Sadlack’s: Traces remain, hiding in plain sight

It’s coming up on four years since Sadlack’s, the legendary Raleigh watering hole where Ryan Adams formed the first version of Whiskeytown way back in 1994, was shut down and bulldozed to make way for a hotel. It’s part of a relentless march of “progress” in which more and more of Raleigh’s funky Whiskeytown-era landmarks covered in “Losering” have fallen to the wrecking ball.

I know, time marches on and there’s little point in lamenting those old corner stores we’ve lost. Still, I miss ’em. And if you know where to look, you’ll find a cool tribute to Sadlack’s a mile and a half from where it once stood — at downtown Raleigh’s Berkeley Cafe, an establishment co-owned by a couple of Sadlack’s regulars (and also the first place I ever interviewed Ryan way back when).

Although the Berkeley’s upstairs back patio is smaller than the old Sadlack’s outdoor space, it definitely has a similar vibe in which you feel like the spirit lives on, especially when they have live music. And as a marker signifying where it all went down, these two street signs in the rafters serve as a reminder.

Sadlack’s stood at the corner of Enterprise and Hillsborough streets, after all

Another landmark from Ryan’s Raleigh disappears: IHOP

During the Whiskeytown era, the mid-to-late 1990s, downtown Raleigh was still pretty much a ghost town after dark. Before downtown became the place to be, the center of Raleigh nightlife was a couple of miles west, along Hillsborough street — a strip that included Sadlack’s, the Brewery, Comet Lounge and other watering holes. And for late-night munchies, there was the 24-hour International House of Pancakes at the corner of Hillsborough and Park, near St. Mary’s School.

As often as not, following a Whiskeytown or Backsliders show at the Brewery, some of us would wind up at IHOP for 3 a.m. victuals before heading home. I paid tribute to that in chapter eight of “Losering,” the one about Whiskeytown’s Strangers Almanac album, by having young Ryan stumble into IHOP in the midst of that chapter’s imagined dark-night-of-the-soul narrative.

But time marches on. Recent years have seen Hillsborough street undergo a radical makeover with traffic circles, while Sadlack’s and the Brewery have both fallen to the wrecking ball to make way for fancy hotels and student housing. And now a similar fate awaits IHOP, which is closing this week for a still-to-be-determined redevelopment project. The small lot IHOP occupies is worth more than $500,000 now, so this was inevitable.

With the Brewery no longer there to draw me in that direction late at night, I’ve not eaten at IHOP in years. Still, I’ll miss seeing that bright blue roof — which was one more marker of the small town Raleigh used to be.

ADDENDUM (5/2/2016): Not quite one month later, the blue is off the roof and it looks like it won’t be long before the whole thing is torn down.

 

SECOND ADDENDUM (6/17/2016): But at least the Hillsborough Street IHOP will live on in memory in a Needle Print by Caitlin Cary. This has been purchased by the mayor’s office, too.

Aloft over Sadlack’s

It’s been close to nine months since the last time we checked in on the site of the late, lamented Sadlack’s, the old Hillsborough street watering hole where Ryan Adams and Whiskeytown formed more than two decades ago. Done in by Raleigh’s ongoing real-estate boom, Sadlack’s closed for the last time in the wee small hours of Jan. 1, 2014, following an epic New Year’s Eve show; fittingly, it fell to the Backsliders to do last-rites honors.

The lot was soon fenced in and the building boarded up, but it didn’t go under the wrecking ball until May 2014. And since then, a 135-room Aloft Hotel has been under construction on the site. In the upper right is what it looked like last November and below is what it looks like today, close enough to opening day that a “NOW HIRING” banner is already up.

Sadlack’s stood where the left edge of the new building is now, and yeah, I still miss it. Not to mention the Brewery, the Berkeley Cafe’s old music-hall space and a bunch of other joints around town. But time marches on…

Ryan’s Raleigh — disappearing fast…

Sadlack’s, circa 2012.

