"It's been one long art project," says Kalyn Heffernan, the hip-hop band's queer and wheelchair-using frontperson with osteogenesis imperfecta. “I wanted to create a room in Meow Wolf that was built for me, so we made a pop-up, 3D house, 'Wheelchair Space Kitchen' where I'm normal size, and everybody else is scrunched in. Music was always supposed to be involved, but we didn't actually record the music 'til the end of the construction process.”
On Sunday, June 22, the band will finally bring that music out of the exhibit and onto the stage with a live performance and vinyl release party from 4 to 7 p.m. at Sips (With a Z), the second-floor lounge inside Meow Wolf’s Convergence Station. The band claims that these new songs were never meant to be released publicly.
"I like the idea of exclusivity, and we did make the music exclusively for the room," Heffernan says. "In the room, it's playing on like, a ten-minute loop. It's not your typical verse-chorus song of verse-chorus. There aren't a lot of words. I really tried to space myself out vocally because the music that my band laid down is perfectly spacey."
The tracks are being released as a double seven-inch vinyl through Denver’s Unit E Records. Each copy includes a sticker sheet hand-drawn by Heffernan and a set of “secret instructions” to help fans recreate the room’s vibe at home. Vinyls will also be stocked at the Meow Wolf Denver gift shop.
Still from the music video for Wheelchair Sports Camp's "All Access," shot inside Meow Wolf.
Courtesy of Jeremy Pape
Wheelchair Sports Camp’s connection with Meow Wolf began in Santa Fe, where the group played a show not long after that location opened in 2016. “I was hoping that I could help them make the Santa Fe space a little bit more accessible,” Heffernan recalls. “And they said, ‘We know, we know, we kind of screwed up, but the next one will be accessible.’ And it just so turned out that the next one ended up being Denver.”
The band was among an early group of local artists invited to discuss the Denver location in 2017. Heffernan also began pitching ideas for a room within the installation and was eventually given permission to begin working on the installation. While the music created for the space was never meant to exist outside of it, interest from visitors grew, with fans tracking down the band online and asking where they could find the songs.
"I started hearing people on Reddit asking about the song," Heffernan says. "People kept finding me through the band's social media and asking where they could listen to the song, so we decided to release it in a limited way."
Titled "Kitchen" and "Fridge," the two compositions span four sides of a double seven-inch vinyl, each with a long and short version. Pressed on 100 percent recycled eco-vinyl in two limited colorways, Space Caterpillar Green and Ice Tray Blue, the records are being released by Unit E Records.
"Wheelchair Sports Camp was raised in a DIY venue called Unit E over on 12th and Santa Fe, and now Unit E is putting out local records on vinyl," Heffernan says. "Meow Wolf was interested in doing something with the installation and Unit E was interested in putting out the vinyl. Finally, after four years of the installation being open, all the stars aligned."
Also newly released is a music video for the track “All Access,” filmed inside the exhibit and directed by longtime collaborator Jeremy Pape. The video features appearances by disability rights icons Alice Wong and Laura Hershey and weaves together themes of access, intimacy and interdependence.
“I always envisioned doing a music video in the room because we built this set, so we might as well use it,” Heffernan says. "Filming was such a dream process. We shot the music video inside Meow Wolf over two nights in early April 2024. We have a release party coming up soon, which is exciting, but it has been a long, long process to get all of this done."
The June 22 release show at Sips (with a Z) is the first time Wheelchair Sports Camp will perform all of the music created specifically for Meow Wolf live. Heffernan believes the funky club space is ideal for the music's debut performance.
“Sips fits the sound of Wheelchair Sports Camp really well,” Heffernan says. “It’s this loungy, jazzy, swank space, and that’s the vibe that we’re going for. We have never performed this music live before, so it is exciting for us as musicians. It’s going to be a love affair for sure.”
Wheelchair Sports Camp Record Release, Sunday, June 22, 4 to 7 p.m. at Sips (with a Z), Meow Wolf Denver, 1338 First Street, second floor. Tickets for the release party and the record are $35. Learn more at wheelchairsportscamp.co.
