Feature: The Aviary (Edmonton, AB)

by Sean Davis Newton

Philip Muz, center, surrounded by Aviary staff at their annual staff party (photo by Sean Davis Newton)

Philip Muz never seems stressed out. That’s a minor miracle in some ways; he owns a small capacity music venue in Edmonton called The Aviary, at a time when, if you were lucky enough to stay in business through the pandemic, the walls are now closing in around you. Booze costs more. Interest rates have gone up. Insurance is more expensive. People have less money than ever to spend on concert tickets. The list of challenges goes on, yet as we chat outside of The Aviary on a sunny May afternoon, Muz seems remarkably calm while telling me how he manages to keep a local music venue alive and thriving.

Marlaena Moore at The Aviary (photo by Josalynn Lawrence)

Maybe The Aviary has the same calming influence on him as it does on its patrons. The building, nestled into Edmonton’s sketchy-yet-loveable Norwood neighbourhood, was a bird shop in a previous life, and the bohemian, houseplant-ridden room feels remarkably lived in, considering the venue only celebrated it’s eighth anniversary this past January. In those eight years, it has been home to art shows, crib tournaments, trivia contests, movie premieres, karaoke, food pop-ups, dance classes, and so much more. But on your average weekday or weekend evening, you can wander into The Aviary and witness almost any kind of music under the sun. “Whether we host a touring band or a local band, we always want to make sure that they remember The Aviary as the most fun they’ve had playing a show,” Muz tells me. He and his brother Mark (the most regular bartender and co-creator of the space) have put the work in to make this a reality. It’s the kind of venue where, whether you’re a performer or a concert-goer, you will leave feeling as if you’ve seen a great show, had some great drinks, and made some friends along the way, more likely than not with one of the handful of effortlessly charming bartenders or ticket takers (full disclosure, on rare occasion, I am one of those ticket takers). Their hard work has earned The Aviary the kind of goodwill that has led to the brothers being spoken about in the same way you might hear someone talk about Paul Bunyan and Babe the Ox.

Part of the Muz folklore is the previous venue that Philip ran, The ARTery. It was in a storefront in the Quarters area, and it hosted a who’s who of Canadian and international bands, from the Sadies to Bahamas to “that Riptide guy” (Vance Joy— Philip’s words). It was unceremoniously closed in 2015 once the city gave Muz 34 days notice that they were demolishing the building so they could use the lot as a staging ground for building materials for the new Valley Line LRT. It goes without saying that Philip knows exactly how tough it is to operate a music venue in Edmonton. 

Edmonton’s own unique hostility aside, the pandemic saw the closure of at least two of the city’s other music venues, Sewing Machine Factory and Empress Ale House, leaving The Aviary as one of the few small-capacity venues in the city. In December 2020, The Aviary nearly met the same fate, and after months of being closed, they needed to come up with roughly $12,000 or risk going under. Earlier in the year, the Alberta government had allowed bars and restaurants to sell alcohol to-go, and the Muz boys decided, as a last ditch effort to raise the money to stay open, to fundraise by selling to-go cocktails from the venue’s well-regarded cocktail menu. It was a lofty goal, but there weren’t any other ways of making money while the venue remained closed.

And it worked, well enough that the Muz brothers bought out the supply of mason jars at every Canadian Tire in the city, selling nearly 1,200 cocktails and raising the money they needed to keep the business afloat. Their idea was so successful that they continued selling to-go cocktails well into the pandemic, which, for a while, became a key part of the venue’s regular income.

I had certainly been to The Aviary before this, both as a performer and as a customer, going all the way back to its plywood-clad days before the official opening, when you bought beers from a cooler at the back of the room. But I moved into the same neighbourhood as The Aviary during the pandemic, and became a regular patron of their to-go cocktails on my walk home from work. (If you get a chance, ask them to make you a Hadrian’s Wall. It’s not on the menu anymore, but it’s a hell of a drink.) I became a regular in a music venue for the first time in my life, albeit one that wasn’t currently hosting live music, and became friends with Philip and Mark in the process.

Aviary staff gathered around the bar (photo by Sean Davis Newton)

Turning up to one venue over and over again makes you aware of certain things that might otherwise pass under your radar: how the signatures in the green room have been altered over time (Pleasurecraft transformed into Bleasurecraft, in one of the stupidest and most hilarious acts of harmless vandalism), which beer is the most reliably good (the Alley Kat grapefruit ale), or which bartender makes the best negroni (Mark, though Steve’s is a close second). You also begin to notice just how many regulars The Aviary has, from poets to photographers to musicians to people who just live in the neighbourhood. It becomes obvious that the key to their success is the community that has sprung up around the venue. I’ve learned the best way to cook a whole rabbit from Jason, I know the favoured limoncello among teenagers in Italy thanks to Bea, I met fellow Cups N Cakes volunteer Josalynn Lawrence, and I’ve gotten to know my upstairs neighbour Tim, who, purely by chance, is also a regular (and also an excellent painter whose work is often hung at the venue). It not only gives The Aviary an unparalleled home-away-from-home feeling, but also makes it an attractive place for up and coming bands to play. Some venues draw a metal crowd, or a punk crowd; The Aviary draws artists.

