Firehouse Supports Young Musicians
If you ask any independent artist in the Southeast to name the most influential DIY venue in Central Alabama, you’re likely to hear the same answer across the board: the Firehouse. It’s a community hub that has served the DIY scene in Birmingham for well over a decade and has hosted countless bands spanning all genres, including noise, hip hop, hardcore, psych, and more. Also, it’s all volunteer run, a major feat in itself.
Over the past five years, the upstairs of the venue has evolved into something special too. The Firehouse Community Arts Center (CAC)—which was founded by Eric Wallace in 2020—is a creative learning space that strives to teach and mentor young people who are very likely going to take the downstairs stage before they can drive a car. It’s an environment where kids can learn from accessible and professional musicians, then take that learning into a practice space with their friends and start writing songs. For many students, the Firehouse CAC is a place where they can share their creative voices (maybe for the first time), start their first bands, and record their first songs. There are a lot of important firsts at the Firehouse CAC.
Firehouse students participating in the summer 2024 songwriting camp.
A major first for the organization itself was the addition of a songwriting camp in the summer of 2023. It was a chance for students to learn about the craft of songwriting, then write and record their own stuff in less than two weeks (with the help of the Firehouse CAC teachers and staff). Of course, writing and recording music is a major accomplishment, but what about sharing the tunes with listeners beyond your friends and family? Given the DIY spirit of the Firehouse CAC team, they decided they would self-release all of the summer songs via Bandcamp, helping the students reach a broader audience and, also, to archive their collective creative achievement. The 2023 camp resulted in the Firehouse Summer Sessions, Vol. 1, an excellent compilation featuring tracks by seven students. Pretty cool.
This past summer, the camp continued to take shape with 11 students participating in the four-day camp which ran through June and July. Several songwriters—including local legends and Firehouse CAC supporters Janet Simpson and Taylor Hollingsworth—facilitated sessions, discussed the importance of collaboration, and supported the students as they fine-tuned their songs and arrangements. Much like the previous summer, the students got to record their tracks and release them on Bandcamp. On Firehouse Summer Sessions, Vol. 2, you’ll once again find some truly inspiring, unconventional, and exciting songs written and performed by the future of Birmingham’s music scene.
The closing song, “Duces, Doc,” by 14-year-old Oliver Gathings is emotionally raw and, at times, reminiscent of the legendary freak-out punk band At the Drive-In. According to Gathings, “Writing music is a relieving experience. It's a way for me to escape regular school … and just life in general and just being in at the songwriting camp and just sitting down and taking a guitar and laying down what I thought of means that I have come a long way and I have been able to express myself in a totally different form and that's why I love songwriting and writing songs.”
Clearly, the Firehouse CAC songwriting camp gave him and his pals a chance to express themselves with minimal restraints—now, we as the listeners are fortunate to be able to hear and enjoy their hard work. Learn more about the Firehouse CAC—and their new recording studio—by visiting their Instagram page and website.
