Old friends reunited, laughter filled the air and energy buzzed through Private Park as Alchemy Records entered into a new season.
Alchemy Records, once a home for experimental music, punks and everything in between, returned on June 14 as the Alchemy Collective, a new effort to keep the spirit of Alchemy alive. The Alchemy Collective is a group booking shows like the ones previously put on at Alchemy Records, in a decentralized way.
Alchemy Records was a local record shop off The Square that put on concerts for the genres of music that don’t normally get stage time in San Marcos. It evolved into more than a record shop or venue, becoming a shared space where people in the alternative and DIY music scenes could make friends and have a good time.
After the final packed show at Alchemy Records on April 26, a community who lost their second home became determined to keep the legacy alive and well. Seeing its effects on the community fueled Evelyn Middleton, Deerspine band member and a local organizer who previously booked shows at Alchemy Records, to keep it going.
“There was this vacuum of all of a sudden this massive thing people relied on… didn’t exist anymore,” Middleton said. “There needs to be something that people can reliably go to meet and talk to other people.”
Middleton believed Alchemy’s efforts to foster community were worth working for. Along with Angel Gorostieta Perez, former Alchemy Records cashier and sound tech, they could keep booking shows in a decentralized way, beyond the four walls of Alchemy Records.
“Instead of having a specific venue, we’re trying to put shows on at a series of different businesses and locations within the city,” Middleton said.
Planning for the Alchemy Collective started soon after Alchemy Records closed. Middleton and Gorostieta Perez spoke with Alchemy Record’s owner for permission to use the namesake. They looked for places willing to host a show and bands willing to play at them. Posts on social media went out about the launch of Alchemy Collective, giving hope to the community.
Gorostieta Perez was excited to bring diverse, avant-garde and progressive music into every corner of San Marcos. He believed there was more to it than putting on shows. It was also about making the DIY music scene unapologetically present and maintaining a community in San Marcos.
“[We want to put on shows] anywhere that we can get ourselves into,” Gorostieta Perez said. “We’ve had discussions about throwing hardcore shows at laundromats and doing weird stuff all around town for the sake of putting music out there.”
People gathered for a night unlike any other at Private Park, where the DIY music scene could breathe a breath of fresh air as they found a solution to Alchemy’s absence. The Alchemy Collective booked seven bands, including local favorites like Deerspine and My Dad Died, to play from 7:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. with attendees moshing and dancing all night long.
Vendors brought out a special Alchemy Records pop up where people browsed through various records from different decades. The Alchemy Collective ended the night with the country ballad “Neon Moon” by Brooks & Dunn as a tribute to the old Alchemy Records tradition. Folks danced as the night ended out, breathing a sigh of relief that Alchemy and its community never really left.
Nick Rangel, photography junior and frequent Alchemy patron, found a love for the alternative, DIY music scene in San Marcos while looking for his niche as a photographer. He believes the Alchemy Collective is the next big thing for the community and can’t wait to continue going to shows.
“Even beyond taking photos, connecting with the people that I know and the community that I love and introducing new people to that very exciting thing, I would love to keep going to that as long as they have it,” Rangel said.
Middleton’s biggest goal for the collective is to expand the efforts and reach out to venues around town that appreciate the space the Alchemy Collective created and let it play shows. She wants the Alchemy Collective to feel like a collective for a greater cause rather than a few people working toward a safe space for experimental music.
“I really want to widen the net of people that we work with and make it an actual collective versus two people planning this thing,” Middleton said. “I’m hoping we create the infrastructure to let the scene last and make the scene as easy as possible for more people to get into and get involved with.”
