Month: January 2023

I’ve spoken many times about the Loft, and at other subtle moments, I’ve even tried to include it in my writing, but never before today, have I chosen to write on it so directly, and I wish I had a reason why.

I suppose it’s like many things and even people in our culture, rave culture, these days. If we don’t make a point to stop and remember them we may forget what it meant to that moment and that time.

Although, as the winds pick up, and the Icey chill of the New Mexico Desert winter is upon us again, I can’t help but recall the time when such a place, and such a moment could exist. And how it all changed my life.

The first time I went to the Loft I must have been around fifteen years old, and a sophomore at West Mesa High School. It wasn’t much of a place, still isn’t.

Designed like a prison, the school revolved around one center courtyard where all the students had to be shoved in one area together during our break times in the yard. It was strange being so young and yet seeing so many different types of people.

That’s actually the place I saw Ravers for the first time. The same people who would eventually take me in and adopt me as one of their own, taking me to my first rave, where I took my first hit of acid, and I heard electronic music in a warehouse for the first time. It was, not to repeat myself, life changing.

But after that first rave, something happened that I did not expect at first. I wanted to go again. And not just go to the rave and get fucked up, but rather it was more than that. I wanted to be a part of it.

I wanted to commit to it like I never committed to school, or baseball, or even the two and a half girlfriends I had up to that point.

That’s what led me to the Loft. Not drugs, or partying, or even the music yet. It was just simply wanting to find where I belong.

If you have not heard of the Loft before, it was this little record shop on Nob Hill that was open for I just don’t know how long, and it’s entrance was a single glass door that sat right next to the Buffalo Exchange, a place I had gone too quite a few times before ever realizing there was a record shop right above it.

You could hear the music floating down sometimes, though, it’s just you wouldn’t think much of it when you were young. Just another secret of being a grown up that I’ll learn in due time, eventually. But what happens when eventually arrives?

I can remember the first day my friends took me to the Loft. It was a tradition and process we’d do many many times after that and it always seemed to have the same repetition.

Start by meeting up at somebody’s house, go to a park to smoke some weed, maybe Pregnant Park or even Roosevelt, depending on which was closer, then head down to nob hill to just cruise and enjoy everything.

It was a cool time in our lives. Birdland, Angel Alley, Astrozombies, Buffalo Exchange, and of course the Loft; which I don’t think had a sign outside, although I’m not sure If I’m remembering it right on this one. Do you?

As soon as you opened the door it’s like the beat would drop just for you. All you saw were stairs at first, but you could just sense that up around that corner was something amazing, and with each step you climbed closer to whatever that magic was.

I can still remember exactly how it felt all these years later, and I’ll even admit it makes the hair stand up on my arms just a little bit. Still, it means so much to me.

When you finally got to the top and turned the corner, it’s as if you just couldn’t believe what you saw next.

It was like discovering a new Universe.

Shelves and shelves of records, just sitting there, in order and organized, waiting to be searched through, and analyzed, and most of all, played.

There were windows all over the studio that overlooked Central below from the second floor it fit into so comfortably.

At the end of the shelves towards the back were some turntables with headphones for you to give a simple listen to all of the records now sitting in front of and around you.

I think there were also some couches too, but I can’t seem to remember that part. Then across from that, spanning across the back wall was a counter where the employees always stood, shuffling through records and discussing so much.

The employees were probably the biggest part of what made the Loft the Loft, though, because of the simple fact that every single of them seemed to be a local DJ from the city.

All ones we knew and recognized very well. So we’d literally go to the rave every weekend and dance to them DJ’ing, and then we’d go and buy records from them all throughout the week.

It was a strange occurrence in the moment, but not completely one I realized until years later now that it’s gone.

What the Loft eventually became was a CenterPoint for what was slowly and quietly becoming its own culture.

And I’m not saying the Loft was the only spot, or even the first, or the last, I’m just saying, when I became a raver, that’s the place I’d go to find out about the next one, and the next one, and the one after that.

Or maybe if I heard a dope track at the rave this weekend, I’d probably find it at The Loft, cause like I said, that’s where the DJ’s were.

So after a while it just became something more than just a record store. It became a place we could go in the sunlight, just like the rave was somewhere to go in the night.

In fact one of my favorite memories from that era involves the Loft.

It was after a night at the Lobo, which was just a couple doors down, and it was during a time when they had a little stretch of raves there for a bit.

