Cause Celebre
You came down the stairs, went straight ahead into Box or took a hard left into the other side of the club, Cause Celebre.
Cause Celebre, 1994
It was quite a different experience but all part of the same thing. Does that make sense? Even when we hosted international DJs (and Box was the primary location for these for years), Celebre was always open to the regulars on Fridays and Saturdays as that was important to the philosophy of the club.
The only exception to that was the night that U2 hired the room for a private party, even turning away the head of their New Zealand record label...but we put Paul Oakenfold in the Box for $5 to compensate!
Célèbre was firstly and foremost about jazz, soul and funk - and it was the best bar in town for years. The musical policy was solidly about the funkier and jazzier ends of the musical spectrum and once again, it was important to take a few risks with the music, so we had bands that played freeform jazz from time to time, and the mighty Nathan Haines bands.
It was also Auckland's VIP bar... the place where all the touring acts came, where Tom Jones bought girls Moet, where Eric Clapton sneered at Jimmy Barnes, where Hall & Oates were barflys, where you could see David Soul at one end of the bar and John Hurt at the other, where Ice T lay on the floor singing "My Funny Valentine" or where Mick Jagger tried to get in free (Riseti said he could afford $5 and had to pay...he did). It was the venue for dozens of showcase events from Texas to Nigel Kennedy (who also dropped by on occasion to play with Nathan or Peter Urlich's band, and was known to hand his Stravarious to the barman to hang on to afterwards). It was where the promoters held the private parties for their artists, where product launches were done, where the key fashion parades were to be found, where TV shows held their rap parties, where Harvey Keitel could be found for weeks on end whilst filming The Piano.
Nathan Haines, CC, 1995.
Photo: Simon Grigg
But mostly it was really about the bands and the DJs that played between them, and the people who queued nightly to see them: The regular Bluespeak Thursdays, or Tommy Adderley and Frank Gibson doing jazz standards, or Murray McNabb's outstanding sets, Freebass (with the Haines and Harrop Bros), the Lawrence Quintet with Peter Urlich, Mark de Clive Lowe, Supergroove on Fridays, Nigel Kennedy sitting in, Tony Hopkins' wonderful lineups, or, Nathan Haines and the Enforcers, who played every Saturday and quite a few Fridays for four years to standing room only crowds.
It was the only place where you could catch a band that came on at 1.30 am and played till 5 or 6 in the morning with sweat running down the walls. Coupled with the DJs, Manuel Bundy, Gerhard Pierard and Bevan Keys, there was nothing quite like it in Auckland.
In 1996 we launched the Retro nights on Wednesdays (actually we stole them from Squid by offering the host, Wanda, more money). These, which we thought would last for six months, carried on for years, and after Grant Marshall took over, expanded into the Box room. In fact these got so successful, they essentially covered the club's weekly running costs and were taken, after Celebre closed, by Grant to a succession of other venues through to the latter part of the the decade.
Anne Sampson and Gavin Chilcott
Photo: Simon Grigg
Our doormen were absolutely key to the way we ran and controlled the place. Tom essentially ran the door but we had a series of respected and trusted doormen. Apart from Riseti (Rose to everyone) who was both the head doorman and the standard bearer, there was Soane Filitonga and Tim Sulusi, both later DJs of some reputation, Leonard, Sam and George. Oh, and briefly, Pauly Fuemana. Without these guys neither club would've worked.
In the first few years Sasi was the door girl, succeeded by a series, including Rob Salmon's girlfriend, Rachel, in what was one of the more stressful jobs in the place.
Downstairs, of course, were the barmen and barwomen. CC was dominated by the legendary Kevin The Hat, who worked with a succession of assistants including Richard (who'd actually built the bar they worked on), and Gaelyn Churchill, although at times Tom and Anne and myself could be found on the bar. Indeed Tom worked the smaller bar as a barman for some time. Ian Marriott, Al Murray, Garrett Murane & Bruce, who also ran a Friday evening Oyster Bar and others all worked on that bar.
We, naturally, sold the classic High Street drink, the 42, which was four shots of Stolly over ice in a tall glass, filled with lime juice. It was developed by De Brett's Phil Rikers (the name came from the till PLU..keyboard number), but Celebre developed it's own takes on that, most notably the Watermelon 42, which we sold thousands of every week, along with Strawberry 42s, Chocolate 42s, Passionfruit 42s and so on. And we served Jolt Cola (the heavy caffeine stuff) instead of Coke for ages, and our tap beer was supplied by boutique brewers, Newbegin Brewers of Onehunga. We didn't stock either Lion Red or Brown despite pressure from the brewery.
Photo: Simon Grigg
My favourite night was the one where Bruno Lawrence turned up at the door (on a quiet Wednesday) wearing paint covered rags. You can't come in here dressed like that, said I. He left. Five minutes later he returned stark naked.
The interior of Celebre was designed by Anne Sampson, who also ran it with a fairly firm hand, and the art heavily featured the work of Gavin Chilcott.
Anne also did many of the graphics, designed the logo and the menus and generally oversaw the look of the place until she left in 1996.
The pool table, which we resisted, arrived with the U2 party after they insisted on it. It came and never left.
I sold the place on 9 December 1997, nine years to the day after Tom and I opened it (Tom sold up in 1996) and to me that was the end but Greg kept the spirit going for a while, although the club after he left had little to do with the spirit or concept that it had started with.
What made the Box and CauseCelebre special for many of us was that it was almost a family, there was a sense of camaraderie, and kinship that revolved around the people who worked there and the music we played and worked with, and many of the people who spent so many nights there. It crossed racial boundaries unlike most clubs now but primarily it was about the music.
The Resident Bands
The Lawrence Quintet featuring Peter Urlich
Nathan Haines and The Enforcers
Murray McNabb Band
Tony Hopkins' Band
Mark De Clive-Lowe and The Enforcers
Freebass
Supergroove
Bluespeak
Frank Gibson Band Featuring Tommy Adderley
Fuemana
James Gaelyn Band
John Key Band
and more...
Nathan Haines and band
Photo: Karl Pierard