There was a beautiful chill in the air as I pulled up to the Local Performance Hall on my bike last night.  I got there a little later than usual which for me, at The Local anyway, is quite unusual. There was a good crowd assembled, many of our regulars, a few unfamiliar faces, a nice turnout for a Molly Sunday.

Michael, Chris, Sarah and John were already set up and ready to go.  I settled in, got my wits about me (some of them anyway) and we prepared to strike the first chord.

Then Bonnie, our beloved Bonnie who owns the Local and has allowed us to play there every single Sunday for over two and a half years came out from behind the bar and asked if she could make an announcement.  That happens sometimes, there might be a big show or an event coming up and Bonnie will address the crowd before the serious drinking commences.

So no one knew anything was wrong until Bonnie's voice started to waiver a little.

Last night, Sunday, October 5th was the last official "Church of The Mollys" at the Local Performance Hall.  For six years Bonnie has owned and operated the Local, has given some truly talented musicians a home (yours truly notwithstanding) and has shown more commitment to and understanding of what a music scene ought to be.  But Chattanooga is and always has been a fickle place.  I have seen the best bars come and go in fifteen years for no better reason than a lack of interest on the part of the bar crowd here.Not the Molly crowd of course, the craicheads are the most loyal fans I have ever seen, slogging through all kinds of weather, coming out no matter how early work came the next day, spending their last $5 on a few drinks at the place we Mollys call home and generally having a good time and showing love and support for the band and the bar.  

I'd like to think that in some small way the Molly crowd has helped to keep the Local open longer than it might have been, particularly once the empty-headed drinking crowd decided they'd rather spend their dollars in some corporate shit hole than in a place like the Local full of genuine people and a real sense of community (and a real sense of family I might add...)

So yes, I like to think that The Molly Maguires and the people who come to see us week after week have played a part in the history of one of the friendliest and best bars Chattanooga has ever seen or is ever likely to see again.  

Rest assured friends and lovers the Local has played a very significant role in the history of the Molly Maguires.   

Eleven years ago Stephen Cooper and I performed for the first time as The Molly Maguires and we made a pretty good go of it.  Something Different gave us our first break, the Attic gave us greater exposure and our first taste of real money and Finnegan's Pub in Huntsville and The Lizard Lounge in Chattanooga each made us their house band for a good while.  Stephen and I parted ways and I kept the Molly's going with new members and new songs.  Matty Livingstone became my drummer and that young man and I were able to do some pretty amazing things, even breaking in to the Memphis scene which is a bit of an accomplishment really.  Matty is a very successful drummer and sound man today with a degree in music and a recording studio and there again I like to think that being a Molly for a while gave him the taste of what playing music can be and lent even some small impetus to his pursuing his dreams.

I moved away from Chattanooga and the Molly Maguires became a one-man show for a while but still there was a Molly Maguires (there always will be...)  It wasn't until I came back to Chattanooga under some rather painful circumstances though that the band came into it's own and it started at The Local Performance Hall.  I was in town just a few days before I hooked up with my old friend Julie Kunesh who has a lovely singing voice and plays a mean bodhran.  We went to the Local and played for two open mic nights (and received a wonderful response for our trouble) before I approached Bonnie to see if we could score the St. Patrick's Day gig.  Bonnie already had a show booked but liked what we did and said we could have Sunday night if we wanted it.  We did and soon after Michael
Walters came in to the fold with his considerable musical skills on the mandolin and bouzouki (and vocals and guitar and general stage presence) and the Mollys most of you know and (apparently) love were born.  The more we played at
The Local, the more opportunities we had to do other things.  We were called once in a semi-emergency situation to fill a bill with All Things Green when their opening act bailed out at the last minute.  That was a special night.  I had written about All Things Green in a local paper years ago and I am delighted that they still use my article on their website.  Local canon has it that Bonnie first opened the bar to give those boys a place to play so to be on stage with them that night was pretty damned fine and in a way perhaps it was a passing of the torch since after
that the Local rather became the Molly's permanent home and All Things Green has since gone on to other projects and continued success.

