BIG TROUBLES “BITE YR TONGUE” from OLDE ENGLISH SPELLING BEE on Vimeo.

Is Ridgewood, New Jersey beginning to take itself less seriously? Not Ridgewood the place, but Ridgewood the press construct, the suburban Never Never Land of slurpie-drinkin’, beach-combin’ Lost Boys who move home after college because trying to find a job right now really sucks? Monday’s new Ducktails video marked the descent of Jersey Shore indie rock aesthetics into smiling self-parody. With their new video for “Bite Yr Tongue,” dropped last night from the Olde English Spelling Bee dungeon, Matt Mondanile’s tour buddies (and 2010 backing band) show the younger generation of Ridgewood artists is probably even more fed-up — and more in on the joke — than he is. Starring some of the finest fast-food establishments in Northern New Jersey, Spencer Davis‘ visuals make Ridgewood life seem pretty easy breezy until you blow too much of your parents’ money on rippers from Rutt’s Hut and you have to make a mad dash for the porto potty. Big Troubles indeed.

Words: Emilie Friedlander

“Bite Your Tongue” is a track off Big Troubles’ Worry LP, out this August on Olde English Spelling Bee.

Sun Araw- “Heavy Deeds”- Synchronicity Space- Los Angeles, CA- 7/3/10 from Samantha Cornwell on Vimeo.

As much as I’ve come to love the city of Los Angeles, I’d be a liar if I said that a certain amount of my experience here hasn’t been characterized by feelings of displacement and alienation. Sometimes the feeling of being a small, isolated dot on a large map is too much to bear. I felt this feeling quite strongly on July 4th, 2009. I was at a party on Venice beach thrown by a friend of a friend. We went up to the roof deck to watch the fire works that were being set off in Santa Monica.

As a native New Yorker, I’ve grown up with the Macy’s fireworks extravaganza that (usually) happens over the East River. Although there are some entertaining amateur pyrotechnics going on in certain sections of town, it is all about everyone in the city watching the same bright lights for one night. Obviously the bar was set high, so I was pretty let down when I saw how far away — and relatively puny — the Santa Monica display was. A friend turned to me and said, “this sucks.” I couldn’t help but agree.

Sometimes when you’re searching for the “ultimate” experience here in L.A., it is easy to find yourself feeling let down, left out, and turned off. This city is large, fractured, and easy to feel lost in. The feeling of a communal love fest can be found, but it does not come as quickly or easily as in some metropolises.

But feelings of bliss burn strongly when you learn to love this strange place for what it is. I had an extended moment of happiness on July 4th weekend, 2010. After a relaxed BBQ in a Silver Lake backyard, three of us headed for the Elysian Park Hills to try and scope some fireworks from Angel’s point. As we looked over the hills, we didn’t see one centralized fireworks show. Instead we saw a profusion of starbursts, all obviously products of amateur displays being set off from lawns, porches, roofs, and even from the street. The quality varied, but the volume was unreal.

At that point, something kind’ve clicked for me. These fireworks weren’t as sleek as what I was used to in New York, but with each blast I felt a sense of some individual setting it off. From where I was standing, I could see many of these displays, but the intended audience was more likely the people in the immediate vicinity of the person setting them off. There was something magical about imagining these little microcosms and experiencing the collective energy that they gave off on that special evening. We revelled in thus further as we roamed the streets of Echo Park, where you could find someone setting off a blast nearly every 20 feet. My friend Molly joked that it was like a really pretty war.

What I’m getting at here is that every person is capable of having an audience, even if it is a tiny one. Whether its your lover, your best friend, a room of people, or a huge crowd, you’ve got to do your thing for your audience with as much organic enthusiasm as you can. If you keep at it, and make it count, the energy you give off might gradually cause your audience to grow, but even if it doesn’t you’ve got to keep doing it for the people who are already there. Sometimes the search for the “right” place or experience proves futile and you’ve got to start from scratch wherever you are, and create your own environment. This kind’ve approach to life is essential to the LA experience. As these thoughts took over my head, I was brought back momentarily to the previous evening, when I was watching and taping Sun Araw at Synchronicity Space.

