The Salt Lake City music scene didn't start in a proper venue. It started in a carpenter's garage.
In the summer of 1999, Phil Sherburne secured an abandoned garage next to his woodshop at 741 S. Kilby Court. The plan was simple — space for an art group called Borrowed Walls. Then The Moroccan, SLC's main all-ages venue, closed. Sherburne pivoted. The first show was organized by Gentry Densley of avant-hardcore band Iceburn. Not exactly a soft launch.
Year One Nearly Ended It
Police showed up repeatedly. Sherburne faced jail time for running an unlicensed business. He didn't quit. He built the stage himself from 2x6 boards. He installed a sound system. He strung up Christmas lights. The room took shape one weekend at a time.
His wife Leia Bell became art director. Working out of Sherburne's workshop, she hand-crafted screen-printed posters with a distinctive cartoon-like style. They got famous on gigposters.com. They kept the lights on.
The math that almost killed it
An all-ages venue with no liquor license has to make the numbers work on tickets alone. For years, Kilby Court did not. The posters did.
January 1, 2008: The Handoff
By 2007, Sherburne was done. On New Year's Day 2008, he sold the 200-capacity room to Will Sartain and Lance Saunders of S&S Presents. Sartain had attended his first show there at 16, worked the door, and eventually booked the room. He knew what it was.
The handoff was not a business move. It was a rescue. Sartain and Saunders "did not want the demise of Kilby on our hands," as they later put it.
The Bands That Came Through
Death Cab for Cutie played it before they were big. So did Modest Mouse, Phoebe Bridgers, Vampire Weekend, Neon Trees, and Imagine Dragons. The 200-cap garage room kept being the place national acts wanted to play before the world caught on.
In 2019, S&S threw the first Kilby Block Party for the venue's 20th birthday — featuring Death Cab for Cutie as headliners, returning to the room where they had played their first show. That festival now draws 40,000 people a day to the Utah State Fairpark.
What It Still Is
The room that started with a carpenter and a band called Iceburn became the origin point for Utah music as a concept. A dead-end alley. A garage. Christmas lights. The scene built itself from there.
The Kilby Court story is the story of every venue that came after it.
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