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Music-Culture Mixologist Brent Crampton: Rhythmic anthropology and pure love of human bodies moving
Sometimes it seems as if Brent Crampton has cornered the market on cool in Omaha with this weaving the social fabric thing he does at House of Loom. The near downtown club he co-founded and co-owns epitomizes cool in its decor, craft cocktails, diverse crowds, multicultural music, themed events, and down-for-anything vibe. Crampton’s long cultivated a dynamic, inclusive social scene bound by a love of music and a spirit of exploration. House of Loom is where it all comes together in a heady brew of influences that excite the senses, The ambience, the music, the drinks, the people, the conversations, the dancing, and last but not least Crampton himself, who serves as host, DJ, programmer, and cultural mixologsit, make it a kind of hipster heaven. His passion for what he does is palpable. Here’s my profile of Brent in the new issue of Flyover Magazine (http://flyovermagazine.com/), the new quarterly publication from Bryce Bridges that’s devoted to celebrating the creative soul. Check out more creatives in the new issue available for subscription and at select area venues.
Music-culture mixologist Brent Crampton: Rhythmic anthropology and pure love of human bodies moving
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in Flyover Magazine (http://flyovermagazine.com/)
Brent Crampton is a prince of bohemia whose branded lifestyle Loom “weaves the social fabric” by having diverse people interact through music and dance.
A DJ entrepreneur with a serious case of wanderlust, he applies a mix tape sensibility, informed by journalism and religious studies degrees, to sample, celebrate and cross-pollinate cultures. The ever curious Crampton, an Omaha resident but world citizen, curates and emcees music and dance-infused multicultural happenings.
“I think the same way I mix music I mix life experiences because I listen to a wide range of different styles of music and I eat a wide range of food and I hang out with a wide range of people. To experience the rich cultural vibrancy you have to get out of your comfort seat and create friendships at the margins.”
His events intersect African-American, Latino, LGBT and various international communities, including Omaha’s West-African, Indian, Brazilian and Jamaican populations.
“When we do those events it’s really important for us to reach out to people who identify with that culture to have them collaborate and consult with us. It’s a community thing. In a small humble way we use Loom as a tool of social transformation.”
For five years he and Jay Kline practiced the Loom social theory at a rotating series of venues. Then, in 2012, they partnered with Ethan Bondelid to give their cultural experiment a nightclub home, House of Loom. This funky oasis with eclectic decor and craft cocktails is dedicated to “mixing life, bringing people together, connecting through music, releasing in dance.” Situated just south of the popular Old Market entertainment district and just east of the historic Little Italy neighborhood, it’s inconspicuously set back from busy 10th Street.
Righteous house music sets and themed parties attract a creative demographic that recalls the hipsters and Beats of another generation. Known as the gayest straight bar in town and as a meta cosmopolitan night spot, Loom is a club and creative salon in one, Blending cultures is at its heart. As the music revs up, swirling bodies and colors animate the intimate space. The heat and noise rise as inhibitions loosen.
Having a permanent home, Crampton says, “allows us to take that ideology and transfer it to a seven-days-a-week brick and mortar space where we explore different aspects of our philosophy beyond just a dance event into spoken word, music performances, visual art…”
Crampton, whose hippie-dippie demeanor matches his New Age leanings, is seemingly everywhere at once at Loom, his tall frame hard to miss in the rub of people at the bar, in the lounge or on the dance floor. He really takes center stage when grooving in the DJ booth. He first felt the DJ call attending Omaha and Kansas City raves.
“I was really enamored with that dynamic call and response cycle of the DJ playing the music and watching people gyrate their bodies off the beat and how that fed back to the DJ. I remember making this very conscious decision of I’m going to become a DJ, I’m going to buy the gear and do this, and that just set me off on a whole course.”
From the sanctuary of the DJ booth he sets the vibe with the beats he selects.
“I kind of have this total freedom, within the jurisdiction of good music, to just do what I want to do. One of the powerful things about music is this veil it tears down that somehow we’re separate from each other.”
He takes a certain pride in providing the vehicle for interracial unions that get their start at Loom. From the booth he sees connections happen all around him but when working he mostly enters a zone.
