“Never sleep you might miss something” – from ”A Modest History of the Fabulous Mermaid Lounge” CD

For nearly 70 years, the establishment at 1100 Constance Street functioned as Anthony’s Po-Boy Shop. After a brief stint as Debbie’s Down Under, it emerged as the beloved Mermaid Lounge, under the direction  of partners Brendan Gallagher, Jeff Treffinger, Par Cronin, Tom Ellis, Johnny McCollum, Kenny Claiborne, Pete McHugh and Clint Montz. On a recent morning, with voices competing against a thousand dump trucks, Brendan (who does the club’s booking), Jeff (who commands the Mermaid’s recording studio) and Pat (the stalwart night manager) explained their basic philosophy, commencing with some directions for those patrons still scratching their heads over where the place is. Pat: Locals have a harder time getting here than out-of-towners. Locals say, “You can’t get there that way” and I say, “Believe me-you can. Take a left on Annunciation and you’ll get here.” The locals say, “Can’t be done.” They argue with you.

Brendan: We wanted to have a music place from the beginning. We were kind of thinking it would also be a neighborhood bar but as things fell out, music was the only thing that really made sense. There wasn’t a neighborhood at the time-the Cotton Mill Apartments didn’t exist then. You could lie down on the road out there all night long and no one would hit you.

We realized what side our bread was buttered on and we decided to only do the music thing. We changed the place to make it more efficient for what we wanted to do. We got rid of any kind of pretense of being anything but a music club. Most nights, there are not even tables and chairs in here-just the stools. Many nights, there’s not even the stools. It’s just a room for music.

Jeff: We’ve had to do reasonable technological adjustments to deal with the fact that we’ve got people sleeping 30 feet away from our stage. The best part of it is that it hasn’t changed the nature of the place. It doesn’t feel any different than it did with the exception of the corner door being open.

Brendan: We really don’t want to find a niche. We’re getting older than a lot of the bands we book. Someone in town has to do ~Q this-someone g: has to help ~ these bands. i There’s got to be a place for people who are just starting bands-especially in this town. I’m always amazed at these kids coming out of the UNO and Loyola jazz programs who form bands. They want to play and we give them a chance and the next thing you know, they’re Galactic.

Jeff: When we first started in ’94, there was a really happening rock scene-Burn Version, Evil Nurse Sheila!, Lump. Then the young local rock scene grew up, went away, got married. You try to book from what’s happening and when it ain’t happening, you have to invent. We would have battles of the bands, we’d have film in here. The booking policy has always been it’s not any one group’s place. On any given week, you can get 18 year-olds here seeing some punk band and 50 year-old people seeing Li’l Band 0′ Gold.

Pat: We like all kinds of music and it goes through a lot of ears. We sometimes have incredible surprises.

Jeff: The studio was an outcrop of an afternoon talk. Pat brought up the fact that a lot of these record labels in the ’40s and ’50s were operating out of barrooms and it seemed like a cool notion. I’ve done a lot of recording. Essentially what we did was build a Studio about the size of the rear of a van parked in that office, which allows us to do both live recordings in the evening and studio work in the off hours.

We got a lot of business initially from bands doing demos. Royal Fingerbowl did their first demo here and four cuts of that ended up on their record. The Iguanas and Better Than Ezra did demos here. Possibly the last live recording by Carl Perkins was done here. We did a release party for him here and shordy thereafter, he fell ill. The idea of the studio is also to document what goes on here, which is quite eclectic.

We’re standing to do live CDs-the New World Funk Ensemble is the first one. People ate given the opportunity to purchase the CD the night of the show-they get on the mailing list. We only make as many as we need so every copy we make is sold. We can press 10 at a time. We have a very simple relationship with the bands. When they go on the road, they contact us and get, say, 20 copies of their CD. They sell them for more than they bought them for and they make a profit. We anticipate doing two or three new CDs a year. We’d like to do Egg Yolk Jubilee next.

Brendan: It’s surprising how regardless of what the band is-hard rock band or whatever-people are incredibly well-behaved and civilized. When I was in college, the bathrooms in bars kids would just destroy them. Here, the people are really good. Very seldom do we have a broken borde.

Pat: I hardly ever have to throw anybody out.

Brendan: Even the graffiti is benign. It’s not just “Fuck You” or something. It usually says “Love Thy Neighbor” or something.

Pat: No, it’s usually something that’s supposed to be clever. It’s kind of an artsy bunch that comes here. They’re more inclined to be introspective. They come here to see bands. They don’t come here to get plastered. It’s not a group of people just dying to have their minds erased.

Jeff: I remember when they had one of the first art nights and I was tending bar and this very well dressed woman comes up and she said, ‘it’ll have a Galliano Fizz.” I said, ”I’m sorry-we don’t have Galliano. Anything else?” She goes, ‘Tll have Drambuie, creme de menthe and something else.” I looked her right in the eye and said, “Okay, for a moment, pretend you’re an alcoholic and you live in a trailer. What are you drinking?” She says, “I’ll have a Screwdriver.”

Pat: It’s evident to all of us that we’re fulfilling a function. People still come to us and say can we do this and they have a pretty good idea we’ll probably say yes. We’ve had trapeze people, circuses. If people approach us with something and they think they can pull it off and it doesn’t look like anybody’s going to be hurt, we’ll do it.

The big deal, I’ve always thought, is that this is kind of like a vessel for other people’s ideas. We’re not that selfish about what we intend. If somebody comes in with real enthusiasm, it’s infectious and we say okay-that’s fine. We’re known as the people to hit up.