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Chrome Lotus has many nicknames… none of them good
By nick g | April 16, 2010
Santa Rosa’s newest hip nightclub is also the city’s newest rock music venue. Let that marinate for a second.
That’s right. The same douchebags and bagettes you see on “Jersey Shore” and “Downtown Santa Rosa” are the first thing you see in Chrome Chodus. Pool tables, a big bar, GIANT televisions everywhere, very, very loud top 40 jukebox favorites and old men with waxed mustaches “tutoring” young women on the proper way to hit the cue ball overwhelm the senses. But it’s appropriate, because you’d have to be senseless to enjoy this type of scene, anyway.
I tried to enjoy the Polar Bears and Prizehog show last Friday but was thwarted. Damn you, Santa Rosa. Must you kill everything I love?
Only after weaving your way past throat-burning cologne and boner-killing hoochies do you make it to the actual music venue, which I admit looks pretty well done, if not tiny. There’s a real sound system, plenty of monitors for the band, a separate bar and a bathroom in this somewhat separated area of the place. But as with many things at Boned Lotus, the devil’s in the details.
I’d like to think any music venue is a great addition to Santa Rosa. Ideologically, it is. But this venue is so miserable I would never be able to enjoy a show. The music in the venue is - are you ready for this - too loud for the small space. This isn’t out of ignorance, it’s out of necessity. The music must project over the booming jukebox in the sandwich shop in front. Between songs, the audience applauds fades out into “boom-tshh-boom-boom-tshhhhh-(autotunegarbagesinging)-boom-tshh-boom-boom-tshhh” from the other room. It’s like being at a really bad party in high school, or like trying to sleep when your brother leaves his iTunes on upstairs all night. Just so annoying.
In fairness, I’m sure the preferred customers of Just-Stay-Home Lotus enjoying the jukebox really hate loud guitars and drums ruining a perfectly good dance tune. But they probably don’t care that it’s too loud. Or maybe they do, I don’t know. Either way, it’s a lose-lose. I’d hate to see an intimate show like Des Ark (I’m sure she wouldn’t play there, anyway) or jazz or anything acoustic there unless the jukebox were turned off. Maybe a thick crushed velvet curtain in the five foot-long hallway connecting the two venues would help. Maybe.
But probably not. The bartenders in the venue area were dressed in a desperately slutty mannor, and I don’t think it got them extra tips of any kind. The giant disco ball above the music venue was spinning too fast and made me dizzy even before I had any drinks. My girlfriend was offered blow in the bathroom in a “oh, we’ve got extra if you want some” kind of way. That’s bad enough, but there’s only one stall! THEY DON’T HAVE A GOOD BATHROOM TO DO COKE IN!!
At Cha-mon Lotus, there are a lot of different options, but I’d rather go to a sushi bar for sushi, Mongolian bbq for Mongolian bbq, and a chinese place for chinese, not combine all three in some superbuffet on Mendocino Avenue. Coincidentally, Blow Lodus is just about across the street from a place like that. Maybe that’s where the inspiration came from. But the only time I ate at that restaurant I got really, really sick.
P.S.: Please, feel free to use douchebagette. It’s the female form of douchebag, in that it is the bread that surrounds the meat of a douchebag. The completion of a douchebag sandwich. Ew.
Topics: BAY AREA, Music News, Reviews, Santa Rosa |
April 19th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Fuck that place, word is they just canceled all of their “alternative” shows too which were definitely the only redeeming factor.
April 21st, 2010 at 5:38 pm
why is snipers playing then?
April 22nd, 2010 at 7:51 pm
Not sure, perhaps the rumor is false or possibly because it is sponsored by the fox.
April 22nd, 2010 at 10:13 pm
they should have gay night, like the casbar. that would fucking rock. talk about uncomfortable!