It's a crisp, cold night. Dozens of people, mainly (though not all) in their 20s mingle in a large, open space, chugging cheap beer and grinning at each other. The room is dark and smells of sheetrock and college-age hormones, paint and the musty odor of cheap drum kits. It's a comfortable, rock 'n' roll kind of smell.
More people pour in, some shedding winter coats while others keep them on in case they want to go outside for a quick one-two-three puff on an American Spirit. There are creepy paintings on the wall and a definite buzz in the air.
Soon, the band comes on. There's no stage, just a corner of the room dedicated to a trap kit, microphones, cables, a Farfisa. The bass player whips through an updated disco beat, part Sergio Morodor, part IDM and the shimmery drums kick in.
The dancing begins immediately.
This was what a show looked, sounded and felt like at Half Rack Studios. Sounds fun, doesn't it? Well, I'm sorry to report that, if you're interested in checking it out, Half Rack has closed its doors.
Half Rack's tenure as a temporary, dynamic and underground creative space-part private residence, part public music and art venue-was emblematic of what is a growing reaction to the dearth of opportunities for musicians and artists in Santa Fe. Bemoaning the lack of affordable venues and audiences, artists of all types have taken things into their own hands by renting out warehouses and putting on smaller-scale shows.
"It was random," says Melissa Woodruss, a 23-year-old former College of Santa Fe student who along with friends Raul Ugalde and Antoine Earhart started up Half Rack. "We were just looking through the paper for warehouses. At first we just wanted a place where we could practice and play music for ourselves." Slowly but surely, however, they began booking shows and folks started showing up.
Organic evolutions like this can be such an awesome thing. Some of the best bands that have come to Santa Fe have played at Half Rack: Psyche Origami, Agape, USA is a Monster (well, almost-more about that below) as well as the best freaky local bands, like D Numbers, Ca'Guama, Ray Charles Ives. "It was just getting better and better," says Paul Groetzinger, who plays in both D Numbers and Ray Charles Ives. "They never made money-all the money just went to the bands, so it was more just a community service."
The neighbor factor, according to Woodruss, helped to end Half Rack's reign. Teetering on the edge of under-the-radar and too-much-publicity, Half Rack ironically suffered from an abundance of buzz preceding a scheduled show by insane prog-rockers USA is a Monster [J spot, Nov. 23:
]. "We had had some zoning issues, not with our landlord, but with the man who owned property around where our warehouse was. We showed up for the show and the police were there to tell us if we had the show these zoning officers were going to give us fines." There you go: Show cancelled at Half Rack. Show moved to another venue at last minute.
Similarly, consider too the late-November art show at Feral Gallery: After Skeleton Art Gallery owner Loren Schoel had to shut down his downtown space, he resurrected as Feral Art in a warehouse on Cerrillos Road in the Railyard area. The opening was a great night-slam-dunk, freaky art on the walls; several DJs hovering over the crowd in the loft above, spinning a continuous soundtrack; energy, buzz, excitement; a multi-media combination of the elements that give a town some creative drive, inspiration and ambition. And then, as soon as it began, it was over. Feral Art will appear in various incarnations throughout the city in different spaces at different times, but each time as a one-shot deal. The venue got into a spot of trouble with the zoning powers that be, and was forced to cancel a New Year's Eve soiree, proving the November opening to be another one-off.
Sustaining these types of establishments is difficult, in other words, and it's easy to lament the quick end of something that never had the freedom to reach its potential, but it's more complicated than that: The temporary nature of these venues is both their problem and their brilliance. The problem is that their disappearance leaves a hole in the creative world of Santa Fe. Where else is Ca'Guama going to play? Swig? Osaka? Maybe Southside Cantina? Where else can a touring high-quality underground band find a spot to both perform and sleep? Where else can the non-traditional, marginal artists find a home?
At the same time, though, it's the one-off quality of these venues that lends them a sense of urgency and their essential nature, and in that urgency one finds a brief brilliance. For one, there's that whole "it's better to burn out than fade away" aspect. If a venue or a scene never gets to run its course, there's a loss there, true, but it also ends the possibility of it dying a slow, painful death. It heightens the significance of each and every show; there's nothing blasé or casual about it, each performance, each bit of art on the wall, expands in importance.
Still, you can't help but wonder about what could have been. If Santa Fe is relegated to a transitory network of rotating venues, little moments here and there that come and go, will we suffer from lack of permanence? It's sexy and exciting to have a new thing, but is it enough?
In a sense, yes. I felt more excited, more infused with hope and energy about Santa Fe in the brief hours I spent at Feral than I ever have returning to any permanent gallery. And if Half Rack never existed, I never would have seen Ray Charles Ives in a room that suited them more perfectly than a place like Bar B ever could. We may have to come to terms with the fact that Santa Fe is not, say, Portland (where the Half Rack folks are moving, hoping to get a new venue started), where it's easier to maintain stability, but that's a good thing. Little artistic moments indeed come and go here, but they're ours, and they are made more precious by their very transience. Something new will come along. And then it will go away. And we'll all be the better for it. In the meantime: RIP, Half Rack.
