285 kent ave

space type: music venue | neighborhood: williamsburg | active since: 2010–2014 | links: twitter

Update, January 2014:

No one expected 285 Kent to last forever, and news of its closing was just released. It’s not worth making any grand claims about the death of DIY or the condo-ification of Williamsburg; all those things have been said, and countered, and re-said, and re-countered. Whatever—the scene moves on, new venues will spring up, and the hyper-rich will galavant along the waterfront and probably not even know what went on there before they came.

285 Kent closing is kind of a big deal, though, even if only as a high-profile sign of the times. The space has been memorialized in some terrific oral histories over the last few weeks, from Animal New York to Village Voice to Fader, not to mention the one on Noisey made up of a pastiche of Yelp comments. They’re all worth a read if you want to get a little nostalgic.

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Original post, November 2013:

One of the hubs of North Brooklyn’s DIY music scene, 285 Kent is an all-ages venue for cutting-edge music across genres. On the Williamsburg waterfront, across the street from the about-to-be-demolished Domino Sugar Factory, 285 Kent neighbors several other underground stalwarts like Glasslands, Death By Audio, Ran Tea House, and Cameo Gallery.

Trash Talk, photo by Day After Day

The space has seen several incarnations; in the mid-2000s it was Paris/London/West Nile, focusing on progressive electronic music, and before that it was Bohemian Grove (not the Bohemian Grove in Bushwick), hosting progressive raves. PLWN was started by the Shinkoyo Collective, an ever-expanding group of artists and musicians who were also behind the original Silent Barn and many more spaces across the country. Along with other Brooklyn DIY promoters, the space has been run at various times by Todd P., Babycastles, and John “Rambo.” These days 285 Kent’s booking and curation is handled by Ric Leichtung, who is also cofounder of Ad Hoc, a quarterly zine and network of taste-making music blogs.

Candy From Strangers, photo by Nicky Digital

This is the obvious point at which to mention the awful hyper-gentrification of Williamsburg, and the fact that no matter how beloved 285 Kent and other similar DIY institutions are, it’s hard not to be cynical about the likelihood that they will last much longer where they are. I guess the least pessimistic thing to say is this: go see shows at 285 Kent, as often as you can; get exposed to excellent, cutting-edge music and support the last gasp of underground Williamsburg before all that’s left is horribly shiny luxury glass condos and preposterously upscale bars for bankers.

But first check out my Q&A with Ric & Kait, who oversees daily operations.

Friends, photo by Richard Gin

brooklyn spaces: Is it a tremendous amount of work to run a space like this?
Ric: Yes, definitely. When I first started working here I was also writing for Pitchfork and Altered Zones, and it really snowballed. When you start something it’s difficult, and usually the more you work at it the easier things get. But 285 just keep getting higher and higher profile bands more and more often, and I couldn’t do it all myself. I needed a partner, and I was really lucky Kait came along.
Kait: He was starting his days at 9am writing, and then running a show until 4am. For months and months.
Ric: Yeah, but now it’s amazing. Kait’s the backbone.

Rival Mob, photo by Lukas Hodge

brooklyn spaces: If you had to be a bit reductive, what would you say is the musical personality of 285 Kent?
Ric: We basically do whatever we think is culturally relevant right now. We do a lot of buzz-y, hype-y shows, but we also do a lot of hardcore shows and progressive dance and experimental music nights.
Kait: There’s such a crazy variety. I can show up on Tuesday and work a rap show, Wednesday a local indie band, Thursday a rave, Friday a hardcore show. And it’s always really cutting-edge, underground stuff.
Ric: The goal is to create a space where there’s a lot of exchanging of ideas and cross-pollination. Lately a lot of punk and hardcore kids have been coming to the dance parties, which you really don’t see anywhere else.
brooklyn spaces: Do they dance?
Kait: Yeah! They just totally love music.
Ric: But then we also recently had a string of a really great hardcore shows. We hosted this festival our friend Adam Weitz put together, New York’s Alright, and it was very comprehensive, everything that is next level in that community.

