‘Every city needs a Mohawk Place’: A fond farewell to a beloved Buffalo music venue

No one would describe the Mohawk Place as an architectural marvel.

The original Mohawk stage, tiny and cramped, was tucked all the way to the right. The problem with this setup? Most patrons at the bar couldn’t actually see the stage. A wall was in the way.

The Mohawk was drab, dirty, dingy, and dark. During its heyday — the 1990s and early 2000s — the bathrooms could accurately be described as biohazards. However, for so many of us growing up in Buffalo, it was a little slice of heaven.

Our slice of heaven.

The Mohawk appears set to join The Pink, Brick Bar, Swannie House and others on a growing list of recently departed Buffalo nightlife institutions. The venue announced plans to close earlier this month, and the final shows are scheduled for Thursday and Friday.

“It would be a gaping hole in our culture here,” said former Buffalo News music critic Jeff Miers. “I’m hoping that it could possibly be declared a historical landmark building and maybe be rescued. I’d hate to see it turn into loft apartments or something. It’s Mohawk Place, you know? That place was the hub of our musical culture. … These things are more than just buildings. There’s a lifetime of memories stored in them and they need to exist.”

‘There’s always been an underdog vibe’

For years, the Mohawk Place has been the heart and soul of the Buffalo music scene. It was a place for bands to hone their craft. It was a place for those same bands to build relationships and camaraderie — the lifeblood of any local music scene. It was also a place to see touring bands on the way up — before hitting it big — in the most intimate of settings.

“It was special,” said Nick Mendola, co-owner of FC Buffalo (and former singer of the band Clearmotive). “It literally was, for a period of time, one of the only places that mattered for an entire generation of musicians. And I mean that. … You could walk in on any given night and be with seven other people seeing a band that was going to be monumentally huge.”

“All the best venues I’ve ever loved all around the world in my travels have always kind of been the dives,” said former Mohawk audio engineer (and current Riviera Theatre audio engineer) Neal Brodfuehrer. “And on the other side, there’s a million beautiful venues around the world, they don’t have the same vibe.”

The White Stripes played on the small stage just before their big break. The Hold Steady played a legendary Mohawk show two months before releasing one of the most acclaimed albums of the mid-2000s. Broken Social Scene, Cursive, Jason Isbell, My Morning Jacket … the list goes on and on. Japanese Breakfast played at Mohawk in 2017; four years later, Michelle Zauner was on Jimmy Fallon, headlining festivals, and had published a New York Times best-seller.

“There’s always been an underdog vibe to that whole scene, and I’ve always equated it to liking your sports teams and rooting for those artists,” said Chris “Bulldog” Parker, longtime radio host for WGR 550. “Jason Isbell won the Super Bowl. And that feels good if you’re there when he was ‘drafted,’ if you know what I mean.”

Not every band made it big, of course — and that was part of the charm as well. That random band from Saddle Creek Records you saw on a freezing cold Tuesday night? Your $20 at the merch stand covered their gas to the next city. The woman next to you at the bar who did a shot, made her way to the front and danced all by herself to the opening act? Oh, that was the singer from Midwestern emo pioneers Rainer Maria. Hours later she’d leave the stage with new fans for life.

“Before the remodel, I remember seeing a band from Philly called Marah,” Parker said. “When I think of club rock shows … it’s sweaty, nobody is comfortable, it’s hot, it’s sticky, it’s gross — it’s magic. I thought they were going to be, like, the next great American rock band.”

Embracing local acts

The influence on the local scene was just as special. Unlike so many other Buffalo venues that embraced the “pay to play” model in the early 2000s — essentially you’d have to beg your friends to buy tickets to “earn” a place on the show — the Mohawk compensated local acts and made them feel appreciated.

“The Mohawk was the antidote to all of that nonsense,” Miers said.

Booker Marty Boratin and former owner Pete Perrone went out of their way to be friendly and accommodating. Perrone was a father figure to so many, even as the Mohawk shifted from its roots in rockabilly and blues to indie, punk and hardcore music.

“The first time I saw Centro-matic, a band that changed my life … I walk into the venue and Marty Boratin is literally cooking dinner for the band on the side of the stage,” Mendola said. “To me, it was a family. And I hate the way that term can be used — it can be a cliche. But you were part of this offbeat but powerfully cool family just by stepping in there and contributing to its existence.”

The Buffalo hardcore/punk scene thrived. Every Time I Die would go on to become arguably the biggest band to ever come out of Buffalo not named The Goo Goo Dolls. Put on a killer show at Mohawk, and you might earn some buzz on the Buffalo Shows message boards, or even Artvoice. That would earn you more opportunities for shows, and so on. There was a whole ecosystem at play.

“The bar was the scene, and the scene was the bands, and the bands were the bar,” Parker said. “It was one thing.”

I know this firsthand. My old band, Elad Love Affair (think At The Drive-In plus Bjork), owed everything to the Mohawk. We built our reputation on that tiny stage through hard work and the kindness of Boratin, who saw something in us and gave us more and more bookings. I was a senior in high school when we got the opportunity to open for art-rock legends Les Savy Fav — and to this day it remains one of the greatest nights of my life.

We got signed to a record label, toured the country, and eventually returned to Mohawk for our farewell show. There was no other place it could be.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

Things change, of course. That farewell show took place at the “new” Mohawk — with the bigger stage and a state-of-the-art sound system. The new setup allowed for bigger acts, and bigger crowds — but some of that original charm was lost.

The Mohawk changed forever when it was sold by Perrone in 2009; he died five years later. It closed for the first time in January 2013 — with an unforgettable “Last Waltz” celebration — before reopening in September 2014.

I sadly haven’t been around the Mohawk as much in recent years. Decades of shows did a number on my ears — the circle of life for a musician. But I always appreciated that it was still around in some form. I know what it meant to me during my formative years and always hoped that tradition would continue with the next generation, and the generation after that.

“I don’t think places like that are going to exist anymore,” Mendola said. “It costs so much to rent places and to put on shows. I just don’t know how those vibes will exist unless you’re grandfathered in. Hope springs eternal that there will be some sort of revival or something like that, but I don’t know, man.”

“It was just an amazing place,” Brodfuehrer said. “And I don’t know if we’ll ever have one again.”

If this really is the Mohawk’s “Last Waltz,” we can only hope that its spirit lives on within the local music scene somewhere, someway.

Because every city needs a Mohawk Place.

“I just can’t underscore enough how important Mohawk Place has been to the Buffalo independent music scene and I don’t think we should let it go easily,” Miers said. “If there’s any way that Buffalo can save it, we should.”

Latest Local News

WNY restaurants brace for impact potential tariffs could have on food prices

Gowanda man arrested following crash of stolen vehicle

Jamestown man sentenced to 13 years for narcotics conspiracy

Dunkirk man pleads guilty to trafficking, kidnapping

‘Valentines for Veterans’ collecting donations to show appreciation for local heroes

***

Mark Ludwiczak joined the News 4 team in 2024. He is a veteran journalist with two decades of experience in Buffalo. You can follow him online at @marklud12.

Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to News 4 Buffalo.