Taylor Goldsmith, the frontman of Dawes, was addressing the crowd from the stage at the grand opening of Pacific Electric, a brand new venue near downtown L.A., when he made it clear that he expects it to be the kind of place to attract loyalists. “if you’re the kind of person who’s here on such sort notice,” he said — referring to a notice that had gone out to industry folks and lottery-selected fans just a couple of days before — “then you’re also the kind of person who’s probably going to be here a lot. So I look forward to all of us being able to share this together.” His band then played its signature sing-along, “When My Time Comes,” to help usher in a club whose time seems to have come, and, after six years in the making, not a musical moment too soon.
The 750-capacity hall is largely the brainchild of another musician, Ben Lovett, who does double-duty in the music business. He’s best known as a keyboardist-songwriter and one of three core members of Mumford and Sons; he’s slightly less known as the head of Tvg Hospitality, a company that for the last decade has created and operated venues in different parts of the U.S. that are not unlike this one.
A few weeks prior to Pacific Electric opening its doors (and on the very eve of Mumford and Sons releasing their sixth album, “Prizefighter”), I was meeting Lovett inside the then-unfinished space, as about 60 workers went about their duties on a rainy day. I exchanged my damp hoodie for some harder headgear so that Lovett could offer me a tour. “Have you been on a hard-hat tour of a venue before?” he asked. (I answered that my last one was of the Intuit Dome in progress, a hardly comparable experience.) “The reason I ask is because not many venues have been getting built in the last 20 years — it’s a bit of a dying breed. A lot of venues get repurposed, but it’s very complicated, building new things, getting through all the red tape. All the infrastructure that you’ve gotta do to build these places is staggering. You take an old, abandoned warehouse and suddenly you’re running fiber optic cabling. We had to shore up the whole building with structural infrastructure, and it’s mad, it’s absolutely crazy.”
The result is a space that very much belies its origins as a warehouse, and yet is a very artisanal version of a warehouse space, with at least as many overtly warm touches as industrial ones. The auditorium itself has magic touches to it, including a proscenium arch, a rear brick wall and wood around the stage that all feel like they could be part of a vintage theater, even if other aspects seem distinctly modern and urban. I particularly took to the wrap-around balcony, which seems to practically hover right over the stage, and which has a second, elevated standing area a few yards back from the rail, which is the sort of nice touch that offers height-challenged fans an extra shot at getting an ideal view. And Lovett is as proud of the bathrooms and even dressing rooms as the auditorium, all of which we’ll get to in a bit.
Ben Lovett at Pacific Electric
Victor Arriola/BFA.com
But what’s most interesting in many ways is how Lovett is a student of how commercial spaces like this can create or bolster new neighborhoods. Pacific Electric sits in one of the last relatively ungentrified pockets of downtown Los Angeles, up against the L.A. River and a rail line on the northern edge of Chinatown, a hop, skip and jump from Los Angeles State Historic Park. A few bold restauranteurs have preceded him in opening here — it is a few foodie-baiting steps up from being a true no man’s land — and he believes Pacific Electric will be a jump-start to activating what could be a lively hub for Angelenos in years to come. (He’s also opening three adjacent food or bar stops of his own, independently but in tandem with the club.)
Is Los Angeles open to discovering a new culture center that is being started up basically from scratch? It feels like more than a pipe dream, but Pacific Electric just on its own is likely to make these city streets familiar enough to serious music fans, if only as they search for street parking after the pay lot across the way fills up. The initial lineup for the club — which you can peruse here — is filled mostly with artists on the rise, along with the occasional star-level underplay (Norah Jones is sold out on May 10, and Aimee Mann had been scheduled for two nights before the opening got delayed) and several nights of Netflix Is a Joke’s annual May comedy programming.
After our tour, Lovett sat down in the upstairs dressing room for headliners and explained his vision for the venue, how being a touring artist himself has raised expectations for how to treat bands, and why he thinks this dark sliver of downtown could have the stuff to rival Los Feliz or West Hollywood someday.
Does it come naturally to you to care about the infrastructure part of building out a venue, as well as the more fun aspects of designing something? Or to care about all of it as much as doing music?
I think I just care. Having spent so much time writing songs, and being in shows that are over the minute you finish, I think a lot about multi-generational spaces. They’re gonna be there long after we’re gone, hopefully. So I like to build spaces that, a hundred years from now, someone will walk in and be like, “This is amazing. Who built this space?” They’ll look it up on Wikipedia and there’ll be a story. So yeah, building spaces matters on that front, I think. It’s thinking about 20, 40, 60 years from now, and are they still gonna be there? Are they gonna stand the test of time?
