Carolyn Fath
Dethmers says goodbye to the High Noon Saloon green room.
In the end it was a death sentence. A big, ballsy, beautiful atom bomb of death metal. High Noon Saloon had been jammed since 5:30 (on a Sunday night!) and this thing was headed to midnight. In a set that must have been heard in Lake Mills, doom metal purveyors Bereft played the last hour of Cathy Dethmers’ career as a nightclub owner on April 30.
“Thank you for supporting me and all my dreams,” Dethmers said onstage early in the evening. Resplendent in a white party dress, Dethmers, as always, was the perfect rock ’n’ roll host. She knew everyone wanted to hear her speak, and doing so early was smart. Not that the crowd thinned out. Nobody wanted the party to stop.
It felt good to get out of the cold rain and gloom. Inside the door, flowers filled the merch table. The vibe was sexy, busy and upbeat. People were high on the feeling that they were in a meaningful place at an important moment. And, uh, there were $3 Ale Asylum taps!
Carolyn Fath
The party featured a performance from garage rockers The Hussy.
“Cathy gave me my first club gig. I was 18,” said Bobby Hussy, whose band The Hussy was picked by Cathy to perform. “What an honor it was for her to ask us to play this. She’s been as important to us as anyone else.”
Hussy was joined by a legion of fellow local musicians onstage and off, a staggering display of Madison’s musical elite. The Gomers rolled out of hiatus for a special edition of Rockstar Gomeroke, one with hand-picked local rockers at the mic. I looked around the room during Nick Brown’s bawdy take on “What’s So Funny about Peace, Love and Understanding?” I realized that if he chose to crowd surf at that moment, every third hand keeping him aloft would belong to a working musician.
Carolyn Fath
Beth Kille sang "Welcome to the Jungle" as part of a special edition of Rockstar Gomeroke.
The Gomers’ set was the heart of the event. Kisser’s founder Ken Fitzsimmons sang Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue.” “I chose my song based on wanting to come from my musical roots,” he said. His roots and Dethmers’ are entwined. The Kissers played a weekly gig at Dethmers’ first club, O’Cayz Corral. And they played the very first Monday night show at the High Noon. “We hit the jackpot here,” he said.
Reptile Palace Orchestra’s Maggie Weiser blew the roof off with her version of “Drift Away.” While fun and rocking, these performances were intense, too. All the featured singers were honoring Madison’s music maven — with music. They took their shots at doing so seriously.
Part of the fun was hearing the individual musicians’ testimonials to Dethmers. “All the time I’ve performed here I’ve never forgotten that this is a business run by a woman,” said vocalist Kelly Maxwell, before joining her Fauxtons bandmate Annelies Howell (German Art Students) for a tear through the Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed.”
Before they lit into a hilariously intact “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” Liz Scanlan and Willie Jones (Oak Street Ramblers) presented Dethmers with a three-foot-tall, wood carved tiki idol bust that resembled Dethmers. If you squinted a bit.
There was a special buzz when Dethmers’ husband, Dan O’Brien, took the mic. An impeccable string musician and the world’s sweetest guy, O’Brien leads the country swing band North Country Drifters. It was impossible to avoid the symbolism of his song selection, “Not Fade Away,” which he performed with Bo Diddley bravado.
Just minutes after that number, I felt O’Brien’s shoulder on mine. We clinked glasses and marveled at Cowboy Winter’s Kevin Willmott, who absolutely inhabited Prince’s “Purple Rain.” What followed was a true High Noon moment. A beaming O’Brien nodded toward Willmott onstage and said, “He just poured my beer.” Willmott is also a bartender at High Noon, and Dethmers is known to be as devoted to her staff as she is to performers. One or two members of her staff have been with her across her two-club, 23-year run.
Carolyn Fath
Cathy Dethmers toasts the crowd at her goodbye party.
Dethmers thanked her employees, past and present, people she said made it possible “to throw thousands of parties.” And she thanked O’Brien, whose support on the home front allowed her to spend so many nights at the club while raising two young children: “[He] made it possible for me to sell the club in my own time. And I was ready to do it.”
Before I left, I asked Dethmers if she could sum up what she’ll miss the most in one word.
“Familiarity,” she answered. Which brings us to the other person she most thanked at the mic: Tag Evers — True Endeavors founder and employee of Frank Productions, the club’s new owners — and someone Dethmers said believed in her from the start.
Change brings suspicion and there’s some in town aimed toward Frank Productions. The two people who appear the least worried about the club turning away from its local music and events mission? Dethmers and Evers.
“It’s not broke,” Evers — told me on my way out. “It’s important to keep Cathy’s spirit as part of what this place means.”
Editor's note: This article was corrected to reflect the fact that Tag Evers will not be overseeing booking for the High Noon Saloon. Maggie Denman will be taking over local booking, and Kyle LaValley will be booking national acts.
