From gritty to golden

History of rock: Rudy Colombini wanted to put a music museum in his Bush Street building, but the space was not large enough. However, the idea may still happen in the burgeoning Yerba Buena museum district. (Mike Koozmin/Special to The Examiner)

SAN FRANCISCO — A faux famous rocker is hoping to bring a new music scene to a gritty inner-city neighborhood.

San Francisco musician and former businessman Rudy Colombini — a Mick Jagger doppelganger and front man for The Unauthorized Rolling Stones tribute band — secured city permits in 2004 that are needed to convert the lower levels of his Bush Street residential hotel into a musical museum with recording studios and a bar.

Lessons, cheap accommodation for musicians and a stage for performances are also planned for the Nob Hill venue.

The museum proposal, however, took on a life of its own, and now one is expected to be built in the burgeoning Yerba Buena museum district, according to Colombini. The bar could open early next year.

“We just could not fit a world-class museum in this building,” Colombini said.

His new plan, which received the blessing of San Francisco planning commissioners last week, may not have the tourist-pulling potential of a musical museum, but it promises to be a major draw for local and traveling musicians.

Nearly 60 recording studios, many lined with glass walls, will be rented out for as little as $10 an hour, according to Colombini.

Most of the studios will be on the mezzanine level, although some will be built into the ground floor. The 18 existing studios in the basement the building, a hotel Colombini purchased 21 years ago as an investment property, are slated for
refurbishment.

All of the studios in the building will be “plug and play,” he said.

“Dig this: You come into the studio and you’ve got a P.A., a bass amp, a very small set of drums and another two guitar amps,”
Colombini said. “So people bring their pick, they bring their guitar and their sticks. They don’t have to load in and load out. You come in, you play and you’re gone.”

During the afternoon, coffee and food will be served on the ground floor and the stage will be used for hanging out.

But as afternoon turns to evening, the atmosphere will morph into that of a club while jams continue inside the studios. Lights outside the building will colorfully illuminate its walls, performers will hit the stage, glasses will fill with booze and LED lights will accentuate the modern steel-gray decor.

“There are LEDs everywhere,” Colombini said, painting a scene as his gaze swept energetically across the dark cavity of space that’s presently filled with construction clutter and old furniture. “I mean, they’re just coming out of your pants, man, coming up through the
floor.”

Colombini hopes to begin construction within several months using $1 million in personal savings. If all goes well, Music City, as it will be called, could open at 1353 Bush St. in early 2010, he said.