I’ve seen Sun Araw many times over the course of the last year. In fact, I’ve probably seen Cameron Stallones & co. more times than any other L.A. band. Sometimes the room is packed, and sometimes there are only around 20 people in attendance. As time has gone on, Sun Araw has continued to gain fans, and almost all of them are quite enthusiastic. There are lots of reasons for this, but one of the main things that gets me excited about Sun Araw is the persistent passion and energy he channels into every recording and every performance — no matter how many people are listening.

The July 3rd show at Sync Space was no exception to this. Those of us who crowded into that small DIY venue that night were treated to a tight, rousing performance that came equipped with highs, lows, and all the things that remind us why we love music. The venue wasn’t huge, but the performance and the vibe it created were. At one point, Cameron thanked the crowd for making the show into a really amazing zone. When you approach your creative output with passion, energy, and rigor, the space around you will become worth spending some time in. You can feel some of that by watching the riveting performance by Cameron and Nick Malkin in the video above. In the mean time, start engineering your own starbursts.

Video: Samantha Cornwell
Words: Samantha Cornwell

“Heavy Deeds” is the opening track on Sun Araw’s eponymous l.p., released in 2009 on Not Not Fun.

The discussion is taking place during an episode of Underwater Visitations and features Chris Cantalini of Gorilla Vs. Bear/Forest Family Records, Ryan Schreiber, founder of Pitchfork Media, Michael McGregor of Chocolate Bobka/The Curatorial Club, Mark Schoneveld of Yvynyl/Trig Club and Sam Hockley-Smith of the FADER/Group Tightener. Emilie Friedlander of Visitation Rites, myself and Ari Stern of Underwater Peoples will also join in.

We encourage you to listen and call in with questions and comments! 347-725-4163.

Below is a basic outline of the discussion put together by myself and Friedlander of Visitation Rites. Questions we want to address come after a summary of why we are talking about this.

Why we’re having this forum:

We all know that media, music and criticism will soon live primarily online. This is both exciting and daunting because the Internet is currently a free zone where anything goes and boundaries have yet to be drawn. Because we are all actively shaping the shape of music publishing, we are responsible for making it as ethical and equitable as it can possibly be.

We begin this conversation by using the subject of blogger run labels as a jumping-off point for understanding the role of the blogger and the ethics of music writing online.

It goes without saying that we aim for this to be a constructive conversation. Everyone involved is in it for love, not hate.

Questions:

What is the difference between what a blogger does and what a traditional music journalist and/or critic does? How do you define what you do?

Who do you write or blog for? Readers, bands, your community/friends?

Up until very recently, blogs would write about bands and then labels would see that they had press and potentially pick them up. Its obvious that you love the music you write about and want to make it accessible to the public, but why take the next step and release it on a physical format as well?

Is it ethical to sell something that you created the demand for? Do you think you could possibly lose the trust of your audience as well as your authority as a tastemaker if people know that you stand to possibly profit (either monetarily or though social capital) off the content of your opinions? Conversely, does it strenghten your reputation?

If a print music writer starts a label, that person has an obligation to refrain from writing about the artist he/she is releasing. Example: Hockley-Smith of the FADER/Group Tightener has clearly stated that he will not cover the artists he releases. Why is it that when we switch from print to online, these rules suddenly no longer apply? Is it really just the medium?

How do you distinguish between your label and a more traditional one? Are some smaller labels you admire put at a disadvantage because as a blog, you are already getting into the game with a built in PR outlet?

Many comments from online forums at Tiny Mix Tapes, Drowned in Sound, YVYNYL, have said that if the blogger is clear about his/her affiliations with the music being written about, everything is copacetic. Is transparency enough?

Is there an ethical or unethical kind of blogger run label? What would constitute going too far?

What are some rules that maybe we can agree are necessary to ensure that ethics in online music writing are valued? Should there be rules at all?

Words by Georgia Kral, Microphone Memory Emotion

Photo via flickr

Max Burke: Tell me about the genesis of the GDFX project – how it came to be, and where it is currently.

