Chelsie’s

Chelsie’s was a semi-legendary rock club once located at 980 N. High Street. I only had the pleasure of checking out this establishment once, which would have been in the fall of ’97. You kind of feel guilty sometimes about not patronizing certain establishments more – or even never getting around to checking them out at all – but the reality is that our time and our money are both precious resources and it’s just impossible to cram in everything we would like.

Anyway, if my notes are correct, this would have been a Friday, September 19, 1997. Whatever the case, the band on tap that night would be Watershed, whom I had seen one other night back in ’95. But I don’t know what band we’re going to see, because my tour guide, so to speak, Clif, can’t remember the name of the group. All he knows is that his coworker at B Street, Colin, is playing here tonight. And I don’t know enough about Watershed at the time to put 2 and 2 together.

We park on this residential street a block east of High and walk to the club. The air is warm for the season and almost spookily still, perfect for a stroll as we make our way to that main thoroughfare. Neither of us know the precise location of the bar, however, Chelsie’s, and didn’t think to do a drive by before parking, thus we’re not sure in which direction to walk from here. We ask this elderly black gentleman hanging out at this particular corner if he’s ever heard of the place, and he hands us both his business card. It turns out he’s a preacher at this ministry a few blocks south of here, one which serves free food for anyone who will sit through a sermon. Considering the outrageousness of our current lifestyle, there’s no telling what kind of dire straits I might find myself in this week or the next, so I thank him, tuck his card inside my wallet. But no, he hasn’t heard of this place, either.

With a shrug, we decide to head south, and sure enough hit paydirt soon enough. We have found the club, and its requisite surly doorman, both standing tall amidst a number of trendy looking art galleries which have shuttered for the evening, along with a handful of other bars peppering this region.

“Eight dollars?” I gasp, “these guys better be pretty fucking good.”

“No shit,” Clif agrees.

Then I spot the name on the bill, and this elicits a knowing chuckle: Watershed. Clif asks me what’s so funny, and I explain that I had seen these guys a couple of years ago, but went home after 3 songs. This would have been at the Blitzfest or whatever it was called, a free show held at Polaris in the summer of ’95. They were the headliners and it had been a long day, so my impression of that experience probably doesn’t reflect on them. My girlfriend at the time, Heather, never showed up – we were going through a rough patch which pretty much ended up being the final patch – so I said screw it and drove down alone. I remember the Nixons played earlier, hot on the coattails of their only hit, and also a ton of local bands who weren’t very good, and that Suzi Waud, at the time the most popular DJ in town, came onstage to say a few things, and that this was maybe the highlight of the day. By the time Watershed appeared, as the last act of the night, I’d heard enough a few tunes into their set and decided to pack it in. I didn’t realize at the time that they were signed to a major label. Clearly they were a bigger deal than the Nixons, but it was hard to have perspective on them in some respect because they were local.

The long, battle scarred bar sits perpendicular to the door and runs nearly the length of this cramped establishment, filled to the brim with bodies. Nonetheless we manage to secure a couple of bottled beers, as I scan my eyes around the room and try to appraise this place. The atmosphere here reminds me of Ruby Tuesday, albeit on a much bigger scale. Even so, I’m not entirely thrilled by what Chelsie’s has to offer, and the hefty admission ranks among the least of my concerns. Despite a back door swinging wide open this decrepit joint has the worst ventilation of all time, as we’re dripping sweat in buckets. A massive elevated stage lines the rear wall, which the bands assuredly love, and does indeed make them appear lordly, yet most clubs hosting groups of this caliber would never risk doing so in such limited space. The phrase fire hazard was specifically created for settings such as this, with scores of people wedged elbow to elbow, the friction between us incendiary enough to shoot sparks on its own.

Call this a scaled down model of campus as a whole. Alluring and terrible at the same time, full of dogeared charm. When I look back on this era years down the road I know that this is how I’ll see it, dark and cramped and loud, perspiration extruding from every pore, off to meet a group of individuals we may never intersect at all. Nights like disjointed limbs, impossible to stitch together again in any functional matter, where so much changes on an hourly basis you forget why you left the house to begin with. Courses changing direction as quickly as the Midwestern wind, alliances plotted, names learned and then forgotten, romances that bloom and wither in the space of one tumultuous evening. And everywhere, everywhere, there are no strangers left, because from one end of this city to another we’re all friends already and our futures are plotted but we’re not tuned in enough to grasp this, the import of these adventures escapes our meager minds.

