Editor’s note: Each week in this series, I asked performers to reflect on Aaron Graves, Those Lavender Whales, and the spaces that shaped this community. For the final installment, I answered those questions myself.
Growing with your friends in a music community is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about through the years SceneSC’s been around. Last Sunday, we brought out the crew for one last “I Love My Friends Session” to the empty gravel lot where Hunter Gatherer once stood and Aaron’s mural adorned the side of the building. The sad truth of it all for me, after being in Columbia for all of my adult life, is that every creative space I’ve grown with here is gone. Hunter Gatherer was just the latest space razed and refined to my memories.
I’ve said goodbye to El Burrito, where we hosted a show with The Front Bottoms and Those Lavender Whales in the back parking lot, and where we gathered every Wednesday in the mid-teens to support Aaron. Conundrum, where he’d host shows and hang out in an intimate setting. New Brookland Tavern, where we’d host bigger shows and party a little harder. The Whig, where you could drop in any night and run into a familiar face.
The feeling of loss, and coping with that loss, is one of the most unexpected challenges I’ve had to deal with over the years at SceneSC. Yes, we lost our physical community spaces, but I was also haunted by the loss of people I’d become close with in those spaces. Adam, Charlie, Busbee, and of course Aaron, never leave my mind when I think about the scene here. They were champions, from hardcore and punk to off-the-wall folk and clever songwriting.
Last spring when we heard the Hunter Gatherer building would be torn down, Chris Gardner and Joe Chang sprung to action and reached out about doing this series. So we brought that community back together. One that had disbanded into adulthood, raising kids, moving across the country, and enjoying time at home. Like I say, “It’s hard to get me out to a show and off the couch these days.” Back then, I was more like, “the night life ain’t no good life, but it’s my life.” Not that it ever really was my life, but I couldn’t resist quoting Willie.
As SceneSC was created to do, we tried to document and further cement that Fork and Spoon community in Columbia’s legacy. For the final session, we brought performers back, along with their family and friends, to perform Aaron’s namesake song for the series. This whole project has brought back a flood of memories for me from those years, and I think it’s done the same for many of you. It’s been evident in the comments each week.
As for Hunter Gatherer, that particular Main Street space, it was a final goodbye to a great era for me. It was where I had many of my birthday dinners, grabbed a drink before Gamecock basketball games, went for group dinners with friends, and caught late-night shows. It will be missed. A place filled with character that was forged by decades of local culture.
Those types of places don’t come back overnight. That’s what I think about when considering the price of “progress” in Columbia. We don’t want it new, we want it well loved.