Sharpless, photo from Village Voice

brooklyn spaces: Didn’t you guys do a big show here for CMJ?
Ric: Yeah we hosted the Pitchfork showcase, which was really special. But it was unofficial; we didn’t have any CMJ shows here this year because we’ve chosen not to participate in the festival.
brooklyn spaces: Is that something you want to talk about?
Kait: I think it’s something we should explain. My personal point of view—not affiliated with Ad Hoc or 285—is that buying a badge and not being guaranteed entry to a show? That kind of sucks. I think if you really want to see a band, you should pay the cover and support the artist. We don’t make a profit from the door. We cover our PA and staff, and the rest goes to the band.
Ric: In my opinion, the real issue with CMJ and other citywide festivals is that money only goes to the top-tier artists. Bands that should be getting $500 to $1,000 a show, they’ll be low-balled into playing for really cheap, in exchange for publicity or the opportunity to play with a really big band. The best things that were going on during CMJ this year were our Pitchfork showcase, the Arcade Fire warehouse show, and the Fader Fort, and none of that was official CMJ. It’s bullshit. They don’t pull their weight, that’s why we choose not to work with them.

What Cheer? Brigade, photo by Tod Seelie

brooklyn spaces: Okay, tell me about a particularly fun or crazy show you’ve had here.
Kait: One of my favorite nights was the Mutual Dreaming Future Times party. The promoter Aurora brought in this huge army-surplus parachute, and we hung it up inside, suspended by the pipes in the ceiling. It took hours to set up, but the place looked really, really cool. Then it turned out that there was a blizzard that night, but we still opened up because why not? And people came and were kind of stuck here, so we just partied all night, everybody in this giant parachute, in our own little bubble. It was amazing.
Ric: One of my favorites was Dreams 3.0. It was just a super forward-thinking lineup, with Pictureplane, Grimes, and Arca, who’s now producing for Kanye West. We’d done a show with this guy Arab Music a few months before, and he had such a good time that he just came back for no fucking reason to this already bonkers party, and he brought A$AP Rocky with him too. It was insane. The show went all night, Grimes didn’t go on until 3am. That’s probably the show we’ll be remembered for; it was just everything that was really really sick at that moment, in 2011, all at once. But we still do really cool stuff now, in 2013!

Tearist, photo by Chris Becker

brooklyn spaces: In some ways you bear a real responsibility, as one of the people driving this scene; you have to not know just what music is important now, but what will be important tomorrow and next month. Is that a lot of pressure? Or is it just really exciting?
Ric: I think it’s really exciting.
Kait: It’s scary sometimes, too. Sometimes I wonder, “Am I totally off on this?” But then: nope. We just do what we think is cool.
Ric: There’s this guy DJ Rashad who we really love, we started booking him a couple of years ago and no one would ever really come to the shows. And then all of a sudden people start listening to his album, and suddenly he’s the #1 electronic album from Spin, he gets a top-10 on New York Times last year, all this sudden acknowledgment. That felt really good. Or one thing I really love about this space is that I feel like we’re bringing dance and electronic music to the DIY punk-rock demographic. I wasn’t really interested in that kind of music before, but then I had some kind of epiphany and I realized this stuff is amazing and progressive in so many ways. I would say it’s kind of a weird secret agenda of ours to make dance music cool again.

Ice Age, photo from Stereogum

brooklyn spaces: I think when a booker is at the forefront of some genres, there is often an assumption that you’ll know what’s at the forefront of all the genres.
Ric: That’s what we hope.
Kait: Yeah, it’s pretty cool. On the weekends especially, we get people who have no idea what to expect, they just walk up and check out the show. We get people dressed up like they’re going clubbing wander into a noise show. And they’ll stay!