Greg Fox: I’ve been playing drums for a long time and I play a lot of instruments. After I got out of high school, I ended up sort of getting kicked out of my house; and I grew up in New York, so I got a job at Manny’s Music, which no longer exists. I got a job there, and I got an apartment on Myrtle and Broadway – this is like seven years ago. And while I was working there, Korg put out this Electribe. They’d been putting them out for a while, but they put out a new one and they set it up on display so I started playing with it a lot. As somebody who’d only ever played “real instruments” – whatever that means – it was fascinating to me to write a song on a single piece of hardware, because computer music never really caught my interest. So I started messing around with this thing, and I would make rap beats and video game-sounding music. So I had this machine. And when I eventually went to college, I brought it to school, just messing around with it. Me and my friends would get drunk and high, rap, and goof around.

But then I saw this band Blues Control play. They’re not using any of the same machines or anything like that, but Russ and Lea – meeting them, catching them a few times, listening to their recordings – something clicked for me in terms of their approach to composing. Kind of a looseness to their music that I just loved. So I went back to this Electribe that I had and I started trying to approach it like a drum machine/sequencer/sampler/synthesizer, but from a more free point of view. While I was in college, I got commissioned to make a soundtrack for an Atari video game. So I put it out; that was the last output of the videogamey, super straight stuff.

What game was that?

It’s called N+, a ninja game for PSP and DS. I did that and at that point I graduated and my band Teeth Mountain went on tour and I brought my gear with me to mess around with in my free time. And we had a show in Colorado and they needed another band. So I was like, well, I’ve never played by myself before but I’ll try. So I set up and I played, and people liked it. I hadn’t learned not to criticize myself while I was playing music. But people liked it, and I got some press from that one show. At that point, I’d already come up with the name GDFX. I was doing graffiti at the time, tagging GDFX on stuff. So I started going by that; and when I got back to New York, I started booking shows, figuring out what I was doing. It was just an excuse to experiment and do things outside the realm of all the other bands I’d been playing with, which had been taking up a lot of my time. So those shows were just an excuse to set my shit up and do something, and I never had any kind of plan — it would be all over the place. Only recently did I learn not to think about what I’m doing while I’m doing it. So that’s how that all started.

I did a couple recordings. One of them got put out on Little Fury Things, this tape label. So after that I started realizing that it seemed silly to be doing a project by myself that didn’t feature my drumming, because I feel like that’s something I had to bring to the table. I started incorporating the drumming into it, and I started experimenting with drones. My band Teeth Mountain does a lot of droney material — so that was a big influence on me. Then I started learning how to throat sing. The guy from Bloody Panda – this sweet doom stoner metal band that used to be based in Brooklyn, but is now in Brooklyn and LA — throat sings, and he taught me Tuvan-style throat singing. He gave me the basic building blocks, and I started experimenting with it. That just opened up a whole other thing: I can play drums, I can make these vocal loops using throat singing. I realized what my instruments were outside of having just electronics. Then that kind of brings it to Guardian Alien. I started saying to myself, I’m doing this thing now. Wouldn’t it be cool to do it with other people?

So that’s why I started a band. For a while we were just doing it under the name GDFX, but then I had this experience and I’m not sure what it was…a left brain talking to the right brain thing. Something happened to me, and that’s where I got the idea for the name Guardian Alien. The other thing is, while studying throat singing, I learned that the natural note I sing is B Flat. After reading into it, I found out that B Flat is the Crown Chakra, as well as the resonating tone of deep space and black holes. It seems to have a lot of significance, even if I don’t know exactly what it is that I’m channeling.

GDFX, live at Market Hotel, 2009. Photo by Joe Perez/Eyebodega.

We were talking earlier about energy – putting energy into spaces. I think a lot of the bands at NY Eye & Ear have a notion of that, and that it’s channeled through…different sorts of ideas that you might tag spiritual, might not. They don’t necessarily have to be spiritual, they can be very pragmatic. But for you in Guardian Alien and GDFX…can you talk a little bit about what that energy means to you, and how it works in your music?

