The reins of power-well, of ownership at least-over Club Lower Links, the dank and inimitable performance art capital of this corner of the universe, passed from Leigh Jones to a coterie of five performance mavens last week. The future`s so bright, they said, that they gotta wear spurs.
”Urban cowboy bar,” joked Chrissie Hynde-lookalike Laura Zasada.
”Roller derby,” offered Kent Raistrick, his cap and brain askew. ”We just felt it was a need in the community that needs to be filled, and we`re filling it. Roller derby.”
A more skewed bunch is difficult to imagine: in addition to Zasada, already an owner of Crash Palace, and Raistrick, there`s Lydia Tomkiw and Katherine Chronis, performance artists both, and Daniel Howie, not a performer himself but an avid fan who promises ”to make this bar user-friendly.”
Added Tomkiw, flower in her hair and stars in her eyes, ”Both audience-friendly and performer-friendly.”
Last week`s molting party, wherein Jones exited with a song and a beehive hairdo after more than three years as owner, busperson and everything in-between, signaled the end of Lower Links` first incarnation, as the low-rent, skin-of-our-teeth home to out-there artists. On Sept. 1, the club, at 954 W. Newport St., emerges from its chrysalis with a song in its heart and new dreams to fulfill.
Its second coming signals that performance art in Chicago remains very much alive, unlike, some would say, contemporary visual art, which has seen its fortunes decline and galleries fail of late as the art market takes its lumps. Performance, while allied with visual art, has remained a resolutely non-commercial activity for the most part (despite high-profile folks such as Spalding Gray and John Leguizamo).
Lower Links is one of the very few commercial venues that books mostly performance artists. Non-profit galleries such as N.A.M.E. and Randolph Street Gallery provide much of the balance of opportunities for performers, but the galleries` non-profit status is intended to insulate them from the vagaries of the marketplace.
Still, there`s something to be said for ambience, and Lower Links has oodles of that.
”It`s a fantasy,” said Zasada. ”It`s dark, no windows, totally insulated from the outside world.” All five of the new owners conceded that running Lower Links is indeed a ”dream come true.”
Said Tomkiw, with a faraway look, ”I remember the first time I walked into this place. I walked down the stairs, and my eyes slowly adjusted, and I remember, it felt like home. And I would dream sometimes of being a part of this place.” One has to wonder: Where did she grow up, the Bat-Cave?
Said Raistrick, ”We have some very big shoes to fill. We`re basically going to be extrapolating from what Leigh`s been doing.” Current plans include going back to the club`s original seven-nights-a-week schedule-perhaps not with performances each night, but open as a place to unwind.
”We`re going to try a lot of different things but our concentration is still going to be performance art,” Raistrick said. ”We`ll be open seven nights a week, and we want people to be able to come and just hang out with likeminded people and relax on some nights.”
Like Jones, the group wants to throw local, national, even some international performers into the mix. Some bookings are already set, said Tomkiw.
”I`m sort of overseeing programming,” she said. ”Why me? I don`t know.”
”Low woman on the totem pole,” explained Zasada, with a laugh.
”She got the short straw,” said Raistrick.
Unfazed, Tomkiw pointed out that she has ”worked in arts programming before for various not-for-profit organizations. Of course, this is not a not- for-profit operation.”
Jones might find that characterization amusing; after all, this is a woman who scraped and scuffled daily to pay the bills and was able to pay herself only occasionally until recently. It may have been too much for one person to handle, and Jones has conceded that the financial grind played a big part in her decision to move on.
For Tomkiw, ”The challenge will be to translate what I know to a more business-like atmosphere,” she said. ”We`d all like to continue the spirit of this place in terms of programming, booking bands and acts and performers that might not have a home in the traditional club or theater scene in Chicago.”
Raistrick added, ”We hope to bring a lot of new people in, too, because we know there`s a lot of untapped talent out there. But we`re going to maintain a pretty tight stage: no open mikes, for example.”
For now, this hole-in-the-ground cedes the rest of Wrigleyville to the Other: namely, Cub fans, their sometimes-sodden opposite numbers. Come September though, look out; pennant drive or not, the Lower Links dream lives. ”We have to run a successful business, and we`re really committed to it,” said Raistrick. ”But there is definitely some romance involved here.”
