A Short, Wild Ride

While Adams was involved, The Where House had become a sort of unofficial clubhouse for bands like QCNH and Whiskey Folk Ramblers and their friends. But when other events started happening, he moved on. “My ship sailed around the time [The Where House] started being used by these more ‘creative’ people,” Adams said. “By the time Modeo happened, I was kind of done.”

Modeo was an event organized by James Jardine, vocalist for the now-on-hiatus post-punk outfit Ice Eater. Essentially, he wanted to give Movember, the annual men’s health-awareness movement that advertises itself by encouraging men to grow mustaches, a celebration with a Fort Worth twist.

In November 2010, he booked a show with three bands from Dallas, a kissing booth, and a giant mural on the wall of the main room. Among various bits of cowboy iconography (as well as Jardine’s younger brother Kolin’s impressive push-broom mustache), it depicts a mustachioed woman shooting the word “cancer” with a pistol. The mural was painted by Jay Wilkinson, an artist who had recently moved back to Fort Worth from New York City. Wilkinson’s mural was his introduction to the burgeoning Near Southside artistic community.

“I’d just moved back here, and I didn’t really know anyone,” Wilkinson said, “so being at The Where House introduced me to a lot of people, and it allowed me to make art I wouldn’t have otherwise had an opportunity to create.”

The kind of art Wilkinson refers to was usually on a grand scale. If you went to the NYE party at Shipping & Receiving, you would have seen a giant statue of a homeless guy, the handiwork of Wilkinson and his girlfriend Madison Piper. At The Where House, Wilkinson made party centerpieces: a 15-foot brachiosaurus for a Jurassic Park-themed party, set pieces for a Star Wars party, and a giant ogre for Halloween.

Wilkinson often collaborated with Alltogethernow Productions, a company run by Nicole Ofeno and her boyfriend Raef Payne. Ofeno and Payne produced The Where House’s weekly Hump Day parties that, for a $10 cover, offered music and outlandish scenery. These Wednesday-night events were BYOB, a trend that had started early on. The Where House’s BYOB origins contributed to its mystique: Even to the last night, people were asking if the alcohol was free.

Ofeno, who recently moved to New York City with Payne to pursue a career in event planning, said she and Payne stepped away from producing events at The Where House in 2013 because they could no longer justify the time, effort, and risk.

“You’d have five to 10 people putting in 40 hours of work for one night and no money,” Ofeno said. “Between that and the stress of monitoring a BYOB situation … I just didn’t want to do it anymore.”

Still, she values the experience. “I cut my teeth booking shows at The Where House,” she said. “Lots of people did,” including hip-hop promoter Callie D and the people behind Top Girl Productions and the now-defunct Exposition Productions.

“You could walk in and ask Casey if you could book a show there, and he’d say yes,” Ofeno said. “You can’t really do that at a place like Lola’s, where you have to go through their booking agent first. In a way, The Where House was the most important space in Fort Worth, because this whole community came together to put on shows. Casey gave us the space to make sets that went beyond what you would see anywhere else.”