PRINTPlaying inside the box
Local bands “store” their aspirations in 8x15 foot units
LILLIAN KELLY
Matt Spears practices guitar and vocals with The Black Nancy at Storage Mart on Wednesday, June 17. Although the sun is beginning to set, the band continues to play while using the faint lighting in the storage unit as their primary source of light.
July 1, 2009 | 12:00 p.m. CST
Editor's note: To see a video of local band Cpt. Captain in action in their Storage Mart practice space, please scroll down to the bottom of your browser. Video by Mark Stanley.
The question has been perplexing electric bands since the advent of the garage: Where can we practice on the cheap without catching static from annoying relatives and neighbors?
The solution: storage units.
“We play very loud music, and it’s difficult to do it and not have someone telling you to keep it down,” says Jacob Kruger, guitarist/vocalist for the Columbia-based ensemble Cpt. Captain. “We started out as a transient band because police would come to every other practice. Or we got kicked out of basements because roommates didn’t like it.”
Set up at a StorageMart facility along a remote strip of Range Line St., Cpt. Captain now drums and strums inside of a shed that measures no bigger than eight-by-eighteen feet. Thanks to walls soundproofed with blankets and egg carton foam, Kruger calls it an ideal “sonic environment” for his crew to blast their blend of decibel-heavy rock. Because the band splits the cost with fellow music-makers The Makeouts, who share the practice space, monthly charges run each band member a paltry $20 per month.
“It’s nice to have a place to play and put your stuff, a safe harbor to generate new music without having to go to the middle of nowhere,” Kruger says. “And it’s neat to be out there and hear another band in the distance covering Creedence. I’m surprised more bands aren’t doing the same. There’s no stigma to it. It’s not where you’re at, it’s what you do.”
Although storage units are more commonly associated with dusty furniture and old clothes that have outlived their fad, owners say the rise of the self-storage band merely reflects the economic reality of our times. Rent is cheaper than studio time, and access hours are ideal for bands that practice late.
“We got involved because there was a demand for this niche within the industry, and we like to support our local communities,” writes Sarah Little, StorageMart Director of Interactive Marketing, via email. “We chose this facility because it is a somewhat industrial location and there are no neighboring residential areas to disturb.”
Little adds that having bands play on the property is
an asset for the facility. “It will be neat, someday, when
the next break-out band claims they got their start in
one of our units,” she says.
If there is a downside for the bands, it’s shivering through the winter months with only propane tanks and electric heaters for warmth. StorageMart doesn’t charge bands for utilities, but one night the combined juices led Cpt. Captain to short out an entire row of storage cells shortly after plugging in their instruments, which abruptly ended practice for the night.
And what do band members do when nature calls?
“We’re all dudes,” Kruger says with a laugh. “That usually takes care of itself.”
Currently about a half-dozen bands rent StorageMart units. In April, StorageMart launched selfstoragebands.com, a self-explanatory Web site that like-minded musicians can visit in order to, as the Web site’s working motto stipulates, “mingle, market and maximize.”
“It’s very interactive; if you have talent, then you need the resources to back you,” says Web site administrator and Columbia College business major Satyra Shorter. “The possibilities are endless in this day and age.”
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