Art Callahan & The Barn Door

Published by greggkirk on January 4, 2019January 4, 2019

I don’t remember the first time I ever met or the last time I ever saw Art Callahan, but there’s no doubt it was at 845 N. Tatnall St. in Wilmington, DE… the site of the Barn Door. I think I only saw Art outside the walls of that place one time, and I remember feeling like I was witnessing a turtle living outside of its shell. Art and the Barn Door were almost one and the same — inseparable in a way where it’s almost impossible to talk about one and not the other.

Like most band members in the general Wilmington, DE-area, the first time I talked to Art was over the phone in order to book a gig at his place. Pretty much everyone knew that there was almost no screening process with him. If he could fit you in, you got the gig. There were no squabbles about how many people you’d bring, what gigs you’d played before, etc. The gating factor was just being able to reach him on the phone, which wasn’t hard. He also may have asked for a demo tape if he’d never heard of you, but he never required a full-blown presskit like many of the other venues.

Almost every band I was in had our debut gig there. The place was a great proving ground — a low-risk room to work the bugs out of your set in front of an audience that was usually sympathetic and/or stacked with people you knew. Once you got your act together there, you could venture out into bigger venues and eventually out-of-town gigs.

But it was never the sought-after or prestigious gig you were proud to have on your band calendar. It was more like a home game where you knew you’d have home-field advantage with an entire venue loaded with friends, family and distant relatives. I mean, what did the place have, like 8 tables? It was also a good place to get your mojo back if you’d had a rough night in NY, Philly or Baltimore and only drew about 5 people.

The combination of Art’s support for local music and the scrappiness of the venue and building itself have drawn some comparisons to CBGBs in NYC. Having played at both places a few times, I’ll say that the Barn Door didn’t smell as bad, had a cleaner set of restrooms and didn’t scare you in the light of day. It actually did a daytime lunch business and had to look respectable. I remember meeting Art at the Barn Door to pick up a check one afternoon during his lunch rush and I was shocked to see a handful of Wilmington business types eating lunch on tables where the stage would be set up later that night.

CBGBs on the other hand looked like a place where some kind of illegal business transpired in the evening hours, and it gave you a creepy vibe when you saw it in the daytime. Every surface space was either spray painted flat black or covered with some kind of graffiti or band stickers. And the bathrooms were world-famous for their repulsiveness.

But you could almost always count on seeing someone of note at CBGBs, especially on the weekends. I remember seeing David Byrne and Tina Weymouth in the audience one night I was visiting the city. On the other hand, the only semi famous person I ever saw at the Barn Door was a very lubricated Mayor Bill Frawley who crashed into our band gear, croaked “hello” over my microphone, and then stumbled to get to the bathroom in the middle of our band’s set.

And that brings up another difference between the two venues — you didn’t have to walk directly across the stage to get to the bathrooms at CBGBs. But at the Barn Door, it was a nightly occurrence. It never got old watching a young band in the middle of their set, passionately imitating their guitar heroes with screwed up faces and guitar necks flailing, suddenly to be interrupted by a drunken patron bumping into the band member closest to the restrooms.

It was a sad and weird coincidence in June of 1996 when I published my last issue as Executive Editor at Big Shout Magazine and we ran an article on the Barn Door closing its doors as a music venue. Things were changing in the area music and economic scene and those closest to the tracks heard the rumble of the impending train. I got out when I could and it seemed Art was doing the same thing. It was one of my greatest honors that Art mentioned me by name in his interview when asked who he wanted to thank, and he rambled on about me being one of the big supporters of the local music scene. Of course, I felt exactly the same way about him and we both wondered what would happen next.

Now we all know, and hearing of Art’s passing at the dawn of the new year brought back so many bittersweet memories I experienced at his venue… The awkward debuts of almost all of my bands there. The ending of one of them, as I told my band members I was leaving to play with Robert Hazard. Then about a year later, Robert booked a gig for his band (Robert Hazard & the Heroes) to play at Dorney Park, and I quit to play the debut gig of my new band The Killtoys at… where else? The Barn Door. I also rather infamously broke my leg during the second time I ever saw the band The Rubber Uglies. I was drunkenly trying to do stage dives from the non-existent stage in the Barn Door and a friend of mine did the same and landed on my leg during the band’s set. The group heard about it and parlayed it into a new slogan: “The Rubber Uglies — Bone Breaking Rock ‘N’ Roll.” Good times.

We already missed you when you closed the Barn Door in 1996, Art, but now almost every band member I know from the Wilmington area is feeling the personal impact you had on them. Your wit, humor, support and tolerance are already missed. Peace, brother.