SUB Culture

Lights flash out from the long windows at Andre’s Underground, as a bunch of people smoke outside the seemingly abandoned building off Amherst Drive and Central Avenue.

Enter the world of Sub Culture — an art installation, set to the city’s best thumping electronica beats, myriad colored patterns set on an infinite loop and, of course, dancing.

Event organizer Shawn Marron said he and his business partner Dylan Sheriff came up with the idea after visiting too many still art installations.

“Everything we do there, we try to make it so people can get involved with the art,” Marron said. “One of the pieces we had in the past was light graffiti. You could tag on the walls with light.”

Along the walls, art installations have directions like “Touch me.” When a person pulls it, a switch goes off in the piece, and it causes an attached arm with an LED to spin like helicopter blades.

In another corner, a giant wooden cube is strung with glow-in-the-dark neon strands. At night, people dance around and it while it spins. The result is a blur of colors that lingers on the eye like a wayward sunspot.
Marron said the event draws an interesting crowd. “Interesting” doesn’t really cut it. Outside in the parking lot, a woman rolls on acid while drinking an IPA from Santa Fe. Another woman entertains her hallucinogenic ramblings. She said the Sub Culture gatherings are nothing if not interesting.

“I’m glad people do something,” she said.
Inside, there’s a do-it-yourself craft table. Alaska, a woman with long, white dreads, helps people make pins or buttons to attach to shirts. She hosts a hula-hoop group, too, every Sunday.

At some point, someone mentions that Peter Pan has shown up.
He’s dressed in green tights, shirt and hat. And he’s contact juggling, or rolling a glass ball along his forearms, chest and shoulders. He does this in the middle of the dance floor, but no one seems surprised.

Casey O’Neal said he’s come to every Sub Culture show, and that he dresses like Peter Pan because — well why not?
“You have the most fun when you put the most effort into it,” he said. “All I want to do is move as much as I can.”
The venue fills up around 11 p.m., only an hour before it would normally close, but Marron said at Andre’s Underground, it can stay open until 3 a.m.

Still, the venue change, he said, has been rough on attendance.
At Black Market Goods, Marron said about 100 people showed up every night.
“We usually throw the show with zero money and walk away breaking even, but you know we’re looking to change that,” he said.
Hopefully that changes this week.

Now that they have been throwing this show for a year, Marron and his partner have a massive Halloween show lined up. Like any Halloween party, it features costumes and spooky themes.
Marron said there are 380 Facebook-confirmed guests set to attend.
“It’s really cool to have reached this point,” he said. “It’s really great to have the community participating in all of this.”

*Trick or Beats
Andre’s Underground
3503 Central Ave. N.E.
Doors at 10 p.m.
$10*