Warren Bedell of Rhinoceropolis

 The following is an interview with Warren Bedell of Rhinoceropolis:

Eddie: So... um, firstly, who are you?

Warren: I'm Warren, and I think as it relates to this, I was one of the four people who started Rhinoceropolis, in 2005. And since then, I've been involved for quite a while, kinda moved away, moved out of Rhino when it was shut down in 2016. It was shut down by the police, briefly, well not briefly, but... (Laughter) and since then I went back to school and did a master's program in organizational leadership and project management, but I was able to write a thesis about the relationship between underground and non-traditional venues and the larger venues, how they work together and how they work in cities as a whole, and create unofficial and official art districts. Um... yeah.

Eddie: Awesome. So kind of to back track, what was your introduction to do it yourself culture, or alternative music or art, or venues? How did you become aware of them?

Warren: So when I was in high-school, I grew up in Idaho Springs, which is a very small town, but there was like one punk band, they were like some kids a few years older than me. So we would go to their shows and it was kind of DIY by necessity. They were playing in like the arcade in Idaho Springs, or a restaurant or something, so the local shows we would see would be something like that, and I would also go to like, the Ogden or something, to see The Vandals or whatever. 

I was always into "punk" music, and just kind of attracted to weirder music. I love the Butthole Surfers, cause the name was funny and then I found the music cool. So then, I mean, on into high-school, when I was a junior in high school (maybe I was a senior?), I went on tour as a roadie with the same friends that were in that [first punk band] were in another band called the Curse of Lono, they were in college by that point, I went on a tour with them and it was all like DIY shows, like warehouses. We would go to like Monkey Mania, at it's first location on Lipan, (I only went there a couple times, I think) but, it was like, if you wanted to see your friends' bands they'd be playing at a DIY space or something at least non-traditional. But it didn't even seem weird, it was like, "This is how you do shows if you're not like a Pro", someone sets it up, someone has to do it. 

Eddie: Nice.

Warren: The coffee shop I worked at, we would book shows there too, 

Eddie: Nice. That sounds pretty accessible, it sounds pretty natural, like if you want to create something, you just do it.

Warren: Like entry point, yeah. I was thinking about this, cause I looked at some of your other interviews, and I was trying to think about what was unique about that time, cause it did kind of feel like DIY was just kind of how you did music. But I think a big catalyst for that was, there was a girl who died of a water overdose in like 1999.

Eddie: I remember that

Warren: Brittany Chambers. It was like her 16th birthday party and she drank too much water and was freaking out after taking ecstasy, and as a result they basically shut down all-ages venues in Denver and Colorado in general. Basically, if you didn't have a cabaret license, at a level like, 1000 seat venue might have, or larger, you couldn't have underage kids at your show if you served alcohol. So it kind of just made this huge rift and forced places that wanted younger people to play your shows, you had to have an all-ages show that had no alcohol, or had the alcohol completely separated, physically, from the rest of the show. 

And I feel like a lot of like, smaller venues popped up out of that. So like The Spot, a community space downtown, that was like a youth center that would also do shows. But I think it was also just part of the deal, like, Book Your Own Fucking Life still existed as a book at that point that you could look up venues to play at. Yeah, I think there was a website by that point to, but the idea of just like, the internet and using AOL instant messenger and booking your tour was a thing. The network kind of... was there. So if you were in a punk band, that's just how it was done.

Eddie: When you were outside of Denver, when you were touring with different bands, or the punk band from Idaho Springs, was there that same kind of [situation?]-- and what kind of time frame was that? Was that like 1999 or around there?

Warren: That tour would have been in like 2001

Eddie: So this would have been after the cabaret license thing?

Warren: Yes.

Eddie: So that would have led to more of a proliferation of alternative venues because commercial venues couldn't do all ages?

Warren: I felt like it did, yeah.

Eddie: That makes sense.

Warren: Cause at the time like half the bands I wanted to see were like hardcore bands that was like Ebullition Records or No Idea Records, I would go see anything from them or I wanted to see pop punk bands, and all of their audience is underage. So if they don't have the draw to play the Bluebird or larger, they can't really play bars, and I think that as unfortunate as that whole situation was and a silly reaction by the city, to just shut down all ages shows, that's kind of... that’s just always how it happens, there's some weird dumb thing that forces people to find this sliver of light to go towards. [Just] figure it out and grow something.

