Sunday nights in Buffalo aren’t exactly the liveliest examples of human interaction, but on January 11, 2009 at 19 Wadsworth Street, in Buffalo’s historic Allentown, local pop-punk band Loudmouth entertains an interesting conglomeration of spectators. The inhabitants range from young to old, some dancing, some not, but all soaking in the experience of Sugar City, a new venue and art space born from the imagination of uncharacteristically ambitious hipsters. The space itself is representative of the mission and the people behind it, featuring loud and vibrant artwork, and in more practical matters, is quite literally insulated with teddy bears.

The idea originated in, of all places, an attic. Not the Usual Suspects was an event hosted by University at Buffalo alumae and Sugar City organizers Aimee Buyea and Kathy Doran in their attics. The two started the event in order to create an event more accessible to a younger, art-novice audience. Buyea, graduate of the Media Studies Department explains, “Before I started Not the Usual Suspects, I was going to UB for media studies, and my professors would send us to screenings at Squeaky Wheel and Hallwalls. There weren’t any of our peers there, so we started wondering why other people like us weren’t going to these things. We’d be looking so shabby in our jeans...We’d look out of place.”

Jax Deluca, former operator of Arte Brutale, defunct art and venue space, agreed with the need for something beyond the typical art spaces. “Spaces like Arte Brutale were less intimidating. It’s less intimidating than trying to get your work into the Burchfield-Penney or something,” she says.

In response to this need, Buyea and Doran hosted what they describe as a “variety show” featuring multimedia and visual artists, along with local musicians. “It was pretty much an open environment,” says Doran, graduate of American Studies and Cultural Anthropology programs, and former World Music Director for WRUB. “We just wanted an unintimidating environment for people to express themselves.”

After graduating, Buyea continued on to work at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, one of the largest contemporary visual and performing arts centers in the country. “I got experience with the high art world, and I didn’t really like working in that environment,” says Buyea. So after the end of her internship, she returned to Buffalo met with several requests for more Not the Usual Suspects events, however, Buyea had her reservations about doing the event in the same way.“I understood that doing this just in the attic wouldn’t be taken seriously. Not that many people want to go to some stranger’s basement or attic,” Buyea says. “After a while, the attic shows were the same thing as going to the events at the other spaces.”

Basements are a popular venue for many punk and folk acts locally and throughout the country. Eric Ellman, attendee and promoter of underground punk shows for nearly 17 years and former co-operator of the now defunct Buffalo venue space Hey Dude! comments on the downfalls of the culture. He says, “It’s far more important to me than basement shows because it legitimizes underground music and art. It’s more inviting; it’s more inclusive whereas as much as you try, a basement venue isn’t possible to be all-inclusive because there are still people that will not be comfortable to go to a person’s house to watch music there. It’s about bringing it up to the streets.”

Buyea and Doran decided to continue the tradition in a different setting: a storefront. Buyea cites her reasoning for this in diversifying the space. “I wanted a storefront so people wouldn’t be as intimidated to come by so we would have a more diverse crowd and more diverse programs.”

Doran describes the space having a need for legitimacy. “We basically wanted to do the same exact thing, but in a legit environment, and we wanted a bigger space.”

From there, Buyea organized interested members of the community through potlucks and meetings before Sugar City was a core-group of about eight members, approximately six of which are UB students or alumni. These gatherings gave birth to the multiple principals that Sugar City operates under, which their manifesto describes as “exist[ing] as an alternative community arts and cultural space to share and create art based on participatory culture and a do-it-together atittude” through “establishing a non-hierarchical all-ages venue.”

Buyea explains in other words, “We’re trying to bring together the audience and the promoter or artist together so they have some sort of stake in what they’re enjoying.” Furthermore, she expands the definition to completely blur together the function of audience and artist. “Everyone will realize they are an artist themselves,” she says.

What is especially unique about Sugar City is its emphasis on keeping it inclusive to all ages, and Buyea cites an organization known as the All-Ages Movement Project (AMP) as an inspiration for this. AMP’s website describes the project as a gateway of sorts for youth into the music and art community. It reads, “Unlike other communities, music communities are exceptional at reaching young people, because they are essentially created by young people...We are usually the first to open doors for young people to get involved and build skills for the future. The effects of our work reverberate beyond the volume of our stereos.”

“Buffalo needs some kind of positive experience for youth,” Buyea says. Ellman agrees with the sentiment, and goes further to differentiate Sugar City from other all-ages venue spaces like basements. He says, “It’s a spot where parents can drop off their kids, and it’s not sketchy. It’s such a positive environment, anyone who appreciates art of any age can go there.”

In addition to its inclusiveness, Ellman emphasizes the importance of a space like Sugar City in how it functions for artists. “It’s absolutely vital that places like Sugar City exist, because from my own stand point of being a musician and an artist, I think that a place like Sugar City makes independent musicians and artists the priority that they should be when performing,” he says. “It provides a space where the art and the music is the actual focus and is not a background activity, as compared to a bar.”

