#Lounge lizard careers manuals#
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They'd found a 4,500-square-foot building on Main Street - now occupied by Curtain Club - and planned to create a huge dance floor, bring in talented DJs and just sit back and rake in the cash.Д«ut Nedler ultimately ended up with a venue triple the size. The original floor plans for the Dallas home of Lizard Lounge were simple. In Deep Ellum, Nedler planned to take the same minimalist approach that had worked so well in Houston and Austin. 'A year went by and we had two clubs that were very successful, so in 1991, I started looking for a location in Dallas.' He needed $25,000, so I wrote him a check and took over his lease,' Nedler says. The guy needed money to pay his liquor tax that he was personally liable for. вЂњI went to Austin and there was a club available called Halls. A lot of other clubs opened up, but we ruled the market.вЂќ They had drugs and we had orange juice and Evian water. 'People didnвЂ™t want to go home they didnвЂ™t want to go to DennyвЂ™s or IHOP. I saw an opportunity because ecstasy was becoming very widespread,' he says.

#Lounge lizard careers license#

They changed the law in Houston to where if you had a liquor license you had to close at 2 a.m. I was sitting in the middle of about five other big clubs. Nedler says good music and a good location contributed to Lizard Lounge's early success, but he makes no qualms about the fact that the crowd at his fledgling venue was also largely fueled by vice. I had one strobe light that hung in the middle of the room that would just blink randomly and that was it.вЂќ 'It was just a big dance hall вЂ¦ a square room with a sunken dance floor and I had no money for lights. 'I leased an old Chinese restaurant and really didnвЂ™t do anything to it but demo it all and created a big open space,' Nedler says. Lizard Lounge's first location opened in Houston in '89.

#Lounge lizard careers manuals#

To the corporate bosses I had manuals and I had formats and it was all bullshit.вЂќД®ventually Nedler decided he had enough management experience and music knowledge to open his own club. The real key was that I hired talented DJs. Every city is different, every night is different, so itвЂ™s almost impossible to tell a DJ what to play. вЂњI got a masterвЂ™s degree in musicology through that job,вЂќ he says. During his nearly eight-year tenure with McFadden, Nedler hired and trained DJs at about 40 clubs under the company's umbrella.ДЄs Nedler traveled to different markets for his job he began to get a sense of music consumption trends throughout the country.В The McFadden executives expected him to implement a strict music programming platform, but Nedler learned that the clubs did better when he provided a loose outline for the DJs and then stepped back and let them work. NedlerвЂ™s music IQ was first forged as a DJ, and later as director of entertainment services for the Houston-based McFadden Ventures, for whom Del Hierro also worked. I used to tell people back in the '90s, 'DJs are going to be rock stars.'' вЂњWe stay relevant because we created a live music venue for DJs years before anyone else knew or realized that DJs would be the rock stars of the new millennium,' Nedler says from behind his desk at the venue, right next to the desk of his partnerВ Leo Del Hierro.В 'I knew it. This weekend, the business he built there, Lizard Lounge, will celebrate 25 years as a mecca for Dallas' rave and goth communities with a party deejayed by Mix Master Mike of the Beastie Boys. afterВ paying $12,000 for first and last monthвЂ™s rent. On a Friday afternoon in October 1991, 33-year-old Don Nedler was handed the keys to the building located at 2424 Swiss Ave.