Constructed around 1940 as a railroad water-treatment facility, this seven-story Corten steel water tank was moved to Rangely in the mid-1960s for use as part of a fire-suppression system for the local utility company. The plan was never realized, though, as the underlying shale proved unable to support the weight of the filled tank. So it remained empty. However, the bed of gravel upon which the tank was placed bowed its floor into a gentle parabola, giving it an extraordinary internal acoustical resonance.
History
In 1976, sound artist Bruce Odland was shown the place by two Rangely locals. Odland understood immediately that he had stumbled upon a treasure. “I’d never heard anything like it,” he said. “I’d never heard a sound last that long, with these dizzyingly beautiful reverberation effects going all over the place.” For decades after Odland’s discovery, The TANK remained a secret performance and recording space for a dedicated group of sound artists and musicians.
About The TANK
Then in 2012, when The TANK’S existence was threatened–the owner considered selling it for scrap–these artists and others responded, forming a group called Friends of The TANK, which included volunteers from all over the country, as well as members of Rangely and Rio Blanco County governments, many Rangely area residents, and local businesses.
Two Kickstarter campaigns and many donations from individuals enabled the group to secure The TANK and its land; install electrical service, ventilation, and lighting; build an access road and parking lot; cut a full size door for legal access and to accommodate large instruments for the first time; seal and paint the floor and walls, construct a deck, install safety fencing, and provide sanitary facilities. They then petitioned for a Change of Use permit from storage facility to public assembly hall and, once the renovations brought the facility up to international code, The TANK received its Certificate of Occupancy. Further funding from individual donations funded an executive director position and enabled the group to hire others to staff the facility. The TANK’s first grant, from the Boettcher Foundation, purchased a state-of-the-art recording studio, housed in a shipping container next to The TANK.
During Rangely’s Septemberfest 2015, an Open House at The TANK drew musicians, performers, and visitors from Rangely, Denver, Vernal (Utah), and beyond. Spontaneous jam sessions, a workshop with homeschool students, two concerts at the local elementary school, many hours of sonic exploration by local residents, and a free concert came together at The TANK that weekend. A few weeks later, The Flobots visited as part of “Detour,” a pilot program from Colorado Creative Industries and the Colorado Office of Economic Development. Even before this official opening, The TANK was already known, talked about, and visited by people in the region, and fast became a signature element of the Western Slope.
In 2017, its third season of operation, The TANK hosted dozens of reserved visits, recording sessions, artist residencies, and performances, including dates by Rinde Eckert, Jessica Meyer, and the Grammy-winning vocal group Roomful of Teeth, along with many local events, like a presentation by the Jefferson County Open School Marimba Band, “Open Saturdays,” during which local residents and visitors can visit The TANK, and off-site concerts by visiting artists in the town park and elsewhere.
Local Support
Critical to the continued success of The TANK is the ongoing support of the Rangely community. From the beginning, local supporters have contributed knowledge, in-kind contributions, and steadfast support. Rio Blanco County and Rangely officials have helped in many ways, including donating and installing a gigabyte fiber optic internet connection, which gives the facility the capacity to livestream events in The TANK around the world. Over Christmas in 2016, a group of residents recorded Rangely A’Caroling at the TANK, which we produced as a CD. Proceeds from the sales of the CD are split between The TANK, Rangely School District RE4 and Colorado Northwestern Community College.
A Hopeful Sign
The TANK is a unique and hopeful sign in a time of division in the country. Here’s Alex Ross, writing in the New Yorker: “In Rangely, locals have embraced the scheme. Urie Trucking built an access road into the site. The W. C. Striegel pipeline company supplied raw materials that was converted into percussion instruments. Giovanni’s Italian Grill created a special TANK pizza. Rangely is a conservative town … but it has welcomed the incursion of avant-gardists bearing didgeridoos, and some of the most dedicated sonic tinkerers are locals. A military veteran finds peace playing violin in the Tank.” This united response to the TANK is a powerful testament to the potential of art to provide common ground in American culture.
For more about the history of The TANK, read Waving Hands Review: From Steam Age to World Music Stage The History of Rangely’s “Tank” by Heather Zadra. For a brief video history of The TANK, look here.
National Acclaim
The TANK also began to receive acclaim in Colorado and beyond. Writing in the New Yorker after witnessing a performance in The TANK, Alex Ross was ecstatic. “In my experience,” he wrote, “music has never seemed closer to nature.” The Los Angeles Times covered the place in detail. “Forget Carnegie Hall. Musicians rush to rural Colorado to play The Tank” was the headline. “One road to the musical future,” wrote Alex Ross, “now runs through Rangely.”
