Wayward Council: An Oral History in One Act
cover, April08, music April 18th, 2008
By Dan Fitzpatrick, April 2008
Wayward Council, Gainesville’s local collective record store, gathering place and so much more, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this month. Satellite Magazine sat down with its founders and some current volunteers to learn about the store’s beginnings and its purpose.
“People still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create.” — Matt Sweeting
The players:
Frank Barber – volunteer, founder
Chris Clavin – volunteer
Don Fitzpatrick – volunteer, founder
Kelly Gould – volunteer
Ryan Quinney – volunteer
Renee Pinault – volunteer
Laura Predny – volunteer, founder
Matt Sweeting - volunteer, founder
LP: Within the first week of moving to Gainesville to start UF back in 1990, someone took me to the Hardback. That was the beginning of the end of the rest of my life! I helped give birth to Wayward back in 1998. It was my life for the first four years. I breathed, ate and slept Wayward.
MS: At the time, there was this record store in town called Shaft, but the guy, Pat Hughes, wanted to get out of the business.
LP: Frank, Don and I were mourning the closing of Gainesville’s only punk/hardcore/indie record store, Shaft, when mastermind Frank had the brilliant idea to start a record store ourselves, co-op style.
FB: I originally approached Laura and Don about starting the store with me, but they turned me down!
MS: Frank said to me, ‘I like this idea these kids have. But I want to do it a new way!’
LP: The original intention of Wayward was to make punk, hardcore & other independent records accessible to the community and at a reasonable cost. It was an alternative to the status quo and typical capitalistic consumer experience.
DF: I told Matt, “We’re not investing personal capital.” But Matt brought into the equation the whole no capital thing. “We’re going to do this in the Hardback on Saturdays for no rent, no electric. Jen and Var (at No Idea Records) are going to give us their records every Friday night.” A group of about 15 people decided after two or three meetings that Saturday morning wasn’t that important to them. And Matt had the Hardback to offer us.
MS: One day a week, we operated out of the venue I worked at, the Hardback (formerly in the Sun Center west of the Hippodrome State Theatre). We’d pull 400-500 records from No Idea, put sticky notes with the prices on them, and set up on Saturday. Then we’d reshelve everything at No Idea, pay them the cost of the records, and keep the difference.
DF: Every Saturday, we’d make like $200-$300. It took a long time to get the capital.
FB: It was all fun in those days - small enough that no one wanted to argue over it, and new enough that it didn’t belong to one group or another.
LP: In the Saturday-only style days, the volunteer contingent was pretty tight. Someone always brought bagels and coffee and we all hung out, listened to records and engaged in general consorting. It was people who were active in bands, putting on house shows, writing zines, having potlucks, et cetera.
FB: It was like a daytime clubhouse, and we would just hang-out all day and see who came by.
MS: When you had this all day thing, there would be 20 people just hanging out. I remember when we were having those first meetings at your house, there were so many people there, and everyone was so excited. But how do we channel this energy? Then we moved into the Down Low. A friend of mine was the owner and he let us keep the records upstairs.
DF: (The Down-Low) was a pain in the ass! All the pigeon shit! It’s where the Atlantic is now. The windows upstairs didn’t close, and the pigeons would come in at night and shit all over the record cases. The shop opened at noon, but we had to get there at 9 a.m. And starting off my Saturday morning scrubbing off pigeon shit is not the way I see myself dying!
LP: The goal was always to open a full-time space when we had enough money so that we could have shows and the like. I have to admit that I preferred the Saturday flea market style. It was more of a social event that everyone came out for.
MS: We even had the name before we even opened. And we had a bunch of bad names.
FB: I seem to remember him bringing us through the process, possibly with some paper and a dictionary, until we ended up with something un-stupid.
MS: The name I had in mind was something really awesomely dumb.
DF: We started playing with “Council” at the end of a bunch of words. It just fit. It’s always been council driven – sometimes the council was just more wayward than others!