This is your seventh venue in the U.S., but your first in L.A. Was getting something up and operating in this market important to you?
L.A. is such a cultural capital of the world. I certainly have played here probably second only to New York in America. I feel like I understand it a little bit. And I think that it’s a place where there’s a lot of faded glory. There’s a lot of historical buildings from 75 years ago that are favored haunts, and then there’s a lot of rock ‘n’ roll clubs from 50 years ago, like the Troubadour and the Whisky a-Go-Go. These are places that were iconic and are still relevant, because of what they meant within their place in history, and they always will be. But L.A. is also continuing to be a place that people are moving to, and even within the sprawl of L.A., there’s migration in certain pockets. This particular part of L.A., I’ve watched transform exponentially in the 20 years I’ve been coming consistently to L.A., and a lot of the people that I see making real movements, whether it’s in music or film or other arts, live locally to here. And I think that that’s the next generation of voices coming through.
Especially in the arts industries, yes, it’s about paying homage to things that have come before, but I think you can do that and also be interested in building new and doing something that’s forging forward. So a lot of this project is about: let’s go and build something that’s a statement piece for the arts in L.A. that’s not a rehashing of an old building that’s been there before — “This used to be a movie theater in the ‘20s” or whatever it might be. This is a brand new offering that hopefully will be home for a lot of great ideas and lyrics and guitar riffs that will then inspire people a hundred years from now. You have to plant a sapling at some point. You can’t keep hanging the swing on the same old oak tree forever. You have to get to the next generational growth. So I’m very long-view on culture and cities and how those two things interact.
How did you get started in the live venue business?
Before I moved to New York 16 years now, I promoted a lot of concerts around the U.K. I started that before Mumford and Sons began. I was showcasing emerging talent when I was a teenager, working in lots of little venues as a club promoter, and then I brought that side of my life to America in 2010. Sixteen years ago, I had this idea that I wanted to be a Bill Graham figure and promote independent concerts all over the country. I found out that that’s easier said than done, because a lot of the rooms were closed rooms, exclusively tied to working with certain promoters. I was like, “Well, if that’s not gonna work, then I’m gonna have to build venues and make those available to all promoters.” So this has been a very long journey to getting to redistributing and making spaces that are independent of promoters again. Any promoter can put a show on in this room, and I think that’s really one of the key aspects of it from an industry point of view.
How do you divide your time, between your two jobs? What is the split like, between actually doing music and then this part of it?
I’m full-time doing this, and full-time doing the other thing. I’m a sucker for it. I believe in the mission of this deeply. I’ve been running this company [Tvg Hospitality] for 10 years, and the platform it gives people and the experiences that it creates makes me feel proud. As a musician myself, I witness things constantly. I just did a whole bunch of shows across the U.K. in the last two weeks [with Mumford and Sons], because we’re launching a new album, and in each of the venues during soundcheck, I was noticing and taking photos of little things, and then during the gig I was feeling what it sounded like in the room. So it’s not like I’m running a shoe company or a gardening business over here. I’m building the spaces that I’ve spent my life in. I’ve got a lot of lived experience from 20 years of being in these rooms — and fundamentally, more than anything, I’m just a hardcore music fan. I love going to gigs. It matters to me how you’re treated by security, and whether you can get that beer that you want in the fridge, and whether it sounds good for the support band. So I’m just trying to level it up for other people.
How long did you have to speculate about what you could do in L.A. before you actually landed on this spot and this concept?
I think I probably looked at about 20 different sites. We very nearly got involved in some existing projects, as a reboot or redesign. Then when this came up, the thing that I really fell in love with about this site was the location. Fundamentally it was a warehouse, and there’s lots of empty warehouses around L.A. But the location to me is fascinating because there’s all these emerging both residential but also commercial neighborhoods happening. The arts district, I think, is a real thing that’s coming on leaps and bounds. You go down part of Santa Fe (Ave.) right now and there’s a lot of businesses emerging, and that gets me really excited about what’s possible in terms of a wave of activity. I think this part of town is underserved, still, and it will be for many years compared to the more established, traditional cultural hotspots like West Hollywood and others where they’ve got so much there. It’s not just the venues, but the bars and the restaurants and the stores, and they’re really busy high streets, whereas here it’s a bit of a blank canvas. We’ve had to take quite a long view on it.
Patrick Huy Nguyen @patrickhuynguyen
Can you characterize what kind of bookings you expect to be doing here?
