July 20 - July 26, 1995

GAMBLING ON EL CASINO: Nearly four years after an evil blast of wind ripped the roof off of El Casino Ballroom in South Tucson, the venerable venue is being readied for reopening. If you were one of the hundreds of people who crowded the large maple wood dance floor and twisted to the music of Queen Ida, Albert Collins, Los Lobos, Beausoleil, Flaco Jimenez, Angela Strehli, Marcia Ball, Burning Spear or any of the other many talented performers who graced its humble stage, this is nothing but great news.

The partially renovated Casino itself will be the site of the first of a series of concerts designed to raise money to complete the restoration, says Rick Helvey, a management consultant with the Tucson Minority Business Development Center. TMBDC is subsidized by the Department of Commerce to help ethnic minorities with their businesses--in this case they're assisting the Latin American Social Club, the non-profit organization that owns and runs El Casino. The first concert is scheduled to take place in November.

Right now the LASC needs about $500,000 to finish replacing the roof, enlarge the venue, fix damaged areas of the dance floor, improve the rest rooms and install a cooling system that actually cools. Part of that half-million will come from the concerts, while Helvey and the Social Club hit up major Tucson businesses to donate the rest.

Anyone who knows even a little bit about the history of El Casino knows there have been financial shenanigans there in the past. The tales of who may have had a hand in the till since the LASC purchased the ballroom in 1968 are too convoluted to try to sort out today. What is important, Helvey says, is to assure people that money raised since the exodus of the roof, and in the future, will go to fixing the ballroom--not into someone's pocket.

"The situation is set up so the sort of things that happened in the past--fiscal malfeasance and poor management--aren't going to happen again because controls are in place," Helvey says. "The fact is, the Latin American Social Club has been reorganized. Ed Lopez (president of LASC) was an auditor with the U.S. Postal Service for a number of years and he was brought in (in 1991)...which allowed questions to be asked about the previous management and how things were run."

In '91, after the roof left the building, LASC had a debt of around $130,000. That has been reduced to about $25,000 through fundraising efforts, according to Helvey.

"What I keep saying is 'Let's have a 20-year vision.' Some of these people want to see their grandkids married there because there were three generations of wedding receptions in this place," Helvey says. "You need to take a long look at it and say, 'What can we do to make sure it's still in effect in 20 years.'

"Almost everybody I've talked to, unless they've just come here in the last two or three years--gringos and Hispanics and blacks, almost everybody--has gone there or they've heard of it by reputation and they knew some things were happening there. There's just a lot of history. Places like the TCC don't have the ambiance. They don't really want the quinceañeras and the cultural events there. They don't make enough money from them. The Hispanic community and the community at large needs a place like that that's really going to address their needs."

And, of course, there are the concerts. I attended 40 or 50 shows at El Casino during the heyday of KXCI's House Rockin' Concert Series and never had a better time anywhere. The Terence Simien concert is still a favorite memory for me.

I was a member of KXCI's staff at that time (the late '80s) and I can tell you, we were worried that no one would show up to hear this unknown young zydeco rock and roller from the backwaters of Louisiana. We played a couple of his songs off of a demo tape he had sent us and told people over and over again on the air that Terrence was hot.

The night of the show over one thousand people turned out (slightly over legal capacity, but who was counting?). It was definitely the biggest crowd Simien and his band had ever played for--it was probably more people than they had ever seen collectively in their lives. As soon as Terrence and The Mallet Playboys started playing, the dance floor was packed with maniacs. People were flinging themselves around as if they were having orgasms and winning the lottery at the same time.

Simien would leap into the air--bullets of sweat flying from his long, curly hair--and land with a squeeze of his accordion. The crowd loved him, the music and the Casino.

If Helvey and the Latin American Social Club can revive the ballroom, it will bring back some of that much needed magic to Tucson's music scene.

If you would like to be involved in the planning and execution of the restoration (scheduled for completion next May), call Helvey at 721-1592.

LAST NOTES: The GWAR beings are at The Paragon, 144 W. Lester, on Saturday night. They're dressed up as their alter-egos, X-Cops. These murderous musicians act out violence and other choice bits of mayhem as their police selves. Should be weirdness of the highest order. Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door.

The Vandals bring L.A. hardcore to the Downtown Performance Center, 530-B N. Stone Ave., in one of the few remaining concerts scheduled at the DPC. F.U.C.T., American Death Trip and Back Stab Gospel open the show Saturday, July 22. Admission is $5 at the door. Call 628-1650 for information.
--Michael Metzger

		© 1995-97 Tucson Weekly . Info Booth