Lala of D3 Arts

Eddie: So firstly: Who are you?

Lala: How in depth do you want me to go? Hahaha. My name is Huitziloxochitl Jaramillo, I go by Lala and I’m a 4th generation Westwood resident. My life revolves around arts and music and I program and book the 3632 building for D3 Arts.

Eddie: Really whatever you want to communicate or get across. The blog is free form and unprofessional just hoping to document diy, hopefully inspire people to start diy spaces.

Lala: That’s awesome. Yeah idk I guess I’m just an art and music lover. I’ve been going to shows since I was a child thanks to my parents and now I help organize shows that come through Denver.

Eddie: Nice, what were those early experiences like? And what were the years and age ranges?

Lala: I don’t remember a ton of what the specific shows were but my dad always took us to shows at Larimer Lounge or the Fillmore or gothic when he could. It had to have been around 2008-2015 before I started to go to shows on my own. I was an adolescent and a teenager and then I found 7C at 16 and my obsession for underground music took off from there.

Eddie: Nice, was there a sense of anything unique about 7C or the underground shows that struck you, that seemed different?

Lala: I was really welcomed to the community and that was a stark change from my experience with high school. I did not have many close friends or anywhere to hang out in high school. It felt like I had found a group of weirdos that understood what being a weirdo is. I also think it’s funny that weirdo is still a funny or bad word to say amongst the weirdos. Like that’s what this is, that’s what we are hahaha. We’re fucking weird and strange and we make art and music and it’s okay.

Eddie: Absolutely! Was there an energy to participate? An emphasis on also being creative?

Lala: Fuck yeah! At least with my friend group at the time, it was like “no you’re going. We have to go, this is awesome. We can’t miss this.” When you’re sucked into that world and everyone’s moving so fast, making flyers and music and demos, it’s hard not to want to keep up and create too.

Eddie: That was always the most fun part for me, like, “We did ours, now it’s your turn”

Lala: Exactly! Like alright let’s see what you can do now, but not in a hostile way? Like I wasn’t pressured to do anything but being around people contributing so much, it was fun when we were all apart of the commotion. I will say I did get sucked into the party side of it all. I eventually didn’t make a ton of art because I was more focused on trying to find afters and shit.

Eddie: I really admire appreciate and support the space D3 is holding for recovery. Would you like to speak on that?

Lala: Thank you. We’re doing our best to cultivate a space for addicts and at risk youth to participate in alternative subcultures.

Eddie: So many of us got sucked into the shadow side of diy. As I have done these interviews and developed a greater appreciation and understanding of what the potential for a diy venue can be I’ve really come to see them as folk community centers. It’s just folks have changed since the folk music days. And I think D3 really is showing that side.

Lala: My family on both sides are addicts. My dad has been sober for 17 years. When you’re a lost and scared teenager it’s so easy to get addicted to different substances. I never had a solid group of friends so when I found DIY and I saw people congregating around music and alcohol my automatic click was, “oh I need alcohol to hang out”. Which isn’t a lot of newer people’s experience, but there’s a huge chunk of people that get trapped in the “sex drugs and rock n roll” idea. It’s so much better now. DIY spaces aren’t centered around BYOB anymore and I’m so grateful for that. When you get a group of damaged, at risk people together, things can get dicey very quickly.

Eddie: I was speaking with a friend who is involved in diy spaces recently, about starting a space and he introduced me to the concept and importance of 3rd spaces. Somewhere that isn’t your home, that isn’t work, where you can just comfortably exist. For whatever reason that’s always only like the gym or a bar. And aside from the gym the third spaces we have seem primarily to be about getting screwed up together.

Lala: Absolutely. I’m new in my sobriety so I’m realizing how often I ended up being bored and going to a bar and getting trashed simply because I was bored and there was some kind of community I could interact with. After Covid, our third spaces totally disappeared or haven’t fully recovered. Leelas was a huge central place for my friend group to gather and that’s gone.

Eddie: That’s why I so appreciate D3, a diy space that has recovery groups AND dance classes AND for real underground music benefits the health, the total health, of the whole community.

Lala: We try our best! There’s a huge demand for accessible places for people to utilize and we just wanna be there for all the lil freaks and weirdos of the universe. The loneliness we so often experience because an event is behind a paywall or at a bar is too much. I didn’t have a ton of money growing up so couldn’t hang out at a lot of different shows or restaurants because I couldn’t pay to be there.

Eddie: Totally, and this city has appropriated such a haughtiness and “exclusive” attitude, we need low barrier diy spaces and events and culture so badly.

Lala: Hahaha I’m so over the cool bar guy bullshit. I don’t care what bands you’re in or what bar you hang out at. Just make something cool and be nice to the kids that look up to you. It’s very much a who you know attitude in a lot of DIY spaces. That’s partly to protect the community from people that wanna extort others art and make money, but it’s fucked up when there’s genuine curiosity that gets shut down because someone doesn’t hang with your crew. 

Eddie: Totally. That era 2008-2015, were you at all thinking, “I like this, this is a bad scene, there should be more of this, that’s wrong (unjust)” while you were going to shows and hanging out at 7C and other spaces? Like developing a sense of what to keep or do differently with a diy space?