Pictureplane, picture by Andrew St. Clair

brooklyn spaces: I wonder how much longer that juxtaposition will be possible, with the way Williamsburg is going. I know it’s a bit played-out to talk about the death of this neighborhood, but being right here, with the Domino Sugar Factory about to get torn down across the street, how do you guys feel about it all?
Kait: I think it’s kind of cool, actually. I’ve had many conversations with Todd about this, because he did lay the groundwork for the DIY music scene in this area in the last decade. He’ll get really philosophical about it, very nihilistic. But I feel like all of this is bringing back that fuck-all attitude, which makes it really easy for us to just do what we want, you know? We have no idea what’s going to happen in two months, so let’s just make this place as cool and as fun as we can for as long as we can. It’s empowering. We’re laughing in the face of progress or whatever.
Ric: It’s true. It does sort of feel like there’s a death clock, but it’s okay.
Kait: Yeah, it’s like, fuck it. Fuck your death clock. Because it’s not like we’re just going to stop, even if we do lose this space. I can’t imagine Ric not booking shows, and I can’t imagine not working in a space like this. I’m here all the time and it’s just where I want to be. Sometimes it smells bad, sometimes shit breaks, but the staff is amazing, everybody works really hard to keep it all together.
Ric: It’s like a little family—not to sound too trite. And we’re planning other things all the time. We’re putting on a show in a church in LA with Julianna Barwick and Mark McGuire from Emeralds. And there’s going to be some pretty crazy stuff during New Year’s Eve—stay tuned for that.
Kait: Oh, I don’t even know about that. Is it DJ Rashad?
Ric: Maybe. It’ll be good.

285 Kent interior, picture by Nick Kuszyk who did the murals

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Like this? Read about more DIY music spaces: Fort Useless, Death By Audio, Shea Stadium, Silent Barn, Monster Island, Bushwick Music Studio, Newsonic

dead herring

space type: apartment & music | neighborhood: williamsburg | active: 2007–2013 | links: myspace, facebook, twitter

For most of its run, Dead Herring—an apartment that sometimes doubled as a DIY music and occasional theatre space was fairly averse to any sort of press. That’s just part of the fun of running an underground apartment venue—some measure of paranoia is often called for. But Dead Herring closed Feb 1st, 2013, right after an amazing commemorative closing show, featuring the Immaculates (a band that was formed at a Dead Herring party), Moonmen on the Moon, Man (who broke up and then reunited just for this show), Necking!! (one of the Dead Herring creators’ band), and special secret guests.

Cuddle Machines, photo by Nicki Ishmael

Read my interview with housemates Liz, Nicki, Jeff, and Andrew, which took place on the eve of the end of Dead Herring, below. For more pix from Nicki, there’s a terrific six-year DH photo retrospective at Impose Magazine. And be sure to check out their new space in North Williamsburg, Cloud City!

show posters, photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Tell me a quick history of how this all got started.
Jeff: Liz and I went to college together in California, and we both lived in this co-op called Cloyne Court Hotel in Berkeley that used to have shows in the kitchen, in the basement, wherever. The first time I went there Nerf Herder was playing, and I was like, “Whoa, this place is awesome! I’m moving in here next year!”
Nicki: My band played there once, it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. There were kegs in the quad, there was a room no one could go into, there was the most disgusting bathroom I’d ever seen in my life, it was covered in graffiti, and just everyone going crazy and hanging off pipes. It was so cool.
Jeff: And then years later I wound up living across the hall from Liz and Nick in the McKibben Lofts.
Liz: Nick and I are the ones who started Dead Herring. We had a couple of shows at McKibben, and when we heard about this space, we thought it would be great place to continue to do that. Nicki moved in six months later, and Jeff moved in in 2008, and Andrew moved in two years ago, in 2010.

Bare Wires, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: What was the first show?
Nicki: It was Maneguar, Pterodactyl, Golden Error, Marvel & Knievel, and Nonhorse.

brooklyn spaces: Do you all book shows?
Liz: I don’t. Nicki books all the music now, Jeff does the variety shows, and Andrew has brought some plays in.
brooklyn spaces: Nicki, is there a succinct way to characterize what kind of music you book here?
Nicki: No, not really. We used to have a lot more experimental noise shows when Nick lived here, because he was into experimental noise music and he booked that. I’m more into punk and rock and indie pop. I don’t know, it just depends on what comes together. If there’s a band coming through that we know, we’ll book around them. Or if we see a band we really like we’ll tell them to come play here. It used to be easier for bands to find us when we used the MySpace page, but that just became too much, we were getting like fifteen emails a day. None of us is a full-time booker, you know? When I have ten minutes I’ll IM people, like, “Hey, you want to play a show?”

