Dubs (Kit Kat Club/Hootenanny/Locker Room/The Orleans) 4560 NW 13th St This building, almost demolished to make room for a Social Security administration facility has a long and storied history as a Gainesville music venue, presenting the popular musical styles of the time. It was the Kit Kat Dinner club as early as 1950, The Hootenanny in 1962, The Locker Room by April ‘64, then The Orleans, (opening in November 1964) and then Dubs Steer Room (Feb ’66), with a restaurant that featured steaks, but it was known by all as Dub’s. After being closed for years it had a brief stint as a private club called the Sunshine Eagles Club. To describe Dub’s is to describe the current social and musical trends of any given period as Dub Thomas’s entrepreneurial spirit allowed him to change with the times. Live music, topless dancers, disco...over the years Dub’s was a very popular club until it closed in 1990. Last call at Dubs: the end of an era By Bill DeYoung Gainesville Sun 1/16/91 After nearly three decades as Gainesvilles one seemingly indestructible rock n roll nightclub, Dubs has passed into history. The square cinderblock building on NW 13th Street, which drew record crowds for 26 years under one mans astute management, is on the auction block. I tried to hang in there as long as I could with it, says Christy Thomas, who took over the business a year ago following the death of her father, James Dub Thomas, longtime patriarch of the bar. But theres no sense in trying to ride a dead horse. Taxes, she says, sunk the good ship Dub. Throughout the 70s, Dubs weathered the storms of a fickle public. As many Gainesville bars dried up, unable to keep the locals shelling out during the dry, student-less summer months, Dubs held on, And prospered. Dub used to say it was because he understood what people wanted and he gave it to them: he brought in consistently good out-of-town rock bands, gave the best local ones a shot, and he kept the beer prices down. Another of his innovations, the mini-skirt contest, continued up until the very week the club closed its doors. The trouble began in the late 80s, when Dub overextended himself by buying up several other local nightspots. Instead of expanding his empire, he got into tax trouble. At the time of his death on Jan. 9, 1990, Christy says, he was in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service. A burly Californian who came to Florida in 1964, Dub Thomas bought the building — in what was then a little-developed section of Gainesville — after cleaning up in the fast-food business via the In-and-Out hamburger chain. During the 60s, the place sold steak dinners its still listed in the phone book as Dubs Steer Room). Dub started presenting live bands toward the end of the decade, and by 1970 his club was the place to be for young, rock-starved Gainesvillians, especially those who shunned the campus scene. One of Dubs first house bands, whose job it was to provide background music for the strippers night after night, was Mudcrutch. A quartet of local boys who played mostly twangy, country-rock type music. Mudcrutch included Tom Petty and his best buddy, Mike Campbell. Today, of course, Tom Petty is Tom Petty and Mike Campbell is his songwriting/record-producing partner in the Heartbreakers. Mudcrutch, which underwent several severe personnel changes during its long tenure at Dubs, nearly didnt get the gig at first because they played too much original material. Learn some covers, Dub told them, and Ill put you on stage. They did, and Dub did, too. For a while, Mudcrutch backed up a steady stream of topless dancers (another of Dubs early crowd attractors). The dancers became a thing of the past at about the same time Mudcrutch moved to Los Angeles, the first step in their transformation into Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. When the Heartbreakers appeared in Gainesville at the end of January, Petty dedicated the song Southern Accents to Dubs memory. Stan Lynch, the drummer for the Heartbreakers, says he saw some of his first-ever rock n roll shows at Dubs. He was younger than the guys in Mudcrutch, so Lynch hardly ever performed in Dubs (he was in a band called Road Turkey), but he remembers seeing Bob Seger there. And Foghat. Mudcrutch, too. Lynch remembers when driving to Dubs was an adventure, becaue it was so far out of what was then town. And he remembers Dub. Its significant that a guy who was in his 50s could run a nightclub for young people better than young people could, he says. Im always impressed by experience, and the older I get, I acknowledge and appreciate the older people who can stay in business. Thats what impresses me about a cat like Dub and his club, more than anything — the guy had it wired. He obviously knew how to run a club for the town. Whatever he did, it did it for 25 years. He mustve had something on the ball. Christy Thomas and her brother Wayne tried valiantly to keep the old club going. But the debts, she says, were insurmountable. Christy says she tried to get the club re-financed, but the economy just doesnt know what it wants to do. When Daddy passed away, there were just too many debts in arrears, she adds. Before he died, he was looking to get all his taxes paid up, but he wasnt able to. What were were hoping to do, originally, was