“You kind of create a bubble where you’re doing your thing, you’re aware of what’s going on but you don’t try to think about it. It’s that sensation you get when you’re about to jump off a cliff into water,” says Crampton, who made that leap in Maui, Hawaii.
He credits Omaha’s burgeoning indie music scene of the late 1990s into the start of the new millennium with broadening his musical education. An Omaha concert he attended then featuring The Faint and Tilly and the Wall at the Sokol Auditorium made a big impression.
“I had the sense when I walked in the room I was walking upon a conversation I had been missing out on. It was articulated very well and it had a whole movement behind it. I just wanted more of it.”
He says unlike many DJs who grew up around their parents’ great vinyl records, he didn’t have that.
“I mean, there was music around growing up but it wasn’t this central theme. I discovered a passionate connection to music later in life.”
Fittingly for a man of many interests, the well-springs for his music passions include skateboarding culture and the African diaspora. He reverently watched videos of his counter-culture skateboarding idols that featured cutting-edge music from the coasts.
“I was being exposed to music I wasn’t hearing in Omaha at all. I looked up to these skateboarders and so if they were into that music then I was into it. Then I started purchasing that music. I was hearing The Roots years before they became popular. I got turned onto house music. That was really helpful because it allowed me to break out of a Midwestern mold of just being influenced by whatever I heard on the radio or MTV.
“When I walked into the world of Electronic Dance Music (EDM), I had an immediate open-mindedness to it. I’d already been prepped for being into different things.”
Some mentors guided him, including former DJ James Deep, who schooled him in the craft of emceeing.
Jack Lista opened his mind to the music’s origins. “He educated me on the historical context of dance music in America. Being a straight white kid in the Midwest I really had no idea where this whole world of music came from I was listening to. It came from a very black, Latino and also gay place. It really blew my mind away but it made a lot of sense. House music is the root of EDM but the root of that is disco. I began a musical pilgrimage and in the process it changed my route from being influenced by what I was hearing at raves to being influenced by how the African diaspora has affected music around the world.
“It’s not something we’re taught or are aware of culturally. That gave me a deep appreciation for the places it came from. I became a student of the whole black experience in the Americas and the music that followed. That’s what I started funneling into.”
It all plays out at Loom, where an evolution is under way.
“If Loom in its first five years was about the party, Loom the next five years was about being a business and Loom in its next chapter is going to be about investing in its soul. I think we’re going to take all the best parts of everything we’ve learned and channel that towards more of what we want to do, when we want to do it rather than being obligated by paying rent.”
Soul yearnings feed Crampton, adopted “from the womb” and raised by parents who encouraged his creative expressions.
“My incredibly loving, supportive parents didn’t really leave me lacking.”
Yet he surmises the “jumping from one culture or subculture to another” that adoptees like himself tend to do “is rooted in not having a foundation in some ancestral past.”
“It’s about trying to find yourself, to find your place,” he says. “I definitely have tendencies of that. I’m not bound by the past and so that gives me a lot of cultural mobility to say, If I’m not this, what am I? Well. I’m a person of the world and that can mean a lot of things, and so I choose to celebrate and explore different aspects of human expression. That has allowed me to have a certain open-mindedness, which has translated to my vocation, which I think has allowed me to live in Omaha, Neb. and be a proponent for multiculturalism.
“So, yeah, what I do vocationally is directly related to being adopted.”
He takes his spirituality seriously enough that soon after celebrating Loom’s ninth anniversary with a March 14 blow-out party he went to a remote site for a silent retreat.
“I don’t identify with one thing or another but I definitely feel like I’m walking a spiritual path. It gives me another way to interpret the world.”
There’s even a small altar above a fireplace in Loom containing incense, myrrh, sage, candles and religious artifacts.
Another way he refreshes his inner self is through travel. He’s visited Hawaii, San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, Boston, Miami, London, Mexico, Peru and Cuba, among other locations.
“When I go to places I definitely experience the music there. Brazil has always been on my bucket list.”
Most everywhere he’s travels he DJs. An opportunity to gig at what he calls “probably my favorite nightclub in America” – Cielo in New York City’s packing district – held special meaning for Crampton because, he adds, “It was one of the influences on House of Loom. It was some sort of life goal to play there.” laying the noted Slowdown in Omaha meant a lot to him, too.
