It appears the space that once housed Somerville rock club Radio may still have a live music future.
Eater has a blurb this morning about how a business called Thunder Road is seeking a full liquor license for 379 Somerville Ave., the Union Square location of the former Radio music venue. The date of the hearing, Vanyaland has learned, is August 18 at Somerville City Hall.
The company pushing to acquire the liquor license is the Chelsea-based Chuckmaster Entertainment, and some internet sleuthing has revealed that longtime Boston promoter Dan Millen of Rock On Concerts is involved. Millen was rumored to be in talks recently to purchase Somerville live music venue Johnny D’s, which he was recently booking, but those negotiations fell through at the last moment.
Here for the proposed Thunder Road, Millen is named on the Chuckmaster Entertainment business record alongside Charles Abel of Falmouth, a former co-owner and managing partner of Allston venue Harpers Ferry (which is now Brighton Music Hall).
“Too early for details, but if we make it through all the licensing and permitting it’s going to be an amazing space,” Millen tells Vanyaland Monday afternoon.
Radio closed for good in November 2013 after an electrical fire caused damage to the two-floor venue. In February, the liquor license was expected to change hands, and since then, everything from a regular bar to rock club to Paint Nite art space have been rumored to fill its void.
UPDATE: We’re told Paint Nite actually bought Radio’s liquor license from former owner Aimee McGrath, but have utilized it in a different space in Somerville.
The word from Eater:
Short-lived Union Square venue Radio could become something called Thunder Road. A business by that name is planning on seeking a full liquor license for the space at 379 Somerville Avenue, according to a notice posted on the shuttered building in late July. Based on the Bruce Springsteen reference in the name, it seems likely that it’d be a new music venue. The only other information currently available is that the company behind it is called Chuckmaster Entertainment, which has no internet trail except an indication that it’s based in Chelsea.