The Space, The Outer Space and The Starland Ballroom…Hamden Connecticut On The Map!

cease this

Hamden Connecticut is not exactly the posh suburbs.  The Space, an all ages venue in a run down industrial park fits right in amongst the poverty crack whores and filth that line the main street.  It is the wrong side of the tracks, it is run down and depressed and The Space fits in so perfectly as the place for smaller acts to get a stage in what feels like your parents basement.

Aside from the shitty cell reception and the repulsive smell of hot dogs cooking in the tiny deli,  I adore the place. To me it is everything that punk should be.  A hot filthy mess with no site line and low ceiling.  We have been there many times and our interview with William Becket was the first time I had been there with full lights up (fyi don’t turn the lights on!).  The venue staff (a deli chick and ticket dude are really all I saw) are fabulous and well the night of the Beckett interview the manager was rude but young, Im sure she has a tough job.. but manners last forever.

Anyway, why am I speaking of this dive?  Cuz it has a sister venue across the potholed parking lot is the ‘Outer Space’, a 21+ bar with bands and open mic and a great place for mom or dad to get tanked while their kid is in The Space.  They also have shows there, nothing major but called their spot ‘Starland’, get it? The Space, Outer Space…Starland.  I mean c’mon its clever!

But leave it to those meanies on the West Coast to fuck it up and actually serve a cease and desist to the venue for the name.

“I thought they’d go away, but they didn’t,” Steve Rodgers, owner of the Hamden venue said. “They must have seen us as enough of a threat – 3,000 miles away,” he added.

A spokeswoman for Spaceland Productions explained the company’s position in an email to the Register.

“The name Spaceland is trademarked,” Cook wrote to the paper. “Trademark law makes it unlawful for a business to use a trademark in connection with a good or service if that use is confusingly similar to another business’s use of a trademark. Spaceland Productions and Spaceland Ballroom fall into that category because both companies work in live music entertainment.”

Trust me, things like this are a farce.  There is no way the two institutions could ever be confused and the best part about it is that with this idiotic publicity- The Space and Outer Space gain national attention and hopefully garner more success.  Shove your Starland title, who looks like the idiot in this legal fight?

Rock on little Space.