Tonight, loom celebrates its eight anniversary. RSVP for the party here. Below, take a walk down the event's memory lane.
This is a photo from the second ever loom at Espana in Benson. Pictured are Jay Kline and myself, co-creators of loom, with Bill Graves, owner of Espana at the time. We came to him with the crazy idea of throwing a multicultural dance party in his restaurant and he was all about it from the start.
I credit his staff and him as a large reason why the party took off from the beginning. Toward the beginning, nearly every night after closing down the restaurant, they'd hit the nightlife scene and pass out loom cards to all sorts of people, mainly, as they later told me, beautiful women.
Well, it worked. The first party had a stream of people we didn't know walk in right at 9 p.m. Who comes to a party at 9 p.m.? Well, maybe if you've been told it's a private party and you were invited by a dashing and charming man like Bill Graves.
This is Jenny Dunlap Livingston. She was our door host for nearly our entire tenure at Espana. She was the soft hand that met people at the door, setting the mood. For some reason she never let us pay her, unless we slipped something into her purse.
This is the third ever loom at Espana Tapas Bar where we invited some belly dancers to perform. Pictured here is Christalyn Concha from New Mexico. While she flew in to guest DJ this night, she also heavily influenced myself while shaping loom early on. Ideas like throwing a party on or before the full moon (which shaped our first-Thursday format), using a restaurant as a dance venue, the phrase "free the booty," and always having the DJ maintain a positive vibration when touching that delicate vinyl (yes, we started on vinyl).
This is Justin & Cher from NYC. I originally met them through Julius the Madthinker, who I had scheduled to DJ loom in a few months. We were all in Miami for the Winter Music Conference (SXSW for DJs) and Justin was flabbergasted that a DJ in Omaha would play deep house and disco. These two were seriously were bugging at the thought that people in the Midwest go off to that world influenced, disco-heritage-into-house-music brand of loom music that they grew up with. So I wrote down the loom Myspace page (this was back in 2007). Justin went back to his hotel room and checked it. When I saw him later that night, he was like, "We're coming out to Omaha for this! I see those faces in the pictures and that's exactly the expressions you get when a party is good."
A few months later they came out when Julius the Madthinker from Chicago was our guest DJ. The fact that two folks from NYC, the home base of much of my music, would come out to Omaha for a party completely floored me. Turns out they were completely floored by the experience because they still come out to Omaha all these years later for loom parties.
This was one of my most magical music experiences I witnessed. I'm behind the camera in these two pics. I had Adam Gibbons of the party Uhuru Afrika from Boston, Justin, Cher & Sabine of NYC, Dino and Raven Fox of St. Louis all come out for my commencement weekend. We had a beautiful loom party the night before and then did a small commencement party in the basement of the gallery to the east of Espana that the restaurant rented at the time (the space later became Daniel Muller's studio).
What you see here is pure magic … we were doing an open deck thing with five or so DJs in the room. If you've ever witnessed that, it can be like a herd of vultures all trying to swoop for the same prey. Dino opted to sit back and wait his turn. It took him hours to get in, and once he did, he had so much angst built up from wanting to play that he immediately went into his own zone playing music that was tugging at his soul. The room was mostly done dancing, as it was very late in the night. But his experience with the music immediately energized and brought everyone up.
People started flapping their hands toward him, which is a sign of "giving energy to the drummer." Next you know, everyone is holding his hands, more people from the back run up to join in. There was yelling, laughing, tears and emotion as we were just "giving energy to the DJ."
The biggest influencer for the music direction that I chose with loom was studying the disco era of the late '70s & early '80s in NYC. That era set the blue print for modern clubbing, set techniques for DJing, sound systems and aesthetic. I learned that disco was the root of nearly all EDM music and that it mostly came from a black and gay place. I'm not talking about Studio 54. That was the rich white folk club. I'm talking about places like the Paradise Garage, The Loft, The Gallery. I kind of modeled loom in a slight way after the music and feeling that was described at these places in books and documentaries.