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Tell me either the coolest or weirdest thing about living in a place where there are shows.
Nicki: A funny thing is that people don’t realize that we live here. People come here for shows and then they’ll come over for a potluck and be like, “Oh, wow, it looks so different. I didn’t know you had a couch.”
brooklyn spaces: I think that’s part of the charm of these spaces, that you know while you’re watching this band you’re sitting on the roof of someone’s closet or washing your hands in their kitchen sink.
Jeff: Did you read the article about the new Silent Barn in the Village Voice? They were saying how most DIY spaces are illegal, like no one can talk about it, which has kind of been our thing. But now the Silent Barn is like “No, this is completely legal.” They’re going to get a liquor license and whatever. One of our old roommates, Joe, who’s part of Showpaper, he lives there now.
Andrew: I had a lot of conversations with Joe when he lived here about this whole thing, about how all these spaces are somewhere along a continuum, like how much are they a house, and how much are they a venue? Silent Barn has always been basically a venue, even though people live there. We’re really a house that has shows once in a while.

Golden Error, photo by Nicki Ishmael

Nicki: We have to tell people all the time that they can’t have their birthday party here, or their mud-wrestling party. We’ve gotten a lot of weird requests over the years. But overall it’s fantastic, this house pretty much made my life in New York. I met all these people, I found something to do and a community to be in. I had no idea there was a music scene that was this small and this amazing here. You have these moments where you realize this is happening in your life and you created it and you’re a part of it. It makes me so happy. It’s so great when you have a whole bunch of bands come in at the beginning of the night, you’ve never met any of them before, and at the end of the night they’re all giving you giant hugs and saying this was the best show they’ve ever played. It’s so amazing that we had the opportunity to do this.
Jeff: People really appreciate us just trying to make an awesome, fun night, and when everybody’s stoked on it, it’s a good feeling. It’s great when really talented, amazing people have a great time performing here.
Andrew: We just had a theatre show that did a three-night run, and It was like we were living in this little theatre that everyone was a part of. I don’t know if you could achieve that in any other setting.

photo by Maximus Comissar

brooklyn spaces: Do you think that being in Williamsburg has affected the space?
Nicki: I really like that Death By Audio is so close, and 285 Kent, and Glasslands. It’s nice that there are still a few really good spaces around here. And I feel like living off the L and the J is convenient, a lot of people can come out to shows here. I don’t always want to go all the way to Bushwick, but people seem happy to come all the way out here, which is awesome. Jeff’s shows get put up on the Nonsense NYC list sometimes, and people come here from wherever because they’re like “Oh, I know where that is, I can get there.”
Andrew: For a performing arts venue it really makes a difference if it’s in a part of town that people want to go to.

Teenage Nightwar, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: And it’s nice to see that there are still places like this in Williamsburg. A lot of people think that all the creativity is gone from this neighborhood, but that’s not true. It’s just a little harder to find. Anyway, tell me about some of your favorite shows.
Nicki: My favorite “I can’t believe I actually pulled this together” show was when Forgetters played here, Blake Schwarzenbach of Jawbreaker’s band. So many people I know have loved his music since we were like sixteen years old, and he played in my living room! And we had this band called Leg Sweeper come, they played with our friends’ band Sleepies, and they were so excited about playing here, and we were so excited about having them play, and after the show we all hung out until 5 in the morning, and everybody slept over, and we made waffles in the morning, and it was magical. Or another one, after The Men played, we had a limbo contest with the guys in the band, which was so ridiculous and fun. I think the craziest show we ever had here was Calvin Johnson and Chain and the Gang. When I introduced Chain and the Gang, everyone just freaked the fuck out.
Liz: That show was my teenage dream come true. I was so thrilled, I couldn’t believe he was in our house. He got here early, and we were trying to set up, and our old cat was sitting on the bar, and he sang a song to the cat! It killed me. My other favorite moment was when Social Studies, our friends’ band from San Francisco, played last year. Right before they started to play my favorite song, someone cut in and said, “We just found out the Giants are going to the World Series.” The whole crowd was full of people from California, and everyone was so so so excited.