Bill Ballou is currently on the faculty at the California Institute of the Arts School of Theater. He worked as the Technical Director at REDCAT in Los Angeles for the last 18 years and was the Technical Director for NBC’s presentation of the Beijing Olympics in 2008. He has coordinated construction and designed special machinery and rigging for many feature films and theater productions, including Darren Aronofsky’s Noah (2014), Julie Taymor’s The Tempest (2008), Wes Anderson’s Darjeeling Limited (2007), Mel Brooks’ The Producers (2006) and Dirty Dancing (1986). His work on music videos included crumpling three million dollars in fake bills for AD/DC’s “Money Talks.” Bill won the LDI Technical Director of the Year Award (2003), and was awarded a Bessie for Set Design (1997). Bill has worked on various projects at the Tank and was instrumental in its original renovation as a public assembly hall in 2013.
Foster Brashear is an inventor, engineer, and light-sculpture artist. He recently retired from Adastra Designs, Inc., a company he founded in 1974. The company designed and built a variety of amusement devices ranging from electronic basketball games to unique musical instruments (including a giant “Walking Piano” like the one featured in the Tom Hanks movie BIG.) He first visited The TANK with musician friends many years ago, at a time when playing and recording there was a clandestine affair, and the only entry was through the portal. He is committed to the continuing evolution of The TANK as a world-class Sonic Arts venue. He has been married to his wife Jill for over 40 years and is the father of five adult children.
Sandy Brown has lived in Colorado since 1988 and lives on and owns Whimsy Farm, a small fruit farm in Boulder County. Much of Sandy’s career life was spent in human service work; in particular, he spent about 20 years working with faith-based community organizations as part of the PICO National Network. He founded and Directed Congregations Building Community (CBC) in the northern front-range of Colorado. He also works as a paid consultant to non-profits in Boulder County and Denver and serves on the Boards of Directors of The Imagine! Foundation, on which he is Treasurer, and The Center for Compassionate Connections – C3. Sandy is an outdoorsman and retired mountaineer, a father of three with two grandchildren.
Ben Gondrez describes himself as a creative technologist. He’s also an FAA certified drone pilot. He is currently an Exhibit Technician at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. For nine years, he ran the OtterBox Digital Dome Theater (planetarium) at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. He’s also done website development and maintenance at Colorado State University and maintained a computer lab in the Aurora Public Schools. He has lots of experience working with nonprofits, worked with The TANK and Bruce Odland on the 360 Project, and has contributed drone video footage to The TANK on a couple of previous occasions, notably for the conclusion of The TANK and the West, the film and music event with Bill Morrison and Bill Frisell. He lives in Loveland, Colorado, with his wife, Sierra Tamkun.
Lisa Hatch, Treasurer, assists small businesses and non-profit organizations with procedure manuals, by-laws, grant funding, and project management. She was a member of the Rangely, Colorado, Town Council and served for 20 years as a commissioned officer in the US Army Reserves, commanding the 419th Transportation Company in Desert Storm. Past President of Rangely Community Gardens, she has also headed a local school music program for children with dyslexia.
Kim Keith, Certified as a Change Leader by Colorado Creative Industries, is the Executive Director of Steamboat Creates, the arts council in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, nurturing the arts so creativity flourishes. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Colorado Humanities, the Colorado Mountain College Advisory Board, and the Routt County Economic Development Council. Before she evolved into an arts administrator, Kim worked as a creative consultant for Advocates – Building Peaceful Communities, a community-based awareness campaign, honoring the survivors of intimate partner violence helped by Advocates in their 30-year history. Part of this project included folding more than 7,000 origami doves and displaying them in the regional hospital. Kim is an accomplished artist in her own right, with work including sculptural installations, mixed media, poetry and photography.
Steve Lewis is a former Global 100 law firm CIO. He has been working in information technology since the mid 1980’s, and came out of that generation of IT professionals who studied literature, were declared unemployable by recruiters, and then went on to successful careers. He has carried out lifelong non-careers in ukuleles, bikes, poems, and winemaking, and builds websites for fun in his spare time. Before moving fully into IT, Steve was a private investigator working scam and sting operations and was once paid to destroy a warehouse-full of counterfeit PacMan games with a crowbar and sledgehammer, work he would have gladly done for free. He currently chairs the Tank’s board.
