(groovy music) - [Eric] A space where anyone, especially a young person, can feel like their art can be performed and accepted is so important.

Without that, then none of that art happens.

I have been a resident of this neighborhood in this building since 2009.

Over the course of that time, I was teaching guitar lessons here.

We have a space downstairs where all sorts of shows have happened over the years and the community art center is really an outgrowth of that as we try to reach out and get other kids involved in learning how to carry on Birmingham's really rich music tradition by learning from other artists in this community.

When I first moved here, I was in a lot of bands, touring myself.

With a lot of my spare time, I was teaching guitar lessons and it was something that I found I was really good at and it was something that I found was really rewarding to me.

Over the next decade, my experience in music, my experience as a teacher and my experience as a neighbor led me to this dream of creating a space where I wanted the experience that I was getting to watch all my students have this life-changing experience, these life-changing relationships form, I wanted to make that equitable and accessible to anyone who lives here.

My goal is for every young person that comes through here to be able to feel that fulfillment that I have felt over a life in music.

One of the strengths that we have here is we have so many unbelievably talented musicians that we can sort of pick and choose and place personalities with.

So, you know, over, over time, students get to know all these really cool musicians that work here.

We try to make sure that all of our teaching is directly towards live performance and directly towards creation and playing together.

So it, from day one we're trying to learn your favorite song.

We're trying to figure out who else is a student here that you might want to play with.

Then we're gonna figure out how to make that happen.

Another thing that really informed me in the way that I think about art, in the way that I think about this entire space is when I was growing up going to see shows in places like Cave 9 in Birmingham where I was able to see that the music that I liked didn't have to be performed on TV or in an amphitheater.

It could be just watching regular people pull their amps out of a car and set it on a stage and play.

It was just like, "Oh my God."

Yeah, it's cool and anyone can do it.

- [Francine] To me, DIY means you, you go through and you do it yourself and it's just about doing it.

It doesn't matter if you're good at it at first.

That's how you get good at things and you know, learning from your own mistakes and providing that sense of community, especially in a musical sense.

We have hip hop acts, we have noise acts, we have, you know, folk acts coming through and it's not just one thing and it's not just one crowd going out to shows.

It's, you know, a larger sense of like, there are shows pretty often and if there's music playing, it's often gonna be something you like.

- [Eric] I think that's so cool about what we've always tried to do downstairs, that it's a space where anyone can perform or anyone is welcome.

It's always gonna be accepting and safe.

That's the exact same philosophy, the DIY mentality that we try to carry into our teaching for the even younger folks.

How cool is it that you can just pick this thing up and all of a sudden you're doing it?

It's not something that you can, that you just have to have to absorb on a screen and think about.

You can do it.

- It really cultivates being able to both see yourself as a performer, but also someone that can run sound, someone that can do things in a professional context, and going into all ages space and being able to see those sort of acts, being able to see those sort of local musicians, being able to join and start your own bands, you know, that sort of thing that just flourishes around a community is, is so important.

- Without a place that totally DIY, the most pure forms of art may not have a place to be expressed and I hope that that's what our space downstairs is always gonna stand for.

I can look back and truly say that every relationship that I have, almost, is because of music.

That's a really powerful thing when you think about it.

It's even more powerful when you think about a young person not being able to have that experience and not being able to have a small window into something that could provide them a lifetime of fulfillment, whether that's with the music they're making or just the people that they know that way.

Having a place and a thing and folks that are supportive where you feel like you belong is such an important thing.

It is to everybody.

I think that if the firehouse can be that for one kid, you know, it's all, it's all worth it.

It's so awesome to get to see this place be such an acceptance spot and such a place of belonging for so many kids.

(soft groovy music)