Photo by Zak Keller via Nectar’s Facebook page

What kind of relationship does Nectar have with the venue right now—does he have any words for you guys as you take the reins when he gave it up?

AB: “Good luck” [laughs]. No, I don’t know any specific words that he had, I was hired two months after the sale so I can’t quote anything from him, but Nectar shows himself, he comes in quite a bit, probably about once a month. And we’ve had some other local coverage about the 40th, where he was highly involved and he came in and spoke about it. He comes in every once in a while. Obviously we’re very close friends with Nectar.

What makes the Burlington music scene so unique and vibrant and able to produce something like Nectar’s that has national attention and has spawned a band like Phish; what makes Burlington so special?

BM: I think it’s the artists. It’s the collection of artists. I moved here in 2001, and I was amazed. I mean, I came from Boston. I was working at House of Blues at the time, and I had two national jazz clubs within ten miles of my home. Coming up here with the jazz that I could go and walk in and sit down and listen to for free in this town is just amazing. The collection of artists—and obviously it ebbs and flows—but the collection of artists that I’ve known for the twelve, thirteen years that I’ve been here is just incredible. And it also it’s Burlington’s culture of accepting—the importance the Burlington culture puts on the arts in general and music and their ability to take chances and go with artists that they trust—“Hey, I’ve got a new project, and you should come hear it.” And whether they walk away liking it or not, they took that chance and came out and supported it, and I think that those are all great things whether it be audience or artists in this town.

AB: I would add a couple things about why music is so unique here. One big one, I think, is just where we’re at, the quality of life. You grow up in Vermont, it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. It’s wonderful, and it lends itself to people finding a home here. Also, Burlington is a college town. There’s a lot of people that come in and out of this town for a certain amount of time each year. And I think that its reputation—whether it’s because of Phish, whether it’s because of the multiple venues that are in town, whether it’s Nectar’s or because of Higher Ground. Someone always knows someone from Burlington, and they usually can speak highly of it and of the live music in this town. Every Friday or Saturday night you can go to multiple small venues and not pay a cent and see some really quality music or you can go to a different place and pay top dollar and see top-notch acts. There’s always touring acts coming through here on their way to Canada or to Maine. The music programs in the local colleges are strong—UVM, Johnson State College. Between the quality of life, the colleges, the multiple events that we have, it’s just a really appealing place for such a small city to be a musician, to be an artist. Just to hone your craft and to get your name out there. I think that’s what makes it truly unique.

Do past artists that have gone on to success—like Phish or Grace Potter—ever come back and do smaller shows?

AB: Yes, and it is one of the things that we voice. A lot of the times we have a natural progression—we want our bands to play here and then to outgrow us and to move up the streets and play Higher Ground, play a different venue, get some coast to coast tours. But a lot of times, yeah, they come back. Those guys from Phish—I don’t know if Trey has been in here since, but the other guys have come in and played multiple times. Page has played with a lot of acts, as well as Fishman and Mike Gordon. They used to come in and just sit in with the bands. I’ve got countless stories from when I started working here where Page would come in on nights when there would be nobody here and he would just sit and watch the bands and listen. And some of the more recent one—like Twiddle, those guys have pretty much outgrown this space. They sold out the big room at Higher Ground a bunch of times. They’re like family to us. They come back and play here on their side projects, they did a residence here, and they recorded a live album here, and then they came back and did the release here.

Grace Potter, she did an album release. When she first played here she did a residency—every Wednesday—and by the third one there was a line down the street. A couple of years later, when she’d clearly outgrew the space, she decided to do a pre-album release here. If you bought her album at the record store on the same block, around the corner, you got into her show for free that night at Club Metronome. So that’s what we hope for, that artists will come back, and more often than not they do. It’s just an awesome kind of family vibe that we like to keep and we can only hope that some of the artists come back and tip their hat to us.

What’s your favorite memory—do you have a favorite show, or anything that really stands out that you think about when you think about Nectar’s?

AB: One of the ones that I always like to talk about is Porter Batiste Stoltz were scheduled to play at Club Metronome, and because of Page’s history with Russell Batiste in Vida Blue, I phoned the band in and said, “Hey, maybe we should get Page down here.” And they said, “Yeah, yeah, try to get ahold of him.” So I hit up a friend who knew Page and he agreed to do it, you know, if we got a keyboard, so I scrambled around and found a Rhodes and a Yamaha—no real expectations, you know. It’s hard to have expectations with someone like that. And sure enough, Page came, he played a couple of songs in the first set and then he played the entire second set and the encore. It was an absolutely amazing, magical night and then, lo and behold, George Porter Jr himself multi-tracked the entire night. He set up his own rig and did it. They ended up putting out some of that show on their album Moodoo. And then, as you know, they toured with Page. I like to think that it may have had something to do with that night, but even without all of that after, night was just—it was a hot and sweaty mess in there, the music was loud, the vibe was just unbelievable. One of the more magical nights in the building.

BM: We had a band, an African artist by the name of K’naan in here, and he was playing to large audiences all over the world and then he’s here playing for two hundred people. That’s what makes me cry because now, you know, he’s probably one of the biggest names in reggae—and you’ll notice that reggae is very close to my heart. One of the biggest names in reggae in the world, and he came here and played to two hundred and twenty people. And just the fact that, to be able to put monitors in front of these artists that, again, are playing to tens of thousands of people around the globe. Those stand out in my mind. And also, we do a Mardi Gras celebration every year here, and one year, during the day, Blues and Lasers played. It was the Grace Potter offshoot with Scott Tournet, Benny Yurco, Matt Burr and John Rogone, and it was just this wall of late seventies blues rock. Just an incredible, incredible show, and you get out and it’s literally four in the afternoon and it’s bright light out. But they just transported you. It was incredible.

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