On Friday, the Gypsy Tea Room's bankruptcy case, which had been sitting in U.S. District Judge Harlin DeWayne Hale's courtroom since October 2005, was dismissed after all parties agreed to make it go away. What does that mean, precisely? Well, says one attorney representing a creditor owed money, "the debtor has abandonded reorganization plans." In plain English, that means the Gypsy Tea Room has stopped trying to fight Chapter 11 and given in to the inevitable: At some point in the near future, the best live music venue in town for the past several years will close.
Gypsy Tea Room owner Whit Meyers, who in the past year has had to shutter Trees, Jeroboam and the Green Room, will offer no comment on the subject this morning. But ever since Monday, stories about the club's demise have been circulating throughout Deep Ellum. Unfair Park got several calls and e-mails about it this morning alone. Nothing remains secret for long in this town.
The club will remain open till at least March 31, if not longer. Austin-based Charles Attal Presents, which puts on the Austin City Limits festival and books Stubb's Bar-B-Q and La Zona Rosa in Austin, has shows placed in the Tea Room past that date. Should the Gypsy and its landlord (Westdale) and the Internal Revenue Service and the state comptroller and the other tax authorities to whom the Gypsy owes some $90,000 come to an agreement, it may well remain open into April, if not longer. (There's a TV on the Radio show booked for April 4, with Ted Leo scheduled two night later.) But Charles Attal Presents, which has booked the Gypsy for five years, is already moving on: In November, it signed a deal to book acts into and consult for the new House of Blues in Victory Park, which is expected to open in May.
In the meantime, run, do not walk, to the Gypsy Tea Room, which still has an excellent calendar in place. The Roots will be there in a few weeks, as will Gomez, Deerhoof, Andrew Bird and the Strokes' Albert Hammond Jr. If nothing else, it will not go quietly into that good night. --Robert Wilonsky