MS: It was awesome, and it just grew and grew and grew until we had enough money to have our own record store. We moved to the University Avenue storefront in 2001, and it was fun at first to just have the record store. But then we got zines, books, shirts, computer parts, all sorts of crap!
RP: I love that we’re not just exclusively a record store. Adding other things makes it accessible to so many more people. People come in and say, “I don’t even own a record player, but I like books or zines or to come to shows.”
MS: Records were something we just had access to. It’d be cool to be a cool cutting-edge record place. I still think we do okay, but it’s enough to get you into the place, but you get more out of it once you’re here.
DF: An unintended consequence (of the store front) was having a window on University Avenue. We could put up flyers for whatever causes we believed in – women’s rights, civil rights, fighting the Iraq War.
MS: I like the fact that whoever is here is the person who dictates the tone of the store. That speaks to the collective nature of it. You have a bright cheery person, you have someone who doesn’t care about you, or whatever. I like that. It’s always a little different.
FB: It’s pretty amazing that the whole thing stays afloat as a volunteer-run enterprise. Many people pass through the Gainesville scene and Wayward.
LG: It is funny when someone comes in and doesn’t understand that it’s volunteer run. They’re like, “Who’s your boss? No, like, who owns the place? No, but like who’s your boss?” You say, “Dude! There’s no boss! It’s volunteer-run.” …“No! But who’s in charge?!?”
RQ: That’s when you get to freak them out. You look them in the eye, and say, “You are, man!”
MS: (Wayward’s volunteer base) has turned over population at least eight times, but people still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create. The concept of a free space is hard for some people to understand. You really don’t get that much.
CC: Wayward works like a perfect anarchist collective and is a good example of how an anarchist collective can really work.
MS: There’s nothing mystical about the people who came before you. They’re just before you. There’s always this reverence for “the old days”, or “back in the day”, or some crap like that, but really, it’s the same shit as now – it just came before you. Anyone that’s involved now would’ve been just as crucial back then. Pick any movement that you think is cool: London in ’77, or whatever movement you’re into. Those people were there just being active.
LG: When I came in, I was really nervous. But it was structured in way that after a few meetings I could feel empowered, and I could feel like, “Okay, I could do this too!” It kind of opened up this world where these people are just people too. They’re not better. They’re not different. There might be some stigma out there, but it’s your own stigma that you bring in, because you’re afraid of an open space.
MS: We’ve never had a manifesto. Some people over the years have wanted a manifesto, but we collectively decided not to. If you have a manifesto, you limit creativity. It’s a free space. It’s whatever you want it to be! There’s no rule book on how to be a volunteer.
DF: The idea hasn’t changed very much. Kids, maybe 14, 15 or 16, from around here back then would come in and bring their first zine.
LP: Wayward has always just treaded water financially… but somehow it always seems to get by!
LG: It seems like in the lows that people put it all together. It has those ups and downs, but it’s important that people will come when it’s necessary. Even in a month when you don’t have the rent, you’d have a random benefit show. People will just play. Even if they’re not active volunteers, they say, “Yeah, we’ll help you guys make rent for sure!”
FB: In whatever people say about it, both good and bad, I think Wayward really reflects the Gainesville scene. So there!
MS: I can’t tell you how proud I am. As a customer, as a volunteer, as a fan, it’s so exciting to me. People all over the place know about it. People know the concept, which is really more than the people or the record selection or the shows. The fact that the concept was created and is still rolling, it’s so exciting.
DF: Your ability to keep from running out of steam, to have legs past the first members, and have people go in and out, that’s exactly what we wanted. It’s gone through a wonderful evolution. I probably don’t know anyone who works there now, and none of them probably know me. But in the end, that’s pretty fantastic!
FB: It’s great to have creative ideas, and a vision of what you want to do. But if you’re collaborating with other people, then you can’t totally predict or control the outcome because you have to find a meaningful way for everyone to be involved. I had very particular goals about Wayward was started. I don’t think they matter so much anymore. By now, Wayward has meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and that’s for the best.
