Khyber Last Show Ever

Philly's most storied rock club pulls the plug.

by Brian Howard

Neal Santos and Evan M. Lopez

"I'll probably be back up in a year," the frontman wistfully half-joked/half-promised before leading the band through a ripping cover of Paul McCartney & Wings' "Junior's Farm." But for now, DiFuria has bid an uneasy adieu to a music scene that he had a not-insignificant role in creating.

He was part of a loose-knit group of like-minded people who, from the late '80s through the mid-aughts, booked shows, ran sound systems, played in each others' bands and, intentionally or by dumb luck, helped transform Philadelphia from a rock graveyard — a city that touring artists often skipped over on their way to New York or D.C. or freaking Bethlehem — into a place where acts of a certain size, disposition and ambition not only wanted to play but arguably had to.

The epicenter of this evolution was a bar in Old City called The Khyber Pass Pub and later, simply, The Khyber. The narrow room with the low ceiling in which bands played with their backs to a plate glass window looking out onto Second Street was in many ways imperfect. It was dirty and reeked of stale cigarettes and spilled beer. Sight lines got worse the deeper in the crowd you were. And if you happened get stuck in the back, good luck getting back to the bar. But the shortcomings were trumped by the amazing shows by local and touring bands that went down on the small stage. There were other clubs that had great bills. But The Khyber, like Revival and The Kennel Club before it, had a mystique. It was legend.

But The Photon Band — led by a guy who cut his teeth doing sound at The Khyber and playing with innumerous bands there such as The Lilys, Brother JT & Vibrolux, Uptown Bones and Tons of Nuns — didn't bleat its swan song there. They did it at Johnny Brenda's.

Since the Fishtown gastro-pub-cum-rock-club opened in 2006, high-profile indie shows have gradually found their way to the polished venue with the curling balcony, superior sight lines, lofty stage and killer sound system. Which is at least part of the reason Khyber owner Stephen Simons tells City Paper he will stop putting on shows there at the end of the month.

"Philadelphia has always been able to support two top-tier rock 'n' roll bars that held about 200 people," explained Simons last week in an office above the bar. The Khyber was long part of that two-step, with J.C. Dobbs, Upstairs at Nick's, Upstage and North Star Bar. "Now it's Johnny Brenda's and North Star. The punk rock or alternative crowd doesn't really want to come to Old City now. And I understand that."

The club's second floor will continue to host DJ events. But Simons — who, with his longtime Khyber right-hand man, Dave Frank, also co-owns three successful bar/restaurants — plans to shift the focus of the space to its already renowned craft beer taps and a food concept he's keeping close to his chest. (A music-restaurant hybrid probably wouldn't work; in 1997, Simons infamously turned up noses trying to host morning brunch and evening rock in the concert area.)

It's a development that's sent tremors through the scene despite the fact that until now there's been no official announcement beyond a note on the website stating, cagily, "There will be no shows at The Khyber in the month of August." Maybe he was wavering on the decision, or maybe that's just the way Simons plays things; he was similarly elusive about the club being for sale earlier this year.

This will bring to an end a tradition that predates the Simons family's ownership and stretches back to the 1970s when Serrill Headley (mother of eventual terrorist David Coleman Headley) ran the space as a bohemian jazz club of sorts — complete with imported beer, Pakistani tapestries, upright piano, upstairs wine bar, a phalanx of buxom barmaids and a purported friendly ghost. Though the scene in Headley's Khyber Pass was a world away from the grungy glory of the Simons' Khyber (Stephen's older brother David owned the club until 1996), both possessed eerily similar senses of community. You can't help but wonder how much the spirit of (or in) the building itself — purportedly a bar of some sort continuously since 1876 — has shaped its history.

As The Khyber prepares to close the books on live music, we tried to catch up with as many people who were part of its music story as we could. This proved to be an exercise in futility. Nearly everyone in Philadelphia music has a stake in the Khyber's past.

Julie Gold, Grammy Award-winning songwriter of "From a Distance" and, in the mid-1970s, a Temple student who played piano at The Khyber Pass on Thursdays

When I started in 1975 it was one narrow room with a piano in the front by the door. I was the person who christened the new room. There was a jukebox and there was a Pac Man machine. I would unplug the Pac Man, I would turn off the jukebox and play 40 minutes on, 20 minutes off, from 9 till 1:30. . ... It was my education. I was this naïve little girl from the suburbs and suddenly I was thrown into a mixture of people with all kinds of mysterious stories. Tarot card readers upstairs. Serrill Headley carried a pistol in her pocket. ... There were rumors of a ghost who roamed the building. I remember stories of scissors going up and down the steps. ... It was a very interesting mixed crowd. We had some Vietnam vets, we had college-age kids, we had guys with black leather jackets who offered to get rid of my car for me. They meant it. I was complaining about my car and they asked me if I had insurance and they said they'd take care of it for me. I had no idea what they were talking about. ... I still have a piece, a key, from that piano in my headboard. Karmically, I believe it still feeds my soul.