Eddie: When you were-- like 2001ish, was that a trend in other cities, or were you playing more bars? Like what was the all ages [scene like]?

Warren: So... I don't believe..-- I had nothing to do with booking that tour, I was just kind of along for the ride, but the venues that they were playing were all house shows pretty much. Or it was like the kids in the town rented a community space, like wherever, like a VFW hall or wherever they could rent. I'm trying to remember some of the venues... there was like The Aquadome in Kirksville, Missouri was like this really cool like warehouse venue. It was the first time I ever saw anything like that. And it was just like a bunch of anarcho punks in this college town that got a space together. 

Or there was like, the Theta Beta Potata House that was just like filthy, punk-house, in Iowa City I wanna say? It was on the end of Frat Row, so there's all these big fancy frat houses and this totally busted like, had Theta Beta and then a potato carved out sign on the roof.

But yeah, there were no bars on that tour, I don't think, at all. 

Eddie: Just because of convenience or was that [because] similar things had happened in other cities that had limited [all ages shows]?

Warren: I don't know, I think that was kind of part of the ethos too, was... I don't know, it'd be frowned upon if you played bars. To some degree. Cause like the Denver shows would be at like The Double Entendre, the record store, and if you were playing a bar, it was like... most of the bar bar shows weren't all ages ever.

Eddie: That's definitely, I've always felt like [that was the case]. Well, so, did you continue to get more involved? Or what was the bridge between starting your own DIY venue with some friends and like that early involvement?

Warren: Oh right, well you kind of always are part of it. I was booking shows at the coffee shop and I graduated high school, moved to Denver, like immediately. We lived in a house that was like 7 roommates in one house, we started a band, Zombie Zombie, that played Monkey Mania, [that] was our first show. And we would, ya know-- we went on a couple of tours. And they were all just DIY tours. But we played Monkey Mania all the time, and kind of became friends with Josh and Amy and Nate and the people that were running Monkey Mania. 

Eddie: Gotcha.

Warren: And as you go on tour, book shows for your friends, it all just kind of pops out organically eventually 

Eddie: Gotcha. So it started out by necessity and then became a choice?

Warren: Yeah. And it think there was like, in the hardcore, or punk, or underground music community, there was a low-key disdain for traditional venues and like bar culture, I mean god forbid anyone monetize what they're doing. (laughter)

Eddie: So my personal view, my experience with places like Rhino or Glob or anything, was that it was more experimental than like hardcore. You know what I mean?

Warren: Yeah, I would agree with that.

Eddie: That there were kind of venues for hardcore, and hardcore has always [been], and still is, a really strong community. But it felt like [Rhinoceropolis] was always a little more, abstract...

Warren: It's for the freaks. (laughter)

Eddie: Yeah, you know what I mean? But it was tied-- like you mention the Butthole Surfers, what were the other influences that went into what you guys did with the space that you had? Cause I think that like, in a parallel universe, the Butthole Surfers could have played Rhinoceropolis.

Warren: Yeah, if we were there 20 years earlier or something?

Eddie: Yeah.

Warren: Absolutely, I think... So I started getting into weirder music long before that, I liked the hardcore and stuff, I was always attracted to the DIY ethos and the sense of community, but I was also an art nerd. When I moved to Denver, first I was a film student, and just kind of experimental everything was kind of my jam. It was actually at a Butthole Surfers show that I actually saw my first straight noise performance. It was Kid 606 and I hated it. I thought it was an absolute waste of my time. Who knows what I would have thought of it now, but it looked like a guy with a laptop and it sounded to me like a modem going on or something. 

But, the reason I liked that band, the Butthole Surfers-- I don't think anyone else I was friends with really liked them, I would get teased for it. But, I think I got into them because they put out that song "Pepper" on like their one major label album, I think, but it was like their hit and because I was 12 and was buying my music at Blockbuster, the Butthole Surfers album that I could get a CD of was Hairway to Steven that was before that and was just way weirder and I think there's just a twelve minutes just noise rock song that opens it, and it... I was just like "What is this?" just weird. I like it, it makes me feel funny. 

Eddie: So... you said there were 3 other people or 4 other people involved in opening Rhino?

Warren: There were 3 other people. So, it was myself, Jerimiah Teutsch, who I'm not sure you would have ever met.

Eddie: I don't know...

