Local bands rock to save beloved dive

By Tom Nash

As John Giannino sweeps up after the final night of a week-long concert series meant to save his family’s business, he seems more worried about the Patriots getting trounced than the future of the Abbey Lounge. The thought of losing it seems remote.

“It would suck,” he says of the possibility of the bar closing. “The place has been around forever, you know? I grew up around the place.”

Positioned on Inman Square’s dividing line between Cambridge and Somerville, the bar has unapologetically cultivated its status as an authentic dive. Prohibition couldn’t stop the place from selling moonshine, and Giannino can’t keep people from punching holes in the men’s room drywall.

For the past several years, bands like the Coffin Lids have become mainstays while the club has also wooed those more interested in Italian reds with next door’s Z Bar, which opened in 2004.   

The Abbey Lounge has in one form or another been a Somerville refuge since the beginning of the last century. It was owned by the family of Tim Leyne from the 1970s until 2005, when long-time bartender and co-owner Steve Giannino took the business on with two partners.

A costly renovation project and $10,000 in owed back taxes later, the club announced it would not see the end of September without some serious help.

That’s when the scene stepped in.

‚ÄúIt’s one of the last places for bands to play,‚Äù Buried In Leather bassist Seager Tennis said after his band’s blink-and-you-missed-it set on Saturday. ‚ÄúPlaces like this are important.‚Äù

Under the “Abbey Benefit” banner, 30 acts played during seven nights this past week-all foregoing paychecks in the name of saving the club that has taken so in so many otherwise marginalized bands.

New Hampshire resident Dave Bax makes regular trips to the club to see his friends play. As a part of Saturday’s benefit show, he performed with Todd Parker as a duo named Baxx – cultivating an unlikely if not inadvisable melding of Tupac beats with Sabbath guitar leads.

“We pulled something out of our ass,” Bax said. “Last time we played here, we played country.

‚ÄúI was here last night and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people here,‚Äù Bax added. ‚ÄúI hope tonight is good, too. I don’t want this place to go away.‚Äù

Since the Abbey Lounge began featuring music in 1999, the 140-capacity club has acquired a reputation for supporting genres ranging from rockabilly to metal, garage and punk.

The owners have managed this while maintaining a loyal group of mostly elder regulars who show up on Sundays to catch the game, a balancing act John Giannino says has been relatively trouble free.

‚ÄúBack in the day, it used to be a regulars bar,‚Äù he said, noting the stage and bar used to be separated. ‚ÄúIf you went left you paid a cover, and if you went right you didn’t.‚Äù

Over the past few years, however, many in the regular crowd have been disappearing. ‚ÄúIt’s not so much the music that has made the regulars drop off,‚Äù Giannino said. ‚ÄúIt’s that they’ve been dropping off the face of the earth.‚Äù

Sound technician Steve Herrell said the call for help has brought a large amount of good will from patrons. Even an unusually high $12 cover for last week’s benefits didn’t seem to faze people used to getting into a show and getting a few beers for the same amount.

‚ÄúPeople were just dropping $20s and saying ‘Keep the change,’ ‚Äù Herrell said. ‚ÄúThey’ve been very supportive.‚Äù

Giannino is reluctant to speculate about how well the club made out from the shows, but said they are looking ahead to October. “From this week on, everything looks good,” he said. “It was a good week Рa lot of support.”

Herrell also remains hopeful for the Abbey Lounge’s future.

‚ÄúThis is the last of the breed‚Äù Herrell said. ‚ÄúIt’s dirty, it’s loud, it’s cheap, and it’d be a [expletive] shame to lose it.‚Äù