Among the titles Hub City Press will publish is a history of the Handlebar, a music venue in Greenville.
The place is an anomaly in many ways, not the least of which is it has been in business 16 years – an eon for such a club and especially so considering it is in Greenville. Not known as a music Mecca.
The place has a great cheeseburger and extraordinary French fries, but its soul is in the music careers it has launched or nurtured. Like Zach Brown – he was there six times before he hit it big. Sugarland. Pepper – a huge band now that when it was at the Handlebar you could put the entire audience in the stage.
“We take small unheard of or unknown bands and help turn them into somebody big,” said John Jeter, who founded the place with his brother Stephen and is writing the history.
He came to this work after an abbreviated career as a journalist. He started at the paper in Texas, went on the prestigious Columbia Journalism School for a master’s degree, then to the Chicago Sun Times and the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.
That was not a happy time professionally. He said the paper’s star system didn’t include him and he saw he would probably never get off the copy desk. Not a great place for a person who wants to dig out the news in that swashbuckling way all journalists yearn to do.
Personally, it was quite a good place for him since that’s where he met his wife Kathy Laughlin, also a journalist turned music entrepreneur. Laughlin is the president of Handlebar Enterprises, the woman who nurtures the business as Jeter searches for performers.
“She is tough, smart and determined, morally and ethically unimpeachable, unwavering standards but creates a culture that people want to work in. We have no turnover and offer benefits,” Jeter said.
He and Laughlin came to Greenville and with Stephen Jeter opened the Handlebar in Mills Mill in the summer of 1994. In the early days, they made every mistake you could make in the music business, which Jeter describes as one of the nastiest on the planet.
Nevertheless, the business grew there until a new owner came along and the club was out. They spent several months looking for another space and a business partner before they found the present location on Laurens Road.
The business didn’t find a warm welcome from nearby homeowners in the first years but when the worst didn’t happen, the residents settled down. Oh, and some moved.
“We invited neighbors into the building and said we will do everything we can to make sure we are happy,” Jeter said. “One woman said, ’we will not stop until we shut you down.’”
Jeter said the music business paradox is it is an effort to jam art and commerce into the same box.
“It’s like trying to sell matches with gasoline,” he said.
Multiple tiers of responsible people heighten the conflict, often making the artists and fans the least consequential in the mix.
“The most important element is money,” he said.
Jeter said the book will be rich with reminiscences of the artists who have touched his life. He didn’t say it but also the artists whose lives he has touched. That was apparent when Shine Down’s agent called and said the band wanted to come back. Even the biggest rock stars remember the days when it was them and the audience and they yearn for that intimacy.
Jeter, who is finishing the first chapter of the book, said it’s been harder than he thought it would be. His novel “Plunder Room,” published by St. Martin’s in 2009, was easier.
“This is 16 years of very close intimate detail,” he said, “akin to gem mining. Tons and tons of dirt and rocks to find those gems and then find the best of them.”