It was the '70s and [Headley] had someone reading palms and tarot cards. I said, 'Man, she seems to be getting a lot of business up there,' and someone implied that there was maybe a bit more exchanged than tarot card readings. I was like, "Ohhhhhh." I don't know if it was true, it was one of those apocryphal stories. ... [Headley] hired — and I went out with at least two of them — attractive bartenders, young women. ... I do remember that maybe [Headley] owned a gun, she was this woman who would wear robes but pack a pistol.

Sometimes we played Friday and Saturday, three sets a night. And people would come back and hear us again. Not only did you need much bigger repertoires, but you had to play it different. ... The Khyber was one of those very few places that never told us to "turn down," or said they "had a bad night." We always got paid what we were supposed to make there.

Neal Santos (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

With Reverie I took a lot of bass solos. So I'm up there and I've got my eyes closed, and out of nowhere I hear an eruption of applause, and I think, "That's cool." But the applause is getting louder, people are hooting, I'm thinking, the solo can't be that good. I open my eyes and people are looking right past me, out the window. They were applauding a belly dancer who was on break from the Middle East restaurant across the corner. I guess you could say The Khyber Pass kept you honest. ... They had a great bartender, Len Barry. He was, in his other life, one of the singers for The Dovells [a doo wop group that had a hit with "The Bristol Stomp"]. First we knew him as this gruff bartender, like, "Hey, what do you want, kid?"

Stephen Simons, first booker, owner 1997-present

The far wall used to have giant benches, and an aquarium with a really old turtle. Rumors were that the turtle was 300 years old. ... My brother bought the place in 1988 from a guy named Michael Burns, Serrill Headley had shut it down, I think in '87 or maybe early '88. Burns bought the place to open it, found it to be too much work. ... So my brother bought the place in 1988 and I say, "I want to book the bands." He says, "No no no, we're going to get somebody real to book the bands." So while I'm having dinner at my mom's house on like a Friday night, I ask again, and he says "No," and I say "Mom, I want to book the bands," and she says, "Come on, Dave, let your brother book the bands." So that's how I got started, but I was just an 18-year-old kid, I didn't know anything. The first bands I booked: Uptown Bones, Red Herring and Napalm Sunday. That was the night after Thanksgiving of 1988.

I played the "first" show there under the Simons' ownership with The Uptown Bones in 1988 maybe. I was 19 or 20 years old. Uptown Bones went on to play at the Khyber with Flaming Lips, Laughing Hyenas, Volcano Suns, Screaming Trees, Velocity Girl. ... The Simonses saw a void in the rock club scene in Philly — there was really only [13th and South's] Bacchanal and some basement venues. Lots of folks should thank the Simonses for taking a risk. They did a great thing at the time helping to nurture a "scene." Old City back then was a bit of a ghost town. The employees would often toss a Frisbee back and forth in the middle of Second Street, as there was little to no traffic after 9 p.m.

There were a lot of people who by the mid-'90s considered it a meeting destination. There was a whole coterie of people who subscribed to that. For lack of a better word, it was a salon. ... It was nice to have a place where you felt more comfortable in terms of just ... the thing about Bacchanal was that it was always so oppressive. They had their regulars — it was supposed to be this bohemian poetry bar and whatever it was, it was — but all those people were comped. I did a Gibson Bros. show there and they ripped me off for all the money. With The Khyber, they were pretty straight up back then. ... Stephen and Dave [Simons] took you at faith. There wasn't a "booking agent" to start, so if you approached them about a show, there was a pretty good chance they'd let you do it.

Once, I was unhappy with the money the Uptown Bones had made. We and the Electric Love Muffin had packed the place and got FLEECED — 75 bucks for us, and $100 for the Muffin. They didn't know it yet, because they were still on stage. Steve Simons, who was then booking the bands, was on stage doing Hi-Way Star with the Muffin. I was standing at the entrance behind the stage, the door that leads to the street, when I counted the money in the envelope and Carol Shutzbank — R.I.P. — counted the Muffin's money. When we realized how low the amount was, I got so pissed that I actually ran on stage (from the street entrance, mind you), and tackled Simons like he was a QB who couldn't see a defender coming from his blind side. I housed him. I hurt myself in the process. He's still edgy around me. Ha. Seriously, though, we laughed about it later that night.

