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The entryway’s walls will display local wares for sale, including vinyl and cassettes, along with the “Rapbrary,” a collection of books chosen by rapper and librarian Roy Kinsey that patrons can read for free on-site. “In the middle of the Shams’ show, I literally walked offstage and got this guy out of there.” Golden Dagger’s entrance now leads straight back, opening into the middle of the space. “The last show I played there, personally, I had to kick out a patron because two times he walked in and hit the drummer’s cymbal,” he says. One of Biggins’s top priorities was fixing the venue’s awkward layout-Tonic Room’s entrance fed people directly into the front of the stage. Biggins began building out Golden Dagger the next day. He was inspired by a conversation with Chicago multi-instrumentalist Zango the Third (he remembers it happening around the time Zango released ReBrand ReCovery in July), and the final event at Tonic Room was Half Gringa’s livestream in November benefiting the CIVL SAVE Emergency Relief Fund. Owner Donnie Biggins, who also sings and plays guitar in the Shams Band, says he’s wanted to transform the venue since he bought it in 2016, and he decided to make the best of the COVID shutdown and finally start renovations. Though it will still be a venue once it’s safe and practical to host live music again, to start it’ll be a coffeehouse first and a bar second. When the space reopens later this month, it’ll be called Golden Dagger, after an actual knife that a previous owner found inside the 127-year-old building’s walls. Lincoln Park venue-slash-bar Tonic Room is no more-technically. Sommelier Series (paid sponsored content).Donate now! I'm not interested right now.