Being a regular, you also notice some things that are less than ideal: the sweltering heat inside the venue in the summer, or the cold in the winter. “The margins are slim,” Muz tells me, as we both finish up a pint in the summer heat, “and it means that you’re never able to save up money to address larger issues when they come up”. That doesn’t mean he and Mark are not constantly working to improve the room. I remember Izaac Middleton, the venue’s longest serving staff member, jokingly telling me during a particularly sweaty summertime show that every time someone breaks one of the old, sealed windows, they replace it with one that opens to help with airflow (a nearby patron immediately offered to start breaking windows). But juggling the need to pay staff, deal with rising costs, and make sure musicians get paid means that costly, long-term improvements to the building remain eternally out of reach.

Poster for the fundraiser this Saturday, May 18th

This month, The Aviary is taking a big swing to improve the venue, hosting a fundraiser on May 18th to replace the furnace, the roof, and perform a laundry list of other long-needed renovations. “It’s not about getting us out of a jam,” Muz says. “I’d like to see this room remain a venue long after I’m not running it anymore, and this is stuff we have to do to ensure the long term sustainability of the space.” Some of Edmonton’s finest bands have lined up to play the day-long event: it’s a ten band bill, with indie-punk rockers Stem Champ, Aviary staff favourite Hydracat, recent Dine Alone signing Asko, and Cups N Cakes favourite Stacy Lloyd Brown all featured.

It’s no surprise that these bands are working to support the room; Edmonton’s venue scene is in shambles. The Aviary is one of only four dedicated music venues that aren’t just bars with stages. Of the four, only two have been open for longer than 10 years: The Starlite Room, a 500-cap room in downtown Edmonton, and the Yardbird Suite, a volunteer-run jazz club just off Whyte Ave. The Aviary is the only one of those rooms that is all ages, all the time. “Our calendar is full,” Muz tells me. “There just aren’t enough spaces in the city to support the number of bands that want to play.” (edit: after publication, we learned that the Yardbird Suite is all-ages, all the time. They are, however, unlikely to book a band called Mom Weed, or any other local indie band that doesn’t play jazz)

It doesn’t escape me how important these spaces are. I honed my own skills as a bandleader and performer on The Aviary stage, something that isn’t possible for a band without a fanbase (believe me, we did not have fans) in a city that only has larger capacity rooms, or rooms where patrons are more interested in watching the hockey game than listening to the music. Not to mention that the all-ages nature of the venue (and The Aviary’s proximity to Victoria High School for the Performing Arts) gives young bands a place to play their first show (Mom Weed, one of the bands playing the fundraiser on the 18th, can claim that honour).

It’s worth mentioning that the furnace replacement probably holds special significance for Muz, given that, when he was fighting to stop the ARTery from being demolished, then-city councillor Don Iveson voted against saving the building, saying that most small venues are one broken furnace away from going out of business. It’s a sign of how wrong he was that Muz has gone on to open a second venue that is willingly making these improvements with the support of a community that values the kind of small arts venue the city was unwilling to save nine years ago. It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that the lot that once housed the ARTery still sits vacant, and was never used as the staging ground the city insisted that it needed.

Philip Muz (left) with the longest serving Aviary staff member, Izaac Middleton (photo by Sean Davis Newton)

As much as people may talk about Muz and the Aviary with hyperbolic, folk hero-esque language, it’s just a small business run by a good guy who remains decidedly chill. The fight to keep it open is as much motivated by the owner and staff’s desire to see a space that means a lot to people continue to operate as by their need to make a living. But like the best small businesses, Muz has created something that supports not only the community in direct proximity to it, but local and touring musicians, artists of all stripes, and a dedicated staff. It’s the mythical ‘third place’, that is neither work nor home, but somewhere you can gather, interact with your community, and yes, have a pint every now and then. It’s hard to imagine the Edmonton music scene or the Norwood area without it, and credit to Philip for taking the steps to make sure that even if he moves on from it, The Aviary can live on without him.

The staff at The Aviary

As we’re wrapping up, I ask Philip what he thinks could be done to improve things in Edmonton for small arts spaces like The Aviary. He laughs and shoots back, “What do you think?” We talk about a proposal from an Edmonton-area MLA to give venues a break on the cost of alcohol (Muz doesn’t want venues to become even more dependent on liquor sales). We talk about property tax breaks (always popular, no matter who you ask). We talk about how the arts scene is victim to Edmonton’s dreaded urban sprawl (The Aviary is about an hour walk or a scary bus ride away from the nearest music venue, which in turn is a half-hour walk from the next one). We settle on simply needing more spaces: ideally ones that are open late, close to The Aviary, and serve burgers on a rooftop patio. At least that would help with the stress, he says.

- Sean Davis Newton

The Aviary is located at 9314 111th Ave in Edmonton, Alberta. You can buy tickets to their May 18th fundraiser here, and if you can’t make it and want to help out, you can direct e-transfers to philip@the-aviary.net. See you there!