sparkieg
02-05-2008, 03:50 AM
My friends - it's time I told the WHOLE story behind my former club employer The Red Rooster. It's been a long time coming, only because of so many aspects. Be advised, this a VERY long thread post, so if you don't have time to read it in one sitting, you may want to just bookmark it for a later read.
I'll preface the story with a history lesson:
The space that The Red Rooster occupied had been several nightclubs over the course of about 5 years previously, and yes, I did spin at those clubs several times. The previous owner of those clubs was a high school buddy and we played prep and high school football together, so it was just a natural progression that we worked together in later years.
His club closed in the same space, sometime in 2004, and was vacant for approximately 10 months before Marc Jacobs (the owner of The Red Rooster)rented it.
In October 2005, the country night club I was spinning for (Music City) was getting ready to close it's doors due to low attendance. I had worked for them since they opened in January of that year. Bad management decisions were to blame for the way the club was run and subsequently closed.
During September of 2005, I started hearing these really HOT radio ads for The Red Rooster. I decided to check it out one night with a friend that knew the owner, and the rest is pretty much history. I started working for him in Ocotber of 2005, and within a month and a half, we had the hottest club property in the entire region. This next sentence is not meant to sound elitist, but it is 100% truth. When I started in October, the average door tally per night was around 200 on both Friday and Saturday nights. By late November, the door tallys were pushing past the 600 number mark, and the owner said it was entirely because of me. (I choose to believe it was a combination of me, the location, the nightly drink specials and the in-your-face radio ads)
We enjoyed a great run of success, largely because we were offering a VERY different brand of entertainment that this city had never experienced before. We were the ONLY country music club within 30 miles and of the 4 clubs that did offer country music, we were the only one offering an Ultra Saloon atmosphere with state of the art L.E.D. and intelligent lighting, REALLY hot looking girls that teased the sex and skin element tastefully, and a music format that mixed new upbeat country, country-rock & Top 40, and as the night got later, the music got hipper and hotter.
In August 2006, a Wild Wing Cafe opened just up the street from our club and overnight just about transformed the nightlife landscape as we knew it.
Our door numbers went down the tubes, and the owner was forced to try new things to entice people to come back.
Before you read this next part of the story, please keep in mind that up until February of 2007, we had had almost zero problems with fights or disturbances - mostly we dealt with the manager of the BP convenience store next door to the strip shopping center where the club was located complaining about broken beer bottles in the parking lot, or drunks coming in from the club late at night buying sundries or gas. This was because of our clientele - and because our bouncers and staff employed a ZERO tolerance policy on disturbances.
Now, this is where the story turns VERY ugly -
On February 23rd 2007, Marc rented the club space out on a Thursday night to a promoter of a Rap concert that was only advertised to the two local black colleges in the area. I wasn't aware he had done this until breaking news stories started coming into the news studio around 630am that next morning about some disturbance on Jonestown road in Winston-Salem. I started thinking without knowing at the time, that that was awfully close to the club. As it turns out, a huge fight broke out inside the club after a song called "Shoot The Club Up" was played by the DJ and gang signs were flashed by those in attendance. The bouncers told the DJ to cut the song immediately, they turned on the lights and tried breaking up the fight that seemed to get larger and worse. The fight spilled into the parking lot, and the officers working security called for backup.
As this was going on, one of the first officers to respond to the call was a 15 year veteran of the force, and as he ran toward the club entrance thru the parking lot, a shot was fired in his direction and he was hit in the face. He died 23 hours later. More shots were fired as a large contingent of officers arrived to restore order.
This incident has had a detrimental effect on this community and served to make the race issue even worse than it already was.
I am including a link here so that you can read the stories written in the local paper before making comments.
The owner of the club has been the victim of a witch hunt by the city leaders and police department and he now stands as an emotionally and financially broken man.
Here is the link to the first story that ran the next day in the local paper:
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193358471
Please make sure you read thru ALL the stories before commenting. I would greatly appreciate it.