There’s a lot to say. I feel, first of all, that every day you wake up and you go into the world. Especially last night, when I was hanging out here; I haven’t spent time hanging out in Williamsburg proper late at night. Seeing the way people are, you can feel people’s energy and it’s – not everybody learns this lesson – but it’s a conscious choice — what energy you give out into the world, and what you share. It’s not as simple as “I’m just negative” or “I’m just positive.” Whether you realize it or not, everybody’s contributing. Being aware of that to some degree and being conscious of what it is you’re trying to contribute energetically — it’s as simple as, If I’m gonna be selfish, I wanna feel good and I want other people around me to feel good. Because when other people around me are feeling good, it makes me feel good. It’s like you go to these places, or you hang out on the corner, and you can feel this negative vibe that a lot of people carry on their sleeve. For me it’s like a personal mission to push back against that with a positive energy.

Is that something that manifests itself in all of your activities – GDFX, Guardian Alien, Teeth Mountain, the record label? For a lot of the artists here, that’s what it’s about: pushing against that negativity.

The world is what you make it. There’s that fucking oil spill and, did you see the cover of the Post yesterday? The cover of the New York Post was a toreador in Spain getting gored through the mouth, out of his mouth. It was on the fucking cover. This is what they’re putting out. And like so many stupid New Yorkers – I’m gonna try not to be, but I’m gonna be judgmental – so many stupid New Yorkers that pride themselves on reading the Post are looking at that. I was in the bodega on this corner and there was a kid running around and that thing was on the bottom shelf of the newsstand. That’s fucked up. Not to mention that that’s not news either. All sorts of gory, horrible things happen to people in real life on a daily basis. It’s one thing to have an awareness of that, but its another thing to project it. Not only that, but to be projecting it instead of the fact that the world is currently home to the worst environmental crisis in history.

Exactly. We can talk about a million different issues. Everyone wants to talk about global warming; let’s talk about Zimbabwe, Darfur, human rights in China. I think the reason a lot of people put this negativity out is so they can feel that they’re aware of it — and do something about it, and gratify their own ego. They’re not really doing anything about it, but they can say, I’m a conscious person. Whereas for me, pushing back against it is what it’s about. You’re not gonna solve all the world’s problems; but if you can push against it, and try and distance yourself from it, then at least you can make a small positive change.

Yeah, I can’t stop that oil spill. I can’t do that. And I can’t fix that guy’s face after getting gored. And I can’t save everybody in Darfur. I can’t do any of that just by wanting the world to be perfect, but I can have a positive effect on the people I have a direct contact with — and music is the best way to do it. I don’t have to write a song about sunshine; I just have to come into my playing space with that feeling of positivity and my intention and my will for immediate surroundings — and I can effect positive change. I can insert that positivity and that spirit of unity. There’s a lot to say about it, but “think globally, act locally” is a good slogan. It’s all about you and the people around you; and to the extent that that can be a microcosm of the whole world – with the awareness of all the fucked up shit that’s happening – you can have control over what you put out into your surroundings. There is also a collective consciousness; thoughts aren’t just in your head, they go out. Energy flies all over the place; it’s not just cellphone signals. You meet people who exude an energy that you can feel when they walk into a room — whether it’s a good energy or a bad energy.

It’s an ongoing reality that everyone deals with, and everybody makes it more or less a priority. I think we’ve said a lot. Let’s switch gears and talk about upcoming shows, booking, Fourth of July at Shea Stadium?

I used to book a lot more shows. I’m kind of trying to get out of it. When you tour a lot, you end up meeting a lot of people. And it’s like, Oh, my cousin runs a venue in Brooklyn. I get emails from people — “Can you hook me up with a show?” — and I wanna help them out, and I’m all over the place with my own shit, trying to hustle in New York, pay my rent, do odd jobs, and play music in all these different projects. On top of that, trying to put together a good show for somebody who’s coming through is not always possible. The people who dedicate themselves to booking only are really the people who should be booking shows.