Crampton, who sees himself producing music at some point, is sure Loom will continue doing its thing.
“I kind of feel like we’re just hitting a stride. We all have this renewed sense of energy and inspiration. People need an escape to release tension and there’s a certain connection and sense of community you make through social gatherings. Music and dance is our preferred medium to bring people together. You may think you don’t have anything in common but if you’re in that same space sharing the love of the beat in that same moment, boom, there’s your first connection.”
The shared smiles and feelings of optimistic energy expressed then, as well as the personal relationships that form, are what drive him.
Though he worries about burn-out, he’s loving the freedom to just think-up and create these “artful expressions of multiculturalism.”
Visit http://www.houseofloom.com and brentcrampton.typepad.com.
Spoken Word Soul Sisters Stir the Verbal Gumbo Pot to Keep it Real and Flavorful
Spoken word. The word-based performance art ranges the gamut in terms of style and form. But it’s best practitioners usually deliver emotive, intelligent work touching on personal, social, cultural, political themes and featuring a lyrical rhythm and rhyme cadence not unlike that of song. Spoken word events can highlight a range of approaches and subjects that stretch your mind. My soon to appear story for The Reader (www.thereader.com) profiles one of the Omaha metro area’s most diverse spoken word events, Verbal Gumbo, and the two women who stir its pot, Felicia Webster and Michelle Troxclair.
WithLove Felicia, ©photo by Herb Thompson
Spoken Word Soul Sisters Stir the Verbal Gumbo Pot to Keep it Real and Flavorful
©by Leo Adam Biga
Soon to appear in The Reader
Soul sister poetesses Michelle Troxclair and Felicia “WithLove” Webster stir the pot to make the spicy mix of Verbal Gumbo, the spoken word series throwing down the third Thursday of every month at House of Loom.
The artists launched the series last fall at the invitation of Loom’s Brent Crampton.
“Felicia and Michelle have brought a consistently diverse, experimental and truthfully honest night of poetry and performance. They’re two very strong women in our community that have been really active in the social progressive and arts scene here,” says Crampton. “They help us to live out our mission here with social issues and culture and bringing people together.”
Gumbo’s beats and hipsters fit right in at Loom, 1012 South 10th Street, with its music-dance cultural blends and crafted cocktails.
The spoken word sets are as diverse as the poets themselves. Some pieces are intensely personal. Others, political. Some call for action, others ask you to think.
The mic’s evenly shared across genders and races, with people standing to deliver everything from private testimonies to slam spits to hip hop rhymes to indignant rants to preacher-like sermons to social justice screeds to inspired songs.
“This is a very open, diverse atmosphere and we’re not in judgment of how people choose to be in the world,” says Webster, an arts educator. “Diversity is how we present ourselves here. We’re ‘edutainers.’ If somebody comes up and shares a poem about abuse, well that gives us an opportunity to have a conversation about it.”
“Disseminating information that is going to charge people to heal, to change, to move, to educate, to motivate is also a part of what we do at Verbal Gumbo,” says Webster. “The issues in the community we come from are very deep. There are a lot of wounds, some of them still open. Having a platform where you are not being judged for what you do or what you say or how you say it allows people to get up there.”
“It’s a healing. Like I have anger management issues and I have to write it and say it, it has to come out. It’s a cleansing experience. And that’s what a lot of people are using this for. People share things on this microphone they wouldn’t share anywhere else. We’re here to provide the platform for people to share and to be transparent and vulnerable,” says Troxclair, a former arts and social services administrator.
Michelle Troxclair
Poet Ruth Marimo’s raw story of surviving an abusive relationship, being arrested as an illegal alien and coming out as a lesbian has been embraced there. The Zimbabwe native and mother of two reels about the seemingly contradictory facets of her life in her intense yet whimsical piece, “Who Am I?”
I’m a stranger to my own mother,
A child with no parent,
A sister with no siblings,
An immigrant to this land,
An alien to my own nation.
Who am I?
I’m everything I’m not supposed to be,
A Lesbian who owns no cats,
A literate African,
An educated fool,
A voice that can’t be silenced,
A turbulence that can’t be calmed,
An answer that can’t be found…
Marimo describes how for her Gumbo debut “both Michelle and Felicia really took me in with open arms and under their wing,” adding, “Everyone has just been very supportive.”