close for the holidays. But then we just didnt have the money to re-open it. So another landmark comes up on the auction block. Will Gainesville ever be the same again? Wed just like to say thanks, Gainesville, all the people that hung in there with us all those years, Christy says. It breaks our heart, it really does, but theres just not much you can do about it when youre dealt that kind of a hand. I hate to see it, but I have to go on, she says. Ive tried till Im blue in the face. I guess its better that we do it on our own accord instead of getting the reputation that we were kicked out of business or something. Because theres still 26 years of Dad that he put in there, I told Wayne a couple of months after Dad was gone, this was definitely Dads bar. It was just him. * * * I forgot about the” Hoot,” Yeah we played it too.. I see I have the Hoot listed in August of ’63. The Locker Room first shows up in my log in April of ’64. The Orleans first shows up in October of ’64. Dub’s Steer Room first shows up in February of 1966. Tommy Hicks the guy who owned the venue up until Dub came in with The Steer Room. Dub did own a gym on University Avenue before he did the night club and restaurant routine. Dubs was called The Hootenany in 1962 when I first went to Gainesville. They had a piano bar with sheet music so patrons could sing along. There was no bandstand nor bands playing there. Folk music was quite popular and the pianist played a lot of that. Tommy Hicks took the club over and started hiring bands when the club was called The Orleans. We, The Playboys and The Rare Breed played for Tommy and for Dub. Bryan Grigsby Regarding the topless dancers, Dub was the first person in Gainesville to have them. There was a big brouhaha from the local righteous people that tried to stop them from doing shows at Dubs. The sheriff said he could not stop the topless dancers. At first Dub got the dancers from Las Vegas and paid them $1000 a week each to dance there. Later some local girls started dancing there. We played there often (The Rare Breed) backing up the topless dancers and one of them wanted us to move our lights which were near the edge of the platform she was dancing on. She said the people would not be able to see her footwork! Thats the truth! Bill Carter I found the little book I kept on income from gigs and it shows that in 1963, I was averaging about $10 a night playing at The Hootenanny James Belmont My first Dubs visit was when I was 15 or 16 (1967) & there were still topless go-go dancers. The Maundy Quintet was playing & I was allowed in because I was Toms girlfriend...Dub just grinned at me as I lugged in equipment & never asked my age. He was a cool man. Nancy Crawford Dub was the best to play for. Its the only place I ever played where we got an unasked for bonus because they we had a good turn out for the week. Hell, forget the unasked part it’s the ONLY place I remember getting a bonus at all. Michael D Lowe Dub discovered Lynda Lyndell. He financed her first single. Michael Ray Fitzgerald Dubs was the happening place in the mid-60s when I played with the Playboys/Rarebreed. We were the house band when Dub brought in the first topless dancers. Its difficult to play when your jaw in hanging down on your strings. Dubs was frequented by many Gator football players back then including Steve Spurrier. Frank Birdsong Dub’s Owner Dies At Home Gainesville Sun — January 10, 1990 James Dub Thomas, the burly, affable proprietor of the Gainesville nightclub that bore his name, died Tuesday of an apparent heart attack at his home in Monteocha, north of Gainesville. He was 58. Known as Gainesvilles father of rock n roll, Thomas owned and operated Dubs for 26 years and had recently purchased the Feed Store and a part-interest in Lillians Music Store. At Dubs, Thomas cut a legendary figure, hand-picking the acts he hooked from the ranks of local musicians. In the 1960s, his favored bands included future members of the Eagles, and in the early 70s a regular attraction at Dubs was Mudcrutch — which included Gainesvilles Tom Petty and several future members of Pettys Heartbreakers. Other performers who appeared at Dubs early in their careers were rocker Bob Seger and the comedy troupe Ace Trucking Company, featuring John Belushi. Born in Oklahoma, Thomas was raised in a suburb of Los Angeles. As a teen-ager, he worked as a bouncer in Sunset Strip nightclubs. Intending to pursue a career in police work, he majored in criminology and psychology at Mt. San Antonio College. He also founded the In-N-Out restaurant chain, which a 1988 trade magazine credited with being the model for Burger King. A promising football played, Thomas once said he was rejected by the Los Angeles Rams because of an asthmatic condition; when his doctor advised him to move to a smog-free climate, he chose Gainesville. Thomas came to the area in 1954 and opened Dubs 10 years later. The club celebrated its 25th anniversary last year, establishing it as the longest-lived nightclub in Gainesville. Thomas, a diabetic, had a history of heart trouble. Survivors include a daughter, Kristy Lisenby; a son, James Wayne Thomas Jr.; and one grandson.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Jul 2014 19:46:25 +0000
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