You also don’t wanna talk to someone whose music you really respond to and try and put something together and not do it as well as you should…

Or on the flip side, somebody you really like as a person whose music you don’t really like. They come through and they want you to help them out with a show. It’s like, Uhhh….alright.

That can be a hard thing to navigate. Even though the Brooklyn scene is pretty big and stretches out across the country, it’s hard to be friendly with someone and care about them and be like, I don’t really like your band. It’s not about “integrity” in an abstract or ideological way. It’s just about being honest and truthful.

It’s really important to be honest though. I will also say that as an example, I toured with Future Islands a little bit. The first time I toured with them, I’d met them before and I thought they were awesome dudes. When I first heard them – this is a while ago, they’ve come along way – it wasn’t my vibe. But after getting to know them more and touring with them more and becoming really good friends with them, I love Future Islands now. I love their new album, I listen to it all the time. That can happen too; it’s like when you get close to somebody you can start appreciating their music in a way that you didn’t when you didn’t know them.

But getting back to the booking thing…I was booking other shows, I used to book at Market Hotel a lot, I had a studio there for a while. I was the only person booking shows there for a while other than Todd. I had a couple really great shows there, but also a lot of really mediocre shows, where I was doing a favor for someone who was coming through. So I did that for a while, and that situation got kind of shitty, so I got out of the Market. My cousin opened this new venue, Shea. So I started doing the same hing. Some of the shows were great; some of them weren’t. The first show I ever booked there was when they moved into the new space at 20 Meadow St. I’m trying to remember who I booked…a lot of people came out. So I just kind of decided, I wanna book one show a year at my cousin’s venue. I’m gonna ask all my favorite bands and my friends and just do it once a year and never book any other shows. Fourth of July this year at Shea Stadium. Future Islands is playing, White Mice, CSC Funk Band, Liturgy, Guardian Alien, Telecult Powers, Lexie Mountain’s new project. I’m blowing it the fuck out.

Greg Fox appears June 12 at Bonnaroo with the Dan Deacon Ensemble, July 4^th at Shea Stadium with Guardian Alien and the aforementioned groups, and August 26 as GDFX at Telecult Powers’ Cosmic Meditation Zone in Crown Heights. Listen to GDFX at the Free Music Archive.

Interview by Max Burke
Photo (top) via GDFX’s Myspace

Max Burke: How long have you guys been together?

Peter Kerlin: Two years. Nawi and I had been in another band called The Holy Childhood and then I stopped playing music for a while and then I met Nick in this graduate program we were in; he was a student of mine, and we started playing. Nawi and I were fantasizing about having a band that would be all low-end — Nawi playing baritone sax, me playing bass…

Nawi Avila: …low-end in competing waves.

PK: So we started out with that idea and it kind of grew. We spent a year before we played, just trying stuff out, getting together a palate of sounds, a distinct palette. Nick does a lot stuff with contact mics and he has a synthesizer that he runs the contact mics through and he drums. So for a while, we developed that palette, getting it under control, and working with a basic way of playing together.

Have you been involved with music your whole life?

PK: Pretty much my whole adult life since I was 18 or something, a lot of bands.

You just put out your first record, your first LP. Was that recorded professionally?

PK: We did it with a friend of ours — Josh Druckman — who has a studio in upstate New York, in Rock Hill, called the Outlier Inn. So he recorded it and it was pretty simple, with very minimal overdubbing. Almost a live record, in some ways. We just tried to get good performances and kept it at that, almost no editing.

NA: One of the songs has overdubs. All songs are live performances, live takes except one. Maybe that’s a fun game to find out which song has the overdub; only one of them does.

PK: The approach was just capture the performances, get the right energy. And we did the mixing and mastering at The Seaside Lounge in Brooklyn, which was great. We decided to do a limited run of 200 vinyl, and we’re still figuring out what we’re doing for digital. If people are motivated, it can be found. We’re trying to figure out what it is to put out a vinyl record yourself, what you should expect. I’ve been in groups that have done that before, but it was always the other people in the band who handled it. So this is the first time for us. But we’re excited; we love the way it came out, got a lot of nice feedback. So it’s been really exciting; we’re psyched.

