On Jan. 25, 1996, local concert promoters (and brothers) Paul and Perry Tollett officially opened The Glass House in the arts district of Pomona.
Having previously booked ska shows and acts like The Ramones and Rage Against the Machine in venues throughout the region, the Tolletts called on their friends No Doubt to headline the new venue for two nights. The Anaheim-based band had released “Tragic Kingdom” three months prior and was starting to garner mainstream attention.
“At that time our album ‘Tragic Kingdom’ was taking off on the radio, and it was rad to play the Glass House just before we moved to bigger venues like Irvine Meadows and the Pond [now Honda Center],” recalled No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont. “Those Glass House shows were classic No Doubt ’90s club shows: Everyone packed like sardines, bouncing and dancing and singing together in a hot, sweaty beautiful mess.”
The 800-capacity building on the corner of Thomas and West 2nd Streets, which had formerly been a Thrifty Drugstore for decades, would go on to become an iconic all-ages venue fostering young talent and serving as a must-stop stage for big-name artists as well.
It didn’t have the lure of Orange County clubs or the fanfare of Hollywood, but that’s exactly why the Tollett brothers picked the spot. The pair, who both attended nearby Cal Poly Pomona and famously went on to create festivals like the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the country music festival, Stagecoach, wanted a venue that served the community they came up in.
“The idea was that they went to college there and they were sick of driving to L.A. or Orange County for shows, so they started booking shows in Pomona to give the kids something to do and selfishly give themselves something to do and go see all of these bands,” said Glass House talent buyer Jon Halperin, who has worked at the venue since 2006.
Early on, the venue was hosting shows by established acts like Tool, Social Distortion, Garbage, Fishbone, Sublime, Cheap Trick, The Vandals and The Offspring.
“You could play The Glass House, then you could go on and play Orange County or Los Angeles and it wouldn’t interfere that much,” said Vandals bassist Joe Escalante. “They just made another cool market that bands could come out and play that was of a certain size.”
Escalante’s record label Kung Fu Records recorded and released several live DVD and Blu-ray discs from The Glass House, including evenings with Tsunami Bomb, Bouncing Souls and The Vandals. He also filmed his TV series, “Fear of a Punk Planet,” and an indie film, “Cake Boy,” at the venue.
Escalante said he’d drive to The Glass House to see bands on his evenings off, and The Vandals performed there numerous times, including opening for No Doubt in 1997 and 1999. The Glass House hosted The Vandals Independence Day Eve Patriot Show and Revue in 2014 and 2015.
Acts that would go on to sell out larger-scale venues around the world — like Kara’s Flowers (which later became Maroon 5), Avenged Sevenfold, Vampire Weekend, Black Keys and Bloc Party — all played The Glass House.
“I remember booking Death Cab for Cutie when they only sold like 40 tickets,” said former Glass House talent buyer/manager Eric Milhouse, who worked at the venue between 2002 and 2006. Milhouse now serves as the talent director for Nederlander Concerts. “Just watching their career take off and being excited about it and invested in it was so cool. There were so many bands then that were just about to take off, like Queens of the Stone Age, Cursive, Bright Eyes, The Faint … it was an exciting time.”
Thanks to its ties to Coachella, the venue was also a place for artists to play while they were out on the West Coast for the festival or in between Coachella’s two weekends. In the past, the venue has booked acts like Bauhaus, The Pixies, Jenny Lewis, Future Islands and The Jesus and Mary Chain during that time. Even as audiences for certain acts outgrew the club space, they still made The Glass House a priority.
“In 2002, we booked The White Stripes right when they were really blowing up and it sold the place out. And right when the show date was coming up, they got nominated for something and had to be or perform at an award show in L.A. that same night,” Milhouse said.
“We were like, ‘Oh man, they’re going to cancel’ and they were telling us, like, ‘Yeah, we kinda need to do this other thing.’ But for some reason, Jack White just loved the venue and had a special place in his heart for Paul [Tollett] and they figured out a way to do both things that night. Word was that they rented a helicopter because the L.A. traffic would have been horrible and they made it and played the show. It’s wild because we’re just like a dirty club, but it was the principle of it. Like, they did not want to disappoint the fans.”
It wasn’t just rock acts that helped establish The Glass House. Halperin recalls hiring Sonny Moore, who went on to be known professionally as Skrillex, to DJ in between bands at the venue in the early 2000s and watching rapper Logic go from opening act to mainstream headliner. The Glass House has always been a place that presented a wide variety of talent, whether it was punk, indie rock, screamo, EDM or hip-hop music. The goal always was and still is to “book what the kids wanna see,” Halperin added.
“If that was 2 Chainz or The Gossip, then you book those artists,” he said. “Up until a couple of years ago, the venue didn’t serve alcohol, so the shows really were for the 15-25-year-olds.”
In 2012, The Glass House got permits to serve alcohol, a move made to attract additional artists and patrons with the ability to sell alcoholic beverages at shows. It also paired well with the Acerogami Bar located next door, which Perry Tollett opened in 2009.
“Here’s something a lot of people may not know, but Perry built that bar, like the actual bar and the chairs and tables…That wasn’t outsourced,” Halperin said. “Perry welds and builds the barricades at Coachella in his metal shops. Hey, if they could withstand Rage Against the Machine at Coachella, they can withstand someone sitting on the bar or on a stool.”
The Glass House has also housed a full record store for 15 years, which it now brings a traveling version on-site to the Coachella festival weekends each year to sell albums and host artist signings.
“It started out as just CDs, and like five years ago or so Paul got really into vinyl and met this kid, Alex Rodriguez, who was just an expert and he took over the store and made it really successful,” Halperin said.
There’s still very much a D.I.Y. spirit about The Glass House, Milhouse said, which is why he thinks it has been and still is successful 25 years later.
“It was the training and practice grounds for Coachella,” he said. “Working for Perry there, it was like we all wore different hats and it was like the ultimate school where you went, you learned and you did things yourself. We were always just figuring it out and we were encouraged to be creative. I learned a lot about architecture and design and we built a bar and a record store and fabricated all the shelves and storage bins. It’s just this bunch of misfits that are all hardcore music fans, and it has been really cool to just watch the whole thing grow.”
There was hope of hosting a big blow-out 25th anniversary celebration with bands that helped build The Glass House, but due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the in-person celebrations will have to wait. However, the venue is selling limited edition short-sleeved anniversary T-shirts ($25-$29) and crewneck sweatshirts ($45-$49) through the end of January via theglasshouse.us.