Leave a Reply
Wayward Council: An Oral History in One Act
cover, April08, music April 18th, 2008
By Dan Fitzpatrick, April 2008
Wayward Council, Gainesville’s local collective record store, gathering place and so much more, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this month. Satellite Magazine sat down with its founders and some current volunteers to learn about the store’s beginnings and its purpose.
“People still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create.” — Matt Sweeting
The players:
Frank Barber – volunteer, founder
Chris Clavin – volunteer
Don Fitzpatrick – volunteer, founder
Kelly Gould – volunteer
Ryan Quinney – volunteer
Renee Pinault – volunteer
Laura Predny – volunteer, founder
Matt Sweeting - volunteer, founder
LP: Within the first week of moving to Gainesville to start UF back in 1990, someone took me to the Hardback. That was the beginning of the end of the rest of my life! I helped give birth to Wayward back in 1998. It was my life for the first four years. I breathed, ate and slept Wayward.
MS: At the time, there was this record store in town called Shaft, but the guy, Pat Hughes, wanted to get out of the business.
LP: Frank, Don and I were mourning the closing of Gainesville’s only punk/hardcore/indie record store, Shaft, when mastermind Frank had the brilliant idea to start a record store ourselves, co-op style.
FB: I originally approached Laura and Don about starting the store with me, but they turned me down!
MS: Frank said to me, ‘I like this idea these kids have. But I want to do it a new way!’
LP: The original intention of Wayward was to make punk, hardcore & other independent records accessible to the community and at a reasonable cost. It was an alternative to the status quo and typical capitalistic consumer experience.
DF: I told Matt, “We’re not investing personal capital.” But Matt brought into the equation the whole no capital thing. “We’re going to do this in the Hardback on Saturdays for no rent, no electric. Jen and Var (at No Idea Records) are going to give us their records every Friday night.” A group of about 15 people decided after two or three meetings that Saturday morning wasn’t that important to them. And Matt had the Hardback to offer us.
MS: One day a week, we operated out of the venue I worked at, the Hardback (formerly in the Sun Center west of the Hippodrome State Theatre). We’d pull 400-500 records from No Idea, put sticky notes with the prices on them, and set up on Saturday. Then we’d reshelve everything at No Idea, pay them the cost of the records, and keep the difference.
DF: Every Saturday, we’d make like $200-$300. It took a long time to get the capital.
FB: It was all fun in those days - small enough that no one wanted to argue over it, and new enough that it didn’t belong to one group or another.
LP: In the Saturday-only style days, the volunteer contingent was pretty tight. Someone always brought bagels and coffee and we all hung out, listened to records and engaged in general consorting. It was people who were active in bands, putting on house shows, writing zines, having potlucks, et cetera.
FB: It was like a daytime clubhouse, and we would just hang-out all day and see who came by.
MS: When you had this all day thing, there would be 20 people just hanging out. I remember when we were having those first meetings at your house, there were so many people there, and everyone was so excited. But how do we channel this energy? Then we moved into the Down Low. A friend of mine was the owner and he let us keep the records upstairs.
DF: (The Down-Low) was a pain in the ass! All the pigeon shit! It’s where the Atlantic is now. The windows upstairs didn’t close, and the pigeons would come in at night and shit all over the record cases. The shop opened at noon, but we had to get there at 9 a.m. And starting off my Saturday morning scrubbing off pigeon shit is not the way I see myself dying!
LP: The goal was always to open a full-time space when we had enough money so that we could have shows and the like. I have to admit that I preferred the Saturday flea market style. It was more of a social event that everyone came out for.
MS: We even had the name before we even opened. And we had a bunch of bad names.
FB: I seem to remember him bringing us through the process, possibly with some paper and a dictionary, until we ended up with something un-stupid.
MS: The name I had in mind was something really awesomely dumb.
DF: We started playing with “Council” at the end of a bunch of words. It just fit. It’s always been council driven – sometimes the council was just more wayward than others!
MS: It was awesome, and it just grew and grew and grew until we had enough money to have our own record store. We moved to the University Avenue storefront in 2001, and it was fun at first to just have the record store. But then we got zines, books, shirts, computer parts, all sorts of crap!
