Something Old, Something New
If the owners or patrons of the old Gary Ruffins Men's Wear on St. Mary Boulevard were to step through its doors today, they would probably be quite surprised by what they would see. The apparel shop has been taken over by local indie music guru Dave Hubbell and the music junkie heaven that is his shop Toys. But what's more is that the record store has evolved into the only record store/live music venue in town.
The more things change, the more they remain ... better, at Toys.
On Saturday, Oct. 26, Toys held its opening gig in its new location at 1019 St. Mary Blvd. with a performance by local rockers Frigg A-Go-Go. The store is booked through January with performances by bands like Vampire Moose, Bus Drivers, Short Bus All Stars and My Space Coaster.
Hubbell started Toys on Dec. 9, 1993, in a now vacant 250-square-foot shop on Stewart Street. In three-year lease intervals, the shop migrated around town, gradually moving up in square footage before landing this prime 3,300-square-foot location next to Caffé Cottage. The building was the first to be leased in the Oil Center by Maurice Heymann. It is quite the vast improvement from the old days of Toys in the 9-foot-wide, 25-foot-long room on Stewart.
Hubbell, who broke into the local music scene via the airwaves in 1979, started Toys to sell his type of music. There weren't a lot of places in the sea of indigenous Cajun and zydeco music to peddle music by bands like Fugazi. Over the years, his clientele would start to choose more of a mainstream modern rock selection, but during the buzz of the next big breaker, a taste began to spring up for local indie bands. When it came time to figure out the focus for his live music shows, the clear choice would come courtesy of his experience on Planet Radio 96.5 and KRVS 88.7.
"To me, my show is about being able to play Interpol, Belle & Sebastian and Pavement. But, to the audience, that is not what it is about at all. It's about the middle of the show when I play local bands - that's who cares about that show," says Hubbell. "They call it the local show. It's a local music spotlight. It's 15 minutes in the middle of a two-hour show. That's what they care about and I started to realize this.
"Everybody on earth got high-speed Internet connections and everybody just started downloading everything and all this happened at the same time (that he returned to Planet Radio). I realized if I could get a stage and do shows there, charge and make money for the store and the bands and get a decent location, if I could do that, it would help the store and help the scene, (so I'm) half-and-half financially and altruistically motivated."
In June - with the end of his lease drawing near and his catalog once again outgrowing his the walls of his 1,200-square-foot Johnston Street location - Hubbell had figured out what he was looking for when a friend told him about a building for rent in the Oil Center next to Caffé Cottage.
"So I came by and looked and it was exactly what I wanted. Walk in the door, go into the store. You can rope that off, veer and go to a room," says Hubbell. "That was exactly what I was planning and that is exactly what we have."
What he has is a two-room rental situated near the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and in a neighborhood where parents can feel safe about dropping their kids off to hear live music. When customers walk in the doors, they are greeted with one of the best underground, independent music selections in town. One corner of the shop is devoted strictly to local bands with names like Die, Liquidrone and the UrboSleeks.
But just to the left of the entryway is one of the few places in town offering local indie music. The actual stage room is 955 square feet of carpeted bliss. Hubbell and one of his employees recently completed a stage and carpeted the wall to help stop the sound from leaking into Caffé Cottage and kill the reverb and echo in the room. An added bonus, because they were originally two separate rooms, the lights for the store and the music area are independently controlled, allowing dim lighting in the club and normal lighting in the store so customers can shop. The club also came with a backstage that once served as an office for the clothing shop, evidenced by a Gary Ruffins' name tag that still hangs on a door.
Hubbell states that the all-ages, alcohol-free atmosphere bodes well for musicians, being that everyone is there to see them and not to drink. Since kicking off the club, the store has received praise from bands who have played there, like Stinking Lizaveta who says it rates as one of the best rooms they have played in a while.
"It is just perfect. It is like we are meant to be here," says Hubbell.
In the move, Hubbell was also able to expand his vinyl selection, partly courtesy of three new used-vinyl racks from Raccoon Records. Since moving to the new location, his numbers have stayed the same, but his vinyl sales have picked up and so has the sale of the music he went into the business to sell. Hubbell attributes this to the clientele of the neighborhood and the university who would rather shop at a local record store and not at the mall or Best Buy.
"It looks like we are filling a niche," he says, "and that's cool with me."