Courtesy George Casey
All the Santa Fe vinyl dorks know that if you’re looking for that one EP, you’ll probably find it at Lost Padre Records (131 B Water St., (505) 310-6389). If it’s not there, proprietor George Casey can likely find it for you. As if that weren’t enough, Casey is embracing his New York City concert promo roots with an upcoming series of live music events, the first of which delves into indie and synth-pop jamz with P S I R E N S, Velvet Visions and Teleporter (6 pm Wednesday, April 6. Free). We wanted to let everyone know what’s up, so we gave Casey a call at work.
How has the shift to downtown been? Lotta vinyl-head foot traffic?
Definitely, no question, we get more walk-in traffic from tourists, but our kind of local vinyl fanatic people are all still coming, and I don’t think we lost a single person. This new space is double the size of the last one, which is good because we were absolutely brimming full with stuff. I couldn’t walk in my office at all because it was floor-to-ceiling records and we didn’t have enough space to put out the stock. It ended up also being this beautiful space downtown. If anything, I’ve seen more young people at this location, maybe because we’re close to the skate park—I see people skate by. I would say there are some high school kids, and a lot of what we’re seeing is early- to mid-20-somethings getting into records. They had their parents’ collection and want more of what they themselves are listening to. Also people upgrading to new or better record players.
What makes Lost Padre a good venue for live music?
A lot of places to play in town—and there aren’t a ton of them, to be fair— with some kinds of music you don’t get a lot of attention for the artists. At a loud brewery, for example. I’ve had a lot of people play our shows and say, ‘Your audience listens,’ whereas they’re background other places. We’re also making an effort to be more accessible to all-ages, which obviously is not possible at bars, and we do our shows early. Not all shows, but we often start at 6 or 6:30, and there are a bunch of people who are really into it. There are older people who don’t want to stay out late, people who just got off work and want to do something...we’re filling this post-dinner, pre nighttime slot. I booked bands back in New York, and I’ve always wanted to be able to book music without worrying about making money, and that’s the thing about a bar or venue—most of the time when they book a show, they’re like, ‘How is this going to help us sell beer?’ In our case, we can just pay the artists, the shows are free and if it gets the name out there, it’s cool.
What kinds of things do you have in store? We’re picturing an exciting summer of music.
We’re doing six events in April, roughly one a week, and we’ll probably take a little breather in May, then maybe one or two a month in June. We’re going to book at the store, obviously, and we’re talking to Tumbleroot [Brewery & Distillery] about doing outdoor stuff on Sundays. We’re also starting a film series at [the Center for Contemporary Arts] where we’ll be showing something that’s either going to be local-related or music-related. The first one is May 5, and we’re going to have Gregg Turner talking a little bit about the Roky Erickson movie [You’re Gonna Miss Me] because he knew Roky. We’ll probably be sponsoring one of the Plaza shows, but we haven’t figured out what that’s going to be.
When I came here there was definitely stuff to do, but there are certain types of things I like to do I don’t see as much. I would love for another venue to open that’s more of a 100-capacity room that does rock and hip-hop and books touring indie bands. What we’re missing in this town is that size room. We have Meow Wolf and Tumbleroot, which are both very big for a city of 80,000, but if we had a 100-person venue in this town, we could get just the best bands. We don’t, so we have to patch it together, and I feel like that’s what I’m doing. I want you to be close to the band, I don’t want you to be by the huge stage that’s 5 feet up. I guess I’m kind of hoping somebody with money will show up and be like, ‘Hey...’