RP: I love that we’re not just exclusively a record store. Adding other things makes it accessible to so many more people. People come in and say, “I don’t even own a record player, but I like books or zines or to come to shows.”
MS: Records were something we just had access to. It’d be cool to be a cool cutting-edge record place. I still think we do okay, but it’s enough to get you into the place, but you get more out of it once you’re here.
DF: An unintended consequence (of the store front) was having a window on University Avenue. We could put up flyers for whatever causes we believed in – women’s rights, civil rights, fighting the Iraq War.
MS: I like the fact that whoever is here is the person who dictates the tone of the store. That speaks to the collective nature of it. You have a bright cheery person, you have someone who doesn’t care about you, or whatever. I like that. It’s always a little different.
FB: It’s pretty amazing that the whole thing stays afloat as a volunteer-run enterprise. Many people pass through the Gainesville scene and Wayward.
LG: It is funny when someone comes in and doesn’t understand that it’s volunteer run. They’re like, “Who’s your boss? No, like, who owns the place? No, but like who’s your boss?” You say, “Dude! There’s no boss! It’s volunteer-run.” …“No! But who’s in charge?!?”
RQ: That’s when you get to freak them out. You look them in the eye, and say, “You are, man!”
MS: (Wayward’s volunteer base) has turned over population at least eight times, but people still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create. The concept of a free space is hard for some people to understand. You really don’t get that much.
CC: Wayward works like a perfect anarchist collective and is a good example of how an anarchist collective can really work.
MS: There’s nothing mystical about the people who came before you. They’re just before you. There’s always this reverence for “the old days”, or “back in the day”, or some crap like that, but really, it’s the same shit as now – it just came before you. Anyone that’s involved now would’ve been just as crucial back then. Pick any movement that you think is cool: London in ’77, or whatever movement you’re into. Those people were there just being active.
LG: When I came in, I was really nervous. But it was structured in way that after a few meetings I could feel empowered, and I could feel like, “Okay, I could do this too!” It kind of opened up this world where these people are just people too. They’re not better. They’re not different. There might be some stigma out there, but it’s your own stigma that you bring in, because you’re afraid of an open space.
MS: We’ve never had a manifesto. Some people over the years have wanted a manifesto, but we collectively decided not to. If you have a manifesto, you limit creativity. It’s a free space. It’s whatever you want it to be! There’s no rule book on how to be a volunteer.
DF: The idea hasn’t changed very much. Kids, maybe 14, 15 or 16, from around here back then would come in and bring their first zine.
LP: Wayward has always just treaded water financially… but somehow it always seems to get by!
LG: It seems like in the lows that people put it all together. It has those ups and downs, but it’s important that people will come when it’s necessary. Even in a month when you don’t have the rent, you’d have a random benefit show. People will just play. Even if they’re not active volunteers, they say, “Yeah, we’ll help you guys make rent for sure!”
FB: In whatever people say about it, both good and bad, I think Wayward really reflects the Gainesville scene. So there!
MS: I can’t tell you how proud I am. As a customer, as a volunteer, as a fan, it’s so exciting to me. People all over the place know about it. People know the concept, which is really more than the people or the record selection or the shows. The fact that the concept was created and is still rolling, it’s so exciting.
DF: Your ability to keep from running out of steam, to have legs past the first members, and have people go in and out, that’s exactly what we wanted. It’s gone through a wonderful evolution. I probably don’t know anyone who works there now, and none of them probably know me. But in the end, that’s pretty fantastic!
FB: It’s great to have creative ideas, and a vision of what you want to do. But if you’re collaborating with other people, then you can’t totally predict or control the outcome because you have to find a meaningful way for everyone to be involved. I had very particular goals about Wayward was started. I don’t think they matter so much anymore. By now, Wayward has meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and that’s for the best.
