re: Was early 2000’s the greatest era of local band scene in BR?

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Absolutely. BR never truly recovered from the burning of the Caterie.

Today, there’s a lot of solid bands, but there’s nowhere to play because there aren’t enough venues.

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What we desperately need is a smaller (cap 200 or 300) club where there's no pressure to pay the rent/bills constantly so music can develop and new touring bands can stop in (and once just a couple of those have a good show word spreads and the agents start contacting you like crazy, and wanting you to do their bigger bands because they want a symbiotic relationship where you're helping each other build things up)...

We had that with the Bayou and The Spanish Moon (though each had a cap of 400 or so) and Chelsea's MK I & II (I REALLY miss MK II, under the overpass... both rooms/stages that it had... and screw that builder owner for being a dick) and The Red Star and North Gate Tavern and Mud & Water (thank you, JW), and, though tiny, I did some cool shows (like Explosions In The Sky, and a band from NYC that had the same drummer as The Yeah Yeah Yeahs) at The Thirsty Tiger when I had to...

Now we have the Mid City Ballroom, and I would think "BYOB" would be popular, but older people usually complain about it... younger people do show up for things they're interested in a lot more reliably than the older crowd...

And Beauvoir Park is great.

And The Brick Yard is cool, but not really oriented towards music (the stage has been downsized compared to when it was Mud & Water and moved into the corner) and when I randomly pop in it's usually a trivia or comedy night or something...

BR is in the strange position of having a bunch of bands that were invited to play at Jazz Fest the past two years (!!!), but aren't booked into the bigger venues...

There's a big disconnect with talent... this has become a tailgate mentality cover band town. We don't really have any music press, anymore...

I don't know... now I'm getting depressed thinking about it...