Yasmin Tchmola- Java Z, a venue of the old St. Cloud music scene, was once located where the new Chipotle is being built. It was open from 1998 to 2001.
There was once a time in St. Cloud’s history where anyone of any age could walk downtown and pay five dollars to see music. One of the monuments to the local music scene was the Java Z.
The Java Z was a coffee shop/venue that hosted local bands. The venue’s specialty was bringing an eclectic mix of local artists to St. Cloud.
In 1998, the Java Z started when a 20 year old Shawn Kroll and Troy Cable bought a warehouse downtown, located where the new Chipotlé will be.
“Basically, instead of going to college, a buddy and I decided to see if we couldn’t own a venue. I decided to jump in face-first and take out a loan. See I was a musician and my first interest was basically to be involved with the coffee cafe. It seemed like a neat fit. Java Z and the Java Joint were similar. The Java Z had a lot more of a variety of music. We didn’t have a particular genre that we were trying to reach, it was anything and everything from hardcore metal to folk. That was our main mission. When we bought the Java Z, we created a really cool scene. We felt like we birthed that whole concept of what we were doing, where there were no boundaries of a particular kind of genre.”
The Java Z existed at the same time that the Java Joint was up and running. The Java Joint preceded the Java Z by a few years. The main difference between the two venues was that the Z’s main purpose was to bring a mix of music whereas the Joint’s focus was bringing punk rock to the downtown scene.
“A really cool scene really burst out around 1999,” Kroll said. There was a lot of action and it was a very large place. It was double the size of the Java Joint. It was a big old warehouse type place, with a big garage door that opened up. It was a neat atmosphere for sure.”
The bands that helped breathe air into the local atmosphere were mainly local. Many of the bands were either highschool bands, bands run by St. Cloud citizens or bands hailing from Minneapolis.
“The biggest pulls that would have over 300 people in the place were bands like Pain-Riven, Simplicia, Down and Above, Alpha Centari, Wookiefoot and some of the local highschool bands really piled the place in,” Kroll said.
The venue had a spot for couches and coffee in the corner and released a monthly calendar with their upcoming shows.
Kroll said that the calendar would contain certain emblems on the dates, adding “A spider would mean that the show was hardcore, a peace sign meant it was kind of jam-bandy, hippy style. It was a cool system that we had going and people were excited to be a part of it. We had a lot of people volunteer.”
The atmosphere, however, dissipated after two and a half years. The venue was successful, boasting mic nights and weekend shows that had over 100 participants and day-long music festivals but the landlord decided not to renew the Java Z’s lease.
Kroll said, “We never missed a payment.We were so busy there, it was really successful. Basically the landlord couldn’t handle the kids that were coming. When you have 300 kids there I think he [the landlord] just didn’t like dealing with it. We were successful, we were making our payments and there was no issue with that. We were really having a lot of fun with it and to see it all go away was very difficult.”
Shortly after the demise of the Java Z, Cagle and Kroll took over the Java Joint.
