As more and more money flows into Brooklyn nightlife spots, you get more and more giant dance clubs and less quirky art spaces. This is a shame, and while there’s always another opportunity around the corner to open a DIY venue, ones that stick around awhile establish character and charm. Like Goodbye Blue Monday, which has been around since 2005 and has admirably stuck to its mission of open booking and free shows. Now they need to pay for renovations and upkeep and have launched an Indie Gogo campaign seeking donations to help pay for it.
The venue has come a long way from a place that was only serving tallboys of Ballantine and had shelves of books everywhere that always looked ready to fall apart every time you went in. They’ve hosted a wide range of events, from bands’ first shows to visits from established acts like the Mountain Goats to weirder community events like the Bushwick Book Club. The whole time, even when adding tap beer, food and fixing up the deck in the back, the events there have remained free, and anyone can get booked there, as long as the date on their calendar has an opening. If you’ve never been there, The Observer has a good appreciation of the space and its ethos by a former employee.
The fundraising campaign they’ve got going is looking for money to install a real air conditioning and heating system, a second bathroom (they’ve had one the entire time they’ve been open) and fix up the storefront and entrance. Which, will hopefully still be charmingly ramshackle when they get through with it. Spaces like Goodbye Blue Monday don’t come along every day, so it’d be a same to see this go, especially since it would be in part because they were always willing to take a chance on a band, any band, that was willing to play. That, and if it closes, the storefront will probably end up being a fucking Subway.
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the headline is wrong because Goodbye Blue Monday isn’t in threat of closing, they simply need renovations…
instead of ” Help /Bushwick OG Goodbye Blue Monday stay open”
it should be: “Help Bushwick OG Goodbye Blue Monday stay Cool”
– get it? cuz the indie go go will pay for a/c? yeah….
actually, they’re having more serious money problems than the video made it seem.
please help support gbm, there’s nothing else like it in ny anymore!