Jeremiah Moore, Secretary, is a practicing sound artist and designer at Jeremiah Moore Sound, his San Francisco studio, specializing in high-craft sound with attention to environment, detail, and creative process in film, theater, radio, and other media. His projects include work with The Residents, Ai Wei Wei, the Kitchen Sisters, Doug Hall, and 2016 Oscar Nominee Last Day of Freedom.
Composer/performer Ben Neill is the inventor of the Mutantrumpet, a hybrid electro-acoustic instrument, and is recognized as a musical innovator who is “using a schizophrenic trumpet to create art music for the people” (Wired Magazine). Neill has recorded thirteen albums of his music. His extensive performance history includes BAM Next Wave Festival, Big Ears Festival, Lincoln Center, Whitney Museum of American Art, The Broad Museum, The Tank, Bing Concert Hall at Stanford, and the Getty Museum. The list of creative innovators with whom Neill has worked closely includes La Monte Young, David Berhman, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Rhys Chatham, DJ Spooky, and Mimi Goese. He has been a Professor of Music at Ramapo College of New Jersey since 2008.
Bruce Odland is a composer, sound artist, sonic thinker, and the founding director of the Tank Center for Sonic Arts. He is known for large-scale sound installations in public spaces, creating unique instruments that reveal music inherent in natural and urban environments. His pioneering work in theater, film, and interactive multi-media has led to collaborations with many of his heroes including Wooster Group, Peter Sellars, JoAnne Akalaitis and Laurie Anderson. He has done projects in Seoul, New York, Berlin, Sydney, and Zurich; in art museums including the Denver Art Museum, the Field Museum and Mass MoCA; and at the international documenta14, Ars Electronica, Edinburgh International and Salzburg Festivals. Many of his installations are collaborations with Austrian sound artist Sam Auinger, with whom he founded O+A in 1989.
Matthew Simonson is a born and raised Coloradoan, who has been involved in artistic endeavors all his life. He graduated from CU Denver with a degree in audio production and currently works as an audio producer for places like Colorado Public Radio, The Atlantic, WAMU in Washington DC, and more. He is also the creator and composer of the YouTube sound-design video series Music in Objects. In 2019 Matthew founded the independent podcast Range & Slope, featuring Colorado-centered audio documentaries, including one about The TANK and Bruce’s Detour 360 tour around the state. When he’s not pursuing stories, he might be on a road trip, or at a thrift store looking for old media, or playing his Electronic Valve Instrument (a “trumpet synthesizer”).
Elizabeth Wiley is a visual artist, educator, businessperson, and community organizer, who moved to Rangely in 2004 after earning her MFA at Ohio University in Athens. Prior to the move she served as Program Director at Carbondale Clay Center, a community arts non-profit in Carbondale, Colorado. In 2018 she opened a free, fully-stocked community art studio in Rangely. Beth's connection to The Tank goes back to early days of its incorporation as a non-profit, when she worked to garner local support for its opening Kickstarter campaigns of 2013 and 2014. Immediately after The Tank received its Certificate of Occupancy, Beth organized its first public events: community workshops and a performance by the Colorado rap group The Flobots. Beth faithfully hawks t-shirts at Tank concerts and is the mom of staff person Caleb, who himself has been a nearly constant presence at the Tank since the age of four.
A Rangely native, Vice Chair Heather Zadra is Outreach Coordinator for Mesa County Public Health. A writer and teacher, she spent time in The TANK as a teenager, returned to it 20 years later to report on TANK activities for the county newspaper, and has been involved with the project ever since. She served as Operations Coordinator for The TANK and was instrumental in connecting The TANK and community members during the project’s inaugural Kickstarter campaign. Heather also teaches writing and has published her work, including a brief history of The TANK, in The Waving Hands Review and Home on the Rangely magazine.
Sustaining
Sherry Finzer is an award-winning flutist and recording artist, based in Phoenix, Arizona. Sherry plays a variety of low flutes and world flutes, making music that can aid in healing, insomnia, stress relief, and meditation. She has recorded more than 25 albums, all with this focus on wellness, and she is the founder of Heart Dance Records, which features over 50 artists with a similar mission, to heal the world through music. Her radio promotions company, Higher Level Media, has promoted more than 200 releases in the New Age genre. In her spare time, Sherry enjoys exploring the Southwest both on- and off-road in her Bikini Blue Jeep Rubicon.