Ruth Marimo
Troxclair says Marimo’s “very tragic story that’s had this phenomenal outcome” is among many stories of personal transformation told there.
“Sometimes someone will say something that someone needed to hear. That’s how it works here. We’re all about that,” says Webster.
Judging, formally or informally, has no place at Verbal Gumbo.
Troxclair says, “Part of my housecleaning when I get up there is to say, ‘It’s difficult to come up here and put your soul and your life experience up on this microphone and so if you don’t like what you’re hearing be quiet.’ We do not allow anybody to be criticized belittled or demeaned in any way. That’s not what we’re here for.”
“When somebody’s on the mic, we respect the mic,” Webster likes to say.
“People are comfortable here,” says Troxclair. “They feel loved, respected and honored and part of something bigger than just themselves. People who wouldn’t set foot in a regular church, mosque, temple, whatever, say it’s almost like church because it’s an uplifting and spiritual experience.”
“Verbal Gumbo is my nondenominational church,” says Webster. “We’re speaking life into words, we’re breathing life into the experience. And we make everybody feel like family when they come in. There have been plenty of nights when I have needed to be lifted up. This is like my poetic-spiritual reciprocity. It feeds my soul, it mixes that gumbo pot up, adding spices when I’m needing a little cayenne pepper to get through.”
Cultivating new artists like Marimo is part of the deal.
“We adopt people on a regular basis,” says Troxclair. “I’m very much a mama and so I take in all strays. When people come in here and they share their stories we’re like, ‘You’re family.’ We embrace everybody we come into contact with and we want to make sure everybody feels like this is a home.”
Before her Jan. 17 Gumbo set Marimo said it herself. The author of the self-published memoir Freedom of an Illegal Immigrant says, “It’s something I look forward to every month because it’s such a welcoming space and it’s diverse.”
“The people who come through those doors come from such different backgrounds and are able to share their experiences and it feeds us for a number of reasons,” says Troxclair, “The level of talent is one. It’s always good to see talented people come and do what they do. Some of the things they talk about is another reason. They talk about everything from relationship stuff to political stuff to tragic life experiences. It’s just edifying.”
The styles and themes range from Marimo’s lyrical reflections to Webster’s old-school beatboxing to Developing Crisp‘s rap-style hooks to Nathan Scott’s political history lesson to Paula Bell’s black woman identity manifesto that ends with, “So you can take it or you can leave it, I really don’t give a damn.”
The audience of creatives sits at cocktail tables and cabanas or stands at the bar. Onlookers really feeling it lean into a performance. It’s the epitome of Omaha Cool, complete with snapping fingers, knowing, nodding heads, raised drinks and adult conversation .
The women behind Gumbo have a long history celebrating The Word. Webster lays claim to organizing the metro’s first spoken word series at the defunct Dazy Maze in the late 1990s. She then left for Philadelphia, where she and Davina Natanya Stewart formed the spoken word duo Daughters of the Diaspora. Troxclair hails from a family of storytellers and has written and orated since youth. When Webster returned to Omaha a few years ago Troxclair recruited her for the Poetry in Motion series she hosted at Loves Jazz & Arts Center.
The diversity and the vibe of Loom, the pair say, help set Gumbo apart from other spoken word venues and events here.
“It brings people from all walks of life and every community in one spot and everybody enjoys each other and respects each other’s culture,” says Troxclair. “We’re open to all different kinds of audiences and artists.”
Gumbo’s wide-open aesthetic complements Loom’s ultra laid-back scene.
“It’s very chilled, very relaxed,” says Webster. “The antique furniture, the vintage feel, the exposed brick, the music, the artwork, it’s very eclectic. All of that creates the ambience that is totally different from any other place in Omaha. You feel like you’re not in Omaha for one night. It’s a whole other vibration. It’s for grown-ups. There’s this opportunity to be a part of a rich culture of artistic expression.”
That expression may include music, dance, body painting and moving to whatever groove grabs you. Small community vendors are invited to promote their side hustle goods and services. Webster and Troxclair say Gumbo’s also a networking-information forum, ala the black barbershop-salon, where community issues and events get discussed and personal problems get aired and vetted.
