The recently-opened Club Underground provides a new dance space for Athenians. It is in the basement of Red Brick.
When one thinks of Athens bars, a bumping underground club doesn’t usually come to mind.
But for organizers of Club Underground, now occupying the basement of Red Brick Tavern, 14 N. Court St., the lack of a dance music space Uptown presented an opportunity to bring a new kind of atmosphere to Athens.
The basement was renovated into a club by Athenian Vision, a collaborative group of artists that tries to provide opportunities for local artists.
“There’s a lot of mixed feelings about Red Brick,” said Cas Galiszewski, one of the founders of Athenian Vision and a senior studying sculpture and expanded practices. “We’re trying to help (Red Brick) get their name re-invigorated and a chance for Athenian Vision to bring new life (to the bar) .... They’ve been gracious in providing us budgets to pay for bigger nights where we’re going to bring in a big crowd. They’ve been willing to provide startup costs to help us reinvigorate it for them.”
The group’s first project was painting the basement, which they did several weeks ago. They also took out all of the booths in the basement which allows for the group to get a larger interaction from the audience at shows.
“We already took out all the booths so it’s standing room only. It was kind of just an experiment at first, to make the space look bigger,” Galiszewski said. “It worked in the sense of making people dance more instead of just sitting down and drinking. It’s a club, so the first priority is to get people down there, provide a space to dance and enjoy music. … We’re definitely going to be providing a water tank (in the future) for people who don’t want to drink.”
With the addition of Club Underground, there has been a notable change in people walking in Red Brick’s doors. Josh Lewis, who began working at Red Brick as a Saturday night DJ about a month before Club Underground began, said he’s already noticed a large difference in the type of crowd the bar is bringing in.
“Once you step downstairs, it’s completely different,” he said.
Currently, he is in charge of booking for the venue. “I’ll walk in at 6 or 7 p.m. and I’ll see one of my friends at the bar…. It’s definitely different and I haven’t seen anything in Athens like (Club Underground).”
While a large portion of the music will be DJs, on Friday nights Lewis said he plans on booking live bands that will be everything from punk rock to a Rage Against The Machine cover act.
While the events currently are primarily music-based, the group has plans for other uses in the future.
“Since the space is not occupied on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, we have the right to use it,” Galiszewski said. “We’ve talked about that as a potential spot to host some other forms of events… yoga, meditation, other kinds of horizon-expanding experiences — especially for people who haven’t experienced those types of things before.”
Galiszewski said he’s hoping to provide a space for those that frequented The Union that will be different than what the typical Red Brick visitors would expect.
“We’re going to be going off the same energy that the Union tried to provide,” he said. “We provide the space and the open crowd, which is going to be tricky to bring that open crowd to Red Brick. But we’re going to push it and push it.”
Recently, the group hosted a benefit for those who were affected by the Union Street fire.
The venues next upcoming event is The Battle of the Beatmakers, where local DJs will perform and compete for a spot to open for Kaminanda, a nationally recognized act, who will appear at Club Underground on Jan. 16 as part of a pre-party for the local music event Hoopla in the Hills. This event is being co-hosted by A-Town Roots Productions.
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