The Where House managed to survive for five years without anyone going to jail or getting sued, and apart from a lighting rig that fell on a drummer, no one was ever significantly injured. (The drummer needed only a few stitches.)
That took a long stretch of good luck, but Smith couldn’t extend it to owning the building.
Smith said co-owner Harper had agreed, on a handshake deal, to eventually sell him the building but backed out. Harper, whom Smith and others said sometimes lives on the property, sometimes in his truck, couldn’t be reached for comment.
Smith said that Harper hopes to cash in on the building’s value. With that hanging over his head, Smith couldn’t really book events with a long lead time or attract new tenants.
“I had Dreamy Life [Records & Music] interested in building a recording studio and store in there, but you can’t do that when you might be getting kicked out a month later,” Smith said. “I’ve also had to refund deposits on some wedding receptions and other events I had booked for this year.”
More than an events space, The Where House was a brand of sorts, a pole on which to hang one’s freak flag.
“I’m not an artist, but The Where House and the people involved with it made me feel like I could be one just by being myself,” Grisel said. “That place is special to a lot of people. You can’t really know what it was like unless you were there. I’m really gonna miss it.”
Cory Graves, who writes for the Dallas pop-culture blog Central Track and is also a member of Whiskey Folk Ramblers, noted that The Where House was “one of the area’s supreme party spots” and also that it “brought a lot of creatives together.”
D Magazine’s former arts editor Christopher Mosely commented that it had a “healthy balance of DIY and a bar-based venue,” saying that it reminded him of the lost boys’ treehouse in the 1991 Peter Pan movie Hook. “There was this strange element of the kids running the show but with Rufio counting the money at the end of the night. It wasn’t complete anarchy.”
You might say, then, that The Where House had exactly enough anarchy. And much of that is attributable to Smith.
“Casey made all that insanity work, because he’s kind of insane,” Adams said. “He’s probably the luckiest person I know. He just kind of falls into things like The Where House and comes out on top.”
Given time, another space with a similar DIY ethic might take its place, and house shows will always pop up as long as there are punk kids willing to live in a dump so they can have bands play there.
But The Where House is irreplaceable. Along with a group of inventive artists and other weirdos willing to make awesome parties happen for little or no money, the combination of its anything-goes ethos and its impresario’s imagination and willingness to play loose with rules made it unique.
Smith is blissfully unsure of his next move.
“Honestly, I’m just gonna take a breather,” he said. “I didn’t go looking for The Where House. The Where House found me. I’m just gonna keep my ear to the ground and see what happens.”
Well this is all well and good except for the comment about Lola’s booking agent being somehow a negative. As said agent, I can assure you that the level of organization and professionalism at Lola’s is eons beyond anything that ever occurred at Wherehouse. Thats kind of the point of the whole thing. Lola’s isnt a DIY venue.
But wasn’t that kind of Ofeno’s point, Where House was NOT like a more structured Lola’s? That wasn’t negative at all, chill out.
But wasn’t that kind of Ofeno’s point, Where House was NOT like a more structured Lola’s? Not better or worse, just different? That wasn’t negative at all, chill out.
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands to bring in bar sales with a booked that is hired by the bar to bring them in the most money. The wherehouse was an event space that was rented out directly by the owner who acted as booking agent. so in a way, yes it was a more available space to hold different kinds of events. that was of ofenos point that Wherehouse was a DIY space and Lolas is a venue.
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands to bring in bar sales with a booker that is hired by the bar to bring them in the most money. The wherehouse was an event space that was rented out directly by the owner who acted as booking agent
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands to bring in bar sales with a booker that is hired by the bar to bring them in the most money. The wherehouse was an event space
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands to bring in bar sales with a booker that is hired by the bar to bring them in the most money.
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands to bring in bar sales
yeah lolas is a venue that uses bands