My first show there, I think it would have been about 1988, with The Original Sins. To be honest, I don't remember the show, it must have gone pretty well, because we would play there pretty regularly after that. Maybe three times a year from '88 to '98 in one band or another. My impression of The Khyber is that it was just a perfect little club. It was a very comfortable stage. Not too big, not too high off the ground and you had immediate access to people who'd be standing in the room. ... People who came there were there to see music, not play pool, not yell. I remember having many great shows there over the years. It had something to do with it being The Khyber. Size is important in a club like that. Nick's up the street was a fun club, but it was too big. If you had 100 people there, it would feel empty. At the Khyber if you had 100, it feels full, everyone felt like they were in the right place. That's important in a club situation. If there's a small turnout, people feel like maybe I should be somewhere else. They don't feel completely uninhibited. ... It was an intimate club. I've played large stages and it does nothing for me. You can't see the whites of their eyes. Here almost intrinsic to the dynamic of the performance was the proximity of the audience to the band.

I remember a prank somebody played on them. Some band got mad at them. Eric Clapton was in town and someone called up with a fake British accent and said, "Eric would like to stop by this evening," and it wasn't till about 2:30 in the morning that they realized they'd been had.

Margit Detweiler, former City Paper music and style editor, member of Rockula

It was really one of the first small clubs to book national acts. J.C. Dobbs did sometimes, but Dobbs and places like Bacchanal or the Barbary focused a lot on local acts. From the get-go, Khyber was the den of grunge in Philly. ... They hosted a "Festival of Sexual Energy and Indie Rock" in 1992 and the press release said, "The celebration begins at 9:30 p.m. and ends when A.D. Amorosi stops shopping at Chess King."

Throughout the '90s, with me in my natty latter-day Bryan Ferry period, the shows I remember the most were the absolute sloppiest ones or the bands I hated — both where I had to worry about getting fluids on my suits. The messiest gigs had to be the ones with Steve Simons, [bartender] Kurt Wunder and that fish. The hated: That was The Interpreters. The aggressive manner in which they bored me so annoyed me I think I slapped one of their fans into a bloody nose during an argument about them there.

I was studying art at Moore on the Parkway. My friends and I would go to The Khyber what seemed every single night. I used to sit at the bar and drink the really good beer, and I would get drawn into the room if the band was really good. Some friends reminded me of some of the shows I saw that I had no idea I was at. Early Ween shows, Pavement, Smashing Pumpkins, Bongwater. Just some really great early shows for these bands. ... It was real different back then. I can't explain exactly how. You had all the classic guys behind the bar, the "No Crap on Tap" sign. It was really true. The beer thing was pretty serious. That added to the complexity of the club. It wasn't only a rock club. Back then it continued to be just a community — a mutually supportive community. ... You really felt like we were where we were supposed to be, and what was supposed to be happening was happening.

The bulk of the Sub Pop, the Amphetamine Reptile, the Touch and Go, the beginning of Merge, the beginning of Simple Machines, the middle of K., the bulk of Dischord. All those labels, it's where those bands played. A lot of it was that we didn't have much competition. To top it all off, we had this incredibly energetic daytime staff. The place was busy from noon till 2 a.m. [At the time] I felt it was a much bigger deal to do the first Liz Phair show than to get the first keg of whatever, but this was the crossroads of indie rock and indie beer. I don't think any of us understood how lucky we were at the time.

Sometimes a band would play there and you felt like the show was much bigger than the room. The quality of the show was so fantastic. It made the room larger. It just kind of transformed the space.

We had some fucking big-ass shows in there, man. Goats from when they first really broke. Soul Asylum when they were in mid-cycle. Rollins Band, Flaming Lips. That was the thing. When there was no more Chestnut Cabaret [closed in 1994], you went from The Khyber at 220 capacity (but I know I saw 300 people in there sometimes) to the Troc. Some shows there, taking it in context, could have played to 500 or 600 people.

It must have been 1993 or 1994 during the CMJ festival in New York, a lot of the bands were playing The Khyber and I was there like three nights in a row and the staff joked about setting up a cot for me. ... One of my highlights was the second time Pavement played there. It was so packed they opened the back door and people were spilling out into the street.

