The fall and rise of Geno’s A photographic look at the historic club’s move from Brown Street to Congress Street on the weekend of its reopening BY SAM PFEIFLE

On March 20, following a show that featured the Marvels, the Joe Mazzari Band, Big Meat Hammer, and the Pontiffs, the walls came tumbling down. They were torn down, actually. Late into the night and for much of the following couple of days, fans and loyal patrons of Geno D’s Rock Club — Geno’s — took crowbars and hammers to the 22-year-old basement rock club and pried loose just about any old thing that might be remotely considered memorabilia. The door to the band room, the graffitied particle-board walls inside, stickers as old as the younger patrons — nothing would remain of the old place if these leather-clad, tattooed, and ultimately sentimental fans had their way.

"A couple guys, they said they were going to sell the stuff on eBay," says Geno D’Alessandro, club namesake. "But then someone says, ‘Let’s bring it to the new place,’ and so then they all start ripping everything out to bring up here."

D’Alessandro’s standing at 625 Congress Street, site of the old Fine Arts Cinema and, more recently and belovedly, the Skinny, a place that built up an equally loyal clientele in its brief three-year existence. It’s about three weeks prior to last Friday’s 4 p.m. "soft" opening, which saw Geno’s son JR pour out the first "new Geno’s" beers to about 10 friends and family (and the Phoenix production staff).

The fact that anyone would want to bring this collection of butt-stained tables, warped two-by-fours, and aging beer signs anywhere clearly befuddles Geno, but he wants to keep the customers happy. And it’s not like there’s nothing new about the new Geno’s. Though the bar top and foot rest are old, the bar itself is brand-new and easily accessible, angling in at the bottom so you can really sidle up to it. They’ve covered up the green-and-blue paint job rendered by the ill-fated Congress Hall (post-Skinny — never opened) with a crisp red (a "true red," says designer Sean Wilkinson) and black. And they’ve built in a new stage with walls to house bands in front of a three-tiered dance floor with which the Congress Hall folks replaced the old Skinny slant.

It’s appropriately Geno’s, though. Don’t worry. You can still find that Blood on the Saddle sticker, get yourself a Busch Light, and play a couple G-’N’-R tunes on the juke box.

If you don’t believe me, check out the lineup for this coming Friday’s first-ever show in the new location: Eggbot, the Pontiffs, and Covered in Bees — your standard (but not standard at all) Geno’s rock slate. Also, it’s Tina Brown’s birthday party, says Geno. She and father Kip play in the Pontiff’s (maybe you’ve heard Kip’s little speech — "I couldn’t get a girl to play in the band, so I made my own"). Show up and say you were there.

Certainly, from the last day on Brown Street to the first day on Congress Street, the Phoenix was there. Matthew Robbins, who’ll be unveiling a show of his Geno’s photography and others’ in the lobby of the new location, has been shooting the entire process of breaking down and building up, and on these pages we give you an inside look at what happens when a club falls off the wall and then everyone works to put it back together again. Enjoy. And make sure to get in there and raise a pint for a club that managed to pick up stakes and put them down again in just three short months.

To view the photos, click here.

Sam Pfeifle can be reached at sam@phx.com

Eggbot, the Pontiffs, and Covered in Bees play Geno’s, at 625 Congress Street in Portland, on Friday, May 27. They don’t have a phone number yet, so you’ll have to take our word for it.