Warren: And Harry Walters and then Milton Croissant, "Buddy" 

Eddie: Ah okay

Warren: But yeah, Harry and Jerimiah were both RMCAD (Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design) and definitely kind of the "Fine Arts" side of our approach to it. And then Buddy and I, Buddy was in the Ultra Boys and lived with me and the previous two houses I lived at. 

Eddie: Gotcha

Warren: So Buddy was the roadie for Zombie Zombie and then was in the Ultra Boys and then we were just homies. 

Eddie: So you mention RMCAD and I feel like there was a bridge at that time [between RMCAD] and... Brighton Blvd. in particular. You know what I mean?

Warren: Yeah, so... going back, before Rhino that same space was a DIY venue before that, it was more of a DIY art gallery called The Wheelbarrow. And Harry and Jerimiah-- we went to one show there-- but Harry and Jerimiah were friends with Ryan, who ran the Wheelbarrow. I don't know Ryan's last name! I've always known him as Ryan Wheelbarrow. (laughter) But it didn't last long and then it was occupied, some other guy had it for like a year after that. So we knew that there was a friendly landlord there. 

So... there were all these things, like, you have to know where there's a landlord that would even let you bother. But I think that was a big part of what made Rhinoceropolis kind of unique and work, was there was a kind of tension between like, Buddy and I like art, we like the gallery idea, but we want to do just like this weird warehouse inspired by Monkey Mania. We knew that Monkey Mania was going away and saw that there might be some space to fill, and Harry and Jerimiah, who really were interested more in the art side of things and wanted to do a gallery where they could have more control [and] do it "right", as they saw it. 

So, for the first few years, we would, every month, clean the whole front room out and paint everything and do a solo show for an artist. Always a solo show, and for one thing, it forced us to clean the whole gallery and on the other side... they were pretty well connected, just from RMCAD and they're both just really good artists too. 

Eddie: And that was Milton and?...

Warren: The RMCAD people were Harry and Jerimiah. 

Eddie: Harry and Jerimiah.

Warren: Yeah.

Eddie: Okay. During those solo shows, would it be strictly an art gallery, for those--that period of time? Or would there be shows going on as well?

Warren: There'd be shows during the month, but the first Friday we would do [an art] show, which was just an art show. 

Eddie: Would there be music performances going on too?

Warren: Typically, no. We wanted it to be solo shows for the artist who we gave the room to, so they could do with it what they will. Some were like installations that had a sound element, but as far as like a band playing at it, typically no. 

Eddie: Gotcha.

Warren: We might have a DJ-- actually usually, not usually, but a lot of those events, we go down to The Filling Station and DJ like the after-after party.

Eddie: Nice.

Warren: Which, we kind of became like the last stop for people who would go out to galleries for first Friday. "Come to Rhino last, cause that's where you could get wasted" (laughter). Without anyone looking sideways at you, and then the after-after party would be at The Filling Station, and just DJ there.

Eddie: Nice. I think about, my first involvement, my first awareness of DIY was, I was trying to DJ for KGNU and part of being able to get airtime was, you had to volunteer for them, you had to get so many volunteer hours and then you would get some time on air. And they were a sponsor of a local festival called Denver Fest...

Warren: Oh yeah

Eddie: And I think it was 2007, and at that point I think Glob and Rhino were both active, but there was like a whole network of... I forget-- like the Marquis was doing some of the shows...

Warren: Oh yeah, it was like all over town...

Eddie: [Yeah] it was like different kind of mainstream venues, but mixed in there was Glob and Rhino.

Warren: Yep. I remember that, yeah.

Eddie: What was the relationship like that there would be those kind of collaborative efforts, between the more commercial, mainstream, professional venues and the DIY scene? Was there a healthy relationship or was it always a difference?

Warren: Well, the reason that that involved all of us was, specifically, Tuyet, Tuyet Ngyen and Emily... last name escapes me. But there were like the two driving forces behind Denver Fest. Before that, I think both of them were together running Garage Land (that might have been someone named Melissa[?] and Tuett). There was a venue called Garage Land on Walnut and 33rd, or something. It was next to another venue called The Hipster Youth Halfway House. 

But Tuyett ran that [Garage Land] and it was kind of the DIY venue, drawing from a lot of different scenes. Zombie Zombie played there a bunch, if we weren't playing Monkey Mania, we were probably playing there. We played some bar shows and stuff too, but... They were involved and did the whole Denver Fest thing, but I remember that, that was a big swing, and they did it and I think they did it for several years[?] But I can't imagine the lift in putting together a festival like that. 

