{"id":246946,"date":"2014-01-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-31T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/the-casbah-celebrates-its-big-two-five\/"},"modified":"2014-01-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-31T08:00:00","slug":"the-casbah-celebrates-its-big-two-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/the-casbah-celebrates-its-big-two-five\/","title":{"rendered":"La Casbah celebra su gran dos-cinco"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Smead | SDUN Reporter<\/p>\n

Twenty-five years is a long time for any business to be open, let alone a small, independent venue catering to mostly local and lesser-known national acts. However, if last Thursday night\u2019s festivities were any indication, there are plenty of people who are glad the Casbah is still doing what it does best after so many years.<\/p>\n

\"(l<\/a>
(l \u2013 r) The evening\u2019s host Leslee Schaffer and Casbah co-founder and owner Tim Mays (Photo by Stacy Keck)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The event, which took place at the Birch North Park Theatre, focused on the origins and history of the venue and placed the man who started it all at center stage. Tim Mays, one of the co-founders and current owner of the venue, took the opportunity to talk about a range of topics, including how the venue came about.<\/p>\n

Though time was limited, Mays recounted a time in which he had booked Red Hot Chili Peppers at the Birch in 1986.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was around the time when they used to wear nothing but a sock,\u201d Mays said. He recalled that the show not only lost money, but the venue was nearly destroyed because of the rowdy crowd.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany years later,\u201d Mays continued, \u201cabout four of five years before we started doing shows here again, I went up to the office and the current theater manager had the flyer from that show. He pointed to it and said, \u2018Make sure this doesn\u2019t happen again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The evening rolled along at a brisk pace and featured a number of non-musical guests including the three other original founding members of the Casbah, as well as Mays\u2019 son Keith, who joined via video cam.<\/p>\n

Many performers also joined in the celebration. Folk artist Steve Poltz also joined via a webcam, while locals like Pinback\u2019s Rob Crowe and The Silent Comedy\u2019s Joshua and Jerimiah Zimmerman played live. Rocket From the Crypt frontman John Reis also stopped by to play an acoustic version of RFTC\u2019s \u201cDitch Digger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks, Tim, for giving us our place to play,\u201d Reis said before beginning, placing an emphasis on the \u201cour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The theme of family and community ran deep throughout the evening and was especially present during the final number, which of course was \u201cRock the Casbah.\u201d However, as it was noted, the Casbah is actually named after a bar that co-founder Bob Bennett frequented in Pittsburg, not The Clash song.<\/p>\n

Host Leslee Schaffer summed it up best, though, in saying, \u201c[The Casbah\u2019s] mass appeal and longevity is epitomized by the fact that you could 21 or 61 and rocking out at the same show.\u201d She finished by thanking Mays, noting \u201c[he\u2019s] brought us all together, and that\u2019s what this evening is really about.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kevin Smead | SDUN Reporter<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1206,"featured_media":246947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"The Casbah celebrates its big two-five","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11547,11551,11550,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-features","category-news","category-top-stories","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}