“It’s a lifeline,” says Webster.
The next Verbal Gumbo is Feb. 21. The event starts at 7 p.m. Admission is $5.
For series updates visit http://www.facebook.com/verbalgumbo.
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House of Loom weaves a new cultural-social dynamic for Omaha
Urban hot spots come and go. A rocking new one in Omaha that’s all the rage is House of Loom. What it’s staying power is no one knows, but it’s almost beside the point as far as co-founder Brent Crampton is concerned. He’s more about using the venue as a launching pad for socially and culturally progressive ideas and connections that assume a life of their own than he is in making the place a runaway commercial success. So far, he and his partners seem to be doing both. Crampton is another in a long and growing line of creatives making an impact here and his House of Loom is another tangible expression of the more sophisticated and diverse cultural menu emerging in this once sleepy Midwest burg that has awakened. Omaha has actually come into its own as a hopping place where there’s always something compelling going on no matter what you’re into. This blog is full of profiles about the persons and places transforming the city into a cosmo receiving center and exporter of new, different, engaging stuff. Much more to come. Keep reading and checking back.
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in Encounter Magazine
For a startup bar, House of Loom at 1012 South 10th St. is generating mucho buzz. The reasons for its popularity are as eclectic as the place and the young creatives behind it.
Start with the name. It’s both a brand and a social theory that co-owner and music director Brent Crampton, a DJ by trade, conceived with business partner Jay Kline. Five years ago they launched loom, with a small l, as a roaming multicultural dance party aimed at getting people who normally don’t mix to meet, experience new cultures, form social networks and have fun.
“I have a passion for bringing people together,” says Crampton.
It never sat right with him that despite the Afro-beats he played, his DJing gigs drew mostly white crowds. Under the loom name he began inviting diverse audiences to intersect over music or art or causes at theme nights. “Cultural ambassadors” spread the word.
“These are people who are naturally connectors who have a social network within a certain cultural demographic,” says Crampton. “Through networking we have a lot of people who are into what we’re doing and support us.”
For Crampton and Kline, loom describes their intent to weave the social fabric through music, dance and other art forms, thereby broadening the cultural experience and moving forward social progress. With his Russell Brand looks and persona, Crampton’s a new-school hipster at ease talking about groove as an instrument of change.
He, Kline (the former owner of Fluxiron Gallery) and a third partner, entrepreneur Ethan Bondelid, made loom hot ticket events. The turnouts and cachet kept growing but loom lacked a home of its own. By the partners leasing and renovating the former site of Bones, the Stork Club and the Neon Goose, they now have a distinctly urban space with more flexibility to entertain patrons and promote social agenda issues.
“It opens up possibilities to a lot of great things,” says Crampton.
Bondelid says it’s all about “getting people to try new things,” adding, “We invite people to go on an experience with us.”
Regulars have followed Crampton and Co. to the House of Loom’s near-Old Market location. First-timers are quickly becoming devotees. With a decor equal parts classic Old World bar, nouveau club, chic salon and kitsch bordello it has a warm, funky ambience that, combined with an intimate scale, encourages staying awhile and interacting.
“The idea is for it to look really nice but we don’t want any form of pretentiousness. We just want a nice, unique, comfortable place that does look elegant in its own way,” says Bondelid.
Curtains can be drawn and furniture rearranged to create more private or open spaces.
A custom-built booth is where Crampton and guest MCs ignite the music. LED lights frame the electric mood. When weather permits, an outdoor patio and garden offer an open-air hang-out.
House of Loom has hosted everything from an Omaha Table Talk dinner to an Opera Omaha night to a Project Interfaith speed dialogue to a celebration of India’s Festival of Lights to a Tango Night to private parties, tastings and spoken word events. It’s an in meet-up spot for arts patrons before and after shows. Featured bands have played Cuban, hip-hop, jazz and a myriad of other music.
Catered international cuisine accompanies some events.
The cultural mix happens in a blend of music, food, ideas, personalities and walks-of-life. Bondelid says House of Loom is a haven for creative class urban adventurers seeking to sample “all different kinds” of experiences and expressions.
For events, bookings and hours, visit http://www.houseofloom.com or call 402-505-5494.
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