But it was things like that that would make a lot of people aware of Rhinoceropolis, cause--

Eddie: That's [how I found out about it]

Warren: Yeah, cause generally we're sticking to a pretty insular crowd. And I think it was maybe that festival, that there was a lot of criss crossing and people who maybe weren't familiar with DIY. I think I remember, there was like a painting that got tagged during Denver Fest, like a straight edge tag on this painting, like "What?" I don't know. But it was just a clear indicator that some people didn't really understand it, that "This is our home also". 

Yeah, like that, or Titwrench Festival also brought a lot of people that [it showed] a lot of DIY, just kind of reached out further into the community. 

Eddie: Umm... was that a good thing for you? Was that a goal of yours? To expand the consciousness about the venue? Or would you have been okay if it would have stayed more insular?

Warren: I think I would have had a different answer to that every year of my involvement. (laughter) You know, at first, we understood at the beginning that the general life of a DIY venue is a year or two, before it's either shut down by the cops or people move on, ya know? So we were super, super careful all the time, I mean, we weren't that careful, but we were never publicly advertising the price of a show. We'd say it's donation, and that way we're not running an illegal business or something. Thought this was the foolproof plan. Because it's donation based, "We're just throwing a party here, man". But as time went on, the police were definitely aware that we were there, so it became just kind of went out the window pretty quickly. Or maybe, after a couple years.

Eddie: Got it. When it was up and running, what was it like living in that environment? 

Warren: I mean, it was fun when you're like, a 22 year old party animal. I wasn't a terribly reliable or responsible person. But sometimes it would be a challenge, first, I wanna say the first 3 years I was a grocery manager at Whole Foods, and Wild Oats before that, so sometimes I would have a super early morning where I have to work at 4 in the morning or something, and there's a show the night before, that was a little rough. 

But for the most part, I really enjoyed like the community and stuff. And for the most part, people were respectful, the people coming over knew us well enough to be like [respectful]. But yeah, I was also just partying a bunch and doin' my thing. So, it wasn't conducive to... adulthood. (laughter) I'll say that.

Eddie: Well, I feel as- and this is kind of changing topics- but, you guys would book nationally known, critically acclaimed acts, I think about Iceage, or HEALTH or Dan Deacon, or whoever it would be, and you kind of talk about that eco system, and I talked to John Golter about this too, he would talk about this progression, like starting at the underground venues, kind of developing your aesthetic and your skills and your audience and having that be a base camp to start from. I always thought Rhino did a really good job of that and I'm just wondering what were the relationships like, with what people, that facilitated something like that?

Warren: Well, yeah... I mean, we were just trying to book shows for our friends. And even, like of the names you mentioned, Dan Deacon we knew him because his sister used to live in Denver. She was a friend of ours, we booked his first show at a house, our friend Eamon's mom let us book a show for him in their garage.

So it was just people we knew and it just kind of continued on, I think HEALTH played their first show in Denver at Monkey Mania. And they were a band that played The Smell all the time. The Smell was a venue that Josh from Monkey Mania would play at every time he was in LA. Bands like No Age, these are all from The Smell. 

There are certain bands that like or appreciate the underground network because the shows are more intimate, they feel more comfortable playing, it's more fun. For whatever reason, Lightning Bolt used to always try to play at DIY venues, wherever possible. So, if you're looking for a DIY venue and you're coming to Denver, there's very few options. For a lot of the time, Rhino was the only one that could fit more than 100 people in the room.

Eddie: What was the capacity there?

Warren: The most we ever put in there? (laughter)

Eddie: What was comfortable kind of?

Warren: Yeah, I mean, there were Dan Deacon and Lightning Bolt shows where there were over 300 people. And that was not comfortable. (laughter). I mean if there were that many people and you're trying too run a show, you can't get through that many people to get to the stage to bring a cable or whatever. And like the room at Glob is much bigger, so we started doing the bigger shows over there, finally. I don't know why we didn't, at any point (laughter).

They offered an official capacity for Rhinoceropolis after the re-opening after the initial shut down, and that was for the back room. But, I don't remember what it was... I think it was like 74 people or something. So, there's a bit of a discrepancy. (laughter)

Eddie: I think about these other venue spaces, cause I also interviewed Clay Dehaan about Mouth House and I mentioned that it was a punk house, and he said it wasn't really a punk house because we did all kinds of different stuff, it wasn't like strictly punk. But I think about [at Rhinoceropolis] there was this mish mash of genres and styles and preferences and some days it would be like Black Metal, Death Metal stuff and the next night it would be like electronic dance music and then the next night it would be like indie rock. Does that go back to what you were saying about Rhino being one of the only alternative venues of capacity in Denver, or was there a camaraderie or tension between those styles?