And there was this DJ that ended one of the nights playing a great remix of ‘All I Do’ by the Cleptomaniacs, which was originally a Stevie Wonder song, I believe.

Such a wonderful melody to be played as the lights came on and we danced in that old Movie theatre as young foolish teenagers unaware of the adults we’d eventually become.

All we had was that, and I suppose it was enough to get us through, because it did.

But anyways, what I found so wonderful about this moment was the very fact that the very next time I went to the Loft they had that record available for sale to anybody willing to pick it.

I can remember I sat there and listened to that track over and over until the sun started to fall, and I finally had to admit I didn’t have the money to buy it yet. But I knew I’d be back.

Although, when I finally did return, it was gone, never to be seen again. And I guess I coulda ordered it online, or found it on the road sometime, but that wouldn’t have been the same as buying it at the Loft, the way I wanted.

I eventually did start buying records, although, never that one. Even before I had a turntable, I bought records from those DJ’s at the Loft. Records still to this day, I have in my case by my bed.

With my first two purchases being tracks by Derrick Carter and Eddie Amador. Two DJ’s I’d eventually see blocks away from that very spot one day real soon.

I didn’t know that then, though. I don’t even think I knew who those DJ’s were. I was so young and naive. I just knew I had to have those tracks. And I knew my record collection had to start sooner or later.

There are many tracks I got from the Loft, and many I never had the chance to buy, but the point isn’t even about the music, in the end. Maybe it’s about something more than that.

Maybe it’s about having a place where we know we can always find each other. Where we can buy the next ticket to the next experience that’ll bring us closer to who we really want to be.

I guess we can’t have that anymore, with the new digital world we now belong to.

The record shops and ticket hubs are now online and in person interaction has become obsolete. What else can we do but adapt?

Although, the reason why I started writing about the Loft today was because of a conversation I had with my wife, who at the time we first went to the Loft together was only my girlfriend.

She brought it up maybe a week ago and I can’t remember why, but I can remember so clearly what she said.

“I remember you taking me to the Loft. You’d ride the bus to my house and then we’d smoke and ride it to nob hill together. Then we’d listen to records and chill.”

She made it sound so cool and natural. Like our lives were so much hipper than perhaps we knew at the time.

While the rest of the world obsessed over money, and power and one day even fame. Our commitment, even then was towards something I still struggle to explain.

The moment we knew we were a part of so much more, and whatever that was, we knew it was enough to save us. An idea and movement I know we all still belong to now.

So with that I wish to say thank you to the Loft, for the music, and that presale I bought from you for my first outdoor rave that would, again, change my life.

Thank you for helping me dream that dream that teens often need to help them get through the sorrows of this life.

I had somewhere to go. If only for a bit, and I think that’s all we need sometimes. Most times.

Come find me in the record shop one day. But not at the Loft. Although, I know it’s still there. Don’t you?

In order to fully explain to you what the words of J.Cole meant to me in the year 2022, I feel I must admit to you now a huge detail about the two years that preceded it, 2020 and 2021.

First, for the entire year of 2021 I spent nearly all of my time on the road.

Granted, I have always been a road dog, I can’t deny that one. A self-labeled Gypsy of the American highway, I’ve always felt more at home out in the unknown, than I ever will here back in Albuquerque, and I suppose nothing will ever change that.

But looking back, 2021 was so much different than before the quarantine. I was traveling and seeing things at a quickened pace. Like I was running out of time. But I know now, it was something more than that.

Which can be explained by how I handled the year 2020.

I came out of the quarantine in 2020 for various reasons in a complete and absolute depression. Not the first time in my life, but still one of the darkest moments I’ve ever experienced.

I was hopeless, afraid, sad, consumed by pressure and responsibility, and completely unwilling to even face my own feelings. I was a mess.

I suppose I still am. I don’t think we grow out of that one. And every time it happens I am eventually aware of the severity of it, but only years later, as I try to recover. Which is what I’m at the start of doing now.

The traveling helped, and I did finally pull myself out of it, but so did something else. Lost out on the highway, consumed by my own sorrow and failure, I found the words of J.Cole.

And with those words I found my way forward. But only after a while.

I can still remember the first time I actually stopped and heard him, and it wasn’t like with Kendrick, where I’ve been a fan since the jump, or even say with Mac Miller, where a friend stopped and showed me his music, but rather the opposite.

I’ve known about J. Cole, and I’ve been aware of his reputation as a rhymer, but I was also never in a rush. I told myself, I’ll get to him when I’m ready to get to him.

