Amos of Orange Grove, Etc.

 Eddie: So firstly; who are you?

Amos: My name is Amos. I play in the bands Destiny Bond and Angel Band and I also book shows and assist with Convulse Records

Eddie: Sweet! How did you first become involved in bands and booking and all that? What was your introduction?

Amos: I grew up in Cody, Wyoming so there is not really a DIY scene to speak of. I had a couple bands in High School and a couple older dudes would book mostly all-locals shows at places like a horse riding club and a local auditorium. By the time I went to college most of these venues were no longer viable and most of the bands petered out. 

When I was 21 or so I was playing in a band that got booked on a house show in Billings, Montana and meeting the kids doing stuff in Billings was a huge inspiration to me. They also put on a yearly DIY fest called Julia Louis-Dreyfest which just did celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Shortly after this fateful meeting I moved to Fort Collins and upon arriving there my friends and I started new bands and I started booking shows at houses and other venues there because there was very little DIY music things going on there at the time.

After 2 years there I moved to Denver and booked shows out of my house and other DIY venues around Denver and got very involved in the local DIY scene here.

Eddie: What was inspiring about the Billings community? And what were the years / your ages for this initial period?

Amos: In Cody and Powell, Wyoming the shows were a lot of fun to me. It would always be like 5 bands (maybe more!) of all kinds of genres. Garage-punk, street punk, Christian metalcore, acoustic rock, a jazz fusion jam band of college kids and then my ska-funk-reggae band I played in at the time all on the same show. The people putting it on loved music and they’re still friends of mine to this day. 

Though those were cool experiences, something about connecting with Billings felt a little different. I guess they were more connected to the outside world and really felt like an actual city compared to the small towns I had played and lived in. 

This would have been from 2007-2012 so I would be 16-21

Eddie: I’ve spoken with Max Popoff of Farewell and my friend Zach Barnes of Ukko’s Hammer and both of them have mentioned a sense of relief from your encouragement of people to listen to whatever styles or bands or genres speak to them without feeling embarrassed or shamed. Did that kind of grow from that early cross pollination?

Amos: Oh wow that’s really nice. I love those guys!

Yeah I think that definitely played a role. Growing up in Wyoming, when it came to seeing bands play I couldn’t really be a snob about what I liked. I was never into Christian metalcore while that was a big thing, for example, but if one of those bands came through my area and played a tight set with energy I would probably be pretty into it and very grateful they came.

I also think that is a product of growing up where there isn’t really any scene to speak of. I didn’t really have any old heads pointing me in any direction in particular, guiding me toward what is considered cool. It was just me and a dial up internet connection and CDs from the public library. That’s how I got into most of what I was into in high school.

Eddie: What was the library like up there at that time?

Amos: It was small but had a cool little collection of CDs. At the time you could check out CDs and then rip them to your iTunes collection. A more tactile type of music piracy than using the internet. It was a good resource for checking out music that I wasn’t sure I liked yet. 

Some of the CDs I remember them having were Hank Williams, Buck Owens, Flatt & Scruggs, Bob Marley, Syd Barret and Frank Zappa. All of whom are some of the most influential music to my entire life.

Eddie: Was there any ritual to it? Like going to the building, going to the section, picking something, going home, listening to it?

Amos: Sort of. I would just pick through and see what looks interesting. I kind of went by genre. I had periods where I was really into bluegrass or reggae or something and I would get as many of those as I could and check them out. Then I would go home and put them in the family computer and burn them on there and listen to them.

Eddie: Nice. So how old were you when you moved to Denver?

Amos: I think like 24.

Eddie: So you’d been playing and booking for the better part of a decade?

Amos: Yeah! I started booking DIY shows about 10 years ago. I started playing in bands like 18 years ago though.

Eddie: When you moved to Denver, who did you ask to let you book and how did you know who to ask?

Amos: When I first moved to Denver I moved in with Max Popoff, who you mentioned earlier, and he had a basement where he had had shows before. When me and my friend Coleman (who is involved with GLOB now) moved in we started setting up more shows in the basement for touring bands. Shortly thereafter I became friends with people involved with Seventh Circle, Juice Church, Rhinoceropolis, Club Scum, Backspace and a few other houses here and there and started doing shows there. I just met these people by going to shows at their venues or playing there.

Eddie: Would it be safe to say via friendship?

Amos: Yeah! Definitely 

Eddie: Awesome. To me that’s the power of diy and diy music specifically. People are sort of ambitious but just in a way to celebrate and have fun with their friends, ya know?

Amos: I definitely agree 

Eddie: Were you touring at that time? (Like 2012-on?)

Amos: In 2013 or so I played in a band that did a weekender where we played Provo Utah, Boise and Grand Junction. That was sort of a tour although the Provo show was hardly a show and we stayed in Boise for like 3 nights to hang out and party for Halloween weekend. My first proper tour was in 2014 when my bands justinedrugs and Old Sport did a two week Midwest tour with Medicine Bow from Laramie, Wyoming.