Toward the end of “Losering,” I wrote that Ryan Adams probably wouldn’t even recognize his old hometown anymore, given how much of Raleigh has been torn down and rebuilt since Whiskeytown’s 1990s heyday. You don’t have to look any farther than the Hillsborough Street strip, Raleigh’s main drag along the northern edge of the NC State campus, to see how some of the city’s most notable Whiskeytown-era landmarks are disappearing, bulldozed to make way for fancy new real-estate projects going up.

Right across from the NC State Bell Tower is where the former Sadlack’s stood, at the corner of Hillsborough and Enterprise streets. Here it is on the right, the place where Whiskeytown first convened 20 years ago. But Sadlack’s has been gone since its last-waltz blowout this past New Year’s Eve and below is what that block looks like now, on its way to becoming a 135-room Aloft Hotel that will open sometime next summer.

The new Aloft Hotel rises over the grave of Sadlack’s.

 

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Stanhope, under construction on the block where The Brewery used to be.

About seventh-tenths of a mile west of where Sadlack’s was, The Brewery nightclub used to stand at 3009 Hillsborough Street; site of countless late and great nights with Whiskeytown, Backsliders, 6 String Drag and other cool bands from all over. After the club was torn down in 2011 (along with the Comet Lounge next door), that block stood vacant for a couple of years, home to nothing more than weeds and parked cars. Now it’s being turned into the huge student-residential complex you see going up here on the right; called Stanhope, it’s also opening next summer.

6 Daisy Street in Raleigh, home of Lazy Stars, American Rock Highway and other bands from Ryan Adams’ distant past.

Fortunately, not quite everything has vanished. Ryan’s old residence with Tom Cushman, the Daisy Street House, is still standing just off Hillsborough Street. Here it is on the left; I parked in front of it when I went by to take the picture of the old Brewery site.

Also, former Brewery co-owner (and “Come Pick Me Up” co-writer) Van Alston is still a nightlife impressario in Raleigh, picking up musicians’ bar tabs at his current downtown joint Slim’s. In recognition of his many contributions to the music community over the years, the local alt-weekly here recently bequeathed Alston with one of its annual Indies Arts Awards — for which congratulations are in order.

Alas, something else that hasn’t changed all these years later is that Ryan remains a magnet for hecklers, even when he’s playing bigger, plusher rooms than he ever played in Raleigh; and he still doesn’t hesitate to fire back. A friend of mine knows someone who caught Ryan’s show in Boston the other night and passed along the following account of the evening:

Ryan Adams is incredibly gifted, but sober or not, still a bit of a jerk on stage. Nothing like when I first saw him play at the House of Blues on Lansdowne Street, where he put his back to audience for much of the show, and/or stood in the stage wings, in darkness, out of the view of the paying attendees. He ripped into a couple of fans last night, one of whom was right next to me. “You should write a blog to speak your mind, and join this asshole in front of me, you fucking prick!” That was typical of comments throughout the night… My friend was somehow able to isolate Adams’ snarky persona from his performance and still enjoy the event, something I wasn’t quite able to do.

Oh, Ryan…

Sadlack’s: Going going gone…

Sadlack’s Heroes, where Ryan Adams first got Whiskeytown together back in 1994 (see chapter four of “Losering”), has been shut down for more than four months now. Ever since the Backsliders closed it out on new years eve, the building has stood empty, silent and boarded up while awaiting demolition to make way for a 135-room hotel project that will occupy Hillsborough Street’s Bell Tower Block.

As of this week, alas, we can’t even say that the building is standing anymore. Wrecking crews began taking down Sadlack’s and the adjacent structures in recent days, starting with the Hillsborough/Enterprise corner that Sadlack’s occupied. Below left is a picture from the Sadlack’s Facebook page, taken in August 2012; and below right is the same scene on Saturday, May 3. Between traffic on the street and the construction fence, I couldn’t capture quite the same angle. But you can use the Sadlack’s sign to orient the view for comparative purposes; clicking on either picture will enlarge it. You can also see a much better picture of the scene here (taken from the other direction).

