You are right about one thing for sure, Bob. The scene WE knew in the 80s is dead and gone.

We used to have clubs here known as Spanky's east and west, Cyrus Erie, Hullabaloo, The Corral, The Stables, The Plato, farther back was The Cat's Meow, Leo's Casino.... the Cleveland Agora when it was really "The Agora" (The Agora now is a converted movie theater.), another in Akron, another in Youngstown.

Those were music clubs. BIG rooms that were meant for music. Those are all gone. What we have now is restaurants and a handful of bars who also serve food but only in the sense of true bar food. Those restaurants are really rough to play for because they want to turn that table ONE last time and in most cases you can't get in to set up until 7, and god forbid if you start one minute later than 9pm sharp.

There are some places that are mainly music rooms but very few. 1/2 are in the neighborhood bar class that are okay to play in but it's still a bar gig. Now, that being said, if you are after bar gigs, there's your rooms right there. For the bands that don't care to try writing anything original, and that isn't me but I do not disrespect those who choose to go that path, there are places to play that will at least make it worth your effort.

We have a web page here that lists the entertainment calendar. To look at the list it looks like a LOT of opportunity. Until you apply the local knowledge. For privacy I won't print the list but to look at at, I immediately see 22 of the bands listed as being made up of people in other bands who I can tell you do not rehearse at all with the lineup that will be playing. That will be a whole night of Stones, Skynard..... easy 3 chord stuff that can be stretched with long solos so they can get away with less songs per night by making them last 8 minutes each.

Then you have the folkie scene. Some decent places to play as far as who goes there, but bands in that genre may draw 40 people on a good night. The Barking Spider is the best example of that. No cover and they pass a bucket to pay the bands.

The ones you mentioned I will mention one at a time, Brothers is a nice room. The main room has a great house sound system. They get the better cover bands. It's in a good area as far as being fairly sure your car will be there when you leave. They also have a wine bar side which is quieter, piano/guitar solos and duos. They also house a songwriter night on Wednesdays where they have 10 people in to do 3 songs each. Very popular.

Nighttown is a more sophisticated kind of room. They will have light jazz acts in there and singers that either come in with a trio or canned music and do Broadway show tune type of music. It IS a restaurant but they serve some of the best food in town.

The Grog Shop is the carcass of a Brown Derby restaurant and they have more avante gard kind of acts in there. More alternative kinds of bands in there than anywhere else. It is in an area of town known as Coventry, a strip of very eclectic shops and restaurants.

Peabody's used to be a prime time room. 2nd tier national acts and better local jazz and offbeat bands played there.

There used to be an area here known as The Flats. There was an east bank and a west bank, one on each side of the Cuyahoga River. The east bank was the happening side, and I played for years all up and down that east bank. Then hip hop came in, the inner city trash took it over, and many armed robberies and shootings later they finally tore the whole strip down. It is in the middle of a huge renovation project that will likely hit a billion bucks when it's all done, laying heavily on gambling recently becoming legal in Ohio. A Casino opened downtown a couple of months ago, and as the eats bank rebuilds they will be looking to attract a higher class of establishment, I guarantee you with a HIGH level of police attention to keep the riff raff out. Toby Keith is putting a 20,000 sq ft club there. 4 other entertainment venues, 3 BIG name restaurants, a huge office building, loft apartments.... Toby Keith was key because we have a huge country following here and the top radio station is country, but there is no place of any quality to go hear country music on a day to day level. Big acts come in to the concert venues, but local country bands are stuck in small places in seedy parts of town. There is Mustang Salli's out in the burbs, and The Dusty Armadillo, even further in the burbs. Nice big places for country bands, but nothing downtown. Country bands usually get stuck in the VFW and Eagles clubs playing for $250. For 5 guys.

We have a GREAT concert scene as far as national acts goes. A 20,000 seat venue downtown where the Cavs also play, Blossom Music Center, an outdoor venue 30 miles south of Cleveland, 2 outdoor stages downtown... it's just the scene for the local level player that has gone downhill. There is one decent place to do small hall concerts on the west side (Winchester) one east (Beachland Ballroom - but make sure you have an armed guard when you load out. Gear gets stolen there EVERY weekend.), and one south in Akron, The Civic Theater.

There IS a scene here, but it is WAY too wrapped around jam night. There are 3-4 jam nights every week. I just have a MAJOR attitude about giving music to bars for free. And them complaining when there are no paying gigs. There would be probably 25% more gigs in town if the wannabes would quit giving it away on jam night.

You hit the major issue. I am old. What I liked at 21 and 31, even 41 when I was playing Motown, I don't like at 61. My time is long since past. A young girl at my job was telling me about some festival she went to. She listed the names off her program. I did not know ONE band name. My iPod? Beatles, Beach Boys, Rundgren, Police, EW&F, AWB, Steinman/Meatloaf, Hall & Oates, Huey Lewis, Springsteen, Southside, Talking Heads.... I like what I know and I know what I like.