This Saturday marks the final show at the Avalon Nightclub in Santa Clara. Promoter Mike Beard—while hasn’t been the only person to book shows there—has been a major force, bringing in countless local and national acts. Y & T play the Avalon’s final show on July 30, which is sure to be a sell-out. We interviewed Beard about the Avalon’s closing and San Jose’s music scene in general.

How long have you been putting on shows at the Avalon?

I have been doing show since 2003 with local bands and moved into national bands. I started in Boise, Idaho at Tom Grainey/J.T. Toads venue. I booked this band called Midline and they drew and the owners told me to keep at it, and I did. I called it Monday Metal Madness with Man Down Productions with Midline. We drew 1,000 people on that Monday. I was in from then on.

What were some of the favorite bands you’ve been able to bring to the South Bay that wouldn’t have otherwise come?

All of the local and national bands to me are a gift and special. Without the bands and fans this would not happen. It’s all about them and not the promoter, to be honest.

Here is a partial list of bands I’ve booked: Exodus, Trapt, Dredg, Hed Pe, Prong, Testament, Fishebone, Fingereleven, Geoff Tate, Y & T, Lizzy Borden, Armored Saint, Taproot, Misfits, MSG, Saxon, UFO, Otep, Death Angel, Alien Ant Farm, Stryper, WASP, Lynch Mob and Montrose.

Do you have any plans to continue booking shows in San Jose?

I do have things in the works for the South Bay. Stay tuned for those shows and bands to be announced.

Of all the places you booked, was there anything about doing shows at the Avalon that were particularly special?

It was in my home town of Santa Clara. I grew up here. I joined the U.S. Marines from 1988 to 1992 here. My dad and brother Rich were Police officers here—dad for 32 years at SCPD.

Tell us about your last show? Other than the bands you have playing, do you have anything special planned?

M.I.R.V., Fungo Mungo was my last show, really… Y & T on June 30th is the Avalon’s last show and all the credit goes to Mike and Julia Jafari, the owners and people who I owe a huge thank you to for allowing me to do show all these years.

What do you think the San Jose scene will be like without the Avalon?

Well the scene has been hurt over the years with The VooDoo Lounge and Toons closing. The bands are as good as ever, but I just don’t feel like they have many places to play.

The Blank Club and Johnny V’s have been wonderful keeping the pulse going and the Caravan too. The Brit as well. We’ll see what happens. There are rumors of new owners and bookers wanting to open up a new/old place downtown. I’d be into it when I see it or get the call to do shows there. This is nothing new for me I have been through many club closes so Man Down Productions just moves operations to others places that need me.You’ve been about of the South Bay scene a long time. What is the greatest secret most people may not know about our little scene?

The secret—which is not a secret, but so key—is the support from The Metro, the bands, the fans and the bands’ studios keep all this alive. The scene to me will never die, it just needs a new place to hang out or re-invent itself. I am working on that as we speak with a few friends TBA later. Stay tuned South Bay.

Y & T Play the Avalon on Saturday July 30 at 8p. Tickets are $30.

With the closing of the Avalon looming, promoter Latin Rock Inc. is rolling out the first in a series of shows featuring Latin-inspired rock ’n’ roll. They’re calling the series, “the Last Days of the Avalon,” in honor of the venue’s impending closure.

Before you get too sad, get ready to dance, especially if you love Latin music. Headlining the first show on 4/20 will be El Chicano, legends in the East LA Latin rock movement in the 70s. Think of Carlos Santana’s Latin flavored acid rock of the early 70s and then tip it a little more toward the Latin, rather than the acid rock, and you get a sense of what El Chicano is all about.

El Chicano rode through most of the 70s on MCA, churning out Latin-soul-rock originals and covers. They Latin-ized “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles and “Light my Fire” by the Doors to surprisingly amazing results. Their rendition of Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” scored El Chicano a hit single in 1971 and other hits include “Viva Tirado” and their funky original, “Tell her she’s Lovely.”

One of their songs that should have been a Latino anthem was “Don’t put me down (if I’m Brown)” from their 1971 album, “Revolution.” It could have been the Latino sing-along equivalent to “Say it Loud (I’m black and I’m proud).” Maybe, it’s not too late.

Also performing on the bill is Salvador Santana, Carlos’s son, the salsa sounds of Blanca and Soul/R & B group Showtyme.

Tickets are $20 in advance and $25 at the door. The show starts at 8pm.

There’s a certain symmetry to the alpha and omega of Santa Clara’s Avalon Nightclub. Mike Beard, who has booked hundreds of shows there though his Man Down Productions, remembers when Avalon owner Mike Jafari first transformed what used to be the DJ-dance spot Backbeat into a live music venue back in 2003.

As a Santa Clara native and a hard-rock fan, Beard knew that Y&T lead singer Dave Maniketti lived not far from the club, and decided one day just to walk over to his house.

“Dave was out there gardening or whatever,” he remembers. “You’re not really supposed to do that, but I did. I didn’t care, because at that point Y&T was really doing nothing, Dave had this band called Maniketti. I said ‘Hey, Dave, my name’s Mike Beard. I grew up in this area, played little league down the street. There’s a club here that’s doing live music now, called the Avalon. Why don’t you call over and check it out?'”