Eddie: Max (Popoff) mentioned that while you were at Orange Grove (the house with him, Coleman and Evan Callus at 3rd and Federal) you went on a tour and invited the people you met to play the house. What was the whole story with that?

Amos: Yeah one time my old band with Evan (Kallas, btw) and Coleman, justinedrugs, went on a short tour with Max’s band Byrgeau Noil. We played with Infinite Me in Minneapolis who later played our house and with a band called Bed Rest in Omaha who didn’t play the house but a related project called No•Getter did.

Eddie: My impression from talking with him was that kind of broke the floodgates open, as far as diy stuff for you guys? Is that accurate or how do you recollect that Orange Grove time?

Amos: Hmm, not to downplay the significance of it, but I never thought of that tour that way specifically. I did a few tours before that and booked a lot of DIY shows in Fort Collins before I moved to Denver so I had already been doing that kind of thing. Every tour sort of builds off the last one so this tour was an important step all the same.

Eddie: Gotcha. Has there always been the multifaceted-ness that you’re making music, playing shows, touring and booking? Is it kind of a cohesive whole?

Amos: I suppose so. I’m excited about all of these aspects of music so I like to do all of them.

Eddie: Have the venues you play and book been like relationship based, based on your relationship with people, or are there any general like rules or guidelines for what you look for, like what kind of spaces you want to be involved with?

Amos: They have been pretty much entirely relationship-based I guess. All of those DIY venues I mentioned earlier were run by friends and acquaintances who I could just hit up and ask to do shows. I also have booked stuff at The Hi Dive, The Skylark Lounge and Syntax Physic Opera, which are/were more traditional venues, but I was able to work with them because I knew people involved with the booking there. 

Though I booked some things at these venues that are professional and have a bar, I typically work with DIY all-ages venues. In the past handful of years I’ve almost exclusively booked shows in Denver at either Seventh Circle, D3 Arts or Squirm Gallery.

Eddie: What would you say is unique about either the commercial or diy spaces?

Amos: Each one has their own unique qualities. Typically at the professional venues they have nicer equipment for sound, and having paid staff to help run everything is nice. At DIY venues those things can really be a mixed bag. I think there is a trade off that happens where you miss some of the professionalism and consistency sometimes in exchange for a feeling and more personal connection between the artists and those who are attending.

Eddie: Is there a flow, like starting out with the diy venues and then if the bands or musicians become more professional they gravitate towards the more professional venues?

Amos: Often that is the case, though many bands operate in a very professional way and still play DIY venues as often as possible. At a certain size this becomes more difficult however. Most DIY spots are under 300 capacity or something so eventually if a band or musician gets too popular they will need to go to a larger venue.

Eddie: Could you ever see a way for there to be larger capacity DIYs or is that not really their nature?

Amos: Oh sure I suppose. People just typically don’t have the money to run a place that’s big like that.

Eddie: I’d like to ask a little about your perspective on diy venues pre and post Ghost Ship, maybe not specifically about their venue but the climate before and after and your sense of diy venues currently?

Amos: Before the Ghost Ship fire there were a lot of underground warehouse venues where people lived and hosted music and art shows and related events all over the country, with local governments mostly paying them no mind, from what I can tell. After the fire, Denver and other cities around the country raided these places and evicted their residents, and cracked down on code violations and things like that. Since then, I haven’t come across spaces like that, where people live in the same place where the shows happen, aside from traditional houses that put on shows in their basement, garage or living room.

Eddie: It seems to me like spaces like D3 or 7C provide a way forward, how do you see them, or how do you see things progressing?

Amos: Well for one thing, both of those venues don’t allow alcohol, which I think is valuable for the longevity of an all-ages venue. Underage drinking is a huge factor in places being shut down by the police, so eliminating the chances of that is good. Of course drinking alcohol also contributes to people doing stupid things, so making that less of a factor is also a benefit. As far as things progressing, it’s hard to predict the future.

Eddie: Definitely. [Final questions; what is your ideal diy venue, top 3 shows and top 3 surreal diy moments?]

Amos: Ideal DIY venue has good sound, is all ages, inclusive, open to most genres and probably a little dingy

Top 3 shows is hard but off the top of my head I’ll just throw a few out there:

Lightning Bolt at GLOB

Dear Nora at Seventh Circle

Edhochuli and Swells battle set at the Downtown Artery in Fort Collins

Top 3 Surreal moments:

Hmm, RXKNephew showed up at Squirm Gallery at a show I was at Recently while Cherry Spit was playing because he was recording and chilling at GLOB. 

I got to play a show with Matt Talbott from Hum this year, which is totally surreal to me because they’re one of my favorite bands of all time.

Maybe 3rd is seeing City Hunter and Spectral Voice at Rhinoceropolis. I went to Rhinoceropolis that night just to hang out with my friend Coleman, who lived there at the time and I didn’t even know about the show happening. We were hanging out and smoking weed in his bedroom right next to where bands would play and after hearing City Hunter play for a minute we looked at each other like “woah we should go watch this band”. They were incredible and as I learned later they didn’t play many shows so I’m really glad I was able to be at that show.

Eddie: Awesome! Thank you for your time and I wish you all success in your future endeavors