I remember doing sound for Daniel Johnston and having to calm him down: After he had finished his set, the crowd kept asking for encores. He obliged a few times, but each time, it started to become clear that he wanted to be done. After the third or fourth one, he stood on stage, wanting to get off, but the place was too crowded and the people kept asking for more. They wouldn't let him off stage. He started to get antsy. I couldn't turn the house lights on to signal to everyone that his set was truly over because he played with the house lights on so that he could feel comfortable. So I muscled my way on stage. Before I started talking, I looked him in the eye. I've never been that physically close to anyone who was so afraid. When I told him he didn't have to play anymore if he didn't want to it was like taking the air out of a balloon that was ready to pop. We went off stage by the street entrance and he was very happy. Phew!

Neal Santos

I remember one night, during a Jesus Lizard show, and [frontman] David Yow, while he was singing, just taking a piss on the wall. It was so packed, and people just started pissing on the walls, too. ... I was so new to the scene back then. I remember when [then booker] Dave Frank was playing with the Lilys, after the set, before the cymbal was done ringing out, I jumped up on stage and handed him my résumé. ... It was a terrible room to do sound, but the best band I ever did sound for there was Bardo Pond.

Our first Philly show was at Khyber with Smog and Royal Trux, a mind-blowing night to say the least. We were so green! ... I remember going there in the daytime, too, T.J. Lax would make us these insane sandwiches, we would taste their champagnes of beer. Dave Frank recorded/helped produce our first Matador release at Studio Red with Jason Cox, and just seeing some of the greatest, most memorable rock shows: Guided By Voices, Pavement, Mogwai to name just a few. ... I remember, too, Ed Farnsworth, a bar back, sitting in with Bardo Pond at one show, and he was great! It wasn't until five years later that he joined the band when Joe Culver left. It just was a place that got a lot of things started, what a great family.

The Khyber Pass. Its very name is one of the best things about it. Like a hallowed path you had to go through to get to the other side of being a serious band. I remember sending that first tape out to The Khyber and a few other places. Zines and labels. To be acknowledged by any of them would be great, but the real prize was to get a gig at The Khyber. A couple weeks went by before I had the guts to call them and see if they had received/possibly listened to our tape. My mind was blown. They listened to it and liked it. And then Dave Frank asked me if we could do a show. And then he asked, "Who are you guys?" incredulously ... and I told him, just some guys and a girl jamming for a while. It was a fucking miracle. I don't know if anything has topped that achievement for me, seriously.

The show I remember the most clearly as my favorite show: We had the Laughing Hyenas play, and coming down from New York and getting on stage with them was Thurston Moore, Jay Mascis and Jon and Julie from Pussy Galore. It was this wall of sound, just awesome to behold. And they didn't stop. They played for hours — 2 a.m. came and went.

Before Guided By Voices became Led Zeppelin, they played to a "packed" Khyber house consisting of me, the Record Exchange staff, Chris Clabbers, Rich Fravel and a few other friends. The crowd was small enough for everyone in attendance to "hang out in the alley" (as it were) with [GBV guitarist] Mitch Mitchell. Mitch told us that his band's singer was a really talented songwriter, as talented as anyone in the Beatles. He was sure that they'd "be big someday." Our friend Leo read Mitch the riot act: "As good as the biggest band in the world? Some guy from Ohio is as good a songwriter as John Lennon? Dude, what the eff gives you the balls to make THAT kind of claim?' We all pretty much felt the same way. We laughed at Mitch.

My two favorite bookings were 1) Burning Assholes [a Guided By Voices secret show]. GBV were great. We had a private case of beer by the back bar so we wouldn't have to keep running to the main bar. 2) GG Allin. When he arrived I asked him politely to not stick the mic up his ass as we only had three vocal mics at the time. He was very nice, rather sweet guy, actually, and said, "Sure, I don't think I'll do that tonight." He didn't stick it up his ass, or shit on it, but it was covered with blood and vomit by the end of the night.

(CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

As far as artist interaction, I had some really funny things happen. John Fahey was up in the green room and he had his back to me. I pat him on the shoulder and it turned out he had his back to me because he was taking a leak in the trash can. Didn't really want to shake his hand after that.

The ghost? That's just Jason Giballo.

Stacie George, booker (2006-08), currently booking for Live Nation

Probably one of my favorite experiences was doing the Iggy Pop secret show. ... In March 2004 I had The Killers play, they got paid $500, they opened up for Ambulance LTD . The next night it was The Decemberists.

