As the brains behind The Church, Dallas’ historic nomadic goth club since 1994, Nedler knows how to keep a nightclub thriving. For more than 30 years, the club's core output has been consistent: goth and industrial music, chains, leather and a no-holds-barred creative attitude.
But on Thursday night, Nedler pulled off a stunner by launching The Church’s first offshoot brand.
The result is CatPunk, named simply out of Nedler’s love of cats. The concept marks his newest venture, which focuses on early 2000s nu-metal and serves as the first alternative programming to fall under The Church’s banner. Its debut event was held June 5 at It’ll Do with no cover charge for the entire night and exclusive “cat tags” handed out to visitors.
For the uninitiated, The Church famously gives out limited quantities of branded dog tags, which exempt their wearer from paying the $10 cover charge for life. CatPunk’s tags will hold the same power and can be used at its events, as well as at The Church on Sundays.
“The Church has evolved since we moved to Elm Street,” Nedler says. “We have an entirely new generation of Church customers. We wanted to do another Church night, but I didn’t want to dilute or cannibalize The Church. I knew that if we did something different, half The Church customers would hate it and half The Church customers would love it. So we decided to create a new brand, and CatPunk it was.”
Nedler says there was a line around the block to get into It’ll Do before the 9 p.m. door time.
“I met a lot of people and asked ‘what brought you out?’” he explains. “They said ‘CatPunk.’ It was the music, the concept — they were excited about it.”
CatPunk followed the tradition of its sister concept, The Church, by beckoning top-notch looks.
Mark Kaplan
“I was a DJ before I was a club owner,” Nedler says. “So I approach everything from that perspective. The first thing I thought was that we’re going to base this on a nu-metal concept. I’m talking about bands like Filter, Faith No More, Tool and those type of bands, but we also knew that we could play bands like Butthole Surfers, She Wants Revenge, Slipknot, Disturbed and System of a Down.”
CatPunk is rooted in the music, of course, but Nedler is sure to stick to a theme that feels authentic to the club's spirit.
“We don’t want to use any gimmicks,” he says. “I don’t want to book any live bands.”
The room is due for an upgrade soon, though. Nedler told us about a brand new proprietary lighting system developed by designer Aaron Sanchez, which uses ACME Eyes strobes and is set to be installed by the end of the month.
“We book lighting operators like we book DJs,” Nedler says. “They play our lighting console like an instrument.”
It's too soon to declare if CatPunk will become a solidly planted clubbing destination for Dallas, but we wouldn’t bet against Nedler's ability to generate a nightlife institution in this city.
“One of the beautiful things about It’ll Do is the simplicity of it,” Nedler says. “It’s stripped down, no frills, like a dive bar on steroids.”