We want it to be broad. I like the fact that it welcomes a variety of promoters. That’s really key to me, because with a range of promoters comes a range of styles and genres. So, we are not directly booking. We’re attracting different people that are gonna bring their own artists with them. We have about 40 shows confirmed right now. It ranges from DJ-led nights to singer-songwriters, country, rock ‘n’ roll, alternative, a bit of everything. Some of it’s touring, some international; a lot of local. I really hope that this is heavily used by local artists looking to establish their craft. Because it’s 750-capacity, it’s the perfect size for you to springboard into the next chapter of your career. Most people, they don’t know 750 people, which means that if you sell out this venue, you have done something to the point where a stranger who you’ve never met has bought a ticket to see you do that thing. It’s one thing to convince your cousin or your old friend to come watch you play, and we have lots of those venues, but this is a bit bigger than that. That means that to make it viable, the artist needs to have written something that’s crossed a bit of a divide. And once they’ve done that and they smashed this gig, if you do a great show here and it’s sold out, I would predict that you are probably gonna do pretty well.
I hope that it’s a launching pad for lots of L.A.-based artists, and not just a place for international artists to come and reap the benefits of the L.A. audience. I’d like this to be somewhere that an L.A. musician is seen by a label and, because of the show here, they’re like, “And that’s where we signed our record deal,” or “This is where we met our manager,” or “This is when I realized that I could do this for a living.” We will have big artists playing this room as an underplay — that’s gonna happen — but that’ll take care of itself. Those artists already have huge audiences. I’m more interested in people coming as a fan to check out music they’ve never heard before and discover emerging talent here.
For a long time L.A. was underserved for venues that are between like the Troubadour and the Wiltern. You were either playing for a maximum of 500 people or in a theater that holds 2300, with not that many spaces in between.
Yeah. And I think the Bellwether has been a great contribution to the scene. I’ve played it and I think it’s a great venue. But, I mean, there aren’t many venues getting built nationally. We did also notice that at this size, there’s a bit of a gap, and yeah, hopefully it serves a need or raises the game a little bit.
And I like the idea that a promoter or agent or manager comes to visit their artists in this dressing room three months from now and they’re like, “Why aren’t all dressing rooms like this?” And then they start asking more of other venues to kind of step up their game a bit. That’d be cool. It is a nice luxury to be able to start from scratch and not take over and repurpose a space. This dressing room we’re in wasn’t even in the originalplans. When we first took on the lease, it was just the venue, the auditorium. And the more I thought about it, the more I was like, well, if we’re gonna go to all that effort, let’s make sure we have the proper infrastructure for production, back of house, dressing rooms. So we asked if we could take on this additional footprint, and then we built two stories, and it was 5,000 square feet of back of house all of a sudden. I’m so glad we did, because now this will be a part of what the memory is for the artist… coming here, not being on the street, but being able to have a proper, secure car park, loading in here, and having a nice day-lit room to spend those hours between soundcheck and gig time.
We’re in the main headliner dressing room. We approach these spaces more like hotel rooms than we do a traditional club backstage, making sure there’s nice natural light and light, airy finishes. People normally arrive for shows at 2, 3 in the afternoon to load in for soundtrack, and then they spend three or four hours somewhere, so we consider them to be our guests for the night. … I want the artists to become advocates for these spaces as well. And so that extra 5,000 square feet is worth every penny, as well as the auditorium itself looking beautiful.
Bar at Pacific Electric
Chris Willman/Variety
Let’s talk about the public spaces, beyond the auditorium itself.
It’s got a huge bar for a 750-capacity club. I don’t like long queues. Most people arrive 30 to 45 minutes before set time, and you want to get everyone served… Throughout the space, there’s lots of elevated details. Thoughtful restrooms that actually feel, for a venue, like nice experiences, rather than thinking about what’s the minimum utility that you can get away with. I think venues in general, especially small clubs like this, have fallen into a pattern of being like, what’s the cheapest path to practical use? Whereas I think of it more like, how do you not compromise on the experience at any point of someone’s evening? And bathrooms is a really obvious space that people fall short, I think.
And the materials are an interesting mixture. With a lot of wood, it looks classy, but it’s not meant to look either vintage or super-modern.
A lot of concrete, and a lot of metal and wood. We are a rock ‘n’ roll venue. This is a warehouse district and neighborhood. We’re just adjacent to the arts district, obviously. So it’s all quite warm material, but it still has that element of elevation.
What is the state of the neighborhood?