Warren:... I think there was a good portion, especially the first chunk when I was living there, someone who lived at the space would own each show, I would say. So like, you say there's one thing one night, another thing another night, that's usually based on who was booking the show. And you could kinda tell by the flyer. So Travis [Egedy] would book the stuff he liked and it would be more the kind of electronic things, Travis from Pictureplane, or like Buddy had his kind of thing, and then I did a lot of the noise shows and stuff for a lot of the time. And we had our contacts, because booking agents were contacting us too. A lot of the national acts I brought in were from specific booking agents. You could tell if it was a Warren show because all of my flyers looked pretty much the same, just like the laziest thing ever. People would know not to show up! (laughter) Or like a Travis show. And then, you know, we would always book our own bands on it too because we can (laughter) . But, you know, I think we're all people that had pretty eclectic taste too. So pretty open to anything as long as you're not just like a goof….Um, or as long as you are kind of a goof, I guess. But yeah. And I don't know that there was really tension. I mean, there was there were some shows that would just get, like, annoying. You know, at least during the first several years we could just have a talk about it and, like, hey, let's not do that again.

Eddie: Well, it seems like there was, just from an observer perspective, it seems like there was a move away from more of... a happy go lucky experimental because that's all I ever did was like Sparkler Bombs, Stupendous Sound Society, you know, whatever stuff. And then it got more kind of into metal over time.

Warren: Yeah.

Eddie: I felt that there was more of a metal presence in, like, the latter part of it.

Warren: And yeah. And I think that would just be dependent on whoever's there.

Eddie: Who's living there? 

Warren: Yeah. 

Eddie: Gotcha.

Warren: And, or who's booking the shows because so the what I'm talking about is like the first 6 years or something. I kind of I break it up by lease periods. So there was, like, 2 years or 2 cycles where Buddy was on the lease and I was on the lease and then I moved out and Chris Weston had the lease for a while, and then John Gross had the lease. Um, so, like, whoever had the lease was, like, kind of tacitly in charge because that's who was collecting, you know, collecting rent and ultimately responsible from a financial standpoint. But it was the people who were living there who were... there's no like official steering committee, or like talk about any kind of strategy or anything. It's just kind of like these are the people booking shows. All that is to say later on, there was a lot more outside entities, I think, booking shows. One of them being Ethan McCarthy. He booked a lot of metal shows. Um, but, yeah, I I think that's that's the extent of the planning that went into it. It's like these are the people that we trust to book shows. Yeah. And

Eddie: That's just kind of incredible. You talk about, like, expecting a year or so and it lasted I mean, it was kind of like an institution for a little while, you know?

Warren: Yeah.

Eddie: I think that's why it was so... it was such a... I think the community changed after the shutdown. You know what I mean? Like it had that big of an impact but they shut down a lot of alternative venues around that same time.

Warren: Yeah. I think that and, you know, I think there's still kind of a vacuum. Um, there's there are DIY venues, obviously, like, whether whether or not we wanna say too loud, that glob is still going and, uh, uh, D3 arts and, you know, but I don't I honestly don't get out much. But there isn't, uh, I think it was unique in time and in city that Rhinoceropolis was able to operate so blatantly. 

Eddie: Yeah.

Warren: You know, it wasn't really an underground venue at a certain point.

Eddie: I talked to Catherine Turner.

Warren: Mhmm.

Eddie: Um, and she was saying she was like that rent made it possible. 

Warren: Yeah. 

Warren: Like the the price of it was so affordable. [The higher the rent, the less you can do things just for fun, that aren't profitable]. 

Warren: Right.

Eddie: You know what I mean? That don't make any money.

