In 1995 my band Iscariot played this venue in downtown Los Angeles. The owner’s vision was isolated capitalism, where money would circulate through the artist community.
From Wikipedia:
Al’s Bar (1979-2001) was a Los Angeles bar in the American Hotel, known as the West Coast’s oldest punk club.
It served as a gathering spot for downtown LA’s arts and music scenes, hosting original theater productions, alternative art exhibitions, and the experimental “No Talent Nights.”
Owner Marc Kreisel envisioned Al’s Bar as a “money pump” for circulating money around its community of artists. He imagined this surplus supporting a gallery, where artists could show their work. As Kreisel himself noted, “it was a capitalistic endeavor to support the arts by itself — an alternative to the feds and the state and getting grants.”
