Brothers Damien and Eric Wendel are harnessing the power of YouTube to promote San Jose’s music scene with a new online series called “Different Spaces.”

For the last year and a half, they’ve been recording videos of San Jose bands in the space above Café Stritch. The videos are shot with multiple cameras, with professional audio capturing the live performances with no overdubs.

“San Jose has good bands that people don’t hear about,” says Damien. “These good bands don’t get a lot of exposure partly because they are from San Jose. The SJ music scene is disparate and divided. We hoped that making these videos would help spotlight the talented bands that are making music here and would help them connect to different fan bases as the styles and geographic locations of the bands that are a part of Different Spaces change.”

Ironically, the name “Different Spaces” references what they thought would be a primary element of the videos—that they would shoot each video in a different location. But thanks to Maxwell Borkenhagen, co-owner of Café Stritch, they were able to do many recordings in the former home of SoFa Lounge, which was at the time simply collecting dust. But now that Café Stritch is open, that space is no longer available, and they have to return to their original concept of filming bands in different locations. They have also moved away from the original idea of only filming San Jose bands, though locals will always be a highlight.

Some of the bands they’ve shot videos of include the Record Winter, Amonie, Breathing Patterns, and Ugly Winner.

Eulipia Restaurant, once a South First Street institute, was recently replaced by Café Stritch, a new eatery that will also host live music starting with a free show on March 27 with the Hive Dwellers.

The shows will be all ages, but will also have a full bar for those under 21 (a rare combination in San Jose). Café Stritch will also serve Chromatic Coffee, as well as sandwiches, burgers, Chicken & Waffles and other food options. Café Stritch’s debut show follows the final show earlier this month at SLG Art Boutiki, a staple for live music downtown.

Hive Dwellers, the latest group with K Records head honcho and Beat Happening front man Calvin Johnson, are joined by Los Angeles bnad Tomorrows Tulips and Mike Huguenor.

The concert on March 27 starts at 8;30pm. The show is free. It is followed by another free concert featuring Pony Village, from Portland on March 29 at 9pm.

An organization calling itself Make a Scene San Jose recently formed with the intention of promoting an all-ages music scene in San Jose.

The idea behind the group is to get bands and music fans to work together more for the overall benefit of everybody in San Jose that loves live music. Though, they are still working out the details of how they want to do that, they are starting with the release of a free compilation of San Jose bands.

The compilation features 10 San Jose bands, providing a nice reference point for people unfamiliar with the diverse talent that San Jose has to offer. Some of the bands on the compilation include Curious Quail, San Francesca, the Trims and Corpus Callosum.

“The compilation we put together is a quick resource we can point people to if they’re in the dark about what goes on here musically, and hopefully it will influence them to come out with us to see some of these bands play live,” says Kendall Sallay, who plays in Cartoon Bar Fight and is a member of Make a Scene San Jose. Sallay is one of several other local musicians that are members of the group. There is no established leader.

To help bring more people to the all-ages shows already being booked in San Jose, “Make a Scene San Jose” lists several upcoming all-ages shows on its Facebook page. They hope for starters to get more bands to support each other by passing out flyers for each other’s shows, promoting each other online and making an effort to go to more shows here in San Jose. View the page HERE.