This is something I always think about whenever I read books about movie stars and stuff — what's that famous saying? "When it comes to the legend and the truth, always print the legend." With the Khyber, it's always the truth. People aren't waxing your car when they tell you the stories about when Iggy Pop played that special show. The woman who was walking around with him, she would rest her poodle on her breasts, and that's not legend, that's truth. (Read Giballo's unfinished thoughts on The Khyber.)

I saw a ton of really great bands there. Now you can go to the M Room, Kung Fu Necktie, The Fire. We're spoiled. There was a time that if you wanted to have a beer and see a band, you went to The Khyber. I wish somebody with a little vision or a little appreciation for it had bought it. ... It's going to be weird walking by with no calendar in the window. ... It was great to play in. because the sound was good. I can't think of a bad show I ever saw there. ... The bathrooms had some of the best graffiti in the city.

People complain about the bathrooms and I totally understand, but the bathrooms downstairs start the night totally fine. ... We could clean them better during the course of the night, but that's part of the rock 'n' roll experience. ... I know there are people here who go across the street to the Plough & the Stars and come back here.

I always enjoyed that The Khyber had such a punk rock atmosphere. It's one of the few bars in Old City that people like myself or my friends felt comfortable in. Didn't charge $30 to get in, the staff was always awesome, the bartenders, the door men. The sound was terrible, the stage was crooked, and that's what made it so dope. It was a throwback to when we were young and we went places where you felt that at any moment the cops could come in and shut the place down.

I definitely witnessed the shift. ... My whole family's from the suburbs, but everybody knows The Khyber, my aunt would call it The Khyber Pass. ... Everybody will be a little surprised when they hear. ... I used to work in the office at BRAT Productions [upstairs from the bar], just going up there and walking right down stairs to the shows. Made me feel like it was another home. ... I understand Old City is now devoid of indie rock folks. More Jersey Shore people in clicky-click heels, and they don't really hang out at The Khyber.

Reef The Lost Cauze

Philly's losing music venues left and right. I don't know where the younger generation is going to play music. Khyber, La Tazza, Silk City and Five Spot. Those were where I got my education in music. Everyone I know I met in one of those venues. I remember one night this group of MCs from North Philly, Outer Space, were there and these older guys from West Philly, Prophets of the Ghetto, came up on stage and had this epic rap battle. It was so spontaneous in there. It really was a testing ground for a lot of groups.

Tom "T.J." Lax

I haven't been there in a long time. I can understand anyone's desire to move on. We're not 25 anymore, he's doing what he wants to do, so good for him.

Bryan Dilworth

You can't look at it with anything other than a really good attitude. It's been lucky to last as long as it has considering how bright it burned for such a long time.

It's sad, but I understand that area has changed. It was always such a struggle for bands loading in and out. There's only so much you can do when you walk outside of the bar and there are drunk frat boys trying to fight you while you're trying to unload.

Memories? Explaining to every single band I've ever done sound for that "the monitors here aren't very good."

The rock scene nowadays is too organized. No surprises. Very controlled. Venues have air conditioning now. Bands seem to show up on time. Onstage monitors apparently work more often than not. It's been a long while since I've seen actual vomit and/or nudity at a rock show. Most bands seem to know how to play their instruments. This is boring. I blame the computers.

I think that the emergence of Johnny Brenda's and, before that, R5 as the really good booking entities that could bring those bands through the Church — they gave the Khyber competition.

Part of it is overall demographics. There's just more young people in Philly than when I was younger. For that reason, the scene, for lack of a better term, is more diffuse. People up here [in Northern Liberties] rarely go south of Spring Garden Street. People have their own bars, own coffee houses, not as much of a reason to leave the neighborhood.

I saved the old Khyber Pass Pub sign, the night [in 1996] it closed. People grabbed all the stuff off the walls. They tried to grab the lights on the bar. They're made of [camel] skin, they're really old, and [former bartender] Chris Morris basically fought them back. I'm very thankful that he saved them. [Going forward] we'll keep the bar open. Do some scrubbing. Remove the stage. Add tables and chairs. We'll have to approach the city at some point about redoing the front of the building. Though I can't imagine anyone's going to complain.

(bhoward@citypaper.net)

The Khyber's final night of live music will be Vision and Mic Q's hip-hop showcase, Sat., July 31, 9 p.m., $10, 56 S. Second St., 215-238-5888, thekhyber.com.