Born and raised in Denver, Matt LaBarge had been living with his wife Alison in New York, working as a producer and writer for MTV for five years when he decided it was time to come home.

“I always had this, ‘Denver is a cowtown’ kind of thing going. And more than anything, I wanted to leave Denver to go to a bigger place,” says Matt. “I then when I went to a bigger place, it was cool there, but then I appreciated what Denver had to offer. It’s a very odd and interesting little town. And I love it.”

Although he wanted a change in career, being a family man he fell back on his writing skills to take the opportunity to freelance, writing scripts for a crime series on a cable channel show. But that left him bored, and working alone as a freelance writer; it was a lonely career existence.

Matt decided that freelancing was short lived for him, and took classes at the city college on small business to prepare himself to one day own and run a bar in Denver. This was something he’d wanted to do since his days at City Spirit where he worked 10 to 12 years ago, before it was the yuppie LoDo of today.

Sometimes fate has a way of steering us back on our passionate path. So when Quixote's on 7 South Broadway was closing, Matt and Alison were at right place at the right time. “I used to hang out here in the early ‘90s when it was a punk rock bar. When I found out that bar was for sale, my wife and I were like, ‘We want it!’”

What they didn’t know is that they scored not one, but two venues. The previous owners had taken over the space next door, which had been a diner. As of this Thursday, what was once Quixotes will now be the Hi-Dive, and come the beginning of next year, Sputnik will be it’s next-door neighbor – funded by some savings, max’d out credit cards, and the previous owner carrying part of the start up expenses. Luckily, they were able piggy-back off the existing licenses that were already in place, which allowed them to open a few weeks after Quixote's closed instead of having to go through committees, which take months or even a year.

Taking his Colorado roots mixed in with his previous big city experiences, he wants to mesh the laid back, friendly manner of our town with music, art, film and anything that people want to bring to the table at Hi-Dive. Mondays will be movie night, possibly sponsored by Twist and Shout, who happens to have quite the DVD collection. Then taking a taste of New York experimental performance art, he wants to blend music and cinema, using a live band to play the soundtrack to whatever’s playing on the screen.

Spuntik on the other hand, will be a more downtempo place to either escape to chat and mingle while a band is taking a break next door, or to just plain escape. “Although I hate the word lounge, that’s pretty much what it will be,” Matt explains. “But I’d rather describe it as a bar within a thrift store.” Sputnik will showcase textures of vintage Fischer Price phonographs and televisions playing AMC era movies, with an architectural design palate of perforated metal, concrete, steel, and maple – signature urban ingredients.

I mentioned my recent trip to New York and a café in Greenwich Village that had something similar going on in terms of old radio and TV collections. “A lot of our inspiration came from those little places and from the lower East Side. It’s just a lot more creative than putting a bunch of beer things up or old movie posters on the walls. You know, you don’t have to have a lot of money to make a place cool. I don’t want it to be a totally retro place, but we’ll use elements of the past to make a new statement.”

Inspiration for the Hi-Dive name also came from a different place in the past.

When Matt was a DJ in college, he had an unique show called the “Cigarette Flavored Ice Cream Show” where he spun old records he found at garage sales and thrift stores – even a yoga recording from the ‘40s. Then the day came when he found gold. There in a pile at a yard sale was a stack of old Hawaiian records. “So one night I was tweaked out on drugs and I put one of these records on, and I thought it would be so cool to put together a Hawaiian band in a weird place like New York.”

As fate would have it even before now, he and his wife ended up moving to New York and it was there that he made his tweaked out dream come true. Playing in punk clubs, his band Bernie Luau and the Easy Lieus would cover old Hawaiian tunes, but slowed down to a Valium pace. “The lead guy would sing falsetto, and after the first song he would say, ‘Okay, we’re gonna slow it down now on the second one.’ And it was already painfully slow to begin with,” Matt laughs.

So the ‘Hi’ in Hi-Dive is a reference to those Hawaiian days gone by. And although he doesn’t plan to take the stage again, he promises to continue dabbling in the strange. “I’m producing a documentary on truck drivers.” Um, okay.

As Matt explained his concept to me, I thought of the silent movie theaters where an orchestra played the atmosphere for the movie. In 2003 at Hi-Dive, a local eclectic, electronic band called The Way Things Go will do just that for the documentary. And what better name for the movie than, “The Way Things Go Plays Songs for Truck Drivers.”

It’s unique concepts like these that will set Hi-Dive apart from being another live venue in Denver. “I’d love to get people to do recreations of classic themes from campy movies on stage and other stuff. I think the thing we’ll have going for us is a built in audience. So we can do things that people normally wouldn’t expect in a bar, and promote things more as plays instead of just a concert.”

If you’re hungry to hear tunes in the bar that match closely to what you’d listen to at home, fear not, Hi-Dive has one of the more well-equipped juke boxes in town. We’re talking Iggy Pop, Bowie, Beck, Pixies and Galaxie 500, to Quasi, My Bloody Valentine, Sigur Ros, Elvis Costello, Stone Roses, and oh, so much more.

This Thursday Nick from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will be the star DJ in charge, sharing the decks with Wymond and Tim, their resident Thursday spin masters. On Friday, November 21 Maraca 5-0, Red Cloud and The Royal We de-virginize the stage, then on Saturday the 22nd, Tarmints, Nightingale and Le Situationist keep the rock flowing through the weekend.

On Wednesdays Jason Heller from Red Cloud and Al from the Maybellines will spin some funky music white boy. “They’re doing a dance party night for people who don’t like dance clubs,” which Matt says is something the duo has had going at Lost Lake, a warehouse on Larimer.

More than anything, Matt really feels that not only was it great timing to find the spot that will be home for both Hi-Dive and Sputnik, but that the time was so right to create spot that contributeds to our creative community. “I’ve never been in Denver when there’s been so much going on. It’s nice now to be back and with the kids in town who are totally psyched to make something happen.”

The Hi-Dive is located at 7 South Broadway in Denver. Check out their web site at www.hi-dive.com.