As of Saturday afternoon, it didn’t appear that they’re working over the weekend. But I’d guess the entire lot will be cleared off and all the debris cleared away by the end of next week. And then the last vestiges of one of Ryan’s signature Whiskeytown-era Raleigh landmarks will be well and truly gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The clock is ticking on Sadlack’s

Photo courtesy of John Morris, goodnightraleigh.com

Earlier this year, when I did a post about local landmarks where key events in the “Losering” story happened, I concluded with a paragraph about Sadlack’s — the beer joint/sandwich shop where Ryan Adams and other employees formed the first version of Whiskeytown in the fall of 1994. That entire block of Hillsborough Street has been on borrowed time for quite a while now, condemned for a big-ass hotel project. Last time I spoke to owner Rose Schwetz, she told me that she planned to stay there “until the bulldozers come and make me leave.”

Alas, it seems that the hour of Sadlack’s demise might come sooner rather than later. There’s a December deadline for all businesses in that block to relocate (including the adjacent Schoolkids Records). And according to a story in today’s paper, Rose says she’s going to hang it up unless she finds another spot by June 1. Still, even if she does find another place to reopen, it’s hard to imagine it will have the same funky ambience that made Sadlack’s a local institution for 40 years. When the weather’s nice, there’s no better spot to hear a band play than the Sadlack’s patio. Between this and the loss of the Brewery, Raleigh has ever-fewer spots from Ryan’s in-town heyday.

But hope springs eternal. Even though it doesn’t look good for Sadlack’s, I’ve got my fingers crossed a miracle happens.

ADDENDUM (5/7/13): WRAL TV report.

Ryan Adams’ “Lucky Now” plays out “This Is 40”

When I was in the process of finishing up “Losering” in the fall of 2011, Ryan’s Ashes & Fire album arrived like a gift from the heavens. I was writing a book focused on Ryan’s early years, and a recurrent theme of the closing stretch was his literal disconnection from that time. Then here came Ashes, on which Ryan sounded more like his younger self than he had in years. Best of all was this opening couplet from the album’s first single:

I don’t remember, were we wild and young?
All that’s faded into memory.
I feel like somebody I don’t know.
Are we really who we used to be?
Am I really who I was?

That’s “Lucky Now,” which tied up the whole “Losering” story with a nice little bow; I almost felt like I should send Ryan a thank-you note. But I settled for writing that “Lucky Now” put me in mind of Ryan going back in time with one of Charles Dickens’ Christmas-eve spirits to watch his own shadow stumble down Raleigh’s Hillsborough Street strip — only to stop short of the darkness and turn toward the light:

And love can mend your heart,
But only if you’re lucky now.

“Lucky Now” also gets prominent play in director Judd Apatow’s new romantic comedy “This Is 40,” a movie featuring an onscreen appearance by Ryan as himself. That was reason enough for me to see the film, but it was still a mixed experience. “This Is 40” doesn’t tell a story so much as overwhelm the viewer with endless wisecracks, banter and over-the-top assholery, much of which made me cringe even as I laughed out loud. While it’s likable enough, this isn’t the sort of film that sticks with you. The characters never get any deeper than paper-thin, and Apatow doesn’t seem to have anything particularly revelatory to say about encroaching middle age. If I were giving it a grade, it would fall somewhere in the B-/C+ range; decent date-night fare, that’s all.

But the Ryan Adams faithful will still want to see “This Is 40” because our hero’s music plays a prominent Greek-chorus role. About 45 minutes in, leads Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann attempt to rekindle the spark of their relationship with a romantic weekend get-away, set to Ryan’s “Shining Through the Dark” (which he played on “Conan” last week). And the movie ends with Rudd and Mann watching Ryan onstage, playing “Lucky Now” as a benediction.

It’s nice — and also a better closing note than the movie deserves.