![]() They said they loved it and looked forward to it every week."īut there was a notable exception. ![]() Most neighbors seemed fine with the extra activity, he adds: "Once we got the noise complaint, we asked for some feedback, and the folks who lived right next door said they could look out their window and look at the bands. "Two or three bands would play 45-minute sets on Sundays from one to three or four in the afternoon."Ĭourtesy of Wax Trax Over time, the shows became the centerpiece of an affiliated event, the 13th Ave Flea Market, mainly organized by Kilgore Books & Comics, which occupies a space in Wax Trax's building other businesses in the neighborhood joined in and were making "more money than they used to," Stidman says. "We designed the shows to be as low-impact as possible," Stidman notes. The events became weekly in 2021, running from May to October that year and the next, with acts such as American Culture and Quits taking part. And for a lot of bands, it was their first time playing since the start of the pandemic." So we thought we could put on some music there, to give folks some relief from the boredom. "Live music was just nonexistent, and we have a little part of the sidewalk that we own it's our private property. "Everybody was missing live music," he recalls. Even after the store was allowed to reopen, most concert venues remained closed, and that gave him an idea. To help navigate the crisis, Stidman took a leave of absence from his regular gig he eventually became manager at Wax Trax. We got here on March 3, and on March 16, we had to shut down the shop." "I was transferred here, and I had the idea of helping my dad retire on the side along with my other job," he says. He spent much of his professional life in the Boston area, acting as a city planner for communities such as Cambridge and Somerville, before relocating to Denver in early 2020. Pete Stidman only recently took a leading role at Wax Trax. Wax Trax was founded in 1975 by Jim Nash and Dannie Fleisher, and moved to its present location, at 638 East 13th Avenue, three years later, when Stidman's father and partner Duane Davis took over the operation meanwhile, the original owners headed to Chicago, where they launched the highly influential Wax Trax! Records label. Some people don't like country, some people don't like jazz - but should the city really be taking sides on which musical genres get to be played in public?" So it appeared to us from the language that just didn't like punk music. "But we did have a little string of punk shows when the complaint came in. "We have all genres of music at our events: folk, rockabilly, R&B, metal," Stidman notes. He suspects that the unhappy neighbor's antipathy for punk was perhaps more responsible for the grievance than the volume at which it was played. But he remains frustrated about having to re-litigate a case he thought he'd already won. The city is currently exploring revisions to that ordinance - and Pete Stidman, Wax Trax manager and son of the shop's co-owner, Dave Stidman, is scheduled to meet with Denver representatives on March 13 to discuss possible changes he's pushing an amendment that would legalize shows like the one that put Wax Trax in the DDPHE's crosshairs. "If not appealed," says DDPHE spokesperson Amber Campbell, "the department believes that this decision may have lasting effects on witness participation requirements for future noise hearings and set a potential precedent that would make the enforcement of the noise ordinance more challenging." And even though the matter was dismissed at a hearing last month after the neighbor failed to show up, the Denver Department of Public Health & Environment is appealing. ![]() Punk-rock fans regard it as a glorious classic, while haters of the style have long found it to be supremely irritating.Ī similar divergence of opinion is at the center of a dispute between Wax Trax Records and one of its Capitol Hill neighbors, who specifically cited "punk" in a noise complaint about outdoor live-music events put on by the store in recent years. " Noise Annoys," a 1978 Buzzcocks song, offers a prime example of the subjectivity of music.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |