.Silicon Alleys: Cactus Club Reunites for Benefit

On Oct. 24, San Jose’s rock scene comes together at The Ritz in support of musician Matt Kolb, 49, who is fighting cancer. Bands from the early ’90s Cactus Club era—including Cafe of Regret, Firme and 187 Calm—will reunite for the cause, with Kolb mustering up some Marshall amp-level strength to talk about his battle.
“I’m fighting with everything I got,” Kolb said. “I can’t thank my friends enough. I’m so close to survival thanks to them, their prayers and their support.”
Since the organizers are billing the gig as an official Cactus Club reunion, allow me to rocksplain the history. Located at 417 S. First St., the Cactus Club (1988-2002) was San Jose’s equivalent of CBGB in New York. Every club-level touring band in the country knew of the place. In its time, Cactus did everything that a rock & roll club is supposed to do: It pissed off the neighbors, it pissed off the cops, it pissed off everyone’s parents, it embarrassed the politicians, it annoyed the city’s Department of Building, Planning and Code Enforcement, it irritated the state Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, and it gave San Jose name recognition across the United States of America.
When Cactus opened in December 1988, San Jose was still a backwater hick-town suburb with a pathological attention-starved inferiority complex about San Francisco, forever desperate to be taken seriously as a real city and thus finally shake the “red-headed stepchild of the Bay Area” image it was given for decades. By then, much of downtown had long since deteriorated into a black hole of skid-row atmospherics with splotches of crumbling retail left over from the ’70s. The city was throwing millions at cockamamie schemes to lure the comfortable classes back downtown, while First Street south of San Carlos was the red light district, a dingy peepshow paradise where washed-up hookers went to die and trenchcoated pervs went to score bad speed. (About once a year, some clown on the street tells me San Jose needs to bring all this back, but that’s another column.)

During those initial years, three other alternative music clubs existed nearby—Marsugi’s, Ajax and F/X—but Cactus was San Jose’s only 18-and-over venue, which meant many people no longer drove to San Francisco or the East Bay to see shows. After Cactus opened, local bands popped up everywhere. Anyone with a guitar, bass or drum set started to rehearse. Since this was before the World Wide Web, cell phones or laptops, everyone promoted shows by hand. The local rock community was much stronger than it is today, and bands supported each other much more than they do now. As a result, a thriving rock scene exploded at the corner of First and San Salvador, then dubbed “Four Corners.” One didn’t even need to know who was playing at which club any given night. You just headed toward that corner, found a bar or an alley in which to drink, and then went to see bands like Nirvana, Korn or No Doubt when they were nobodies. If you didn’t make it inside, you’d slum it on the street and wait for whichever house party unfolded later. Everyone knew everyone else. The scene grew in organic fashion—a true, urban live-for-today spectacle of booze and rock & roll placemaking. We didn’t need the Knight Foundation for anything. This wasn’t a ping-pong table in Fountain Alley.
Plus, it was cheap to live downtown at that time. Band houses tended to emerge everywhere. A thrashed Victorian for five drunk roommates and their record collections went for about $1,400 a month. SJSU tuition was $700 a semester. It was Camelot.

Sadly, though, many friends from those years are no longer with us, which is why any reunion such as this becomes a poignant opportunity for reflection. One of Cactus’ honchos near the end, the legendary Stikmon, told me just a few weeks ago that we have “San Jose cockroach blood.” They’ll never get rid of us. On a larger level, Cactus was that way, too. The club you thought would never go away is never going away, especially when one of its own needs serious help. All I can add is: Fuck cancer.

Gary Singh
Gary Singhhttps://www.garysingh.info/
Gary Singh’s byline has appeared over 1500 times, including newspaper columns, travel essays, art and music criticism, profiles, business journalism, lifestyle articles, poetry and short fiction. He is the author of The San Jose Earthquakes: A Seismic Soccer Legacy (2015, The History Press) and was recently a Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing at San Jose State University. An anthology of his Metro columns, Silicon Alleys, was published in 2020.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Latest Giveaways

Enter for a chance to win a $25 gift certificate to Scott's Seafood in San Jose. Drawing April 24, 2024.
Enter for a chance to win a $25 gift card to Henry's World Famous Hi-Life in San Jose. Drawing May 8, 2024.
spot_img
10,828FansLike
8,305FollowersFollow
Metro Silicon Valley E-edition Metro Silicon Valley E-edition