Creativity — all day, Everydaze
When Everydaze Music opened its doors last month, East Los Angeles gained a music store, a recording studio, a vintage clothing store and an art collective.
“It’s really hard to define. It’s just pretty much all things creative,” co-founder Adrian Allen said. “It’s a place for musicians and artists to collaborate, meet new people and inspire one another, create a kind of community outside of Downtown.”
Allen — along with fellow musicians and artists Gabriel Fernandez, Julian Porte, Dylan Lester, Jamie Craft and Johnathan Martin — had been renting studio space at their Whittier Boulevard location for several years until the opportunity arose recently to take over the whole store.
They’ve since transformed the store to be able to rent out rehearsal, filming and recording space, sell and repair instruments, and accommodate performances — which include their own 15-minute jam session at the end of each day.
But on Oct. 9, they let some outside talent take the stage for their first weekly Open Mic Night, welcoming musicians, poets and other performers looking to showcase their talent.
Fernandez described the evening as “a more of a stripped-down approach” to music and art.
East Los Angeles resident and musician Robert Abalos — who performed by himself and with his band Triangle Fire — said that the event was great for “toned down performances.”
“I love the environment,” Abalos said. “I love just being surrounded by all this and everybody that is into this.”
In addition to the Open Mic Night, Allen said they hope to hold several different events throughout each month.
“Eventually we’re going to expand more into the art community and start having some art nights, have gallery nights that feature a local artist,” Allen said, comparing his vision of the store’s art presence to Andy Warhol’s “The Factory.”
The store also offers custom, screen-printed apparel and houses a vast vintage clothing collection. Melissa Josephine Legarreta — who’s made a hobby out of buying vintage clothing from swap meets, yard sales and thrift stores and reselling it online — has been friends with the co-founders of the store since high school and when they approached her about selling her clothing in the store, she gladly accepted.
“I get to just be myself and bring what I like into here,” Legarreta said. “It’s a bunch of random, weird things, but at the same time, I think people will appreciate it because they’re one-of-a-kind items that you can’t find anywhere.”
And the co-founders hope to continue expanding what they offer in the store. Fernandez said he’d eventually like to see the store offer music lessons. He plans to reach out to friends that teach music and ask them to volunteer their time for one class a month, free of charge. Because the area isn’t particularly affluent, he hopes that temporarily offering free classes will “bring more classes down the line.”
“We do sell records and clothes — and that’s cool — but those are just material things. I want something that could leave an impact,” Fernandez said, adding that someone could “come and learn how to play guitar and fall in love with it [at Everydaze] and you never know where they’ll be a few years from now.”
Though they’re still so new and “don’t really profit too much,” Fernandez said the store “really just sustains [their] medium of life, just being artists at all times, just creating music or working on a store that’s for music or helping friends record in a studio. There’s always something creative going on.”
While the area surrounding their store is “a little questionable,” Allen said they want artists to feel like they’re “in an oasis in a desert.”
“We just want it to be something inspirational for everyone that passes through,” he added.