We didn't start the fire: SDC Warehouse

by Jesse Dykman

Editors note: This article was mistakenly credited to Sarah War in our latest issue. Sorry Jesse!
Shortly after midnight on New Year's night, as we were all shouting at the stars and loving the new year, a spark birthed a fire which became the demise of an old warehouse on North Main. The SDC warehouse, as it was known to those of us who lived there, wore many hats in its colorful life having been built during our cities infancy. It once belonged to Shell Oil-the jerks we still blame for the fact that grass won't grow in the yard. For the last ten years it has been ground zero for a collective of artists, musicians, dj's, and promoters formally known as the Scooby Doo Crew(SDC is the acronym of choice for those of us who would like to deny the fact that we once condoned elmo backpacks full of pacifiers and blow-pops).
Since moving in and making 1620 Keene our base of operations in early 1998 this far-spanning community of friends has used this warehouse for everything from art shows to childbirth.
We've thrown dance parties whenever we could get away with it, and sometimes when we couldn't. Often at our home, sometimes at yours. We have helped create a lineage of dance parties too extensive to list from love fest to the most recent "We are the Hollow Men" just before christmas 2024. Over 1,200 people, six bands, four djs, and a number of visual artists shared our space that night and danced the cold away.
In 1999 a good friend of ours died in this place. One year later, a beautiful baby girl named Sierra was born in the same exact spot. Sierra's little sister, Harmony, was born here as well 4 years later. The magic of that day still gets me when I stand in the place where I witnessed her birth, although now it looks more like a napalm testing ground than a happy hippy nest. We have, by default, taken in just about every deranged North Main street dog that made it through the gate, schizophrenic or not. Party stragglers have always had a courtesy couch-when the dogs allowed it. We have been laughing, crying, fucking, and fighting in this place for ten years now. It was our Alamo, or Waco if you will, during "Hurricane” Rita when the rest of the city ran for the safety of our interstate highway system. Within those walls something lived and breathed and had its own will and it feels to us like it isn't finished, like there is still a pulse underneath that charred heap.
So we are going to rebuild it and if you want to get into heaven you should help us. This isn't about attachments. Everything my friends and I own phoenixed with that warehouse and it doesn't amount to 1% of the real meaning that place had for allofus. Actually, I think I'm going to burn all my shit every couple years from now on. IS there a more meaningful way to bring in the New Year? Well, I guess buying a beamer might be good too but whatever, you go to your church and I'll go to mine. The point is that we are going to rebuild this warehouse and we are going to do it the only way we know how-by being very loud and getting a bunch of folks together who like to dance. We are having a benefit party at 2565 Mckinney on Feb 8th. There will be a one-way-sprint-your-ass-off bike race that will end at the party as well. For those of you on four wheels, read the flyer and come shake a leg. For those of you on two wheels-be at 600 Travis at 8pm.