Chat Room Pub bartender and booking agent Ben Rogers announced yesterday that the Fort Worth neighborhood bar and occasional venue will revert back to just being a neighborhood bar after a final three shows in July (lineups after the jump).
Rogers says the decision is partially because he is so busy with his other music- and art-related ventures with Mission Co-Op (the umbrella non-profit corporation under which the Rogers-headed Metrognome Collective and 100-Second Dash music compilation are operated). But it's also because he and Chat Room owner Brad Hensarling took a hard look at the numbers and concluded that the bar's policy of giving all door proceeds to performers simply cost too much money.
However, he has high hopes that a new Metrognome venue in Fort Worth can fill the void left by Chat Room's suspension of live shows. And, because it will be a non-profit venture that can apply for grants and funding, money won't be such a concern.
"There are a lot of big changes happening with the Metrognome Collective," he says. "It's growing into a Hydra of different things. There are a lot of people hopping on board to make things happen."
Rogers won't say much about the location or type of building the venue will be, but says he hopes to release more information in a month or so. He's similarly tight-lipped about Real Vinyl, a new vinyl-only record label. However, he did divulge that, like the Metrognome and 100-Second Dash, it will be a nonprofit DBA under Mission Co-Op.
"I can't say too much about it," he says. "We have three local artists and plan to release anything from a split seven-inch to a 10-inch to a full-length 12-inch from them."
According to the mission statement on the Real Vinyl MySpace page, "Our purpose is to educate member-artists in the often convoluted joys
of releasing vinyl albums, promotion, touring and protection of rights
as the artists careers develop."
Rogers won't say which bands Real Vinyl is working with except to say that they're all local and recognizable; he didn't confirm whether any or all of them are among the dozen or so local bands in the label's 21 MySpace friends.
Below are the lineups for the Chat Room's remaining shows.
10 p.m. Sunday, July 12, $5
Theater Fire, Good Night and Good Morning, more TBA
8 p.m. Saturday, July 18, $5
Ben Rogers Presents: My Birthday
A Metrognome Collective Benefit Show (All proceeds benefit Metrognome Collective)
Fight Bite, Akkolyte, Darktown Strutters, Eat Avery's Bones, The Great Tyrant, Personal Victories of George Quartz
9 p.m. Wednesday, July 29, $5
Orange Coax, Lychgate, Oicho Kabu