Dear Club 770: You are ridiculous. Your ceiling sometimes sits too low over your stage. You get cramped easily. You smell funny and have all the natural acoustics of a K-Mart bathroom. And you're not even a real club: You're a cafeteria in Union South. Despite what a silly pain in the ass you are, Decider will miss visting you at your inconvenient location once UW rips you down to replace you with a new building, which is slated to include a new, more music-appropriate venue.
In recent years, the Wisconsin Union Directorate and its Music Committee have fashioned Club 770 as its go-to space for "cutting-edge" music, be that indie-rap, middle-of-the-road indie-rock, or downright daring, experimental stuff. Those of us who actually go there have developed a sort of affection for the weird little space and its (usually free) shows. No Age recently tore the place up, Ted Leo And The Pharmacists played a great set there last April, and Girl Talk and Man Man gave us a batshit-crazy good time there last March. And Decider is kicking itself for missing 770's Parts And Labor show this past April. The place even hosted some notable punk, metal, and hardcore shows in its time, and rapper Brother Ali filled it up during 2006's Madison Pop Fest.
Still, the Union's own website proclaims Union South "is underutilized because students feel the building is cold, sterile, and uninviting," so maybe it's time for an improvement. On Friday, local DJs Nick Nice, Mike Carlson, Wyatt Agard, and Cykophuk bid 770 farewell at the "Wrecking Ball" dance party. But it sounds like Madison show-goers will have one last chance to see local bands on Club 770's stage (and, if said bands are the least bit careless, that makes one last chance to see people hit their heads on that low ceiling). Saturday's Action In Sudan benefit show, featuring local band This Bright Apocalypse and Chicago power trio The Interiors, has just been moved from the Mercury Lounge to this loveably unsuitable venue.
UW plans to tear down Union South in February and open a new building in Spring 2011, which means the WUD Music folks will need to find some different spaces to work with for a few years. To that end, Music Committee Director Amy Sawyers says they'll be working with the Majestic Theatre's owner-promoters and the West Washington Avenue location of Electric Earth. Nothing's confirmed yet, but there's at least one promising Union-Majestic show in the works for February. (Disclosure: The Onion is a WUD media sponsor and I curate a summer concert series at the Union.)
Care to reminisce a little more? Feel free to leave your Club 770 memories in the comments, or just check out local concert-vlogger Aaron Veenstra's footage of Of Montreal playing the club not so very long ago:
Joe Engle
Minneapolis punks Dillinger Four played Club 770 in February 2008.