In 2022 I was finally ready.

It started with a feature on another rapper’s song, ‘A lot’, by 21 Savage. His different perspective on life was immediate from his very first words.
He is different.

Whereas most rapper’s are here for clout, or fame or even money, he is clearly here for the substance, and the knowledge expressed through his art.

Very much in the same style as say Erik B and Rakim, KRS-ONE, or even A Tribe Called Quest, he is an intellectual as much as he is a representation of the street he came from.

There is a higher purpose and goal at hand, though, and yet, not from a confrontational or erratic perspective.

He wants success for others even if he does not agree with the process they take to get there.

‘I never said anything
Everybody has their own thing.’

The song itself is an expression on how a man can have both A Lot of success and A Lot of failure and some day he may come to a point where there is no telling the difference between one or the other.

A life is lived whether for good or bad, and as it carries forward all we can do is carry forward with it. J Cole is as aware of that fact as anybody, and I suppose I am now too.

From there I heard the next song, ‘Middle Child’, and this, on the surface, appears to be an upbeat track meant to bop when you’re out getting fucked up in the club, but that’s part of what J.Cole is playing off of.

I suppose most rappers would just be satisfied with making the club go crazy, but he uses this to speak on things you don’t hear most poets speaking of these days. Especially when it comes to money.

“I hope that you scrape every dollar you can
I hope you know that money won’t erase the pain.”

Similar to the previous song he wants success for others, but he also understands the price that comes with it.

And not every price you pay is in gold.

We all achieve things in this life, and yet often times, once we get there we can only think of the things and even people we had to lose along the way.

It’s a heartbreaking truth we all learn as we get older, both with success, friendship, and even love.

Would we all want to go back and cherish what we had just a little bit more, or can we accept that we left it in the past for a reason? I still have no answer for that one.

From there comes perhaps his strongest track, ‘No Role Modelz’, which by all standards is a musical masterpiece. The way it starts.

“First things first,
Rest in Peace Uncle Phil,
For real.
You’re the only father figure that I ever knew,
Get my bitch pregnant so I could be a better you.”

When I was about a 13 or 14, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air was huge, and Uncle Phil was a major part of that. He was big and strong, but also smart and kind. A proud head of the family, and true representation of a Role Model.

At the time I didn’t have the father figure that Uncle Phil was. I mean, I had a father, but he was too consumed by his alcoholism and insanity to ever notice the son he left to grow up alone.

By the time I was sixteen I was homeless, and he was remarried with a new family. Now, over twenty years later very few words have been spoken between him and I, and I don’t feel I may ever see him again.

He failed me at a point when I was not yet a man, and he was so completely aware of that failure, that all he can do now is cower in a way Uncle Phil never would.

I did not think about it until now, but I spent many years wondering the same thing. What would I have been If I had a role model? If I had somebody to believe in, and maybe if I was lucky, to believe in me too?

So long I spent on the run. Chasing the success and acceptance my father would never give me, and now I find myself a father of my own, to a son who is reaching the same age I was when Uncle Phil was in my life.

How can I live with that pain and still be strong enough to power forward? How can I want success for others while struggling so much for my own? Do any of us have that answer?

At least I’m glad J. Cole is asking those questions too.

And finally, I come to this song called ‘Apparently’, perhaps my favorite J.Cole song to date. The hope in his words, and yet still so aware of that struggle and sacrifice made to get here.

If 2020 was my year of depression, and 2021 was the year I ran from it, then 2022 was finally the year it caught up to me, after all this time always being one step ahead.

And those who live with depression know, you don’t just get cured one day. You can’t wake up and say it’s gone, because even if you think it’s gone, it may come back without you knowing, and you may not be ready this next time.

We have seen too many of those we love fail at this never-ending struggle, one J.Cole helped me understand.

“There is no right or wrong
Only a Song
I like to write alone
Be in my zone
Think back to Forrest Hills,
No perfect Home.”

I spent a long time trying to come to terms with my own rights and wrongs. The people I’ve let down, the people who have let me down in return. Circles and circles of madness of what could have been, and yet always back to where I am now.

Still trying to hang on, and learn, and be something better. Trying to make some sense and even a bit of success as well, to show it was all for something. And even if I fall again, I have come to understand that losing doesn’t always mean you failed. It just means you have to keep trying.

In 2022, J.Cole, and life forced me to face more than I wanted, and yet, as I sit so squarely In 2023 all I can say is thank you for the lesson.

