Survival of the Hippest

So many clubs in this city are founded exclusively on the premise of making some dough, and why not? The rent’s gotta be paid. But no one sheds a tear when they close down as quickly as they open. Too often, the venues were soulless to begin with, making little to no attempt to touch people’s hearts.

Ironically, Al’s Bar--the club that is the soul of Los Angeles--was indeed founded on the premise of making money. Its owner, Marc Kreisel, was looking for “a money pump,” a metaphor he employs when explaining the origins of his legendary night club.

A visual artist, Kreisel bought Al’s Bar in downtown Los Angeles in 1979 as a way to finance his artistic endeavors.

“I figured I could get my artist friends to come in and the money would go back into buying art or supporting a gallery,” says Kreisel, who fulfilled his vision by opening the adjacent American Gallery, as well as Al’s National Theatre Company and its own recording imprint. “It became quite a spawning ground.”

To say the least. In its nearly two-decade history, such artists as Ry Cooder, Wall of Voodoo, Los Lobos and Hole played weekly gigs at Al’s, and these names only scratch the surface. It’s also the venue where the rich go slumming, Al Pacino and Sean Penn among them, and where newcomers can feel at home, maybe even make a friend or two.

A physical inspection of the club itself clearly, reflects the difference between an artist as capitalist and all the business-as-usual nightclub investments.

Every inch of the three-room venue is covered with graffiti, band stickers, sharpie witticisms and lipstick convictions.

“That bar was so cute when I first opened the doors, so neat and tidy,” says Kreisel. “The artists came in and destroyed it. The musicians came in and destroyed it, so after awhile, I gave up. Al’s is a living example of the customers taking over the aesthetics.”

Although Al’s has seen a resurgence in business in recent months, something Kreisel credits to a hard-working booker named Toast and the fading memory of the L.A. riots, its proximity to downtown’s hardened skid row remains a sticking point for some.

“People don’t want to pull up and park with that guy with the shopping cart right there,” says Toast. “I’ll explain, ‘Oh that’s Frank, he makes bracelets, and they’re only a buck. They’re very nice.’ ”

In many respects, it’s remarkable that Al’s Bar is still around. Al’s survived disco, punk, glam, new wave, gothic, heavy metal, grunge and each resurgence thereof, while always remaining the home of all things underground. With its “Tip or Die” motto declared in neon above the bar, Al’s was the first place budding artists would be invited to perform and the first stage they’d return to after serving their 15 minutes.

“A lot of the music you hear at Al’s Bar is not ‘commercially viable,’ ” says Toast, who’s also a musician and currently drums with the Ray-O-Vacs. “But that makes it more appropriate.”

That ethos, combined with Al’s “play and get paid” policy, makes artists want to perform at Al’s Bar.

“I consider myself a working artist, so I can’t imagine not paying musicians,” says Kreisel, whose policy is to give the performers 70% of the profit taken in at the door. Which leads to another Al’s anomaly. No matter who you are, if you can afford to pay, you pay. “All the label execs and managers would pile up to the bar and tell me who they were. I’d say, ‘That’s fine, now pay up,’ ” says Kreisel. “Their faces would twist, but we had a responsibility to pay the bands.

“The difference between Al’s and every other club is we’re artist-oriented,” he adds. ‘We’re not so organized, we’re not so clean sometimes, but we try.”

Vive la difference.

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BE THERE

Al’s Bar, 305 S. Hewitt St., downtown, (213) 626-7213; 21 and over.