The people we met there are a who's who of kind, caring, loving individuals, talented performers and all-around good people.  Jon Wimpee (one of my favorite people and musicians anywhere), Ada and Jen, Adam and Pinkie, the mighty Shah Kim, Imposed Progress, Barry Graham and too many more to name here.  Holding it all together of course was Bonnie whose love and devotion and hard work had far more to do with the success of the Local than anything the Molly Maguires ever did (though we are all very proud to have been a part of the experience...)

I cannot express well enough how emotionally invested in the Local I (and the rest of The Mollys) really are...  

That little bar and the loyal staff and patrons there saw me personally through some awful times emotionally and physically not the least of which was my devastating accident last Spring.  It saw Michael through the last painful
days of his marriage and saw his rebirth as the talented and confident man who knows no limitations now.  No matter how bad I ever felt about anything the few hours a week at the Local were a respite, a spiritual rejuvenation if you will.

Just a few weeks ago a very drunk and belligerent fellow came in on a Sunday and numerous attempts to calm him down proved ineffective.  When he tried to pick a fight with our friend Bryce over half the bar jumped to their feet with
a firm and deadly serious warning, "Not in here buddy.  Time to go."  That's the kind of place the Local was...  I've spent years working in bars in one capacity or another and have never seen the kind of camaraderie and friendship that we had there.

Good lord, I don't even know where to begin to describe what it was like, the memories...  Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, birthdays, where ever we celebrated them, who ever we celebrated them with, somehow we all trickled down to the Local later in the evening to celebrate with our second family.  Heh, last Thanksgiving after a stressful and somewhat painful day I walked in to see my good friends almost all of whom had brought some leftovers so that we had a more magnificent feast collectively than any of us had individually.  I brought the whiskey of course and there were guitars and Alice's Restaurant playing on the t.v. (there you go, Bonnie and the Local were rather like Alice's Restaurant I think...)  What a magnificent night.  How good to share love and laughter and food with so many wonderful people.  Deadheads and Phishheads and Craicheads and punks and rappers and freaks and blockheads, the flotsam and jetsam of Chattanooga's artistic community, all together in one place sharing our passion for music and performance and each other.

There has never been another place like the Local and there never will be again I am afraid.  Bonnie was never interested in having the biggest or fanciest bar, Bonnie wanted a placed for friendships to be made, for the best of what makes people good to be shared and that she did in spades.

Who now can know the hard work and dedication that beautiful woman invested in our little home?  How many times were the wolves at the door and through determination, perseverance and devotion she kept the doors open for a little
longer?  I know.  My bandmates know.  The people closest to the bar know and we all did what we could to lend a hand but it was ultimately Bonnie who shouldered the burden and for six years she gave us and the community in general
something it desperately needed, something it was lacking before she came along. Six years is an amazing record for a bar in Chattanooga that doesn't have corporate money driving it.  The successes of the Local came from Bonnie's
work along with Jon and Adam and the rest.  The closing of the bar I lay at the feet of the bands who canceled engagements at the last minute, the patrons who came in to find their friends and then left to drink elsewhere in more expensive, less-personable establishments, the general disinterest and lack of love for homegrown music.  There were loyalists of course and my love and appreciation for the craicheads knows no bounds but in the end it seems there were more of the shallow, valueless and vapid than there were of us and sadly it is the people like Bonnie who pay the price for that.

But Bonnie, dear, sweet Bonnie, you fought the good fight and you gave us all something to hold on to for the rest of our lives. I will always treasure what the Local was to me, to my friends, to our fans, to our family.  It was a great thing you did and I don't know anyone who could or would have made it last as long as you did.  We are all in your debt and I will never forget the precious little gem you gave us in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  You've earned a rest now dearest.

