"Bring Me Your Vultures"

By Nick O'Brien

All images courtesy of Highwatermark Films

Recently, when my editor here at Buffalo Spree.com asked me if I was ready to do my first feature-length article for the site, I could hardly contain my excitement.

"Sure, boss. What's it on?"

"We'll need it to be more than double what you normally do."

"No problem; what is it?"

"And we'll need it right after Christmas."

"Okay. What am I writing about?"

" I want you to write a preview for the Mohawk Place documentary that's coming out in January."

"…"

My first thought was Ugh. The Mohawk. Can't I get away from that dump? I spent nearly seven years doing practically everything at that place, and despite the fact I can easily be picked out by my Mohawk jacket, and having met my best friends in Buffalo at that filthy little downtown rock club, I have spent much of 2013 trying to separate my identity from 47 East Mohawk. And that included trying to avoid the cameras that became omnipresent during the last few months of the club's life, while footage was being shot for the documentary of Mohawk Place's death, Bring Me Your Vultures.

Depending on who you're talking to, the Mohawk was either the best place ever or a disgusting rat hole. To many of us, it was both. Opened around 1990 by retired Air Force vet Pete Perrone, it was to be a small little bar for Perrone to make a few bucks at while hanging out with his friends. Renting out the old rooms upstairs to some less-than-savory characters added a few more bucks to Pete's pocket, and increased to the already dingy atmosphere of the late 19th century boarding house and tavern. The Mohawk quickly began hosting blues and rockabilly acts—local at first, then touring—on the small stage over in the side room was once a barber shop and now held a pool table with walls too close to make a proper shot. Back then, the floor was in better shape, the black mold was a little less prevalent, and the bathrooms were somehow worse.

Over the years, Mohawk began featuring more than blues cover acts (though those didn't go away altogether for quite some time), as well as rock and indie bands, until eventually that became the focus of the bar. While you couldn't get a burger any longer, you could still come in and see the neighborhood drunks, nursing that happy hour Molson Golden—but sitting next to that guy would be some local scenester. Booking duties were taken over by guys like Marty Boratin and Bill Nehill, gentlemen that spent as much time talking music as anything else. At that point, you could bank on being able to wander in most any random night the room was open, and for only a few bucks you could likely see a pretty great band plain that little stage. Slowly the old crowd was relegated to day shifts, and the nights were full of young, hip music fans that probably wouldn't even be downtown if not for the Mohawk. As happens with popular destinations, a sense of community arose. While now-defunct clubs like the Icon and Continental offered refuge for many, the Mohawk had the advantage of being smaller, comfortable, and friendly. Perrone was almost always at the door himself, checking IDs and taking money, and he knew your name and would buy you a beer. Boratin would be buzzing around, making sure the bands he had booked were taken care of and fed, and he would chat with you about whatever records you'd just picked up or who he'd just scheduled to play. Nehill or Mike Doktor would be behind the bar waiting to share a story, or a shot, or a smoke.

Eventually, Perrone rented out the rooms upstairs to bands for use as practice spaces. They were filthy little spots with a shared bathroom down the hall, but they were cheap and available at any time (except when there was a quiet act playing in the bar). This helped reinforce the community that existed at the Mohawk. Your band could meet for practice and then run downstairs to watch a show and grab a beer. If you weren't hanging out there enough already, having a tiny room upstairs where you could sober up or smoke a joint with a touring band made it even more appealing. It was home. Everyone knew everyone. Everyone wanted to play with one another's bands, it didn't matter what the genres were—of course your country-rock band would do a show with somebody's punk band. Everyone had no problem opening for any of the touring bands that came through, never mind the fact that you'd probably only get a few bucks at the end of the night, becasue that would cover the beers you drank and you could brag to your friends that you opened for some awesome band that no one had heard of at the time, but would years later be too huge to imagine playing that little stage. Eleven years ago, when new safety regulations called for an expensive sprinkler system to be installed, Perrone almost closed the Mohawk down. But the community of friends and fan pulled together and held a fundraiser that paid for that upgrade, because it meant keeping the club alive.

Sadly, several years ago, Perrone decided it was time to get out. HIs friends had either moved, stopped coming out, or passed away. It wasn't fun for him anymore. He had the bar on the market for some time, and those of us who worked and played there were nervous about who might step in and buy the old dump, while certain that no one would be willing to pony up the huge price Perrone had slapped on the joint. For some time, no one did. Then local businessman Scott Leary decided to take a big risk and buy the place. Right away he put in a new, much-needed sound system, added new types of beer to the bar's offerings, and re-modeled the bathrooms. But for many people, the bar just wasn't the same without Perrone. As the last few years passed by, people stopped coming out to shows. It became harder and harder to convince the new owner that it was "okay" that the last show lost a few hundred because the attendance was too low to meet the band's guarantee. Sometimes it seemed like entire weeks were made up of generic pop-punk acts all playing the same awful music, or legitimately bad local bands that didn't bother or couldn't bring a crowd on a Wednesday night because they had played a free show somewhere else the Friday before. It's no easy thing to call the man who pays the bills and tell him that the show that night only made 30 bucks at the bar. And we're out of Jameson. And the ceiling over the stage is leaking. The Mohawk was on life support and it was time to pull the plug.

This Saturday, January 11, at Town Ballroom, the locally produced documentary Bring Me Your Vultures receives it world debut. The film does not serve to tell the history of Mohawk Place, though it does touch upon that several times, nor does it exist to explain why the club died, but instead it offers the story of why Mohawk was important. Interviews with employees, promoters, and bands are interspersed with live footage of shows. Bring Me Your Vultures does an excellent job of evoking an emotion and a sense of belonging (or wishing you belonged) to the crowd involved. One could long for a more expository film, but that was not the goal here. Interviews with local musicians explain why Mohawk Place meant what it did. The live footage, in most instances, shows you why it mattered. Director Michael Sobieraj (who, in the interest of gull disclosure, played drums in my band at one time) displays a talent and a certain stylized aesthetic that, coupled with the score written and performed by himself along with bandmates Roger Bryan and Mark Nosowicz, create a moodiness and palpable anxiety that only accentuates the sadness and nostalgia felt from those interviewed. Ably aided by co-creator Paul Besch, Bring Me Your Vultures is a fantastic document of a small society that has since been fractured and continues to drift apart.

Please take the time to stop down to the screening of Bring Me Your Vultures this Saturday , January 11, at Town Ballroom. Doors open at 8pm. Screening begins at 9pm with an after party to follow. Food will be available from Joe's Deli on Elmwood (they've created a special "Mohawk Place" sandwich) and performances from guest DJs—including Jay Draper from Transmission Dance Parties—will be featured. Tickets are $10 in advance and $15 the day of the show. Buy yours from tickets.com or at the Town Ballroom box office.

Nick O'Brien worked at Mohawk Place for seven years and currently works at Bistro Europa. He plays bass once a year in a Circus Devils tribute band.