Rock and Tacos
The Boro’s indie-rockers find a new casa
by Matt Sullivan
After a visit from the fire marshal at the How I Became the Bomb show New Year’s Eve, Grand Palace—Murfreesboro’s most promising venue venture to date—announced that after less than a year, the city’s busiest music hub would no longer be able to host shows. That was the first of two sharp blows the city’s rock community suffered in 2007. The second came a few weeks ago during an event billed as Noisefest at the Acid Living Room on Tyne Street, one of the last pre-Grand Palace house venues and former host to such touring acts as Adrian Orange and Stooges’ Funhouse sax man Steve Mackay. A visit from police led to noise citations for each of the house’s residents, and all future shows at the location have been canceled.
The rock scene in Murfreesboro has been plagued by its fair share of obstacles for some time. The closing of the all-ages venue the Red Rose in 2004 was a definitive turning point for the city’s music scene: in one fell swoop, an entire community of artists and musicians was effectively decentralized. Since then, a prevailing DIY spirit has been at odds with other longer-standing city institutions, namely law enforcement and landlords.
During the last few months of the Rose’s existence, a handful of houses hosting local and touring bands emerged—Firestorm, the Rock ’n’ Roll Hotel, Neat Pizza, The Cockpit, Evergreen and Fort Awesome. The activity in each house was often as short-lived as the tenancy, with the subsequent hot spots generally following the same group of residents. With this latest closure, it seems no new house has sprung forward to take its place, but the rock community has once again proved resourceful.
Grand Palace’s 2007 bookings were quickly moved to other venues, such as the off-the-beaten-path Temptation Club and the city’s latest exercise in creative enterprises, Casa Burrito. Last September, MTSU student (and former Evergreen resident) Ryan Bruce approached the owners of the Mexican restaurant about hosting live music. In six short months, Casa Burrito has already played host to a number of touring acts with a number of high-profile shows in the near future, such as Xiu Xiu and The Never.
But this isn’t the first time the Mexican food/indie-rock combo has been attempted in the city. Casa Burrito has already outlived its rock-and-taco predecessor La Bamba, whose burgeoning scene motivated Bruce to find a similar outlet for booking shows. Still, Bruce says that he’s currently looking to promote shows somewhere a bit more stable. He has his eyes on commercial property and is currently attempting to secure financial backing. If successful, Murfreesboro might once again have a legit space for touring artists to play. The rockers may have had to weather a fair bit of tumult, but their enthusiasm seems mostly intact. Whether that’s the product of constant college student turnover is hard to determine, but it’s still hard to keep a good scene down.
