Lawrence.com

An institution is gone. Sorta.

The grassroots-grown Friday night hip-hop gatherings known as Project Groove will cease to be a weekly event after several years of packing venues.

Like any show promotion group, PG's organizers -- Edwin Morales and several part-timers and volunteers called '.downplay productions' -- must adapt to stay vital. For that reason, Morales decided to put the kibosh on The Bottleneck that showcased both the local and national hip-hop/electronica scene every Friday night (popular performers included Approach, Sounds Good, Mac Lethal, Archetype and countless other acts from Lawrence to KC).

Instead, PG events will happen randomly at venues across town from The Bottleneck to The Granada to The Gaslight Tavern and elsewhere, perhaps including The Pool Room, the space where PG began over 3 years ago. Morales says slimming down the schedule will allow him to book bigger shows and do a better job promoting them.

Though PG was his brainchild and passion, the change is not sending Morales into a dark web of depression.

"I'm kind of bummed out about the fact that people are just like, 'Oh dude, what's going on?!'" Morales said. "If I was depressed and angry I would take a really long break from this. Just because something ends and a new beginning happens doesn't mean that it has to be negative."

"I'm not going to lie, it's really shitty when I have amazing artists that do really well everywhere else just not draw that much over here," Morales said. "But that's the nature of Lawrence : if you let that shit get to you, then you're in the wrong business, you know?"

For an upstart independent promoter like Morales, the money is often secondary to the thrill of bringing a favorite underground artist to Lawrence.

"I should know better than to think that a bunch of people are going to come out for (DJ) Shortkut when his prime is not here anymore," Morales said. "If I didn't get disenchanted I wouldn't be human. You got to get frustrated in order to have motivation."

Likewise, .downplay's Thursday night weekly gig -- the '80s-themed extravaganza known as 'Neon' -- will be leaving The Bottleneck for the larger space at the Granada. The 'grand opening' at the new venue will be Jan. 20.

Bottleneck owner Brett Mosiman said he was disappointed to see Neon leave and to have PG end its year-long weekly run, but he said he understands Morales' decision.

"He's kind of got his finger on the pulse," Mosiman said. "I thought all along that there should have been enough of a scene there to support one night a week, and I don't know, maybe that was a poor assumption."

Mosiman said the change will allow The Bottleneck more flexibility to bring in the kind of rock bands that have defined the club since its inception.

"Clearly we displaced a fair amount of talent for (the weekly PG), so we'll go back and recapture that I guess," he said. Also, a weekly Thursday night dance event called 'Glo' will take the place of Neon at The Bottleneck.

Morales said the change will also allow him more time to book tours for local artists. He has organized cross-country jaunts for Approach, Deep Thinkers and Archetype (a.k.a. The Limited Liability Tour) and also does a fair amount of national booking across the Midwest.

"We've almost doubled the amount of people that work with us, and we've started to expand into other markets," Morales said. "The way we think about it, our actions speak louder than our words."