Warren: Yeah. And it's true. I mean, it's becoming more and more unlivable if you're making the kind of money that we were making while we were there. You know, I think my rent was like $480 per month when the first few years I was living there. That was when there were 4 of us. Because the rhino rent was 1500. So divide that by 4, I guess. But then we started like-- there was a certain point when we were like, "well let's get just more people living in here" before the rent was really going up. So there's some people that were paying like $200 or less to live up in the loft or something. I mean that's huge. And affordable warehouse space is not really a thing that exists anymore. Like we'd said, we'd weeded that out (laughter). Um, and, you know, just in general, if we wanna get into the academic stuff that I've done, it's always, like, generally smaller, not smaller, but undesirable neighborhoods where people are making things happen. Art doesn't typically make a whole lot of money until it makes money for people who aren't artists. So historically across, like, the globe and across the country, you see all of these art districts and all of them began as, you know, they're like former packing districts or warehouse districts or shipping districts or whatever where artists are kind of hanging out and have space to do their thing. So if you're living in an apartment in Denver and you want a band with an acoustic drum set, you're at a huge disadvantage because you need to rent a practice space.

Eddie:Is there, um... what happens to that? I remember Max Popoff, another person I talked to, I remember talking to him at Juice Church [back in like 2016], And he was, like, "it's all going away, man. It's all, you know, this is all [over]... I'm moving to Kansas City. Like, I gotta get out of here. It's, you know, Denver is just dead" or what, you know, whatever he was saying.

And I was trying to be, like, forcing optimism to be like, "it'll never die. This energy of, like, um, DIY guerrilla whatever stuff will endure!" What is your perspective on that? Do you see it as something that continues in new ways or was or is it, like, epochal? Like this was an epoch when it was able to exist? 

Warren: I think it just kind of changes form. There there are so many factors that kind of are going to affect what art in general is gonna look like, where it's coming from. From from my awareness, there's a lot of pockets of really interesting things that happen out of, like, underserved communities. Um, but there's, you know, there's... there's always Art Schools. There's always cities and and places where it can be found. It just looks kinda different. And, you know, I think it would be a little arrogant for me to say that it's never gonna be like [it was], to put any kind of value judgement on it. You know? A lot of people are making their art and distributing it in completely different ways. So if you're if you're making it on a computer and and your DIY network of friends and the audience you find is online, so be it. Like, there's a lot of interesting things happening that way. I think that, like, [that] kind of nostalgia for things to be the same way forever is a pretty toxic impulse that you can't really, like, you know... we know what happens when people try to make things great again. It's not, what it was. But...

Eddie: The forces that led to the closure of a lot of DIY spaces, what do you see as being like, when you wrote about it, do you wanna get more into kinda like what your analysis was of like the ecosystem of venues or... like, how to draw... a map or anything? 

Warren: Well, I can... I can kind of explain what the thesis was. So because it was like, you know, this is for the DU business class or, you know, capstone for my master's program. It had to be related to business and project management in some way. So the argument that I was making is that it was kind of just to investigate whether competition between smaller venues and the larger, like, flagship institutions in the same city was harmful to the larger institutions or the city in general or... not.

And, you know, it was based on kind of assumptions that I had where, like, you know, there's very few cities that have, like, very healthy music scene in general without also a very healthy underground, nontraditional scene that has been built upon typically for many many years. And the the research absolutely supports that. Not only that, you know, like, Art and the Arts is not just a major driver for what makes a city-- what separates, you know, a city that people will live in from, a world class city that gets, like, high end jobs and, you know, kind of the sort of commerce where people wanna visit that city. The difference is Art. And arguably, you could say that Denver also, you know, has a lot of, like, outdoor activity and stuff. But you could also say that those are at their capacity. So if Denver wants to continue growing and become this world class city, it's art that that is hinged on. And it needs to come from lots of angles. So if you begin to see patterns and that, like, these larger institutions, art museums, [on] the visual art side or, like, the big music venues are just a city that is thriving and has people, you know, interested in the cultural aspects of that city. Not only do they not, like, really experience negative effects from competition, that it can only help.

So the more buzz you have, the more people you have going to the city to eat its food, the more the restaurants succeed and more competition should be welcomed. Same with music venues and visual art. Like, so the idea is that it's beneficial if you are running a large venue or a large art institution, a big gallery or an art museum or something. You should be invested in the underground culture. You should be literally investing in your smaller competitors. And it's kind of taking like a long term effect rather than the next week's profits look at cultivating a city that is that is thriving and moving forward. 

The part where that gets sticky is that, like, again, for that to be successful for a long time, the people who make that underground work happen need to stay there. So you can't you can't you can't just, you know, price them out immediately. So the way things are it's like about finding ways to let them share in the profits so that everyone's benefiting together.

