Greenville Scene

by: Michelle Hannon

GS: Why did you start R3V3RB?
Wendy Owens: I started Reverb because I knew that there was a gap with music to be filled that was not a bar atmosphere, that would be a space for free-form creativity. Greenville just lacked spaces for people to be able to promote what they do and I wanted a positive environment. I wanted this to be the precursor of Music Art and Resource Space (which is M.A.R.S.). I knew that we had a lot of work to do to open up M.A.R.S. and to get all the mental health groundwork laid, we had to have our own space. I’m not being rude but there were a lot of forms of music that were not being represented. I’ve been representing electronic experimental music for about twelve years. I’ve attempted several times to do shows at bars but when you do shows at other people’s spaces sometimes they don’t understand what you’re doing. We’ve had problems with bar owners not understanding what we’re doing with experimental music, frequencies, breakcore, noise, and stuff that really wasn’t represented.

I have to go back to M.A.R.S. again - that was really my inspiration. When I lost a friend (Chris Clayton) to suicide who was an experimental musician - that was my inspiration for M.A.R.S. He was a very talented person, (he was in Manipulated Sound Source, Black Transformer, and other projects). He was an amazing person and an amazing musician. He was one of the driving forces for me being a musician personally, and he had this open perspective about Greenville. I knew it didn’t exist here, but I knew it needed too. When he passed away, I was like man, there is so much this town needs. I wanted to do this suicide prevention gallery with expressionism and futurism and get the word out that there are alternatives to suicide to the music community. Another inspiration was Nuci’s Space in Athens, Georgia, which made a great impact with the M.A.R.S. project. But I knew that that was such a huge undertaking that we had to have a space before we had all this mental health, stability, structure and programs.

GS: Where do you see Reverb going? What’s your vision for Reverb?
WO: Honestly, I know two spaces that I would like for Reverb to (physically) go. Like Nuci’s Space, we want to be a space that will help musicians and artists if they are suffering with issues of depression and suicide and, offer them an opportunity to do music and work in a creative environment. That’s definitely needed if you’re a creative entity. So, I eventually would like us to be a resource space to help musicians and artists with mental issues. I’d also like us to be a respected venue for avant-garde, experimental, undefined music. I also want to open our doors to more than my original mission musically because, I know that there are a lot of kids who do indie, punk, hardcore, and emo and they need a place to play as well. I want M.A.R.S. to be the mental health structure and I want Reverb to be the venue. I would love for this project to grow so we can get a larger space - a facility that can accommodate everything that we want the project to be.

GS: How have the shows been going so far? What has the response been like?
WO: Well, I have to say this - it’s all trial and error. We’ve had over 200 performances here and we’ve been able to keep our doors open. Reverb is totally and completely voluntary, that’s how we’re set up. I’m not making a dime; no one that works here is making a dime. We’re keeping our doors open and we’re bringing in around $3-$5 (admission) a show. We’ve decided $5 on some shows because of the capacity level - we’ll fill up to 85 or 95 before you know it. If we intend that we’re going to bring more people in here, we have to charge accordingly. I think $3 is the minimal amount to pay for a show even for an up and coming musician. If we’re bringing $40-50 in here on an off night, as long as we have about $250 a week, I’m not going to stress. I’ve had these kids come in, (they go to Greenville High School) and, they’ve been checking out Reverb. This one kid freestyles, the other kid beatboxes, and the other kid break dances. I’ve got a drum machine, so I’m working with these kids teaching them to make beats and stuff. Then I have Aubrey, he’s my 12-year-old genius son and I’ve seen these kids get involved in Reverb.

GS: That’s great, that’s exactly who we need to reach with that. As far as booking goes, what are you targeting now in terms of shows?
WO: We’re targeting diversity as it stands. We want a diverse market. We are not religiously affiliated, not that we have a problem with any religious affiliated venues; I think it’s awesome. I think it’s more opportunity for Greenville, but we have done a lot of very open-ended free form shows. Our typical week at Reverb will range from electronic/experimental to noise to post-rock; we’ll do IDM, we’ll do indie, we’ll do a lot of punk/hardcore, glitch-hop, and hip-hop. It’s really all that underground realm that’s not being represented. I honestly don’t think Reverb would work as a bar. People say, “Why don’t you put in a bar”? A) We’re next to a church. B) Why have another bar in Greenville? I hate to quote Boards to Canada, but “music does have a right to children”. And when people bring their kids here, they feel like they can be safe. I really want this space to be open during the day. That’s what I’m doing with the coffee shop, working with Scott from Palmetto Bean Company leading Reverb into our own entity as a coffee shop. It’ll be called Wired, but it’ll be Reverb voluntary coffee shop.

GS: When do you expect that to get under way?
WO: He’s bringing the equipment next Wednesday. I need volunteers like crazy. We need furniture. We need a mixing board, we need all the things you would think a community center for arts and diversity would need. We’re bare bones, everything that’s been done in here has been volunteers. I have to mention Justin Blackburn, he does 85% of my booking now and I’ve let him have it. I have my child, and my music. This is the whole reason I wanted to open the space. If I lose my creativity I lose who I am. Justin has really helped me out tremendously and Super Baby Star is amazing. I also have to mention my landlord, Mr. Luthi. He has been a saint to hook me up with the space in the first place. He normally would have leased out the space for $1250.00 a month, but he rents the building out to us for $750.00. He even decided to hook me up with lower rent after he had a $1250.00 offer, due to the fact that he wanted to see something different in the space. I would not have been able to do this without a lower cost for the building rent. Also, we had an art director, Grey, at Upstate Visual Arts. He brought some very interesting artists in here. I want to have more art - that’s one of my passions with Reverb too. We’re going to do ArT@tTacK, which is the same weekend as Artisphere, but we want to represent Upstate and regional artists. You just have so many talented people in the Upstate and the region that I want their work to be seen too. This space just sits here, so we’re really going to try to pull that together. We’re also going to have a block cleaning party. We’re going to pick up trash, bottles, and cans and such, and then we’re going to make noises with those objects and record them. Field recording is based on that, recordings that you do in your environment. Overall I want this to be a very open-ended space.

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Please email collectivenoise@gmail.com to volunteer or for more information.