It’s always such a disheartening thing when a venue that has become integral in your community does something immoral, especially when it’s located in such a cool pocket such as mid-city New Orleans. If you’re from here and active in the music scene, you’ve probably heard of Banks Street Bar, whether you’ve been there or not. Despite this, over the summer, Banks Street management made a choice that caused it to be blacklisted by the music community.

When COVID hit, lots of venues suffered. It’s incredibly hard to make money as a music venue or bar when people can’t feel safe spending time together and putting on shows is an immoral decision to make. Uptown venues which were primal hubs for up and coming touring acts, local bands, and everything in between suffered intense shifts, with bankruptcy leading to changes in ownership and subsequently alterations to the ambiance and energy of these venues. While some of these changes have proved to be for the better, the venues haven’t been the same ever since.

These changes to such cherished locations sent artists and bands scattering, looking for a new go-to venue. This search led the community to fall upon a bar in mid-city New Orleans, Banks Street Bar. People found comfort in the hazy pink vampire teeth framing the bands on stage, the high quality of the live sound, and the cheap beer. Folks from all around the city found solace in the good energy and community of this neighborhood bar by day, music venue by night, and it felt amazing. 

This comfort was unfortunately short-lived. One thing that is highly admirable about the New Orleans music scene is how honorable the community is, and how we don’t put up with bullshit. The Banks Street Bar management made a poor decision to up and fire every single one of their staff, telling them to practically beg for their jobs back if they wanted to remain employed at this bar. Banks really built itself up as a staple spot for cool ass shows and then just decided to tear itself down because of shitty management. Although, the stupidity of the management really worked its wonders since a (former) employee still had the login to the bars social media account, and was able to put the events on blast with posts full of screenshots of things said by the manager, including statements sent about how nobody can be high at work aside from the management because, “we can handle it.”

Weird Face stands in solidarity with the former employees of Banks Street, and it’ll forever be Fuck Banks.