There’s no need to buy new clothes. With enough secondhand clothing and thrift stores nationwide, most Americans could get by purchasing “gently worn” clothing to satisfy their wardrobe needs for the rest of their lives.
While this practice and lifestyle may fall short on many ears, those in the know support secondhand clothing businesses in major cities while also regularly making the rounds to thrift stores here in town.
A step up on stores like this is The Sideshow, a Dolores clothing store stocked with all things retro. Sideshow owner Heather Narwid remains, in addition to business owner, a supporter of regional arts and music, often transforming her Dolores store into art gallery and concert venue.
The Sideshow will host the “Pop-Up” clothing shop Saturday at the Lost Dog Bar & Lounge. For Narwid, it’s an effort to remain creative and business-savvy when you have a business that could be better suited to a major city.
“An angle that may be relevant to Durango is how small businesses in small towns need to diversify, be extra creative and try new methods to compensate for low population and uneven levels of interest in goods that might be considered to be to a more specific, urban sensibility,” Narwid said when describing her reasons for moving her store into a local bar and lounge, even if only for a day. “I also love the crap out of Durango, and I have so many customers from there who haul themselves over here. I’d like to make it convenient for them.”
Playing music for this event will be local stomp-grass band Papa Otis and the Flume Canyon Boys. In the two years they’ve been together, the band has continued to aggressively shift its way through a variety of different sounds that make up the genre that could be called “roots.”
Early rock ’n’ roll, Mississippi hill-country blues, country and surf all have been touched on by the band led by drummer and vocalist Steve Mendias. He and his bandmates remain true to the aforementioned genres that really just make up all styles “rock,” while now taking on the presence of a drum corps band ready to lead the roots rock parade.
In addition to Mendias, who plays a snare drum, stomp-box and sings, the band includes Guy Ewing on bass; Jeff Morehead on guitar, banjo and dobro; and Richard Barnes on banjo and trumpet. Papa Otis also has a rotating cast of guest musicians, which this weekend will be Art Woodard on mandolin and Josh Standard on guitar and vocals.
“A lot of tunes we do I give to these guys and it’s a modern song, and I hear it being an old-time song. You’ve got to be careful not to play them the modern version,” Mendias said. “We like the old instruments. There’s lots of roots music, and that’s what we’re into.”
Papa Otis also will perform Saturday at Upper East Side Coffee and Deli for its customer-appreciation party.
Liggett_b@fortlewis.edu. Bryant Liggett is a freelance writer and KDUR station manager.
Bryant’s Best
Friday: Power Tribe and Splatapus will play rock and funk, 6 p.m., Moe’s, 937 Main Ave., 259-9018.
Sunday: Papa Otis and the Flume Canyon Boys will play the “Shop in a Bar” event, 1 p.m., no cover. Lost Dog Bar & Lounge, 1150 Main Ave., 259-0430.
