Il Motore Turns 3
Meyer Billurcu chats about the venue
I remember with being excited when Il Motore opened—if “excited” is a nicer way of saying “confused.” It seemed like a bad idea because it seemed like a trek, at least at first. And let’s be honest—there isn’t a whole lot to do up in that ‘hood outside of going to Il Mo. But now it’s years later, and the Motor’s motor is still running, proving once and for all that I don’t know a damn thing.
I caught up with Blue Skies Turn Black’s Meyer Billurcu recently to chat about the venue. The conversation went a little bit like this:
Il Motore's 3rd anniversary is coming up. What have you got prepared for the anniversary celebrations?
- We're throwing a party on Friday, Dec 2nd. Our friends Urockaoke (live band Karaoke) will be performing all night. They've done many fun nights at the venue so they seemed like a natural choice to book and help us celebrate our 3rd anniversary—in a way they’re kinda like the house band. We'll be giving away tickets to BSTB events [and] we'll also have drink specials. Our goal is to make it a big party and we hope everybody has fun. We'd like to stress that even if you don't like karaoke you should come party with us!
When you opened the venue, did you think it would last this long?
To be honest we didn't really think about it. We just wanted a venue to host all our events at and get a cut of the bar. Our favorite venues were Casa Del Popolo and Sala Rossa but they were getting hard to book. In terms of location I don't believe location is everything. I've noticed over the years that if a band is popular people will go see them no matter where they play.
Who officially owns Il Motore? Why was it opened (outside of "hey, a showbar is a great idea!")?
Il Motore was unofficially a partnership between Blue Skies Turn Black and Casa Del Popolo/Sala Rossa. Today it's officially just owned by myself and Brian [Neuman], who also own Blue Skies Turn Black.
Why did you call it what you did?
Marilyne, one of our old partners, came up with the name. It's Italian for “the motor.” She liked cars. It's Italian like Casa and Sala so people would associate the venues with each other.
What's the venue's biggest get, so far?
You’d think it would be one of our shows but it wasn't! Our opening party held the record for a long time but the current record holder is a Halloween party that we had this year. Seriously it was great. We didn't know the organizers so we weren't sure what to expect but it ended up being a great party. The good news is they've already booked next year's party!
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