Lala: I always kinda kept mental tabs on things I thought were weird. I never fully understood cliques, like why certain underground music genres (within reason. Obviously gabber kids and OI kids aren’t gonna mesh lol) didn’t hang with the rest of the music people. The rampant and blatant drug and alcohol abuse was always strange to me, even when I was partaking in it. I try and take my first hand experiences at different DIY spaces across the country and use the positives and negatives to build D3. One positive that’s always been consistent throughout the years has been seeing peoples art all over the place. Whether it’s graffiti or traditional murals or just flyers and wheat paste, that’s always been something that’s drawn me.

Eddie: What have been some of the more inspiring spaces?

Lala: I can’t pinpoint any one specifically but I will say 7C has helped us out a lot in terms of day to day operations with shows. Adam Croft, and my friend Julian have been vital in showing me systems that work well and which ones don’t. There was also a spot in Philly next to the train tracks, i don’t think it had an address and it was kind of hard to find, but when you got in the energy was blinding and the outside area was covered in art and graffiti. I like the hard to find spaces. I think it helps attract a more genuine crowd. I think the “ask a punk” approach is a lot of fun. D3 has a huge neon sign outside now but if you didn’t know we do shows, you would never guess the building itself is a huge center for people. If I remember the name I’ll send it later but I can’t remember right now. Same with a DIY I just visit in Oakland called 9 lives. A bad ass warehouse covered in art that has big ass shows, but it was at the back of a parking lot in the warehouse district hahaha.

Eddie: Nice. How did it transpire that you guys opened D3?

Lala: D3 itself has been a nonprofit for 12 years now. My dad and a woman named Mandy Medrano have been doing neighborhood work in Westwood for years. The building that we now have and operate out of really just fell into our lap. The landlord of our small office building said he hadn’t been paid rent in a year and said he was evicting the people so we just slid in while we could. My dad and Mandy started the Frida Kahlo celebration and the day of the dead celebrations that now happen yearly on Morrison road.

Eddie: That’s awesome. I don’t know much about the growth of that area in general. Would you be willing to give an overview of the history?

Lala: Dude yeah within the last two years our organization has blown up. The organization started as “Westwood Action Committee”. It was created to offer neighborhood residents a space to air frustrations or concerns about the neighborhood. It was also created  as a way for brown people to get in touch with their precolonial roots, they had Aztec dance classes and art shows and stuff. Westwood has not historically been a safe neighborhood, and my dad (Santiago Jaramillo) and Mandy wanted to change that narrative. I’m 25 now so at the time that they were building the organization I was 13. I remember sitting with a group of older Hispanic women and my dad and Mandy and listening to them all talk about “neighborhood safety and reconstruction” and how we could all support each other to keep the kids safe. I didn’t understand it back then. The space we first met is actually on the corner of Lowell and Morrison, up the street from where we’re at now.

Eddie: I think that community effort has really paid off. It’s one of the only not white and gentrified pockets of commerce and stuff.

Lala: Exactly. We also have the most kids per capita than any other part of the city.

Eddie: I didn’t know that. It seems like it’s developed really harmoniously, like it’s thriving and growing but according to its own cultural sensibility.

Lala: It’s unfortunate that other black and brown neighborhoods in Denver have been gentrified to the point where none of the original residents can afford it anymore, but it does help Westwood look at what we can do to potentially prevent developers from ransacking the neighborhood. 

Eddie: How does that awareness influence how you book at D3?

Lala: I save space for the POC kids coming up as much as I can. BIPOC creators have first pick when it comes to booking and having a spot in upcoming art shows. Theres space for everyone, but kids directly from redlined, or underserved neighborhoods get the right of way.

Eddie: That’s awesome. Are there red flags with potential collaborators?

Lala: For the more nonprofit group events we stay away from corporations and banks at all costs. For the DIY shows I’m thankful that the crowd we usually draw is a fun one.

Eddie: Okay: so last two questions, one; what are your top three diy shows so far?

Lala: At D3 itself or ever??

Eddie: Both or either

Lala: For D3 it’s Mindforce , Worlds Worst and Convulse’s Big Gig that happened August last year. For across the country- Abandoned Train Tunnel in Brooklyn with Nosferatu, Riki in a warehouse in west Oakland, and Fatal Mistake Vol.2 here in Denver. It happened at Hear Nothing House, Nude City Relief Center, and 7C.

Eddie: Nice, and top three “good” weird diy experiences?

Lala: Good weird- David Castillo’s live performances. Mf just rips the flute and whoever he’s playing with always uses weird objects to make music- last one I saw had a radio being pointed in different directions to make static sounds. Good Slut Medicine always has the most wild people doing drag or fire spinning. I saw one performer in their show shoot a picture of Christopher Columbus in the face with a bow and arrow. GOON playing anywhere and the singer being in that weird flower suit was always so much fun to experience.

Eddie: Awesome! Thank you so much for your time. I hope D3 prospers for many years to come :)

Lala: That’s such a beautiful thing for you to say! Thank you so much!! We intend to do so :)