photo by Maximus Comissar

Andrew: I’m from Minneapolis, so when our friends’ theatre group came from Minneapolis to do their play, it was really exciting for me to get to share this space with them. They used to live in a space like this in Minneapolis, and one of them had a space like this in Baltimore before that where my theatre troupe performed, so being able to return the favor was really gratifying.
Jeff: I like all the variety shows, I guess. Oh and Reggie Watts, that was awesome. And Corn Mo.
Nicki: And the ventriloquist! And the magician who sawed a woman in half! And the guy from Cirque de Soliel who took all his clothes off and climbed all over the entire audience! And the lady who juggled with her feet! I know it sounds like we’re making this stuff up, but we’re not.
Jeff: Yeah, we’ve had some crazy stuff.

Hunters, photo by Nicki Ishmael

brooklyn spaces: What advice do would you give to other people who want to do something like this?
Nicki: Be nice. That’s something we try really hard to do. Now we’re friends with all the bands and performers and other DIY spaces in the city. That’s why we’re not super nervous about going into the new space. We feel like we’re not going to be alone, because all these other people are going to support us. All the DIY spaces are kind of in it together.
Jeff: Yeah, it sounds cheesy but we really feel like we’re part of a community. And we’re good at welcoming people in and having a positive vibe about everything.
Nicki: That makes it a lot more fun for everyone. We want to have fun too!

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Like this? Read about more apartment performance spaces: Silent Barn, The Muse, Cave of Archaic RemnantsThe SchoolhouseGreenroom Brooklyn, Newsonic, Jerkhaus

the muse

space type: aerialist venue | neighborhood: williamsburg, bushwick | active since: 2011 | links: websitefacebook, twitter

Update, spring 2015: Last winter, Vice magazine took over two adjoining buildings on the Williamsburg waterfront, evicting several underground spaces in one fell swoop: Death By Audio, Glasslands, and the Muse, which actually got pushed out due to construction before the end of their lease. Undaunted, the Muse family Kickstarted more than $60,000, and in April 2015 they reopened an enormous new space in Bushwick.

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The Muse is an aerialist performance and workshop space in South Williamsburg dedicated to fostering experimental creativity, and giving artists the space and time to try out new things. It was founded in late 2011 by Angela Buccinni, a dancer, acrobat, and aerialist, and Yuval Oz, a musician and acrobat.

Angela as a reindeer in Hot Frosty (photos by Maximus Comissar unless noted)

The space is a former garage for Domino Sugar, which Angela and Yuval built out from scratch—in only two months they did the living space with six rooms on two floors, an elevated stage, a bathroom, and a kitchen, as well as put in rigging points throughout the main performance area. They’ve gotten an outpouring of help from Williamsburg artists, and have a close partnership with Karen Fuhrman’s aerial dance company Grounded Aerial, of which Angela is also member. In addition to performances, the Muse offers classes and workshops in hand-balancing, acrobatics, silks, harness, trick ropes, kudayo, and lots more.

I was lucky enough to be invited over to the Muse for the dress rehearsal of Grounded Aerial’s first annual holiday show, Hot Frosty. I got to hang out with Karen, Angela, Yuval, and the rest of the incredibly happy and nice cast, plus Angela and Yuval’s collection of wonderful dogs.

 

Hot Frosty cast shot

brooklyn spaces: Karen, can we start with a quick run-down of Grounded Aerial?
Karen: Grounded does three things. We do corporate events, for companies like IBM, Microsoft, and H&R Block—the bigger the better. That tends to fund the second thing: our theatrical ventures, like Insectinside, which is an evening-length piece, equal parts dance, theatre, and aerial, and Hot Frosty, which is little scenes peppered throughout the evening, singing, dancing, aerial, over here, over there, above your head, on the stage, on the wall—it’s happening all around you as you’re hanging out drinking cocktails with your friends. The third thing we do is classes, which everyone should come out and take. They’re not only for dancers; anyone could put a harness on, even my mom. It’s an amazing workout, and it’s really empowering.