Beard didn’t think much of it at the time.

“But a couple days later, [Maniketti’s] wife, Jill, called the club and chewed Mike Jafari’s ass about me coming over to the house. But they started talking, and they played a show there,” he says. After a long, close relationship between the band and the club, which includes a benefit held for Y&T bassist Phil Kennemore before he passed away in 2011, Beard says “They’re cool about it now.”

Fittingly, perhaps, Y&T will play the last-ever show at the Avalon, on the day the club is set to close, June 30.

“It’s kind of come full circle,” says Beard.

There’s some symmetry, too, to the “Last Days of Avalon’ show this Friday at the Santa Clara club. Headlining will be El Chicano, the L.A. group known for hits like “Tell Her She’s Lovely’ and “Viva Tirado’ in the 1970s. A documentary about the band, In The Eye of the Storm, was filmed at the Avalon in 2009.

“Obviously, people are going to make assumptions based on who my father is,” says Salvador Santana. To put it another way, they’re not expecting the son of Latin-rock superstar Carlos Santana to be collaborating with Del the Funky Homosapien, GZA from Wu-Tang Clan, or Mellow Man Ace, younger brother of Cypress Hill’s Sen Dog.

But that’s because they don’t know how hip-hop shaped Salvador Santana’s world.

“I was a high school kid bumping Wu-Tang. I grew up listening to Cypress Hill,” says Santana.

Those are the influences that shaped his own music, a party-ready mix of rock grooves, rap beats and electro overlay. The 28-year-old Santana—who plays Friday’s “Last Days of Avalon” show with El Chicano, saluting the Santa Clara club as it plans to close its doors June 30—has definitely found his own way.

“My father wanted me to learn drums at a very young age. I started playing at 2 or 3,” he says. “You have to have what we call ‘pocket’—a sense of rhythm, a sense of tempo.”

Around five or six he was encouraged to pick up a guitar, but he naturally gravitated to piano.

“The piano just made sense to me. It’s like an orchestra at my fingertips,” he says.

To constellate The Alchemist’s universe, you’ll have to weave a fabric of disparity: Entourage’s Scott Caan, son of venerable actor James Caan. Queens, NY-based thug chroniclers Mobb Deep. Weed rap. Cypress Hill. Beverly Hills. Milli Vanilli. Marshall Mathers. Somehow the idiosyncratic producer, DJ and hesitant rapper still finds time to cull samples for his MPC, devising projects with two of his fellow nostalgists: Gangrene with Stones Throw’s Oh No, and Step Brothers with Evidence of Dilated Peoples. On April 19th, the trio will bring the backpacks out to Santa Clara’s Avalon Nightclub.

They’ve moved on from weed rap—somewhat. Gangrene’s new album “Vodka & Ayahuasca” is 14 tracks of hallucinogenic ramblings and playful menace. All your favorites are here: the scratched callout imploring you to “get real” or “feel this,” the hypnotic piano loop that aims to be in some dadaist landscape, the occasional blaxploitation sample. Conspiracy theories and misguided Timothy Leary references are hip-hop staples, so while the album isn’t groundbreaking, it’s familiar and refreshingly free of the vainglorious aspirations of modern hip-hop. It’s there and it isn’t. Whoa.

In a time when one-time mafioso types like Mobb Deep have to dispel rumors they broke up on Twitter, The Alchemist’s levity and odd focus have kept him relevant. Recent gigs have included filling in as Eminem’s permanent DJ, producing for reigning weed rap ruler Curren$y, and boiling psychedelic tea leaves in the Amazon. For the sake of future weirdness, let’s hope all of this has gone to his head.

The Alchemist, Evidence and Oh No perform at Avalon on April 19th. Tickets are $14.85 in advance. Doors open at 8pm for the all-ages show.

Dredg, Case in Theory and Beta State packed the house at Avalon last week. Our photographer Joe Aguirre was there to catch the action.

It’s been seven years now since dredg released their breakout third album, Catch Without Arms. Considering the impact the record had on the Los Gatos artists’ career—both because it was their first album to chart, and their last album for Interscope—it’s ironic that one of the best-remembered shows from the supporting tours at the time was when they played their other two albums in their entirety. They’ll correct that when they play Catch Without Arms in its entirety at Avalon on Thursday.

In retrospect, dredg was handling what could have been a difficult transition for fans perfectly back then. Though Catch Without Arms doesn’t sound as different from their previous albums now as it was made out to be at the time, it was undeniably a simpler, more accessible set of songs. Gone were the “brushstroke” interludes of El Cielo, and the winding, impressionistic touches of their concept albums.

Though there was a central concept at the heart of Catch Without Arms, it was a leaner, more powerful brand of the band’s angular art-rock. Fans could have taken it hard, worried that dredg was losing its edge, and maybe some did, but in their live shows dredg staked out a solid link between the new songs and their previous albums.

Ultimately, it worked—the album pleased early devotees while also expanding their following dramatically. But if the qualities that made Catch Without Arms unique got a bit of a raw deal at the time, this show offers a chance to re-discover them.

Los Gatos’ dredg play Thursday, March 22, at Avalon in Santa Clara, 8pm; $20.

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