Eddie: That's so interesting to think about Denver blew up in, like, 2012 after, like, 5 years of or after a a good while of like, if you talk about 1999 being a turning point

Warren: Mhmm.

Eddie: And you think about, like, 12 year 13 years of that smaller venue...

Warren: Slow growth or something?

Eddie: Yeah. And then Denver really grows a lot when we legalize marijuana, but this city has enough culture otherwise to sustain something. You know, it's just interesting. And then that kinda ends up being what prices out the venues that made it possible in the first place.

Warren: Right. Yeah. And then the bubble kind of bursts because... I mean it's pretty... we're in the middle of the rhino district right now and how many art galleries or venues do exist here. It's like, pretty grim. And I don't have, like, the specific data on the top of my head to support this but it's but it you know, there's districts in New York, in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, and it's a pretty, like, specific and predictable path from, you know, broke artists who have a community. They set up something that's kind of like an unofficial art district. And then it starts to become more desirable, and then people can kinda tell when it's you know, like, this is the most basic neighborhood in Denver now. It's the land of the over accessorized Toyota Tacoma (laughter). And.. and things move on.

But it's what I was kind of arguing with the, like, direct investment model is that if you can figure out a way to make this, like, more sustaining and less transitional for the people that are setting up these situations, um, then then you have something that's actually sustainable and can last a longer time. But, you know, there's a lot of ways that can look.

Eddie: Nice. Well, thank you so much. I mean, this is this is a lot of great information I think. Um, but if you want I usually like to ask a couple of questions to everybody that I talk to. And the first is what are your top 3 shows?

Warren: Uh... just like in general or at Rhino?

Eddie: Kinda DIY related. Maybe not necessarily Rhino, but just top 3 DIY. 

Warren: Um, a lot of this is kind of colored by how where I was at the time, obviously. But one that always springs to mind is when I was... yeah. These are all gonna be, like, formative Warren things. The Planes Mistaken for Stars House had its last show in it was probably in 2001 or 2002. I know that Planes played of course and probably Scott Baio Army just like Denver legend bands.

But it was just like bonkers. There was the house was over on MLK off of Downing somewhere. By the end of the show there was just like a bunch of kids. There were I wanna say multiple helicopters circling the show (laughter). There's a period where like helicopters would break up punk shows. It's like no joke. And then, you know, there's all these young people like, you know, flipping off the helicopters as they flew overhead. And I got to go back to high school that next Monday and like, dude, there were helicopters. And we got tear gassed. It was crazy.

Um, so that was wild. Then there's a show in Providence [RI] that Zombie Zombie played. We were so stoked to play Providence because it's like we were all about Load Records and, like, Load Records is based out of Providence and Lightning Bolt was on that label and lived there, uh, and a bunch of other really cool bands. But, uh, we were booked on a show that was like a last minute add. And we get to the show and realize, like, we got to play with Comets on Fire and Sunburnt Hand of the Man.

These are both bands that we're just, like, so stoked about. We were totally lost trying to find it but we could hear the band Lightning Bolt because this was this giant, like, 4 story warehouse, like, unreal situation where there's like multiple venues in this warehouse space. We could hear them practicing. So we're totally lost. We finally found the venue by following, like [the noise] (laughter)... the band and, uh, you know, played with just it was like the coolest show of the tour that happened out of nowhere. The reason we couldn't find the venue is because the sign was stolen and was hanging in the venue. The street that it was on. 

Uh, and the last [top show] I would say... I don't know. That's tough. Probably... any of those Health shows that we did were really fun. Uh, but there are also some that just kinda blew my mind. Like, I don't know. We... White Mice played a day later than they were expected to because there was a blizzard. And it was still really snowy the next day when they finally got in. And we're like, fuck it. We will call some people and see who we can get to come over. And we got maybe, like, 10 people who are willing to brave the storm and come watch White Mice just like rip it up. It was, you know, I'm sure they were disappointed from a financial standpoint, but, um, but it was a really fun show. 

Eddie: Nice, and so the way I've phrased it in the past has been top 3 weirdest experiences, but I guess more of what my intention is is like top 3 most surreal experiences.

Warren: Surreal experiences... I mean, I was there when we had A-Track playing at Rhino, which is pretty wild. Like, that guy has a Grammy, with Flostrodomus so that was pretty wild. Yeah.

I don't know...

Eddie: Yeah. But, um, thank you very much, Warren.

Warren: Appreciate it.