Venue Stories - Katacombes

We did our first Monthly mess at the Katacombes. Janick, the owner/manager of the space, was our primary contact. She’s a bilingual passionate punk lady with dreads and smiles and stories from a history of Montreal venue management. When we went down to talk with her and to book the show, we had to fill out a contract all about security and bag check and no hate speech and the whole interaction made us very aware that we were with sweet people who dealt with some hard types. This was part of why we wanted to work there, to bring our indie hippie poetry dance hodge podge into unexpected places and make friends. Still, kind of intense.

Katacombes has a small dark door across from Club Soda, right near Cafe Cleopatra (famous drag show venue here in Montreal) and no sign outside, darkened windows, but you can see the nice wood of the bar through the front door window if you peek. Katacombes has a stated capacity of 165, but really, only about 40 or 50 people could have stood in the area around the stage (or 80 if we were really squeezing), after that the venue narrows a bit, then there’s the bar and foozball and a pool table closer to the front door.

The wall is nice exposed brick, hung with different visual art monthly.The art varies and is often good. The decor is skull and bones done in shiny metal by a friend, coop-member, local metal worker. The whole place, Janick told us, was pretty much built and run that way. The rental rate for Katacombes is usually 175 though they totally negotiated with us in a friendly way, and gave us the space for free for the night as a trial run for the monthly show we were getting off the ground. They also gave 2 free beers for each performer, which was maybe even overly generous, given how many performers are part of a typical mess evening. (Note - the $175 rate I was quoted at one point includes the technician.)

Things that weren’t good for our purposes:

- No projector or screen (well there is a screen, but it’s huge and there’s no stand and no real way to hang it that we could figure out. Tristan ran and borrowed another one and ran back. He’s a champ.)

- Though we definitely didn’t pack the place at our first show, we felt the crowd would grow, and already we ran out of chairs and table space just with the artists and small crowd assembled. (It was true the show grew- in part, I think, because we continued to work with new people and places.)

Things this place is or would be good for:

- I would love to see bigger metal, rock or punk bands do secret shows there, I think that would be cool. It’s a nice, intimate space with a hard edge sound and vibe, so it’s kind of an interesting contrast. I’d also thing it would be cool to do chill workshops there - maybe metal or wood working. They may already be doing this- I know it was in the dream schemes.

After the first show we were thinking we might want to keep exploring spaces, and Katacombes was thinking they wanted close to the normal rental rate paid monthly if we were going to stay, so we parted ways friendly. Lasting impression of the space: People trying to do something good and make it work.

Address : 1224 St Laurent, Montréal, QC H2X 2S5
(Just south of St.Catherine St.)
Telephone : 514-861-6151
Cash only for now.
Winter hours: 7pm-3am
Summer Hours: 5pm-3am (starts in April)
http://www.myspace.com/katacombes