The Mainzer
Encyclopedia
Merced, California
Merced is a city in, and the county seat of, Merced County, California in the San Joaquin Valley of Northern California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 78,958. Incorporated in 1889, Merced is a charter city that operates under a council-manager government...
known for its indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
scene. It is also recognized by various Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
societies for the restoring and remodeling process which took place beginning in 1999.
History
The building was constructed in the early 1920s. Around 1931 there was a fire that destroyed a good portion of the inside. The theater has been owned by Golden State Theaters, United California Theaters, and then United ArtistsUnited Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
. The building was originally a theater for live stage performances. At the time, it was known as The Strand Theater. In the 1970s, when owned by United Artists, the auditorium was divided into three parts and was called Cinema III. This was the same fate for the Merced landmark, The Merced Theater, except it had four screens instead of three. After more years of declining business, the movie theater was forced to become nothing more than a second-run theater, playing old Hollywood blockbusters at discounted rates, again, with little success. Finally the theater was shut down due to lack of business in the mid 1990s. The building sat there untouched for years until an investment group headed by Hanz Mainz and Brenda Farley bought the property and started the renovation process.
During renovations, the theater was renamed The Mainzer-Strand Theater, with the marquee reading "The Mainzer." The inside of the building was changed by tearing out one of the movie cinemas, but keeping two of them, and adding a large room with a balcony and a stage for all types of events. A small café was installed in the front lobby area. It was the hope of the investors to be able to hold large stage productions, concerts, comedy shows, private receptions, and show independent films in the two remaining cinemas.
In 1999, The Mainzer reopened to a large gala, a few comedy shows, and a few independent films. The attendance was again poor, but this time mainly due to inflated ticket prices for both concerts and films. In 2004, the Art Deco Society of California gave The Mainzer its "Historic Preservation" award for the renovations of the past few years.
After years of struggling to keep the doors open, in 2006 the end was looking nearer and nearer for The Mainzer. The investors were struggling to make the mortgage payments and bankruptcy
Bankruptcy
Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....
loomed overhead. Finally, a deal was worked out that at least kept the doors open for a while. A local Merced artist and musician, R.C. Essig, also known in the music world as Radioactive Cauliflower, leased the building out from Brenda Farley. By this time the theater had almost completely stopped showing movies except on rare occasions and has focused on only holding concerts with a mixture of local and national acts.
Venue history
Before R.C. Essig took overall control of the theater, he worked for The Mainzer as their main booking agent. Essig was a recognized booking agent for his work on the Merced indie rockIndie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
festival, The Gathering of Goodness. Due to this, Essig was able to book many of these same national acts at The Mainzer whenever they were passing though California while on tour. After a while The Mainzer got recognized in many areas as a spot to play a show while in California.
While many people considered the venue mainly an indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
venue, it also held many shows in all genres of music from punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
to metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
to hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
.