Marc is still and always will be a good friend.
Thanks for listening.
I'll preface the story with a history lesson:
The space that The Red Rooster occupied had been several nightclubs over the course of about 5 years previously, and yes, I did spin at those clubs several times. The previous owner of those clubs was a high school buddy and we played prep and high school football together, so it was just a natural progression that we worked together in later years.
His club closed in the same space, sometime in 2004, and was vacant for approximately 10 months before Marc Jacobs (the owner of The Red Rooster)rented it.
In October 2005, the country night club I was spinning for (Music City) was getting ready to close it's doors due to low attendance. I had worked for them since they opened in January of that year. Bad management decisions were to blame for the way the club was run and subsequently closed.
During September of 2005, I started hearing these really HOT radio ads for The Red Rooster. I decided to check it out one night with a friend that knew the owner, and the rest is pretty much history. I started working for him in Ocotber of 2005, and within a month and a half, we had the hottest club property in the entire region. This next sentence is not meant to sound elitist, but it is 100% truth. When I started in October, the average door tally per night was around 200 on both Friday and Saturday nights. By late November, the door tallys were pushing past the 600 number mark, and the owner said it was entirely because of me. (I choose to believe it was a combination of me, the location, the nightly drink specials and the in-your-face radio ads)
We enjoyed a great run of success, largely because we were offering a VERY different brand of entertainment that this city had never experienced before. We were the ONLY country music club within 30 miles and of the 4 clubs that did offer country music, we were the only one offering an Ultra Saloon atmosphere with state of the art L.E.D. and intelligent lighting, REALLY hot looking girls that teased the sex and skin element tastefully, and a music format that mixed new upbeat country, country-rock & Top 40, and as the night got later, the music got hipper and hotter.
In August 2006, a Wild Wing Cafe opened just up the street from our club and overnight just about transformed the nightlife landscape as we knew it.
Our door numbers went down the tubes, and the owner was forced to try new things to entice people to come back.
Before you read this next part of the story, please keep in mind that up until February of 2007, we had had almost zero problems with fights or disturbances - mostly we dealt with the manager of the BP convenience store next door to the strip shopping center where the club was located complaining about broken beer bottles in the parking lot, or drunks coming in from the club late at night buying sundries or gas. This was because of our clientele - and because our bouncers and staff employed a ZERO tolerance policy on disturbances.
Now, this is where the story turns VERY ugly -
On February 23rd 2007, Marc rented the club space out on a Thursday night to a promoter of a Rap concert that was only advertised to the two local black colleges in the area. I wasn't aware he had done this until breaking news stories started coming into the news studio around 630am that next morning about some disturbance on Jonestown road in Winston-Salem. I started thinking without knowing at the time, that that was awfully close to the club. As it turns out, a huge fight broke out inside the club after a song called "Shoot The Club Up" was played by the DJ and gang signs were flashed by those in attendance. The bouncers told the DJ to cut the song immediately, they turned on the lights and tried breaking up the fight that seemed to get larger and worse. The fight spilled into the parking lot, and the officers working security called for backup.
As this was going on, one of the first officers to respond to the call was a 15 year veteran of the force, and as he ran toward the club entrance thru the parking lot, a shot was fired in his direction and he was hit in the face. He died 23 hours later. More shots were fired as a large contingent of officers arrived to restore order.
This incident has had a detrimental effect on this community and served to make the race issue even worse than it already was.
I am including a link here so that you can read the stories written in the local paper before making comments.
The owner of the club has been the victim of a witch hunt by the city leaders and police department and he now stands as an emotionally and financially broken man.
Here is the link to the first story that ran the next day in the local paper:
http://www.journalnow.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WSJ%2FMGArticle%2FWSJ_BasicArti cle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149193358471
Please make sure you read thru ALL the stories before commenting. I would greatly appreciate it.
Marc is still and always will be a good friend.
Thanks for listening.