The Wake

Past a White Castle restaurant’s blocky blue spires, into a long brick building, and up two flights of stairs (or the shaft of an antique elevator that’s liable to breakdown in between floors) is the 720 Space. Part concert venue, part art gallery, the Space is a haven for DIY-ers, punks, experimental artists, and UNO card game aficionados. But you wouldn’t know it by the Space’s exterior. In fact, the people working 9-to-5 jobs at the office supply company below the Space don’t even know much about it. But there are a few clues, should you be willing to investigate. Take the white sans-serif numbers marking the building’s address, 718-720, and the small paper flyers advertising concerts for bands like Shotgun Monday and Knife World, posted on nearby street corners. And then there are the throngs of bikes securely locked to every metal pole down the one-block stretch of Central Avenue the Space hovers over, on weekend nights.

At noon on a Wednesday, show booker Ryan Lowe rolls up to the door, passes a grim-looking employee on a smoke break, and leads the way up to the Space’s brightly-lit interior. Vintage furniture in lush greens and reds are scattered around found and donated tables stationed along the walls, which are adorned with Petra Wonders’ abstract paintings. Drummer Chris Hepola, of local bands Scatterbrain, Moral Standards, and Poor Nobodies (pronounced like “Porno Bodies”), is already sunken into a velvety seat. “I really envisioned it as a collective,” Hepola says of his aspirations for the Space. Along with Lowe, he’s one of the 11 locals who pitch in to pay the Space’s rent, schedule shows, and mop the wooden floors after particularly rambunctious crowds, like the one at the Space’s inaugural concert last February. “The party ended up being extremely massive and scary,” Hepola says. “I didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into.”

The Space’s history should have been a clue—if you believe it. Rumor has it, (and there are a lot of rumors surrounding the Space), that alt-country rockers the Jayhawks designed the long rectangular room, and at one point the entire floor was a recording studio and hangout for Soul Asylum and the Gear Daddies. Which doesn’t seem like a stretch, since multiple bands still crowd into the tiny rooms across the hall from the Space to practice and record.

Today, the Space welcomes everyone with a set of pipes or drumsticks, from rappers to jazz stylists. “People can do what they want musically and artistically,” Hepola says. “It’s a good place to come if you’re a new band.”

This freedom to experiment is just one aspect setting the Space apart from larger venues like First Avenue, which seek out more established acts to pull in a profit. The Space is also “more intimate than a club, and more respectful,” says Lowe, who books “all the hard-core punk stuff,” plus a few vegan and vegetarian potlucks.

Chess tournaments and a spelling bee have also played out at the Space, and Hepola has high hopes for a “mac and jazz” event, “where we have a tub of macaroni and cheese and an open mic” for bands. He’s also searching for a projector to screen a member of Easter Bunny Kill Kill Kill’s “pretty insane gore” films.

While the Space’s future is as up for grabs as the events it holds, Hepola is “pretty determined to keep going as long as possible.” Lowe agrees: “I’d like to see it continue well into the future.”

Formaldehyde Junkie will perform with Coliseum on Oct. 8 at the 720 Space. For more show updates, visit modern-radio.com/board, or a street post near you.