This Aint Hollywood is a music bar in Hamilton, Ontario, named after a Forgotten Rebels song. Now, many of Hamilton’s young musicians feel forgotten as bars like This Aint Hollywood close down to make way for new restaurants and high-rise condos.
This Aint Hollywood’s sale in the summer of 2020 marked the final shift between James St N’s changing winds.
In 2004, James St N was at the centre of Hamilton’s struggling downtown core, which feels the city’s diminishing steel industry’s impact. However, the downtown core struggle led to cheap rents, and artists began moving in and opening up art studios.
Art Crawl
This led to the birth of “Art Crawl,” a monthly event in the city where artists would open the doors to their studios and let passers-by browse while offering free wine and cheese. This evolved into having street vendors offering homemade goods. Eventually, the event becomes Hamilton’s go-to social event. This led to the first-ever Supercrawl in 2009, which brings two hundred and fifty thousand visitors to James St N for one weekend in September.
As these artists have grown, so has the city… and so have rent prices. Since 2014 average rent in Hamilton for a one-bedroom apartment has risen over 150$ a month.
The increases in rent prices have led to artists’ departure who can no longer get by in the neighbourhoods. In place of the artists are out-of-the-city developers looking to cash in on the cities new arts and culture scene.
Effect on the Music Industry
The new developments heavily impacted the music industry. In 2018, Open Data Hamilton did a study and determined that there were 100 live music venues in Hamilton. Just two years later, 32 of those venues had shut down.
Hamilton has always had a strong music scene. Bands like the Dirty Nil and The Arkells cut their teeth in Hamilton’s thriving music scene in the early 2010s.
Now, those same clubs appear to be in danger of shutting down with no alternatives in sight.
With This Ain’t Hollywood being shit down, the two biggest remaining music clubs are The Casbah and Club Absinthe. Both clubs have started GoFundMe campaigns.
I spoke to Troy Witherow of the band Illitry about what the music scene in the city will look like moving forward.
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