Leave a Reply
Wayward Council: An Oral History in One Act
cover, April08, music April 18th, 2008
By Dan Fitzpatrick, April 2008
Wayward Council, Gainesville’s local collective record store, gathering place and so much more, is celebrating its 10th Anniversary this month. Satellite Magazine sat down with its founders and some current volunteers to learn about the store’s beginnings and its purpose.
“People still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create.” — Matt Sweeting
The players:
Frank Barber – volunteer, founder
Chris Clavin – volunteer
Don Fitzpatrick – volunteer, founder
Kelly Gould – volunteer
Ryan Quinney – volunteer
Renee Pinault – volunteer
Laura Predny – volunteer, founder
Matt Sweeting - volunteer, founder
LP: Within the first week of moving to Gainesville to start UF back in 1990, someone took me to the Hardback. That was the beginning of the end of the rest of my life! I helped give birth to Wayward back in 1998. It was my life for the first four years. I breathed, ate and slept Wayward.
MS: At the time, there was this record store in town called Shaft, but the guy, Pat Hughes, wanted to get out of the business.
LP: Frank, Don and I were mourning the closing of Gainesville’s only punk/hardcore/indie record store, Shaft, when mastermind Frank had the brilliant idea to start a record store ourselves, co-op style.
FB: I originally approached Laura and Don about starting the store with me, but they turned me down!
MS: Frank said to me, ‘I like this idea these kids have. But I want to do it a new way!’
LP: The original intention of Wayward was to make punk, hardcore & other independent records accessible to the community and at a reasonable cost. It was an alternative to the status quo and typical capitalistic consumer experience.
DF: I told Matt, “We’re not investing personal capital.” But Matt brought into the equation the whole no capital thing. “We’re going to do this in the Hardback on Saturdays for no rent, no electric. Jen and Var (at No Idea Records) are going to give us their records every Friday night.” A group of about 15 people decided after two or three meetings that Saturday morning wasn’t that important to them. And Matt had the Hardback to offer us.
MS: One day a week, we operated out of the venue I worked at, the Hardback (formerly in the Sun Center west of the Hippodrome State Theatre). We’d pull 400-500 records from No Idea, put sticky notes with the prices on them, and set up on Saturday. Then we’d reshelve everything at No Idea, pay them the cost of the records, and keep the difference.
DF: Every Saturday, we’d make like $200-$300. It took a long time to get the capital.
FB: It was all fun in those days - small enough that no one wanted to argue over it, and new enough that it didn’t belong to one group or another.
LP: In the Saturday-only style days, the volunteer contingent was pretty tight. Someone always brought bagels and coffee and we all hung out, listened to records and engaged in general consorting. It was people who were active in bands, putting on house shows, writing zines, having potlucks, et cetera.
FB: It was like a daytime clubhouse, and we would just hang-out all day and see who came by.
MS: When you had this all day thing, there would be 20 people just hanging out. I remember when we were having those first meetings at your house, there were so many people there, and everyone was so excited. But how do we channel this energy? Then we moved into the Down Low. A friend of mine was the owner and he let us keep the records upstairs.
DF: (The Down-Low) was a pain in the ass! All the pigeon shit! It’s where the Atlantic is now. The windows upstairs didn’t close, and the pigeons would come in at night and shit all over the record cases. The shop opened at noon, but we had to get there at 9 a.m. And starting off my Saturday morning scrubbing off pigeon shit is not the way I see myself dying!
LP: The goal was always to open a full-time space when we had enough money so that we could have shows and the like. I have to admit that I preferred the Saturday flea market style. It was more of a social event that everyone came out for.
MS: We even had the name before we even opened. And we had a bunch of bad names.
FB: I seem to remember him bringing us through the process, possibly with some paper and a dictionary, until we ended up with something un-stupid.
MS: The name I had in mind was something really awesomely dumb.
DF: We started playing with “Council” at the end of a bunch of words. It just fit. It’s always been council driven – sometimes the council was just more wayward than others!
MS: It was awesome, and it just grew and grew and grew until we had enough money to have our own record store. We moved to the University Avenue storefront in 2001, and it was fun at first to just have the record store. But then we got zines, books, shirts, computer parts, all sorts of crap!
