ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 12, 1996 TAG: 9607120025
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARK MORRISON STAFF WRITER
Kevin Jenks has plans. Big plans.
As the new owner of the Iroquois Club in downtown Roanoke, Jenks wants to change almost everything about the nightclub - from its name, to its outside appearance, its inside ambience, its food, its size and its scope.
Changes he hopes will mean big things for Roanoke's music scene.
Jenks, 32, is in the final stages of purchasing the Iroquois from longtime owner Shirley Thomas, who, at age 60, is retiring. Thomas has run the club for 15 years.
The first noticeable change will be in the name.
Thomas originally called the nightclub the Iroquois, in reference to her husband, Ronald ``Chief'' Thomas, who is part Iroquois. The name also was a deliberate break from the club's previous name, the King's Inn.
Under Jenks, the club will be called the Ghost of Hollywood.
Jenks already has the artwork to match the new name. It reflects two of his interests: comic books and World War II memorabilia. The logo shows a World War II Flying Fortress bomber with skeletons as crew members, and a pin-up girl painted on the side, along with the plane's name, the Ghost of Hollywood.
He plans to display the artwork on a billboard mounted across the front of the Iroquois building on Salem Avenue. (Although he said the pin-up girl may need to be censored first.)
Either way, the billboard will radically alter the club's outside appearance.
Inside, Jenks plans to completely renovate and redecorate. Gone will be the Iroquois-Native American motif. Gone will be the arcade games, the never-used salad bar, and the overall dark lighting.
``That way it is now, it looks like an old roadhouse by the highway,'' he said.
He wants to brighten up the place with new floors and lots of neon lighting, booths and a giant picture window facing the street. He also wants to cover the walls in artwork and other collectibles he has been sacking away for nearly a decade in preparation for this moment.
It was probably inevitable that Jenks would someday take over the Iroquois.
Owning a nightclub has been his dream ever since he first started promoting shows at the Iroquois in 1985. At the time, Jenks was a die-hard fan of hardcore music, or thrash or speed metal as it was sometimes called. But in Roanoke, there were no venues for hardcore acts to perform.
The Iroquois was almost exclusively a bluegrass club then. Wagon wheels decorated the stage. Jenks approached Thomas about bringing in a band from Italy called Raw Power. He was barely 21. His only other foray into the music business had been in organizing a Rock Against Racism concert in Roanoke's Elmwood Park to counter a Klu Klux Klan rally held on the same day in Christiansburg.
Over the following five years, he promoted dozens of shows at the Iroquois, including such hardcore notables as Danzig, Testament, the Cro-Mags, Suicidal Tendencies and the Bad Brains.
Then the economy dipped. One of his shows bombed. ``I saw that the only way you could make money doing this was by actually owning the club yourself,'' he said.
Jenks could have fled Roanoke. Many of his friends did, to more punk-friendly cities like Seattle and Phoenix. But Jenks, who grew up off Peters Creek Road, liked it here. He thinks Roanoke is a good place to raise his two sons.
``That's why I've stuck it out here.''
He went to work for his older brother, Tim Jenks, who owns Roanoke Valley Builders Inc., a custom homes construction company. Together, they started scouting out potential locations for a club.
Nothing suited them.
A year ago, they approached Thomas and began negotiating a deal. Jenks would not disclose the sale price, but he said his monthly overhead will run about $5,000.
His brother and their mother, Rose, provided most of the capital for the purchase, while he will oversee the club's day-to-day operations, he said.
Rose Jenks doesn't share her son's enthusiasm for hardcore or other alternative forms of music.
``The music I listen to she says gives her headache,'' Kevin Jenks said.
At the same time, she once took his brother to a James Brown concert, and she is supportive of his efforts. ``She's like anybody's mom. She wants to help her kids be successful,'' he said.
Jenks is a collector of pop culture art and related eclectic knick-knacks, which he plans to use in redecorating the club. Some of these items include a series of vintage GI Joe dolls, models of horror movie creatures, autographed pictures of Adam West and Burt Ward from television's Batman and Robin, and an original painting of the comic book character, The Green Lantern.
He said he wants the club's appearance to reflect his interests and personality. He figures the first renovations will cost more than $20,000.
``I have a picture in my mind. I don't want to say a low-budget Hard Rock Cafe, but ...''
He hopes the ambience will help boost food sales, and establish the club as more of an eatery, not just a music venue.
He plans to expand and improve the club's menu. Again, he wants the culinary fare to have a certain twist.
Already, he has named the club's cheeseburger with everything on it: The Corporate Death Burger.
Musically, Jenks wants to be more aggressive in bringing in nationally known acts to the club. Initially, he aims to attract one bigger name a month.
Roanoke is well-positioned, he said, as a natural stop between Charlotte and other points south, and Washington and other points north.
That doesn't mean Jenks expects to book the Dave Matthews Band or other expensive acts of similar stature. But he said there are plenty of rising acts available on the club circuit that are affordable. There are the fading acts, too.
That's the rule of the club business, he said. ``You either get people on their way up or on their way down.''
The club's current capacity is 350 people. In the future, Jenks hopes to expand by opening up the second floor of the building as a balcony. That could greatly enhance the club's attractiveness to bigger name acts.
Jenks also would like to close off the alley adjoining the club and turn it into an outdoor patio.
Although Jenks favors alternative music, his tastes run the gambit from ``Johnny Cash to Mozart,'' he said. And like Thomas before him, he said he will continue to open his doors to all styles of music.
He also will continue the club's support of local bands and poetry slams. He wants to set up a Web site for the club, and he hopes to establish a regular unplugged night.
``Local music is what clubs really depend on,'' he said. ``I think it's the grass roots that a music scene in any town is built on.''
Jenks points to the revitalization of downtown, the hope of bringing back Henry Street as another entertainment center, and other planned improvements to the city. He sees the local music scene only getting bigger.
``I've always had a hope that Roanoke will catch up on the evolutionary scale.''
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