The Patio, Indianapolis Indiana

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Will SIbley on June 28, 2008 at 11:50am

I think alot of us could write novelettes about our Patio experiences. The shows - Minutemen, Robyn Hitchcock, Meat Puppets, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and all the others. Seeing our friends bands play and playing there ourselves. Green beer. All the craziness that went on in the small 'dressing room' and out front and back. But the best part was how easy it used to be to get into before I was 21. With a George Evanga special, we could all get in and begin to make memories (most of which, I have forgotten).

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John Scot Sheets on June 28, 2008 at 11:53am

I bought a Tee-shirt from Derrik Bostrom at the same Meat Puppets show Jyl mentioned that smelled like bug killer. Still have it!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by nora on June 28, 2008 at 4:42pm

this was first published in the Broad Ripple Gazette
my reveiw of the MFT show at the Patio 11.11.2005
I'll try to dig out the piece that I wrote about the closing of the Patio.

Review
Musical Family Tree Show
The Gizmos
Friday, November 11th
The Patio


I’m not sure that this is much of a show review, as the night was more of a trip down memory lane for me. The combination of knowing the Patio is closing and seeing the Gizmos brought back flashes of the times I’ve spent at the Patio.

I need to take you back to my musical formative years. Unlike most kids I did not grow up listening to music. We did not have a record player when I was young and we did not watch much television—my friend Aaron says I grew up a car and a light bulb from being Amish. My parents paid for some disastrous piano and guitar lessons, but I never connected with the music. If Nancy Drew wasn’t interested, neither was I.

I took my shy-farm-girl-self to Purdue. I remember sitting in my freshman dorm in 1980 and hearing that John Lennon had been killed, and I had no idea who he was. Then by virtue of typing a paper in a common room of the Student Union (I also went to college sans typewriter!), I met Chris Clark the newly elected president of the Purdue student body. Chris had run for president to promote his band, Dow Jones and the Industrials. They won by a landslide, the largest percentage of students to vote, ever. Apparently they needed an innocent looking person to get the checks signed for all of their fun events (there was an actual Department of Fun Stuff) by the Dean. Musically I went from zero to punk rock. The Gizmos and Dow Jones put out a record, Hoosier Hysteria, together that same year.

It was outstanding seeing Dale Lawrence and Billy Nightshade and the rest of the Gizmos being just as energetic and amazing now as they were twenty-five years ago. They played a great set including my favorites, Dead Astronauts, and their version of Take Me To The River. I came a close to dancing as I ever do!

It was great to see how many musicians were there, standing front and center paying homage to this great band of musical trailblazers.

For more information about Indiana bands and their history see www.musicialfamilytree.com. You can next see Dale Lawrence at the Patio, playing the last show, Saturday, November 26th.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by suade99 on June 29, 2008 at 9:24am

Chubby Wadsworth...

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steve "FRED" McMurray on June 30, 2008 at 5:25am

The Patio had a dressing room? I guess I was too busy swilling beer to notice.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by PJ Christie on June 30, 2008 at 9:22am

There are worse dressing rooms around, but for my money no reputable club in Indianapolis had a 'dressing room' as crappy as the Patio. If it was crowded it might take 7 minutes to get to the stage.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vess von Ruhtenberg on June 30, 2008 at 10:01am

A brief rant from the desk of Mr. Ruhtenberg:
I heard that the Patio opened in 1961. It was a horse barn before that. It used to have a terrible and small dressing room and a huge overpowered outdoor PA that sometimes sounded great but always loud. Now under the name Spin it has no dressing room and a new underpowered PA run by an amateur. Like the INB tower downtown or the new art museum, its hard to see things exist in a tortured, altered, and substandard state. Perhaps we should just tear these landmarks down as apposed to letting them limp down the road as victims of a terrible surgery that left them shadows of there former selves.
I like looking to the past, but if we don't watch out for the future our kids will play in crummy clubs, bank at deformed skyscrapers, and view our fine arts in buildings that look like freakin' housworks.
Winston Churchill said "We shape our buildings and then our buildings shape us." Look at the shape we are in. Remember, money is ugly and human, beautiful creation is Nature. Nature with a capitol N is God.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Heidi Gluck on June 30, 2008 at 10:28am

I do remember a Some Girls show where we attempted to hang out in the "dressing room" (closet), and a shelf fell down (hard) on Freda's head.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by PJ Christie on June 30, 2008 at 10:32am

I'm interested what the esteemed Mr. Ruhtenberg thinks of the restored facade on The Vogue?

My opinion is that it is a huge improvement and reveals how ugly the inside actually is.

But more to the subject at hand, I recall a recent MFT show I was working and the 'dressing room' was full of musicians who were not performing, but using it as, well I think everybody is aware what people use it as. But none of them were performing that night.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vess von Ruhtenberg on June 30, 2008 at 10:55am

Perfect example PJ. We all knew the Vogue as this curious looking white paneled building. We now know that it is actually a light yellow baked metal tile. Suddenly it looks like it should and can now be judged honestly. Its subtle art deco features have popped to life and the building doesn't strain to accommodate an alien skin. The opposite is true for the Regions/ INB tower. Undergoing its third remodeling of its curtain wall. It has long ago lost its marble and grey/blue glass cladding on the tower, an 80's style applique was added in the 90's (typical backwoods Indy) to "update" its "look". Now it is being skinned with a standard curtain wall system that has been boring eyeballs all over the world for 10 plus years. Curiously the plinth (the Parthenon like bottom) remains somewhat unchanged, a cruel reminder of what a fantastic building it once was. An architect friend of mine commented when shown the plans for the new tower sitting on the old lower floors, "Don't you just love the way the two designs hate each other?"
I shouldn't even get started, an I.M. Pei control tower was just torn down at the airport, now we have not one single building in Indianapolis by a major modernist.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by John P. Strohm on June 30, 2008 at 10:58am

I had some nice times at the Patio, some good shows - though it was risky to be too loud because those windows could be really reflective, even with a packed room. One time when we did the Hideout release party there Jake and I were walking past those apartments over by the canal. Some guys were sitting out on their porch drinking beer and listening to "Shine" from Hideout. I said "hey, man, that's our song, cheers" One of the guys jumped up and thumped my chest. "What the fuck did you say, asshole???" I then realized the song was playing on the radio. I said, "uh, nothing..." and got out of there fast.

What I want to hear about, however, was when Alanis Morrisette kicked Vess out of the dressing room. That's my favorite Patio story.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Vess von Ruhtenberg on June 30, 2008 at 11:06am

P.S. A favorite Patio moment was running sound on a Monday night in the late 80's at the Patio for the Smashing Pumpkins. I think 3 people paid. They were not very impressive. Even then! I also must have run sound for Guided by Voices dozens of times, I didn't like them much, they sounded like REM. Years later the United States Three scrapped our 4 track debut album and began recording in the studio because we discovered Guided by Voices 'new sound' was a lot like our own. Always hated the term lo-fi. It's either right or wrong, good or bad. But they scooped us good.

▶ Reply to This

▶ Reply to This

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4