by Jacob Espinoza

When To The Ceiling Entertainment introduced itself to Salem in January 2024, the post opened with a mic check and ended with a promise: "It's time to take Salem's entertainment to the ceiling."

That was the energy. Two local guys taking over a gorgeous historic building that had been sitting mostly quiet, booking local, regional and national acts, all ages, in the middle of downtown. We wanted it to work and saw the potential.

Unfortunately it didn't. 

The Grand Theatre's owners evicted To The Ceiling this month over unpaid rent. A growing list of performers say they walked out of that building without the money they were promised. What's left is a hole in Salem's live entertainment options. This is the second big closure in about a year after the Infinity Room shut down last summer.

Here's why that matters beyond the people who are owed money.

In the summertime we are starting to see a lot of incredible events happen at Riverfront Park. And the rest of the year we have bars that book bands and the Elsinore.

What Salem keeps losing is everything in between.

A band too big for the Triangle isn't automatically ready to fill the Elsinore, and there needs to be somewhere to grow. 

The Grand filled that gap. 

The Grand's upper room held about 200 people. Plus it was all ages, and it had real sound. You could put on a show there and have it feel like an event.

The Elsinore is still bringing in excellent shows, and that isn't changing. But the Elsinore is a different animal. It's a nonprofit that owns its building, runs on a staff of 10 and a board, and is partway through a capital campaign tied to its 100th anniversary. It also seats about 1,300. A band that draws 180 people in Salem isn't playing there next.

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To The Ceiling Entertainment, run by brothers Alex and Andrew Hussey, had been the Grand's tenant for roughly two years. Over the past few weeks, performer after performer has come forward saying they weren't paid.

A note on how I reported this: I interviewed Cody Perez by video call on Sept. 3. I spoke with Joe Meduri by phone. Alex Hussey sent me a written statement. My conversation with Wandering Players Theatrics happened over Instagram messages. Andrew Hussey did not respond. Some details below — including the back rent figure — were first reported by KGW, and I've credited those where they appear. Quotes from interviews are lightly trimmed for length, not meaning.

Cody Perez fronts Amerakin Overdose, a Portland industrial and nu-metal band that actually started in Salem in 2010. They booked the Grand back in January for an Aug. 8 show. It was the end of a road trip and their first time playing the building.

They agreed to a door deal instead of their usual guaranteed payment: 75% to the performers, 25% to the promoter, with the first $250 going to the sound engineer. Perez says he put about $650 of his own money into ads for the show. Roughly 180 people came through the door in a room that holds 200.

At the end of the night, he says, he was told the promoters were out of town and didn’t get paid.

The band is out about $2,600. This is money it was counting on for a rental van, a U-Haul, hotels and gas for California dates.

"I feel bad myself crying about $2,600 that we're owed," Perez told me, "when there's other bands that are owed $12,000, $10,000."

He's filed a small claims case and a police report.

What stuck with me from that conversation wasn't the money. It was this:

"There were so many young kids at the show. I was expecting more people in their 30s and 40s, around our age, but it was a lot of kids and a lot of people that brought their kids. It just made me hopeful. You put something on in Salem that's all ages, people are going to show up. It gives the kids something to do,” he said.

Matthew Merz runs Portland Wrestling, which ran four shows at the Grand this year. In a public statement, Merz said a check from the June show bounced for insufficient funds, that partial payments followed and then stopped, and that after the August show he received a partial cash payment with a promise to settle up in a week.

He says he's still owed more than $2,500. He offered to sit down with the Husseys and go through the accounting for every show line by line, and says he never got a reply.

Merz was careful in his statement to say he isn't criticizing the Grand itself or its owners, and that he'd come back if the building were under different management. In the meantime he's looking for another Salem-area venue.

Perez said much the same thing to me. He'd play the Grand again, just not for To The Ceiling, and not without a payment guarantee.

The Grand is owned by Joe and Cindy Meduri of Meduri Farms. Joe Meduri told me the relationship had been deteriorating for a while.

"They were always slow on payment, and then they weren't making payment," he said. "Then when they were making payments the checks were bouncing. And so we had to move to wires."

Meduri said he and his wife were on vacation when bands began going public about their experiences. When they got back on August 30 they met with Alex Hussey and asked if he was leaving the theater. He said yes.

"I wanted to give them a chance because I liked Alex a lot," Meduri said. Cindy Meduri told me Alex started working for the Grand in 2013, over 10 years before taking over the lease as part of To The Ceiling Entertainment. 

He was direct that the money performers are owed isn't the building's debt: "We aren't tied into their business as tenants. On our side they owe us a lot of money also." KGW reported the back rent at more than $100,000.

As for what's next: "We'll be looking for someone to take over the theater. Not sure when that will happen, but we will be looking."

Alex Hussey sent this statement. 

"I am aware To The Ceiling Entertainment is facing financial challenges. The company and stakeholders are currently evaluating all available options to address these circumstances in a responsible manner. As a stakeholder in the company, I am advocating that the company work toward a solution that takes into account the interests of all parties involved. These matters are complex and require careful consideration. I do not have further comment at this time and respectfully request privacy as this process unfolds."

Andrew Hussey did not respond to my request for comment. If either brother wants to talk, my door is open, and I'd genuinely like to learn more about what happened.

Here's the part I didn't expect to be writing, and it's the reason I'm glad this story isn't only about money.

Wandering Players Theatrics is picking up bookings.

WPT is a Mid-Valley nonprofit theatre company, and it's moving into the former Cinebarre space in downtown Salem. The plan there was never just their own productions. They've described the new building as a shared creative hub, a room where theatre companies, musicians, comedians, filmmakers and educators can all work.

When I asked whether they were planning live music, they told me they're already in talks with several groups that had active bookings at the Grand to move those shows over while the building sits in hiatus.

Their statement:

"We are stepping up to ensure these bands still get to perform in downtown Salem. These groups deserve to be seen and Salem will show up like it always does. The amount of support showing up is overwhelming. This is why we do what we do — to ensure people have spaces to come together and do amazing things."

They also said this is exactly the kind of thing they were hoping to build toward. They just didn't expect it this soon, or at the cost of losing a great venue.

If you're a performer or organizer who needs a room: Wandering Players asked that inquiries go through the venue page on their site rather than by phone. They're getting a lot of calls, and they're in the middle of setting up and starting rehearsals for Evil Dead the Musical.

What we want is simple and it hasn't changed: a working mid-size room in downtown Salem.

The demand is there. A band that hadn't played Salem in two years nearly sold out a 200-cap room on a Friday, and half the crowd was kids. Wrestling drew a huge crowd. A Pink Floyd tribute, a Johnny Cash tribute, comedians — all of them booked Salem and brought crowds.

But this type of business continues to struggle in Salem.

Right now the Grand is looking for someone who can run it like a business and pay people on time. I hope they find that person because Salem is better with that building lit up.

But the thing worth paying attention to right now is happening downtown with Wandering Players Theatrics taking over the old Cinebarre space. They're a nonprofit that signed a lease on their first permanent home, and what they set out to build was never just a theater. It's a shared room for music, comedy, film and community events, with a restaurant going into the lobby. When the Grand went dark, they started calling the groups that got stranded.

Their first production in the new space, Evil Dead the Musical, opens Oct. 23. They're paying stipends to the people in it.

Taking over a multi-theater building is ambitious, and this type of business has not had a good run in this town. But this attempt is structured differently. There's a board, a lease, and a budget line for paying artists. 

We'll be rooting for them.