RP: I love that we’re not just exclusively a record store. Adding other things makes it accessible to so many more people. People come in and say, “I don’t even own a record player, but I like books or zines or to come to shows.”
MS: Records were something we just had access to. It’d be cool to be a cool cutting-edge record place. I still think we do okay, but it’s enough to get you into the place, but you get more out of it once you’re here.
DF: An unintended consequence (of the store front) was having a window on University Avenue. We could put up flyers for whatever causes we believed in – women’s rights, civil rights, fighting the Iraq War.
MS: I like the fact that whoever is here is the person who dictates the tone of the store. That speaks to the collective nature of it. You have a bright cheery person, you have someone who doesn’t care about you, or whatever. I like that. It’s always a little different.
FB: It’s pretty amazing that the whole thing stays afloat as a volunteer-run enterprise. Many people pass through the Gainesville scene and Wayward.
LG: It is funny when someone comes in and doesn’t understand that it’s volunteer run. They’re like, “Who’s your boss? No, like, who owns the place? No, but like who’s your boss?” You say, “Dude! There’s no boss! It’s volunteer-run.” …“No! But who’s in charge?!?”
RQ: That’s when you get to freak them out. You look them in the eye, and say, “You are, man!”
MS: (Wayward’s volunteer base) has turned over population at least eight times, but people still buy into the concept. There’s no hierarchy, there’s no boss. If you want to have a knitting circle, if you want to have a punk show, you can! That was the dream: a place where people can create. The concept of a free space is hard for some people to understand. You really don’t get that much.
CC: Wayward works like a perfect anarchist collective and is a good example of how an anarchist collective can really work.
MS: There’s nothing mystical about the people who came before you. They’re just before you. There’s always this reverence for “the old days”, or “back in the day”, or some crap like that, but really, it’s the same shit as now – it just came before you. Anyone that’s involved now would’ve been just as crucial back then. Pick any movement that you think is cool: London in ’77, or whatever movement you’re into. Those people were there just being active.
LG: When I came in, I was really nervous. But it was structured in way that after a few meetings I could feel empowered, and I could feel like, “Okay, I could do this too!” It kind of opened up this world where these people are just people too. They’re not better. They’re not different. There might be some stigma out there, but it’s your own stigma that you bring in, because you’re afraid of an open space.
MS: We’ve never had a manifesto. Some people over the years have wanted a manifesto, but we collectively decided not to. If you have a manifesto, you limit creativity. It’s a free space. It’s whatever you want it to be! There’s no rule book on how to be a volunteer.
DF: The idea hasn’t changed very much. Kids, maybe 14, 15 or 16, from around here back then would come in and bring their first zine.
LP: Wayward has always just treaded water financially… but somehow it always seems to get by!
LG: It seems like in the lows that people put it all together. It has those ups and downs, but it’s important that people will come when it’s necessary. Even in a month when you don’t have the rent, you’d have a random benefit show. People will just play. Even if they’re not active volunteers, they say, “Yeah, we’ll help you guys make rent for sure!”
FB: In whatever people say about it, both good and bad, I think Wayward really reflects the Gainesville scene. So there!
MS: I can’t tell you how proud I am. As a customer, as a volunteer, as a fan, it’s so exciting to me. People all over the place know about it. People know the concept, which is really more than the people or the record selection or the shows. The fact that the concept was created and is still rolling, it’s so exciting.
DF: Your ability to keep from running out of steam, to have legs past the first members, and have people go in and out, that’s exactly what we wanted. It’s gone through a wonderful evolution. I probably don’t know anyone who works there now, and none of them probably know me. But in the end, that’s pretty fantastic!
FB: It’s great to have creative ideas, and a vision of what you want to do. But if you’re collaborating with other people, then you can’t totally predict or control the outcome because you have to find a meaningful way for everyone to be involved. I had very particular goals about Wayward was started. I don’t think they matter so much anymore. By now, Wayward has meant a lot of things to a lot of people, and that’s for the best.