Tom Wasinger is a composer, arranger, producer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Boulder, Colorado. He has received three Grammy Awards as the producer of the “Best Native American Music Album” in 2003, 2007, and 2009. His compositions have been used for films and programming for CBS, NBC, ABC, ESPN, HBO and Animal Planet. He has performed in many venues worldwide, including Carnegie Hall, and is an inventor and builder of experimental musical instruments.
Emerita
Lois LaFond is a premier American artist making music for young children. Her 25-year career combined touring the US–including the New Orleans Jazz Fest–with her band, Lois LaFond & The Rockadiles, and producing six recordings of original world music, which have won awards including the Nappa Gold. She spent many years dedicated to The TANK and currently teaches English to immigrants in Boulder, Colorado, where she lives and works.
Mark McCoin is an interdisciplinary artist specializing in sound-based performance and installation with integrated technologies. He holds the position of Associate Professor in the School of Art at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Selected works include The Feral Piano, an expansive evening-length performance; Uprising, an interactive sculpture installation for Sculpture Month Houston; and a prize-winning Piano Car performance at the Houston Art Car Parade. In recognition of his accomplishments in art and technology, McCoin was honored with a prestigious George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation Research Fellowship from Brown University to support the continuation of his work.
Board of Directors
James Paul, our Executive Director, comes to The TANK from a career of more than 20 years as a grant writer, arts administrator and executive director of non-profit arts organizations. In New York, James headed the House Foundation for the Arts, which represents the work of singer and composer Meredith Monk, and worked at SummerStage, which conducts free concerts in the parks of the city. For 12 years, he operated a country opera house in Ancram, New York, 100 miles up the Hudson from NYC. He is originally from San Francisco, where he worked with the Exploratorium, the Headlands Center for the Arts, and other organizations. A Guggenheim Fellow, Paul is a poet and writer, author of several books, and holds a doctorate in Medieval English Literature. Executive Director of The TANK since 2017, James organizes board meetings, writes grants and raises funds, books The TANK’s recording sessions, maintains the website, oversees marketing and publicity, and occasionally rakes the winter ruts out of the gravel parking lot.
Samantha Wade is The Tank’s Assistant Director. She has worked at The Tank since 2014. Her passion is sonic exploration, and she has a deep understanding of The TANK’s recording studio equipment and protocols, with a specialty in mic placement. She represented The TANK at the Vital Currents Conference in Miami in 2019 and at the Colorado Creative Industries Summit in Steamboat Springs in 2021. In 2018, Samantha received a Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Fellowship and a scholarship for a Residency at the Music District in Fort Collins, where she honed her Pro Tools DAW skills and shadowed engineers in recording sessions at The Blasting Room, Mighty Fine Productions, and Stout Studios. At The TANK she has studied with engineers Bruce Odland, Mark Fuller, Greg Heimbecker, Bob Burnham, Tom Wasinger, James Tuttle, Steve Skinner, Jeremiah Moore, Michael Van Wagoner and others. She also photographs TANK sessions and visits, produces a vlog on The TANK and other subjects, and assists on outdoor concerts as a diffusionist.
Michael Van Wagoner has been a technician and recording engineer at The TANK since 2018. Originally from Price, Utah, Michael is a multi-instrumentalist musician, who came to sound engineering as the natural extension of his musical practice. With Samantha Wade as his mentor, Michael mastered the recording tools in the TANK studio and now runs professional recording sessions with clients as the second Resident Sound Engineer and general TANK Technician. Inside The TANK, Michael sets up sessions, coaches the artists, and places microphones and speakers for maximum response. For outside concerts, he installs The TANK’s 5:1 Meyer Sound speaker system. Michael worked with sonic artist and TANK board chair Bruce Odland to develop his skills as a diffusionist, putting them into practice when he and Samantha Wade constructed The TANK’s Slow Beethoven outdoor installation along the Yampa River, for a conference in Steamboat Springs in 2021. Michael also hosts The TANK’s free Open Saturday program, playing guitars, keyboards, flutes and percussion to demonstrate The TANK’s sonic depth for visitors.
Caleb Wiley, the newest member of The TANK staff, joined us in 2021, as our Lighting Intern. As such, he became adept at running The TANK’s new theatrical lighting system. He developed looks and ran lights for the Solstice Festival and for The TANK and the West, our film and music event with Bill Frisell and Bill Morrison. In 2022, Caleb became a regular staff member, working all events. Caleb is a Rangely native, who has been making noise in The TANK since the age of five. He is a passionate participant in the Junior/Senior High School Band, playing the trumpet and learning other brass instruments. Caleb will graduate from Rangely High School in 2026 and dreams of attending Julliard, with law school as a backup.