It was a swingin' hot spot. For over twenty years, Jo Feds was a major part of the music scene in Eugene. Now it's doors are closed, another victim of our sputtering economy. Around here, folks mourn the passage of Jo Feds.
Sometimes musical venues close because they become passe, failing to change with the times. Jo Feds closure wasn't like that. Jo Feds had become venerable in a good way. Nationally, we are seeing an epidemic of restaurants and night clubs going dark. Bailout money isn't available for such folks, but maybe it should be.
I guess the problem is that night clubs don't pass the "too big to fail" test. We seldom stop to consider that the owners of musical venues are, in a way, curators of the arts. And when it's time to make cutbacks in personal spending, art is usually the first item on the chopping block, along with high-priced meals at fancy restaurants.
Such reductions in spending come at a steep cost to our communities. Beyond the unemployed waiters and cooks, as our palette of restaurants and clubs diminishes, local culture becomes increasingly bland. Collectively, we pay a higher price than we think when our nighttime entertainment choices disappear.
For me, personally, the closure of Jo Feds came one week before a Friday night gig I was scheduled to play there. Last year, another prominent Eugene night spot where I had performed many times, Luna Jazz Club, faded into history. I suppose I'm as guilty as the next guy of not doing enough to support such establishments. To lament the passage of musical venues which, after all, are businesses, while failing to adequately nurture them is to exalt sentimentality over pragmatism. Yet the loss of anything one cares about inevitably evokes an emotional response, so we are to be forgiven.
At the same time, there are lessons to be learned and they aren't hard to figure out. First, we should appreciate our favorite night spots more BEFORE they vanish from the scene. Second, our methods of appreciation should involve going there frequently and spending money, as much as we can afford. Jo Feds is dead, but not forgotten, and the best way to honor the memory of places we care about is to preserve the survivors.
