recordBar - 15 Years and Going 🤞

Westport recordBar

Fifteen years ago, Shawn Sherrill and I dove headfirst into an idea, a dream, we'd been talking about for years before that.  We'd toured the nation in indie rock bands. We'd DJ'd house parties and clubs. We'd spent hours slinging drinks and waiting tables. And now we were going to do all that and be our own bosses.

recordBar was born

Originally, we had no great ambition to be the internationally recognized music venue that it has become. We wanted a place for our community to gather, eat, laugh, and drink. We knew we could do live music because of our personal history but it wasn't the plan from the beginning.  It was going to be the side-bar. The thing we did when a friend's band was coming through town and needed a pick-up gig. We wanted to focus on being the place where our community could gather to celebrate, mourn, fundraise, debate, and commune.

The first large music event we did was a benefit for victims of Hurricane Katrina and it was an astounding success. More and more local bands asked if they could play. And then soon after that, Jacki Becker, a promoter from Lawrence, KS asked if she could throw a show in our room. That band is now immensely successful, The National.  It was then we knew that live music was going to be the bedrock that recordBar would grow upon. We invested in a larger stage and a PA and hired top-notch sound people that understood our ethos. Be nice to people, educate people, and your scene will grow and thrive.

It works

Many ups and downs; moving the venue when we lost our lease, plumbing disasters, HVAC fails, and now Covid-19, recordBar has always figured out how to subsist.  But this one has been a doozy.

We want to survive. We plan to survive. But, the music industry has taken a death-blow. Since moving to the larger venue downtown, the concert calendar has become the life-blood and now there are no more tours.  Most likely, they are not returning until 2021. We've done everything to minimize our liabilities but the lease needs to be paid.  With next to no income coming in we are getting creative with streaming events, outdoor events, and private events but they just aren't generating the amount we need to get by into 2021.

Friday, Sept. 4th we are launching a Kickstarter campaign to celebrate our upcoming 15th year. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/recordbar/15-year-anniversary-recordbar-will-return  We will be offering new limited edition t-shirts, posters, calendars, books and face masks. We'll also be selling off much of the memorabilia we've collected over the years; signed posters and records.  

To generate traffic to the Kickstarter site, we will be hosting a performance from hometown heroes, Shiner, at Lemonade Park.  It will be live-streamed for free on our Kickstarter page. There concurrently will be an on-line auction at https://www.32auctions.com/recordBar featuring so many great items donated from our family and friends in the Kansas City restaurant, artist, and business communities. We are ever thankful and so honored that these people care enough to help us out.

If you are one of the lucky ones to get a ticket to the event there will also be a live raffle with prizes from the KC Royals, The Midland Theater, FETCH, The Pairing, Ragazza and more.

I want to personally thank all of you that have ever attended a show, or brunch, or trivia, or just came in to say hello and have a beer. recordBar has always been for you. And without you, it's not.

Keeping it positive. I think we'll be seeing more of you soon.

-Steve Tulipana