Masters of Mayhem

This was supposed to be a brief history of local arts and music collective High Mayhem Emerging Arts as well as an announcement for their newly opened digital music store. And to a certain extent it is, but it has also become about Carlos Santistevan, a local musician/educator who has been a part of the organization since its inception and who may just be one of the most underappreciated yet important artists working within the community.

But let's back up to late 2001/early 2002.

"There was this short-lived café by The Candyman called The Dam, and the guy who ran it was super-enthusiastic, so we started to do shitloads of shows there," Santistevan says. "Back then there were mainly these two bands—Invisible Plane and Uninvited Guests—and that's where we all met each other and thought what everyone was doing was really cool."

In those days, Rand Cook of The Candyman allowed these bands to practice inside the store (Rand is awesome, by the way), but when The Dam eventually closed, there was no place left for the musicians to practice. It was lucky, then, that musician/artist Max Friedenberg (RIP, buddy) happened to be on the cusp of renting a gigantic space on Lena Street. Thus, the first High Mayhem Festival was born and took place in his home.

"It was a matter of taking that momentum and going with it, and it was basically one guy had speakers and one guy had a mixing board and how we could do more together than separately," Santistevan says. "It wound up being much bigger than we thought."

In the years that followed, High Mayhem would outgrow Friedenberg's house, and its annual festival would inhabit spaces like the Center for Contemporary Arts, The Paramount and Wise Fool. They'd expand from local acts to include national touring musicians from countless genres and would eventually move to their most well known space off of Siler Road.

"At that point, we knew that if we didn't do something we wouldn't do anything," Santistevan tells SFR. "But we really had no way to afford it; luckily, after two or three months, a friend let us know that the Kindle Project was looking for grants, and for six years they covered our bills."

They would put together a high-quality PA system and recording studio as well as one of their most enduring and impressive features: high-quality video streaming. It proved invaluable.

"It's tough doing shit that is hip and happening, and you want people to come out, but we knew it would only take one dumbass to fuck things up—so we had this new space that we didn't want to advertise, and that's a tough thing," Santistevan says. "It's underground music so it can't be in the papers, and it kind of turned into, 'Oh, well, you guys are fucking experimental and snobby,' and I hate that term 'experimental'; it's a musical slur that becomes an excuse for people to dismiss something without investigation when maybe what we're doing is synthesizing an insane amount of musical influence."

They would bridge the gap in lack of ads and/or perceived inaccessibility by streaming shows online. Santistevan says that sometimes upwards of a couple hundred unique viewers would log on, and that the streaming played a vital role in expanding community art while allowing HM's members a little breathing room to live their lives.

"The reason we're into the video stuff is because music exists in the moment," he says. "People ask why we don't post to YouTube, but that's not the point—the point is to share that one experience."

As of now, High Mayhem has moved into a new phase in a smaller space in the same Siler neighborhood, but it has been mainly focused on fleshing out its online music store. Over 30 days, 30 albums from the likes of The Late Severa Wires, Ink on Paper, The Proxemics and more were released at store.highmayhem.org, and there are plans for even more releases. Many of the albums were previously only available at shows, if at all, and the store is a testament to how much these people care for art and music.

"Nobody at High Mayhem has ever been paid," Santistevan points out.

So in the spirit of opening up one's mind to that which may seem foreign at first, it would be wise to check High Mayhem's musical offerings. According to Santistevan, "Within any genre, there is high-quality music and there is garbage, [and] the problem is with the question, What's your favorite kind of music? People have indigestion for that which is unfamiliar, and it's really sad."

Santa Fe Reporter