All three of you guys are from New York?

PK: Nawi lives in Pennsylvania.

NA: I was in Brooklyn for a number of years. I moved back to Pennsylvania almost two years ago, so I’m a commuter.

Nick Hasty: I’m from a small town in Georgia. I lived in Athens for a couple years, but I live in Brooklyn now.

PK: So we don’t get in as much practice as we did when Nawi lived here, but we’re getting used to the new schedule and the new way of doing things.

Do you have a formal rehearsal space?

PK: Yeah, we’re in one of those “big band buildings,” so we struggle against other bands, other people playing in other time signatures.

They don’t have the same ideology about all low-end?

PK: Yeah, and we’ve gotten strangely few complaints about that. It works pretty well. But that was also a first, being in one of those kinds of spaces. But it’s cool.

You are distributing the album yourself?

PK: Right now Discriminate Music is distributing it – we’re just doing local stuff. There’s so many great spots here in Brooklyn, like Academy, Earwax, ESP-Disk. So we’re just doing it that way: “slow distro.” Like slow food, but slow distro. We’re just like…I’m totally distracted by this movie.

[All look up at the screen. Charlton Heston's 1971 post-apocalyptic classic The Omega Man is playing]

This is a good movie. I’m gonna go watch Omega Man. Thanks guys.

[Laughter]

NA: It was a lot of friends who put it together. Josh Druckman and some friends of Peter’s helped us master it. And the art design…

Source of Yellow, Self-Titled/Self-Released L.P.

PK: My friend Gabrielle Schies did it, she’s a talented designer. It’s nice to have something that’s really handmade, that feels like a work of art. It has an aura of its own. That’s something we wanna keep doing.

NH: What’s nice about doing it by yourself is it’s not part of a chain or anything. We just made this thing, we got some friends to help us, we all went in, and here it is.

NA: Very professional friends. We thought about doing it ourselves a bit but it was absolutely a great decision to find those individuals to master it. Those noise elements — I love them, but I also want other people to hear them, not be hurt by them. They did such a masterful job – it shines, but it doesn’t hurt your eyes.

PK: Mastering is a mysterious, beautiful process.

It seems like some people have the knack for it, almost a supernatural ability. I don’t really understand what’s going on with mastering.

PK: When you get to work with people who make records all day, every day, and they can be like, “No no no, let’s do it my way.”

You guys were the first band on the second day of NY Eye and Ear…there were only a few people in the crowd. Did you care that you had the four-in-the-afternoon slot?

PK: No, we were just psyched to do it. It’s something I’ve really wanted to do for the last couple years. It’s cool to be here; I have my blue bracelet and I can hang out and peruse records. We were just really psyched to do it. Maybe next time we’ll be better about our response time; we were a little behind the curve. It’s a reason to be up and at ‘em.

Source of Yellow, “The Metronome Breaks the Hearts of All Believers” (Source of Yellow, Self-Released)

Source of Yellow play Zebulon on June 16th with Latalan Hardi Trio, Slow Stoch, and Brian Osborne as part of Jeff Conklin’s Avant Ghetto series. Their debut LP is available now online.

Interview by Max Burke
Photo (top): Jockey Goggles

Free vinyl comp with Excepter, Aa, Talbam! at the door.
4:07 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Just realized I confused Loose Limbs and Twin Stumps – Classic NY Eye & Ear faux pas! Loose Limbs kicking things off for a fortunate few now.
4:18 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Small crowd 4 C. Lavender’s exemplary solo noise, most taking pics. “Overdocumented & Underattended” comes to mind as flippant commentary.
4:45 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Population 1280’s guitar sound is the harshest thing I’ve heard so far today. Making me feel like a weakling. 5:44 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Pop 1280 embraced the hardcore matinee vibe of their 5:30 PM time slot, wrecked it like junior high 1996.
6:06 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

DubKnowDub currently offering total liberation via shopping cart, distortion effects. #nyeye&ear
6:19 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

