Perhaps the most exciting announcement to come out of University Circle Inc.’s annual meeting tonight at MOCA was that the owners of the Happy Dog in Gordon Square — Sean Watterson, Sean Kilbane and Eric Williams — will be taking over the shuttered Euclid Tavern at E. 116th and Euclid Avenue. They plan a spring 2014 re-opening.
As most of the area fanning out on Euclid Avenue from the intersection of Mayfield has been swallowed up by slick, futuristic new development with many chain establishments that have obliterated much of the area’s character, many feared the funky old Euc would be torn down and replaced.
That would have destroyed another Cleveland music landmark.
A neighborhood bar for over 100 years, it was an informal hangout in the ’70s and ’80s, where local blues and rock groups like the Mr. Stress Blues Band, Armstrong Bearcat, Oroboros, and the Alan Greene Band played. It also famously was the site of the filming of some scenes for the 1987 movie Light of Day featuring Michael J. Fox and Joan Jett.
In the ’90s, it became one of the area’s hottest venues for the burgeoning underground rock scene when Cleveland Institute of Art student Derek Hess took over Monday nights. He booked touring acts like Helmet, Soul Coughing, Unsane, Cop Shoot Cop, the Melvins, the Jesus Lizard, and Guided by Voices, as well as out-of-the-mainstream locals like Craw, Coltrane Wreck, and Screwtractor — a litany of the era’s most exciting and challenging bands.
The flyers and posters he designed for the Euc launched Hess’ now flourishing artistic career, and he left the booking business by the late ’90s.
The club stumbled on until it closed in 2002. It was reopened under new management in 2008, and although it was given a facelift, including upgrading its notoriously funky restrooms, its bookings were hit and miss, and its promotion nonexistent.
UCI purchased the building this past spring, ending that management’s run.