Happy Birthday, Lounge Lizards

Friday night’s lineup offers acts who’d probably take Stereogum’s love over Spin magazine’s any day: among them, pop-rock stalwarts The Carter Administration and garage-rock blasters The Clutters, quirk-synth mainstays How I Became the Bomb and ’60s pop students Eureka Gold. Some of the bands on Saturday night’s bill have possibly never even heard of Stereogum: muscular Southern rockers American Bang, Killers-friendly AutoVaughn and modern-rock devotees Luna Halo. Ironically, while the latter groups haven’t gotten as much critical love, any one of those acts’ draws easily meets or dwarfs the crowd it would take three of the Friday night bands to attract together. But hey, that’s America, and like America, our rock scene offers an embarrassment of riches.

These shrewdly booked bills are also indicative of what’s made Mercy Lounge such a success these past few years. The 500-capacity club has managed to accomplish what most clubs would hawk their fire sprinklers for: a regular draw with a diverse crowd, often no matter who’s playing. That’s partly due to the club’s basic design. At most venues, you’re a hostage to the music for a few hours, then the fluorescent lights flip on and you’re gently herded out into the night. But Mercy, with a back room offering a second bar and pool tables and an outdoor balcony that muffles shitty bands, is the rare venue that fosters easy socializing alongside live music. Or as booker John Bruton puts it, the design means there’s “no rush after the show to make customers leave.”

And the booking offers a handy lesson in how a club in a tertiary market can stay afloat. They book everything from unknowns to Unknown Hinson, indie rock buzz acts such as Of Montreal and Ratatat, Panty Raid’s burlesque show, jam bands, cover bands, live band karaoke and dance parties.

Sure, since the smoking ban, some of us have been a little less enamored of clubgoing. (Bruton says that national shows haven’t lost attendance over it, though some local shows have suffered.) And that $3 parking lot fee took at least one beer off our buzz, but that’s a small price to pay for a club that has the guts to favor bands over troubadours in a town drowning in singer-songwriter drool. So thanks for five years of hangovers, good bands, easy escapes and early signs of tinnitus, Mercy Lounge. This shot of Jack’s on us.