It’s a bittersweet new year for Murfreesboro music lovers: the town’s best-loved show space has announced that it will no longer host live acts in the roomy loft just off the town square. On what promised to be a hell of a New Year’s Eve show with headliners How I Became the Bomb, the local fire marshal informed Grand Palace that their performance space wasn’t kosher. Owner Alex Norfleet and his partners determined that the cost of bringing the space—also home to a record shop, screen-printing shop, burgeoning studio and record label—up to venue code would put too much strain on the operations housed within. “It’s really a blessing in disguise,” says James Robbins, a partner in the record shop. “We never set out to be a venue. We just wanted to open up the space for bands to record live and play for an audience when we could. Without the shows, we can focus more of our attention on the store, the label and the studio.” Grand Palace Records recently released the Turncoats’ debut 7-inch record, and are gearing up for at least eight releases in the next year, including a full-length album by the ’Boro based indie-pop group Velcro Stars. It’s tempting to view the Grand Palace closing as the end of an era. Since the closing of the all-ages Red Rose Coffeehouse in April 2004, the loft played a critical role in the local music scene when it began hosting local bands as well as national acts such as Catfish Haven and Mammatus over a year ago. But Robbins, a longtime resident active in the Murfreesboro music community, is quick to brush any such assumptions aside. “The spirit of Grand Palace has always been very do-it-yourself,” he says. “We opened up Grand Palace to give something back to Murfreesboro. Everything we did here, we did with very limited resources. We built the shelves in the record shop ourselves. We’ll be happy to help anyone who wants to set up another independent stage in any way we can.” Some of Murfreesboro’s more enterprising individuals are already considering just that, but so far all plans are in the speculative phase. In the meantime, Grand Palace mourners can drown their sorrows at Casa Burrito. For several months, the small Mexican restaurant has hosted some of the town’s more interesting rock shows after hours, drawing impressive crowds with a winning combination of exciting bands and enticing drink specials. Future shows on the books include The Privates, Forget Cassettes, The Clutters and The Hotpipes.