It was a little difficult to get started after the announcement.  Hard to know that it would be our last church but we did what musicians do, we played. And we played.  And we played.  And more and more people trickled in, old friends we'd not seen in a long time, none of whom knew that it was the last show.  Funny that...  Almost unbidden people who had not been around for a while because of work or family or the pressures that life foists upon us showed up, not because it was their last chance, just because the Local is where you go and it seemed like time.  I'm trying to be careful with my prose, I don't want to say it was "magic" but it was a little uncanny to see so many old friends and fans stop in for one last drink.

And oh children, how we sang.  At times the entire bar was crowded around the stage (or couch, to be accurate) and raised their voices with the band.  The walls literally shook with the power of it and I swear to you that I heard some of the most beautiful music I have ever been immersed in anywhere.  Were we sad?  Of course we were sad.  It was like seeing off an old friend on a journey you know they won't be returning from but that kind of maudlin sentimentality is not now nor will it ever be the Molly way.  It isn't Irish, it isn't proper.  No, we said farewell
the best way we know how with song and laughter and a celebration of what Bonnie's bar has been to us all and I say we did it in fine style.  We sold out the beer cooler, we auctioned the very last Guinness (for $25 no less) and when the drinks ran out someone was dispatched to the store to bring in a super-secret reserve because dammit, we just hadn't had enough.

We *ended* the night with "Bugger Off" mariachi style with all the musicians wandering through the crowd and eventually out in to the street before making our way back to the couch.  A little parade if you will to the strains of "Bugger off you bastards, bugger off!"  I say we *ended* the night because frankly, once we were done and our beloved drummer had to go home we sat there for a bit, Michael, Jon, Chris and myself, and decided, "What the hell?"  and we kept right on playing.

Some people have expressed concern over the effect this will have on the Molly Maguires.  There may be a new owner of the Local in a few days and the one and only stipulation Bonnie made was that he continue the Sunday night tradition.  You see friends and lovers?  THAT is the kind of person Bonnie is...  Whether the deal goes through or not remains to be seen.  If it does then expect to see the Molly Maguires in their usual place on Sunday nights and we'll do our best to keep the tradition alive though it will never be the same I am afraid.  Bonnie will always be
synonymous with the Local and all the good feelings and good times there, but we'll give it our all.  Failing that here is a secret:  Over the course of our playing the Local several other bars have approached us, have asked to come play for them instead.  These bars offered considerably more money but we never considered it.  It isn't always about money you know, even when you desperately need for it to be.  We felt the same sense of loyalty to Bonnie and her bar that she has always shown us to the point that we turned down paying gigs to play at The Local for free.  

Playing music is not an easy path to follow (though it must seem so from the outside) and keeping a band going can make an old man of you quickly if you aren't careful so when you find a home like the home we found you guard it,
you protect it jealously and you give it all the love you can and your reward is ten-fold return so we stood by the Local just like the Local stood by us.  Now, who knows what comes next?  ...but the Molly's will endure and we'll
find a new home though, and I can't stress this enough, we'll never find another Local.

I stayed until the very end.  It was the right thing to do, nothing less would have been proper.  We locked the doors and drank and played games and laughed and joked and talked...  Jon Wimpee, Ada, Ikki and Russ, Bonnie, Tim, Jerry, myself...  We stayed until the very end, and then sometime between four and five we filed silently out into the street.  Bonnie, the last one out, turned off the lights...

Farewell friend.

And Bonnie?  Thank you love.  Thank you for all you gave us.  Thank you for bearing the burden for so long, for bringing us so much happiness.  Thank you for making The Local our very own Callahan's Cross-Time Saloon.  I do not
believe enough people ever appreciated you but please know that some us did and do and we will not forget.

Love to you Bonnie Hedgecroff.

Oh all the money that ere I spent, I spent it in good company...
And all the harm that ere I've done, alas it was to none but me
And all I've done for want of wit to memory now I can't recall
So fill to me the parting glass, good night and joy be with you all

And all the comrades that ere I've had, they are sorry for my going away
And all the sweethearts that ere I've had, they'd wish me one more day to stay
But since it falls unto my lot that I should rise and you should not
I will gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all

Goodnight friends and lovers.

M.