photo from The Muse’s Facebook

brooklyn spaces: What’s the link between Grounded and the Muse?
Karen: We support each other, we love each other. There’s a beautiful aerial community in Williamsburg, and Angela and Yuval having this space will really reinforce that community. It’s going to be an outstanding force.

brooklyn spaces: Angela and Yuval, what was your motivation for starting the space?
Angela: I think one of the main problems with trying to create art in New York City is that it’s so hard to survive financially that people can’t invest time in the creation process, to actually sit in your work, soak in it, develop it. With Grounded we do that a lot, we play with things, we improv, we throw things out, we get new things, we merge ideas. So part of the whole concept behind the Muse is that we want to support that kind of creation process, to ensure that there’s a place for people to do that.
Yuval: We really want to create an atmosphere for taking time for creation, for experimenting, a place when you can do everything and try everything. I think this is part of doing art.
Angela: We want it to be comfortable here, like you’re sitting in a living room, with no sense of judgment. We want that sort of calm energy, where it’s safe to go into the process and get lost in your art and feel okay, and to actually work off of the other things and people in the space.

brooklyn spaces: So tell me a quick history of the space itself.
Angela: That’s a long story. I had an outdoor dance studio in my backyard in Bushwick called Studio 43. We produced a few shows and then, do you remember the tornado we had last year? Well, it ripped up a tree from the lot next door and crushed everything. Around that time I was offered a tour that took me to Israel. One day while I was rehearsing there, this beautiful dog wandered into the theatre, and I jumped off the stage and just started hugging him. And Yuval came in looking for Shesek and found me. I think he had actually told Shesek, “Go fetch that girl.”
Yuval: That’s your version!
Angela: So Yuval and I hung out while I was doing the tour, and then I stayed in Israel. We almost opened the Muse in Tel Aviv; we were really looking, but we ultimately decided to raise some money with a Kickstarter and then come back do it here. A friend told us about this space, we came and we looked at it, and that was it. It’s amazing. There’s nothing in the cards to say we should be able to do this right now, but somehow we’re doing it. We have a long way to go, but it’s in motion. Whenever we don’t have enough money for the next thing, we have a show or a party to raise money. We had a ’70s disco party in November to pay for a hot-water heater.

Join the Circus Day (photo from The Muse’s Facebook)

brooklyn spaces: How many people are involved?
Angela: At least thirty, thirty-five people have popped in once or twenty times or a million times. It’s all artists, it’s like a big community. And it’s normally a social event; we cook together and then we build. Or I melt down and everyone hugs me and then we build. There’s a lot of that too.
Yuval: It’s a great way to discover new friends and good people.
Angela: We’ve had complete strangers come help us. People tease us that we’re basically building an artists’ kibbutz. And we’re always looking to expand it!
Yuval: Also we’re always searching for trades. People can come help us and then get free classes in hand-balancing, harness, silk, bungee, anything.

brooklyn spaces: Are you involved in the larger aerial and dance community in Brooklyn? Are people coming from House of Yes or Big Sky Works or Streb?
Angela: A lot of aerialists are involved, a lot of freelance artists. Yuval and I just received a grant from Streb to produce one of the pieces for his show. In my experience, aerialists are all allies, it’s not competitive or nasty.

brooklyn spaces: How has it been going with the build-out?
Angela: Demolition was a little harder than we thought.
Yuval: A lot of people ask us, like, construction is crazy, why don’t you just pay professional people for this? And we’re like, it’s not that hard. I mean, okay, it is hard, but it’s not that complicated, you just have to go step by step by step. Actually, we’re both glad that we didn’t know everything we would have to do before we get started, because we would have never done it.

photo from The Muse’s Facebook

brooklyn spaces: Do you think your creativity or your process is influenced by being in Williamsburg?
Angela: I think it’s more supportive here than it was in Bushwick. There’s more like-minded artists. I can call someone with an idea, and they’ll feed on it and fuel me. Or we know we’ll have the audience we need to fill the space.
Karen: Absolutely. Williamsbug just has a zest to it, a roughness, a rawness, a curiousness, a youthfulness that people feed off. It’s an amazing community. It’s really unique.

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Like this? Read about more aerial and dance spaces: House of Yes, Big Sky Works, Chez Bushwick, Cave