I think what David Chang’s achieved with Majordomo, a great Chinese restaurant next door, is pretty incredible. They opened that with nothing going on here at all six years ago. The fact that that’s thrived and is a success story, and it’s right next door to us, gives me hope that we can make this work. And they’re stoked, because I think us coming in is just gonna drive more people who are probably gonna want to have a meal before or after a show, and it gives more context to the whole neighborhood. There is a new coffee shop called Kissa that just opened up, and all these other concepts.
Pacific Electric outdoor garden area
Victor Arriola/BFA.com
You have your own adjacent bars and restaurant concepts opening up as well, right?
Yes, we’ve got multiple concepts happening simultaneously here, anchored around the club. Pacific Electric is the headline. But we’re opening a warehouse bar here; we’ve got a garden concept with a food truck out there; and we have a cocktail lounge called Mitsi. All of that’s coming online in parallel to add to this neighborhood next to Apothéke and Majordomo. it’s basically creating a zone for Pacific Electric to live in. It’s like a whole new neighborhood… You kind of want to build a bit of an ecosystem and a village of concepts, whether you are operating them or they’re just your neighbor. I think this could be an interesting little haven right next to the state Historic Park.
So, just to be clear, the adjacent places you are opening are open to anyone who comes to the neighborhood, whether you’re seeing a show or not?
Exactly. The ticket barrier for the venue is very much just for the auditorium and the bar attached to that, but then there’s things to do adjacent to it that you don’t have to be going to the show to enjoy. You can enjoy it as someone who’s going to the show, obviously, but you can come back and just enjoy the garden and have food from Badmaash. It’s a whole separate experience, which I think is important because if you live nearby and you want to just meet up with a friend for a drink, that’s there. And Mitsi, the cocktail lounge, is a similar thing. It’s more elevated than the garden. There’ll be a sushi menu, and that’s a different thing, because I didn’t feel like there was anything on this part of town that was quite delivering a very specific type of experience I was trying to emulate that didn’t involve bringing creatives from this part of town across to the west side. So I wanted somewhere that that creative industry could meet and hang out. It’s also good for after-parties.
And then the warehouse bar we’re building is something I’ve thought would be fun if you’ve just played a game of pickup soccer in the historic park, or you just want to watch the game or throw on a record. That warehouse you saw right by where we met up is gonna be converted into something that is super-low-key, loose furniture, pop-up bar, grab a can of beer, catch up with friends, bring your dog, move that chair if you want to— very relaxed. So we’re gonna have these four different experiences. The warehouse bar will be kind of where I would spend a lot of time on a weekend. It’s different strokes for different folks, and I’m expecting lots of different walks of life to come through here. A variety of people, if you will.
Ben Lovett at Pacific Electric on opening night
Victor Arriola/BFA.com
So you imagine that if we were to come back here to this neighborhood 10 or 15 years from now, it would be pretty thoroughly transformed?
Yeah, I think, hopefully, in a very responsible way. I imagine there’ll be all sorts of pockets of business. Say we’re doing 200 shows a year — that’s four shows a week, and say 600 people on average come to those shows. That’s 120,000 people that are coming to Naud Street a year. Those people will be like, “Huh, that wasn’t that hard to get here” and “Oh, what’s that next door? Next time we come back, should we go and check out that?” Then suddenly the thrift store opens up and the record store, and then maybe slightly more high-end apparel, and that’s how it works. Like I said, it’s the seventh time we’ve done this, and the role that culture can play as a spearhead to changing narratives for neighborhoods is huge, more than anything else. I think it’s the single greatest driver towards infusing activity to a neighborhood that maybe is not really being used for much. This is a neighborhood that has a lot of derelict and empty buildings. There’s nothing being done with it, and it’d be great for it to have entrepreneurialism and people fulfilling their dreams. There’s so much opportunity here to do stuff, and I like the wide-eyedness of that. We need to get back, as people, to more dreaming about more productivity. Let’s create stuff. That’s how we got here: The great dream of of being productive is there to be done. And I hope that venues can instigate some of that activity. It’s quite macro.
Macro, you say?
I guess the dream is quite big. And it starts from such an innocent place, which is that interaction, the spark that can happen between an artist saying something true and someone hearing that. The beauty is that within a few weeks from now, there’s gonna be someone standing in that room watching someone perform on that stage, and they’re gonna sing or say something that is so true to that individual that it’s gonna inspire them maybe for the rest of their lives. Or maybe just for the next day at work, but this will be a place where people’s lives get altered. Maybe they’ll meet their future partner… People think it’s just a venue. Nothing’s just a venue.
Pacific Electric
Chris Willman/Variety
Dawes performs at Pacific Electric
Chris Willman/Variety
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