If you’re suspicious of too much polish on your jams, Human Resources might be your new favorite one-man band. #nyeye&ear
6:53 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Despite technical hiccups early on, Follower are delivering a fierce set of dual vocal, percussion-heavy, tunes.#nyeye&ear
7:34 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Hex Breaker Quintet playing their latest Top 40 single, “Step 1. Scratch skin Step 2. Reveal cosmic light” to a partially seated audience.
8:03 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

@lldeloreans about to play the last show of their current incarnation.
8:20 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Do it! RT: @pendupendu get out to NY EYE & EAR FEST many bands yet to play like Passions, Liturgy, Blank Dogs, +more. KNITTING FACTORY
8:47 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Just drank a beer and talked to some people. Can’t watch music all the time. I’m only human. Might push my luck & eat some food.
10:01 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Konnichiwa audience evenly split between sitters and standers – What side are you on??? #nyeye&ear
10:05 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Just had a nice chat with Adam from legendary avant label ESP-Disk. VR loves ESP-Disk and you should too! 10:22 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Full on headbanger crowd in the first row for Liturgy – well deserved.
10:31 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

This picture is only worth a couple hundred words. #Liturgy #nyeye&earfest
10:43 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Just broke down and got some pizza, my integrity forever compromised. Back to #nyeye&ear shortly for Twin Stumps!
10:55 PM May 22nd via OpenBeak

Twin Stumps feels like Whitehouse meets stoner doom meets a Dali film. Like the microphone cord whiplash antics.
11:27 PM May 22nd via Social Beat

Passions have a great idea: synth pop with live percussion. Dig it.
12:21 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Pendu medicine bags, containing tiny illustrated scrolls
12:25 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Living Days are like The Cure fronted by Karen O. They’ll probably be huge.
12:50 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Heard a rumor I would like Mirror Mirror. The rumors are true.
1:21 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Need to find a word for excitement and exhaustion at the same time heading into hour 10 of #nyeye&ear.
1:40 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Not even the most obvious aspects of Effi Briest’s appeal work for me. #sexdoesntsell.
2:09 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

White Ring’s penultimate set of the night a nice reward for the truly dedicated. Down a deep, dark hole of processed vocals + distortion.
2:43 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Blank Dogs 3 AM: Strictly Hardcore. Signing off for tonight.
3:22 AM May 23rd via OpenBeak

RT @MaxBurke Remember to follow @VisitationRites all day today – I will be live tweeting New York Eye & Ear Fest III all day again!
3:01 PM May 23rd via Social Beat

Back on site for NY Eye & Ear, crowd is sparse for Source of Yellow but they don’t mind – sax inflected jams to kick off day 2!
4:13 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Memorial Gore tried to break the table, nearly succeeded. Unhinged noise classicists good for a 5 PM wake up call.
5:32 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

GDFX set the mood with a blistering, well attended set on the floor – tightly focused excursions into heavy zones…
6:57 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

…Diablo followed suit with a captivating solo exploration of the limits of the electric guitar’s potential for abstract noise.
6:59 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

The man, the myth, the legend Todd Pendu conjuring deeply as Chaos*Majik.
7:13 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

I like Lost as much as the next guy, but Figure Study is straight killing it right now. #nyeyeandear
9:34 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

#therealvisitationrites is filming Laurel Halo, loving every second of it.
10:44 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

@0pn and @carlosgiffoni straight chilling watching the Lost finale right now. #nyeyeandearfest
23:03 PM May 23rd via OpenBeak

Naam was an easy groove. I slid right in, didn’t think twice about it.
12:24 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

Just ate this banana for sustenance and energy. #glamorousbloggerlife #nyeyeandearfest
12:46 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

Blondes were in complete control. Roused me from my near slumber.
1:50 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

No Fun Acid = no disappointment. @carlosgiffoni ’s take on primitive techno is an absolute pleasure. #nyeyeandear
2:22 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

Xeno & Oaklander playing out #nyeyeandearfest to a captive audience.
2:55 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

