independent venues
Concert Venues Are Still Closing After the Pandemic — My Local Club Just Shut Down
DENVER — Tennyson’s Tap was the kind of music club where, on packed nights, the lone frazzled employee serving drinks, running sound and manning the door might ask one of the bands to help out and collect the $5 cover charge. I know because I sang in one of those bands, Smaldone Faces, and our bassist Luke and I pretty much let everyone in for free. The Tap, at 4335 W. 38th St. in Denver, specialized in whiskey and scruffy musicians of every conceivable genre — my two bands that played there did country, punk and metal covers, and we opened for screamo indie-rockers, jazzy improvisationalists and dreadlocked funk-and-reggae combos. The bar smelled like cigarettes and beer, and had a capacity of about 90, but when we drew our crowds of 20 or 30 people, it roared like Springsteen at the Roxy...
