gems will also coordinate booking for the room, a new skill for him, but not an unfamiliar one.
“Even at the [Satellite] Ballroom, Danny [Shea, manager] and I kinda co-produced events. I dealt with all the technical details of the advancing and he really dealt with the hospitality and logistics…both of us always acted as cultural attaché, because one of us was always meeting the bands there.” Gems added that he’ll also look for help from third-party booking and promotion companies, which may bring a few more shows like those Shea booked at Gravity through Starr Hill Presents.
I’ve used “Gravity” a few times, but the name is out the door, too. And while Gems and his business partner, Lauren McRaven (founder of The Flat and the woman behind the space’s new café) haven’t settled on a name yet, the pair has a few ideas about how to use the room to their respective strengths. Gems says that the café and performance spaces will be divided, but with doors that allow access between the two and will stay open for concerts that require a larger capacity.
Many of the Gravity shows that attracted larger crowds were legacy acts like Paul Curreri and Devon Sproule, Carleigh Nesbit and Carl Anderson, Jeff Romano and Andy Waldeck—musicians as familiar to local listeners as the space itself, and so forever linked in the minds of audiences. But Gems—who successfully relocated another regular, Danny Schmidt, to Live Arts when landlord Ludwig Kuttner ousted the previous manager—explained that a change in venue doesn’t mean a change in acts.
“I think it’s really important to convey that the types of shows—those aren’t changing,” he said before I left. “Can you imagine Paul and Devon with a big PA?” With any luck, we won’t have to imagine it.
Wilco return! Sort of!
Thanks to the work of UVA’s OFFScreen independent film society and a few other industrious locals, filmmaker and Fugazi drummer Brendan Canty will screen his latest concert film, Ashes of American Flags, at UVA’s Newcomb Hall Theater on Friday, May 1 at 7pm. The film follows rock act/Charlottesville-philes Wilco on a string of small club shows. Tickets are $5, and will be available at the door.
While Canty will be on-hand to discuss the film after the screening, he also took time to speak with Feedback in advance of the screening. Read the interview on the Feedback blog.