Though they had no space yet, the group worked diligently in fundraising, hosting over 24 events before even opening their doors in other venues as benefits, including their most recent Bustin Out! dance party at Soundlab. Dan Carosa, a current electrical engineering graduate student at UB and former Local Music Director for WRUB was one of the primary organizers and was taken aback by the support the group was finding from the community. “The stuff we promoted has been surprisingly well received,” Carosa says.

One of the biggest obstacles for the group was finding an appropriate space. “We looked at a bunch of different spaces,” says Carosa. “There was always problems with balancing out how much rent was with how stuff was with the landlord or the location.” They spent an exhaustive amount of time scouring classifieds and making appointments to see a variety of spaces like old churches and even an old laundromat. They unfortunately had particularities in mind while searching due to the multimedia nature of the space they were envisioning. “We had to keep certain things in mind, especially soundwise,” says Carosa. “We would look at a space, and it would be reasonably priced, but it would have been echo-y and crappy sounding.”

After their comprehensive search, they found what they were looking for through an advertisement on Craigslist. The price ended up not being in their range, but the landlord offered to show them another space, 19 Wadsworth, their current location around the corner from the heart of Allentown.

To the Sugar City crew, it was like a match made in heaven. They were especially excited to find out that the landlord was none other than the sister of Calvin Johnson, a major player in the beginning of the modern independent music movement and founder of influential K Records. “She was really stoked about what we were doing as opposed to other landlords we talked to. She really got what we were trying to do,” says Carosa.

Armed with paintbrushes and hammers, the crew set to work. The space was slightly unfinished, so they got the appropriate permits necessary to make repairs, and they did it all themselves.

Meanwhile, they continued promoting Sugar City as an organization and hosting fundraisers. They set a date for an opening, and began booking events. Seven shows in total were booked before even opening their doors, which Buyea attests to the strong need the community has for a space such as Sugar City. “There’s been other things like Sugar City like basement shows, Access Infoshop, and Kitchen Distribution, but a lot of those spaces are gone now, so there’s definitely a need for it,” she says.

With the lease signed, and repairs made, Sugar City booked their grand opening, featuring performances by Go No Go for Launch, Nick Maynard, Pat Neveu, Russel Pascatore, Tom Van Deusen, and the Failures’ Union, and art curated by Robin Carman. Only a few minutes into the flier time, the space was packed from wall to wall, uncharacteristic of most events in Buffalo.

After attendees walk in the side entrance and drop their donation into one of several manned buckets, they are met with the front room, which is currently used as gallery space. The space has an unfinished feel with the floor made of bare wood and steel beams striping the ceiling, a few even still adorned with masking tape, another allusion to the freshly painted walls whose odor fills the room.

If one could somehow manage their way through the impossible crowd, they’d find the back room, the primary music and performance venue space. The most striking feature of the room is a large mural on the back wall of a man spewing what appears to be graveyard vomit over mountains, painted by an artist known as Guttermagic. The premiere of the space was incredibly positive, and they estimate a turn out of over 200 people throughout the evening.

While making preparations for the opening, they researched their options as far as being a legally operating space. Though they have acquired several permits, they have met with some trouble from the city, including one complaint lodged by a neighbor and a stop work order posted on their door. “I’ve gotten advice from other art galleries, and they told me that if you didn’t go the legal route, you would avoid the problems,” says Buyea.

Doran stressed the need for the permits in order to, again, establish their legitimacy. “We really wanted to try to go the legitimate route,” says Doran.

Ellman describes a similar need when opening up Hey Dude!, which eventually closed their doors due to pressures from the city. “We had the exact same aspirations as them,” he says. “You have that pride when you’re opening a place up, because you’re working on it so hard, and you want it to be as legitimate as possible. You don’t want to take that risk.”

However, Ellman and the rest of the Hey Dude! staff found difficultly in legitimizing themselves from an unlikely of source – Buffalo City Hall. Though they claim to have followed every piece of advice they received from City Hall, they were often given unclear answers as to which permits they should obtain.

“They city was more discouraging than encouraging. Even though we were trying to open a business in the city of Buffalo, they acted like they really didn’t want any kind of change or anything they fully didn’t understand,” says Ellman. “They wanted to tell us what we were doing wrong rather than tell us what we could do to make it right.”

Both Buyea and Ellman agree that Buffalo’s City Hall seems to have little idea with what to do with spaces like Hey Dude! and Sugar City, and after a quick phone call to the office of Pat Sole, Supervisor of Licenses, their accusations are confirmed. When asked what licenses would be required for a live music space, the receptionist replied with a dumbfounded, “I don’t know.”

Regardless of the slight run in with the law, Sugar City remains positive about their legitimacy, especially in regards to relations with the neighbors. They have hosted a community meeting to introduce themselves to their Allentown neighbors and to explain their purpose. “We’re going to be a very transparent organization as far as letting the community be involved and letting the neighbors know what we’re doing,” says Buyea. In addition to the meeting, the space plans on distributing monthly calendars to the neighborhood with a list of events and encourages them to get involved with the project.

“There’s no reason why people shouldn’t want us in the neighborhood,” says Buyea. This fact is definitely apparent when Buyea is asked if there was just one thing she wanted everyone to know about Sugar City. With a chuckle she responds with, simply, “We’re nice.”