It hurt, but at least I know it’s real.

I’m ready for the next one.

It’s going to take me a minute to fully remember what my life was like back in 2009, but I suppose that’s the way it goes.

You just keep living, and moving, and searching for that ultimate goal, and then one day, you either get to it, or you don’t.

I guess that’s also a great way of describing how people feel about Mac Miller, now that I think about it.

You either love his music or you don’t. I don’t think there’s a middle ground.

I didn’t really listen to Mac back then. In fact I hardly knew who the dude was, but then again things were very different.

I was still in college and a new father at 25 years old; it very much felt like the moment where I had to do something. Finally.

The first years of my twenties were spent hidden away in a small college town trying to recover from how traumatic and insane my adolescence really was, and if I’m being up front, all the madness wasn’t just about the rave, although that was there too.

The one good thing, I can say about that period, though, looking back, is the simple truth that during that time away, I really took it easy on myself, which is something I don’t think Mac can say, though, can he?

With Mac it feels like he was always struggling and I guess that’s why I identify with him so much now that I’m older. As hard as we want to pretend we have our shit together, most times than not, we just don’t.

The Rave is a good example of that.

Raves were going through a lot back then too, in a much different way than they are now. To be a raver meant to be considered a drugged up criminal, and not just with the authority but also with family and friends.

You see one news report and you’ve seen them all, and back then everybody watched the news. Which is part of why we walked away. We just stopped.

Drama at the show. Creepy Local DJ’s. Crews fighting for their spots. It’s the kind of thing that never changes, and yet one day you wake up and say you’ve had enough. And as much as I loved the rave, I had reached my limit, and was done.

And that was way before 2009.

Over a decade before I decided to hit the road and become the person I am now, I still just had a dream, but I suppose that’s enough, most of the time. All of the time.

And that’s why I bring Mac up again tonight.

As the fog settles and you can feel the condensation in the air, I realize what made Mac so special was that he didn’t hide the pain he experienced, he embraced it. Something I’m learning to do every day.

We have to live first, though. And struggle, and try, and fail, and give it another shot, but not at everything. With some things you learn the first time not to open that door again.

As he said, ‘It ain’t 2009 no more.’

And I’m not sure If I’d want it to be 2009 again. The road from being a young man to being an old one isn’t easy, and it’s hard to say it was always fun, although, it comforts me to know somebody else was struggling all the same.

In 2009 Mac was still a nobody, but so was I. I may die a nobody, and still I feel the need to write these words. But why?

Because one day, Our day, is gonna come, just like it did for Mac, and so many people before him. And I’m not trying to glorify how he died, or even how he lived, because he would’ve been the first to say that he failed, but that’s the point.

We all lose.

Art itself is the literal manifestation of our expressions. It’s our way of stating how this moment affected us, and it’s a way of making that feeling last long after we are gone. Which is what is happening for Mac now.

His art and his music are only growing.

As each day goes by his words ring more and more true, and they come with a bit of heartbreak from the way they are applied to our own lives.

He saw something before the rest of us, and he wanted to leave us a note for when we finally got there. For when we finally were ready to hear all the things he wanted to say.

I only wish I could’ve heard all the music Mac was still due to make, which is the true tragedy of this story. He still wasn’t done. Still a work in progress. Still undecided on where to go next.

Always changing, and growing, and evolving, even with the struggles and the pain and the sorrow. Isn’t that all of us, though?

Isn’t that the secret? None of us are perfect, or clean, or free of failure.

There’s always somebody in the world we’re afraid to look in the eye. Mac wasn’t wrong for his sorrow, he was simply one of us.

Through what I’ve learned, the very last song Mac Miller played live was ‘2009’, from his album that was released just before his death. The final performance and the final song coming just a month before the morning he was found dead in his home.

Such optimism in his words of encouragement, acceptance and understanding. Such hope for a future that he had no way of knowing he’d never have.

In 2018 Mac Miller died, and by then I was a very different person from 2009, but then again so was he. These words weren’t some way of saying, I figured it out, or that you should go to this show. It’s my way of keeping Mac Miller alive in my own little way.

It’s my way of saying thank you to Mac. Thanks for being on the same road I was, even though neither of us knew it.

Thanks for reminding me today, and every day, that there’s still more art to be made, even if it’s never going to be with you.

* the pictures in this piece are not my own and I claim no ownership. They are simply used for artistic reasons. They are murals from different cities dedicated to Mac Miller.