|
“…the least of these…”
A Benefit for The Refuge
While there may never be another venue (can we call it that?) like the tattered storefront on ML King Street, the original home for The Refuge will hold a batch of memories for those who caught their mix of hc/punk/straightedge fests. When the building was sold last February, the church went into a slim limbo, trying to find a suitable location to continue their ministry. Seems like no one wanted them as neighbors. Even the city council moved legislation to limit certain mission work (pertaining to all churches) in the future. As the liner notes to this CD explain, “The Refuge has been at the center of controversy. The funny thing is, we don’t really know why.” It’s a guess, but no one likes to be reminded that The Refuge works with those who’ve been neglected and rebuffed by society. However, their ministry continues, but in a very limited capacity without a permanent site. To help fund their new 3rd Avenue location, a 25-track compilation disc has just been released, “…the least of these…,” featuring contributions from many of the bands that performed at the King/9th Street hollow. But instead of sifting through each track (go and get it, it’s just eight bucks, you tightwad), we felt it necessary to catch up with spokesman/pointman/go-to guy Scott Will about The Refuge’s latest news.
Focus: For anybody that might be just arriving, could you explain the history and the goals of The Refuge?
Will: Well, we formed as a church in 1993, with our goal to help people that had been kicked-aside by mainstream churches and society in general. Which would include counter culture youth, the poor, the homeless, the mentally ill. Basically, people whom society finds difficult, undesirable or unattractive to work with. We found that there was a lot of need for that in St. Petersburg, especially the downtown area. So our purpose was to reach out to those folks, whether with food, shelter, counseling (our director Bruce Wright is a licensed counselor), finding jobs, or even going to bat for them in court on occasion.
That’s a very general run down, but we are also very active in speaking out for the rights of the poor and homeless in the political forum. We faced a lot of opposition when The Refuge was in our old building on King Street. We attributed that to the fact that we were right off of the main exit that was the principal access to the dome (Tropicana Field). We even had city employees, who came to us on their own time and who understood what we were doing, give us a “heads up” that- in their words- that the mayor was targeting us for a shut down. Although we watched our toes, it still ended up in litigation. Eventually the court decided that, yes, we were a church. And that these legal loopholes the city was trying to enforce didn’t stand up.
Unfortunately, we lost that building anyway, because the owner sold it. But we have just acquired some offices downtown, just off of 3rd Avenue. We have plans, hopefully, to expand into the space next to us, where we can continue with our work and our concerts.
Focus: Obviously, that’s where most of our readers know you from, but a few folks may not understand the relationship, especially with a church.
Will: Well, we’re very interested in the arts. Both Bruce and myself are musicians, and we support performers who are Christians and a few who aren’t. We’ve had bands like Blink-182, Earth Crisis, and US Bombs have played for us.
Basically, all we asked of them was to respect our beliefs and 99 percent of the bands were interested in what we are doing. It’s a way to show people that we are a church. But we’re also interested in hearing what they have to say, and then hopefully, you’ll listen to some things we have to say. We call it “earning the right to be heard.” It showing people that we’re no better than them, but that we intend to share our ideas.
Focus: You guys also put on one of the most subversive punk radio shows on the planet (Sunday nights, WBVM-AM).
Will: (laughs) Well we’ve tried on several occasions to air a show on a community station, but they’ve been unreceptive in the past.
Focus: How did the CD come about?
Will: We’ve talked about doing a benefit CD, featuring all of the bands we’ve worked with, through the years. All of the bands expressed interest. It was just a matter of putting it together and getting the money to do it. We started putting feelers out, on a serious level.
The original idea was to feature a few national bands, but fill the rest of it (30/70) with local bands. So we solicited quite a few national artists, and surprisingly, we had an overwhelming response. It sort of took over the CD, where it wasn’t on the local level as much. There are a few hometown artists here, but its mostly touring acts who’ve played at The Refuge on numerous occasions (except for Blackhouse, who were cool to donate their song and a bunch of their CDs for our benefit).
We wanted to feature a number of artists with a variety of styles, to kind of highlight that aspect of our work. As far as some of the highlights to catch some people’s attention, the Strung Gurus track here (“Sun Eyed Girl”) was the final project of Dennis Danell of Social Distortion. He passed away in February of a brain aneurysm, and this was his last band. That’s sort of the biggest claim to fame for the album. Otherwise, all of the punk, ska, industrial, hardcore acts are bands people should remember from their shows here.
Locally, Next Season, Gunwale Under, Never Enough. Denison Marrs are from Lakeland but are national now, as well as Never The Less who just signed with an indie national label. Bruce and I got together and recorded a song (“Scenester”) as Slow Belly because we figured that was the only way we’d ever get onto a CD (laughs)! And after listening to it, you’d probably agree….
The purpose of it, of course, is to raise money for all the things we want to do. Everything from catching up on some past bills to moving forward on new projects. It’s only eight dollars, which is a pretty affordable disc for 21 different artists.
Focus: What’s the present state of The Refuge now?
Will: Well, we do have the new space downtown. It’s nowhere near the size of what we had. Although I’m excited about it because of the location. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the office directly next door, and then open them up and use the room to do smaller, local shows for about 100-125 people. It’s right around the corner from the new Baywalk. Hopefully, that will bring a lot of kids downtown, and have that location for them as a type of coffeehouse venue, especially on weeknights.
We are still going to be distributing food and clothing from there, but not any hot meals like we used to do. We just don’t have the food preparation facilities there. However, we are talking to some other churches in area about operating from their kitchens and halls. Plus, the city has shown that they would fight tooth and nail to make that difficult.
Focus: Yeah, I don’t want to misinterpret the vote by the city council last week, but there is an emphasis to put the brakes on new missions in the downtown area.
Will: Well, anything that is currently in existence, and that would include us, are grandfathered in. But, my perception is that they want to prevent anything further from happening. I’m all for the growth of downtown. I own a condo down there, and I hope the value continues to skyrocket like its been doing. But people also have to recognize that a lot of downtown is home for many poor people, who are in desperate need of church and social services. Moving the services would be fine with me, just so long as you move them closer to the people who need them. That’s unfortunate that (the council) has made it more difficult for anyone new to come along and help out. We actually were speaking in support of the ruling, if it included an amendment that people could still be fed down there.
“…the least of these…” features tracks from Slick Shoes, Five Iron Frenzy, Michael Knott, Steve Hindalong, Never The Less, Deitiphobia, Overcome, Dead Artist Syndrome, Smiley Kids, Denison Marrs, Blackhouse, Slow Belly, Strung Gurus, Gunwale Under, Fold Zandura, The Echoing Green, Next Season, The Israelites, Figure Four, Deluxetone Rockets, Never Enough, and Value Pac.
Available from Rebel Base Records. Donations, as they say, are tax deductible.
For more information: The Refuge, 255 Catalan Blvd. NE, St. Petersburg, FL 33704, (727) 898-0070, www.skaught.com/refuge)
|