Almost as a matter of magnetic propulsion, we’re pushed out onto the back patio, where we run into a handful of Clif’s friends. This auburn haired, extremely talkative and somewhat amusing Joe character I remember meeting before is yukking it up with some folks, and also milling around is this wholesome set of twins who look as though they’ve teleported here from a 1950s sitcom. A drop dead gorgeous blonde named Laura whose hate filled scowl is fiery enough to blister paint on the surface of nearby buildings, and her slick, smiling boyfriend with immaculately groomed jet black hair. Some guy named Johnny, some chick named Amy, too, but these are just faceless names, blank slates whose personas never extend beyond this moment of introductory hellos.

Meeting folks through Clif is a curious affair because he clearly knows a lot of people, although I do question how well. The plain looking twins, with their short, sandy colored hair seem genuinely pleased by his arrival, but elsewhere he registers few blips on the radar. So I’m left wondering if these individuals are always this nonchalant, or whether he’s around so much it’s no big deal, or else they’re simply shocked that he appeared down here. Introducing me it goes without saying rates even lower and the prevalent reaction is disinterest, as if wondering why Clif is even bothering at all.

When the headliners we’ve coalesced to support are ready to go on, as one nearly unified mass we reenter the building, needle our way through the dense foliage of bodies near the stage. And the instant this power trio dives into their first number, it becomes apparent that either my tastes have changed or they’ve gotten a whole lot better. Probably a combination of both, in fact. Two summers earlier when I saw them, Watershed were signed to Epic Records, a major label for whom they’d cut a couple releases, and they were playing for a crowd of ten thousand. So while tonight’s paid attendance might pale in comparison, Chelsie’s is packed to the rafters, nonetheless, and they’re making up the difference in sheer quality of performance, they’ve come a long way.

Colin sings most of the songs, and there’s something of a dapper British gentleman about his appearance – maybe a little Hugh Grant-ish, or Gavin Rossdale-esque, although really, I’ll tell you what he reminds me of, he reminds of Robert Smith from the Cure, if only he were 50 pounds lighter at a similar age and smiled as much as this guy does. More importantly, these quick little three minutes gems ring with hooks, the kind of catchy choruses less talented musicians sell their souls for. The guitar shimmers and the bass bounces and the drums snap out the beat with sharp, compressed ferocity, and there’s nary a wayward note played anywhere. What I envisioned as a favor to a friend has instead torn my ears apart, and when their set comes thundering to a halt forty five minutes later I feel as though they’ve not yet played a single song. And while I know a lot of musicians who dislike this term, dismissing it as not applicable to their own sound, the description power pop certainly fits Watershed, this generic umbrella nonetheless a weapon they’ve wielded like no other band I have seen live.

After the set, we ooze like gelatinous blobs onto the back patio again, the cool blast of fresh autumn air a form of life support that resuscitates our torpid shells. Colin buys Clif a beer for showing up, a kind reversal of the usual fandom role, and a positive vibe hangs in the breeze, as the band is clearly pleased with their performance, with the turnout and the money they’ve pulled in off the door. In addition to the frontman himself we meet their bassist, a gruff cat with shaved head also named Joe, and their drummer, Herb, and once our drinks are extinguished we all climb into separate vehicles, in pursuit of a party up on campus.

II.

One of my good friends was in Silo The Huskie and says they were supposed to play that memorable night in May of ’97 following the U2 show at the Horseshoe. But that the gig was scrapped when the owner showed up considerably late and torn off the frame drunk. He unlocked the doors long enough basically so that they could cart their gear back out of the place. I’ve also heard rumors about some benefit show where the employees actually used the proceeds for some big coke party instead of donating it to the stated cause – but these are rumors, mind you, only rumors. Let us dip, however, into what we can discover about the booking schedule at Chelsie’s. These aren’t confirmed dates that were played, but they were at least on the docket. I still have boxes upon boxes of old Alive! and The Other Paper weeklies that I will surely trawl through at some point for additional gigs. But this is the roll call so far, of other shows I’ve discovered beside this one:

1/18/95 – Edgar Winter

5/22/95 – Letters To Cleo

5/11/96 – Jorma Kaukonen

9/18/96 – Switchblade Symphony

12/6/96 – Goldfinger

4/16/97 – Lycia

4/25/97 – Bloodhound Gang

6/4/97 – Reel Big Fish

6/6/97 – Switchblade Symphony

7/17/97 – Lycia

8/13/97 – Iced Earth

10/10/97 – Merl Saunders

12/12/97 – Deicide

9/30/98 – The Outfield (local band The Shantee open)

10/19/99 – Melvin Seals

A healthy mix of local and national acts frequented the stage here, and these are only the most memorable names I could unearth. Ideally I would like to post the entire lifetime calendar for all of these places, down to the set lists. As far as what befell Chelsie’s, I’m not exactly sure, but seem to remember something in the papers about mismanagement – and the handful of first hand stories I’ve heard tend to corroborate this theory.