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Cleveland artist Derek Hess' booking calendar for the Euclid Tavern, circa 1992. The club was not only a happening touring destination for up-and-coming bands, it also became the launching pad for Hess' art career.

(Derek Hess)

Derek Hess' booking calendar from the Euclid Tavern, March 1992.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Green Day getting nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Euclid Tavern getting ready to reopen might seem to have nothing in common with one another.

The punk-pop trio has sold more than 75 million records, won Grammys, gone Broadway and won Tonys.

At the other end of the spectrum . . . the Euclid Tavern is, well, the Euclid Tavern. The circa-1909 institution is being rechristened this week as the Happy Dog at the Euclid Tavern and serving as an East Side satellite for the music-and-hot-dogs bar.

But bars are more than bars. They are markers of time, signifiers of place, and they mean different things to different people -- depending on who they saw, when they went or what the bar was like or where they were living at the time.

Especially a bar like The Euc, which has seen so many changes and entertained so many generations over 105 years.

To Derek Hess, it will always be the Euclid Tavern, residing in another time and place. And somewhere, in his memory, resides Green Day.

Cleveland artist Derek Hess booked the Euclid Tavern from 1989 to 1995.

They were just any other band – nothing remarkable or that different from the hundreds of bands he booked between 1989 and 1995. At least when they played the Euclid Tavern on June 3, 1992.

"I wasn't hip to those guys, and I've never been much of a fan of pop-punk," says Hess. "So I had this agent call me about booking them and I'm like, 'I don't know, I don't think so.' "

The problem, you see, was Green Day wanted a lot more money than Hess was willing to pay: $300.

No deal.

The agent lowered the fee to $200.

No deal.

"I was more than happy to give them a show here because they had an empty date," he said. "So I said, 'How about $100?' "

Deal, as a calendar Hess has back then testifies. It shows a band called Libido Boys getting $75 to play on the same bill. Yes, the same Libido Boys that did not get nominated for the Rock Hall this year.

"I wasn't a big fan of that kind of music, but Green Day was awesome," says Hess. "They were the nicest guys – so friendly, just happy to be playing as a band and on the road."

"You get a good feeling about some bands because they have so much enthusiasm," adds Hess. "They would've been happy just having something to eat."

The Euclid served bar-food basic back then. Hess knows all too well; he worked there chopping chicken wings while attending the Cleveland Institute of Art.

"There were all these cool bands that were skipping Cleveland on tours, and Monday night was always dead," he recalls. "So I asked the owners to let me book a band and it led to another and another."

Hess' reign at the Euclid almost crumbled before it started, however.

"The first show I booked was two Cleveland hardcore bands – Integrity and Face Value," he says. "Each band played only 20 minutes, and the straight-edge kids didn't drink – so it turned out to be a real fiasco."

Hess booked his first national act in 1990, Helmet – a much-anticipated show that put Cleveland on the touring circuit of up-and-coming bands.

"With cities like Cleveland, it's important to find a night that can fit into touring routes," says Hess. "All sorts of bands wanted to play here on a Monday, and we made it a reoccurring thing."

The list of bands ran the gamut, from Ween to Afghan Whigs, Sebadoh, Jesus Lizard, Jawbox, Soul Coughing and Yo La Tengo – all rising acts in the '90s. According to Hess' calendar, Pavement also received a bonus for its June 15, 1992, show: five meals and a case of beer.

The shows helped launch Hess' art career.

"I would make fliers just trying to get the word out on the shows," says Hess. "Having a personal-style poster made shows have a coherent feel to them, as if there was something unique to the Euclid Tavern happening.

"It proved to be a good thing for me on many levels, but I got involved in the poster art scene and got my work out there," he adds. "Every week was like a new exhibition of a new thing."

He also learned a bit about the bouncer business – namely, if you can't beat 'em, hire 'em.

"There were these two big guys that were CIA students always dancing around and knocking people over," he says. "They were so big that you couldn't control them, so I figured I might as well hire them to do security for the shows."

Some of the more risk-taking regulars would swing from a beam during shows. Anything remotely resembling that disappeared when the Euclid Tavern reopened in 2008, after being closed for seven years.

Not the same Euc, it had undergone a makeover that included steak and Japanese noodles on the menu.

"They put a picture window in," says Hess. "The whole place seemed foreign to me – it ceased to be my idea of the Euclid Tavern."

The latest version reveals a different kind of makeover.

Yes, hot dogs will be served, along with those Happy Dog tater tots.

The roof-top patio of the old version is gone, but there's a basement bar where you can get away for a drink. The back room houses a wall of pinball machines.

"I think the Happy Dog is about the best operator you could find to take over the Euc," says Hess. "The times have changed – and you can't go back in time."

It reminds Hess of a children's story about a house that stays in the same place, as a city sprouts up around it.

"Look at all the development that has gone up around the Euclid Tavern," he says, referring to the Uptown development. "You could drive past the bar and not even notice it – it's like that little house."

"Which I understand comes with change," adds Hess. "Which is why a place like the Euclid Tavern is going to mean something very different to the person that goes there now than it did to me – just as it did to the person that went there before I did."