Southend Musicworks reopens tonight, at 1313 S. Wabash, putting the city’s savviest presenters of late-20th-century sound and fury back in business. That the largely raw space will be even moderately finished and furnished is a small miracle. “It’s hard to organize work crews,” says Leo Krumpholz, speaking of the extremely mixed bag of volunteers who make Southend tick. “Everyone’s too clever–they try to figure out better ways of doing everything, instead of just doing it.”
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If you don’t, it may help to take a few examples into account, such as that of Aaron Gurner, an accountant, the assistant controller for the Infant Welfare Society, who found his tastes gravitating toward more experimental music and now handles much of the publicity for Southend. There’s Lawrence Rocke, whose passion for the music of saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell inspired a 1985 concert he and Krumpholz produced. Rocke will miss tonight’s opening; last fall he decided he needed to visit north Africa and he’s still there. There’s Arno Rotbart, an investment research analyst, and Ken Bowen, who holds a finance degree but now sells books and acts as Krumpholz’s right-hand man.
These people did not come from central casting. “We’re running a sort of 60s concept, but we’re running it in the 90s,” admits Krumpholz.
No one gets paid, not even Krumpholz, who devotes his full energies to the operation. “It never is about making money. It’s always about getting to zero. How do I stay alive?” he echoes. “I live like a bum–I live off my wife, Sylvia Huot. She is Southend’s main patron, because she understands that what I’m doing is the same thing she’s doing. She’s a medievalist and an academic, and she feels very strongly about cultural history. And she understands that I too have a passion for digging out the unknown and in furthering a future cultural history. I supported her through thin times, and now she’s supporting me.”
