Mikey's Juke Joint joins growing list of Calgary live music venues to close

Mikey'sJuke Joint is out of jam sessions.

Mike Clark, who owns the 10th Avenue S.W. bar, is shutting down the room, which was a Calgary live music hub for more than a decade.

In a Friday interview on the Calgary Eyeopener, Clark said a perfect storm of problems had conspired to cause the shutdown, including high rent, wages, taxesand soft weekend crowds.

"I'm not making the landlordout to be the bad guy," he said. "The rent was pretty high [but] when I started it 10 years ago, fees for taxes used to be$800 a year. Now they're $3,000 a year.

"Wages have gone up, from [the] $10 an hour I was paying staff a couple years back. Now they're going tobe $15 an hour.

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"It's real tough out there to make a go of it. It's oneof those things where we needed to be packed to make a go of it and that's tough."

Earlier this month, it was announced that the Nite Owl and Distortion, two other Calgary live music venues, were shutting down.

A little over a year ago, Wine-Ohs, another live music venue that hosted artists such as Ian Tyson and Tom Cochrane, shut its doors.

• 'It was a special place': Wine-Ohs to close in downtown Calgary

Second location

Clark opened a second location, Mikey's on 12th, in 2017. He is migrating some of his musical regulars and old friends like guitarist Steve Pineoover to the Beltline venue (91812th Ave. S.W.), where he hopes they will draw fans.

"He's been doing Monday nights, so he's goingtomove that show over. Basically all our weekday shows from the Juke Joint are going to move over to 12th.

"Those were our best part of the Juke Joint lately [they drew]the biggest crowds so we're going tomove those over, and the weekends weren't very strong, but they're strong on 12th Avenue, so hopefully we can make it go [on 12th]."

Tough times for music venues

Clark says the closings are reflective of a challenging environment for the entire Calgary hospitality industry.

"It's always a tough time for music venues,"he said. "And for the restaurantbusinessright now it's not only the music venues going down, but lots ofdifferent restaurantsand bars have been shutting their doors.

"Taxes andwages andthose kind of things arethe biggest problem there. I don't think it's just music venues," he said.

"The overhead in running a music venue is always pretty small," he added. "You [have] got todo it becauseyou love it."

What will Clark miss most about hisjuke joint?

"The intimacy," he said.

"Over 10 years, it becomes a family. I hope a lot of people who were our regulars will come over and hang out at 12th.

"It's the people that make the place, right? We have a lot of our staff who are moving over as well."

Calgary singer-songwriter Tom Phillips will perform the final show at Mikey'sJuke Joint on Sunday afternoon.

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With files from theCalgary Eyeopener.