My hunch is when you think of cities with passionate, thriving DIY arts communities, Tampa, Florida isn't the first town that crops up in most people's minds. The coastal city is probably more renowned for its bay and sports teams than for its dedicated noise scene but in the last couple of years, local promoter Matt Welch and his Transitions Art Gallery have been slowly but surely turning things around.
After spending his formative years at countless hardcore shows, Welch left Tampa to see and experience the rest of the country. A trip which concluded with a year-long stint in DC, Welch explained that his travels greatly influenced his work with the gallery: "What I do at Transitions is a reflection of what I've seen work in other places. A DIY venue can happen anywhere."
Inspired to implement what he experienced on a national level to the brutally honest Tampa scene, Welch started putting on shows at the gallery in 2004 as a means to rejuvenate an art-starved city. Welch explains, "Tampa, for some reason, is a lazy town. People tend to wait for something to come to them instead of making it happen themselves. I knew it could work in Tampa if someone stepped up."
Attached to the world-famous Skate Park of Tampa, to which skaters from around the globe flock for competitions in the early months of the year, the Transitions Art Gallery has been offering a much-needed forum for both local and out-of-town musicians. Despite the fact that Tampa's art scene might be more under the radar than say, New York or LA, Welch suggests that the local artists that call the city home are often more legit than the folks who inhabit cities twice Tampa's size: "In my mind there's no question that their motives are 100% sincere." As a result, Welch often affords Tampa's local bands the opportunity to play with established bands like Torche, The Evens, and Xiu Xiu because, in his words, "I never forgot that everything starts locally."
The idea was to create a venue with an atmosphere free of the elitism Welch encountered at hardcore shows, where artists and musicians could feel free to cut loose. The shows started to attract younger crowds from the Skate Park, whom Welch believes are much more interested in something fresh and creative than you might think: "I encourage kids to take a chance on a band that they might not otherwise have checked out. A great example of this was when I invited some of the local "thrash punx," out to see Xiu Xiu. Not all of them were stoked, but a few were interested, and that's killer."
While other Tampa promoters like Aesthecized may snag some of the bigger bands that venture into the area, there's no doubt in my mind that Transitions will continue to thrive because of its severe lack of pretense and staunch dedication to creative people. Welch thinks this is only the tip of the iceberg: "While I'm not a religious person, I do feel blessed with my current situation. The local community didn't just pop up; we've had to work for what we've got and plenty of local artists are continuing to work towards building Tampa bigger and better."
Upcoming Shows:
8/14- Tides, Giant, Casket Architects
8/18- Dry County, Liquidlimbs [Presented by Vinyl Fever]
8/20- aaronzarzutzki, NASA, Orphan, Philip Pietri, Darlings
8/26- Light Yourself on Fire, 7 Generations, Gather
9/01- The Woodwork, Scarlet Undercover, Too Late the Hero, more TBA
9/02- Filthy Nomads, Degenerate Elite, Arm the Poor, Bomb Rockets
9/03- Devices, Capsule, Furnace, More TBA
9/09- Upper Hand, Ninth Dying, More TBA
9/12- Torche, More TBA
10/06- Control de Estado, Degenerate Elite, The Filthy Nomads, Hessian, Arm the Poor
Official Site
Myspace