Flash forward to 2007, I met Raven Fox while I was out in St. Louis DJing the Upstairs Lounge for the FLY crew. We immediately clicked. He became a teacher for me because he lived through that era of disco that I had only read about. In fact he helped artist Keith Haring do a mural at the Paradise Garage that was pictured in my literature. It was amazing and humbling to have history come out of the books and bless our party a number of times with his DJing.
Back in 2008, we did a loom party during the Bemis Center Creativity Festival. That day a huge storm blew in, tearing down trees and putting over half the city without power. That afternoon was chaotic. People trying to reach loved ones to make sure they were okay. Other people displaced without power. We were down at the Bemis just setting up for the party when it all went down. Shortly after the rain stopped, all the nearby water from 10th Street and Leavenworth rushed down and formed a river that blew in front of the south and east side of the building, effectively making the Bemis patio an island as water rushed onto 12th street and then down east on Jones. Even a bed mattress washed up.
The above picture is the former Bemis director, Mark Masuoka as has he looked out over the flood. We all wondered if we had to cancel the event. Luckily, downtown was one of the few places that ended up having power, so naturally once everyone figured out they were alive, they took all that anxiety, let the eggs rot in the fridge and came downtown and partied their asses off. Seriously some crazy energy in the room that night.
This is Sabo. A friend from KC wanted to bring him to the Midwest and double up on booking. I wasn't familiar with him at the time. He later went onto become one of the pioneers of moombahton.
Once in 2008, we got access to a gigantic room that was used temporarily for a school and before that to store the city buses. We tore up thousands of square feet of carpet and then threw a fashion show that integrated with a dance party. Kaneko know owns that warehouse.
This was from the Earth Day collaboration with aetherplough. We did sunrise yoga, passed out seed bombs, had people distribute the seed bombs throughout Omaha, then come back at sunset for a drum-led dance party.
Our parties attract people of all ages.
Hear Nebraska contributor Chris Dinan crowd surfing at one of our anniversary parties.
Our annual white party, held at the Waiting Room in 2011. After this night, business partner Ethan Bondelid approached Jay and me about opening our own space.
This is what the room at Espana looked like often. You could go into the basement and just hear what seemed like a thousand foots stomping all over. It's a wonder the floor never gave in.
This was the loom Brasil Carnaval that we did at Nomad Lounge in 2011. We figured we'd get 300 to 500 people. We ended up getting 900. I don't believe Nomad was ever that full in it's five-year history. I DJ'd for five hours straight, mainly because going to the bathroom would have been too difficult. But also because it was so intense, I didn't know how to take my mind off of DJing. By the end of the night, there were women and men on the bar de-robing themselves, just like if we were at the real carnaval.
One day Daniel Muller bought a really nice camera. Having shared college classes with me, we asked him to take pics for basically nothing at loom events. He did for several years, developed his skills tremendously, went onto open a studio right next to Espana Tapas Bar and now gets paid adult money to take photos all the time. He's so busy now we couldn't even schedule him if we had his booking fee. Dreams do happen, kids! Oh, and now he has a kid with this nice lady. This shot was taken by Lucas Marshall at loom Weaves Brasil Carnaval.
Shorty Vest stage at the Heartland of America park. Our first outdoor event. Stephen Sheehan created the wonderful fabric tower you see in the background.
This was the last loom party ever at Espana Tapas Bar before House of Loom. We were gathered up because we knew something special had happened all those years in that room.
Jay Kline and I at the first loom party in our new space, House of Loom, July of 2011.
Our first white party at House of Loom and probably my favorite pic someone's grabbed of me Djing. Just look at where my eyes are at. Music orgasm.
This lady getting kissed right here at House of Loom after a loom Weaves Joslyn Art Museum … Paddy Tarlton has been with us for many years. Because we're age inclusive, after her divorce, she was a bit emotionally and socially displaced. Wanting to get back into her lost passion for dancing, she found us and found a new sense of belonging. Lots of love right here.
Our host, co-creator of loom and co-owner of House of Loom, Jay Kline has been working in Saudi Arabia for the past two years. Sometimes we Skype him in to participate. Here, friends bugged out at the sight of him, after just waking up on the other side of the planet.
Our most recent loom Weaves MLK.
Now. Go wake up and love somebody. (Oh, and join us tonight for our anniversary party).