And that will it do it for @MaxBurke. We now return to your regularly scheduled tweeting. Hope you enjoyed #nyeyeandearfest tweetathon.
2:57 AM May 24th via OpenBeak

Words: Max Burke
Blackberry Photos: Max Burke

In contrast to the younger, hip-looking crowd at the night’s previous Woods/MV EE show, the audience for the Oneida/Silver Apples bill was a bit older, with the air of serious-minded music fans. Due in large part to Mr. Silver Apples himself (Simeon Coxe), the theater was sold out for the evening. Oneida took the stage to expectant applause from the audience as wunderkind drummer Kid Millions sat behind his kit and kicked off his signature percussive assault in rare form. Drawing heavily on their single-track monster Preteen Weaponry from 2008 — while leaving plenty of room for improvised digressions and the organized chaos that defines their sound — the five-piece group were complemented by a light show that felt more frantic than the previous night’s. The strobe effect was generously deployed, and Oneida — minus regular member Bobby Matador, but with the rare addition of founding former member Papa Crazee — didn’t hesitate to respond by laying down a weighty wall of sound, complimented by a droning rhythm section.

The set proceeded through a series of distinct movements, with the light show responding to each shift in tone. First up was a hellish underworld, with cascading sheets of feedback and Millions’ propulsive drumming setting the scene as the screen flickered with dark reds and oranges. Gradually, Oneida ascended to an earthier plane, settling into a more brooding, downbeat mode as the harsh colors gave way to a lush green. Instead of cascading in all directions, the jam became more focused, steadily gaining momentum. Oneida’s career-long engagement with the possibilities of repetition in its various guises took center stage as loops of feedback ebbed and flowed, stretching and contracting time. Audience members’ heads bobbed in unison as the band locked into a psychic groove of monumental proportions.

Oneida, Live at The Joshua Light Show Fest, May 18, 2010

After ascending from the depths of the underworld to a lush forest landscape, it was time to leave earth altogether. Appropriately, the light show transformed to the blue of a brilliant sky, a strobing white circle dead center. Oneida provided the soundtrack to breaking free from gravity’s constraints, the light effects perfectly complementing the group’s eruptions of feedback, virtuosic percussion, and locked-in grooving. Seemingly over before it even started, Oneida ended their set with a confident denouement and were rewarded with a roar from the audience. Leaving their gear on stage, they shuffled off quickly.

After a brief intermission, Simeon Coxe III — the last remaining Silver Apple — appeared on stage to much audience fanfare. He tested out his signature primitive synthesizer/oscillator, and loaded up some 3.5” floppy disks. Since breaking his neck in a terrible accident while on tour in 1999, Simeon has been unable to play with as much movement as before, but this has resulted in a more direct performance style. Simeon set the mood immediately, opening with “Dust” from Silver Apples’ eponymous 1967 debut. The light projections showed more restraint than in Oneida’s sensory overload set, with wisps of red liquid percolating overhead as Simeon invoked an otherworldly atmosphere, using only his voice and his primitive synthesizer set-up.

Simeon Coxe III

As the set continued, Simeon began delivering older tracks like “Misty Mountain” and “A Pox on You,” and the light show’s sophistication increased. A young woman appeared wielding a video camera to transmit images of Simeon wrangling his equipment in real time to the screen behind. Instead of the typical arena rock tactic of displaying a blown up image of a performer onscreen, however, the light show took a more creative approach: although Simeon was filmed throughout the performance, the image was only intermittently displayed, flickering in and out, integrating distorting video effects into the constantly shifting elements of the traditional light show. The effect kept the performance visually dynamic, and avoided a static, traditional stage setup.

When Silver Apples’ first two recordings were rediscovered in the 1990s, their music came as a revelation — both to ’60s pop/rock excavators and students of Krautrock and early electronic music. What Simeon and late drummer Danny Taylor achieved was something out of time that split the difference between early electronic music and an off-kilter pop rock sensibility. Simeon’s current live performance approach is more spartan and direct than those early records. Consisting solely of Simeon’s inimitable vocals and offhand manipulations of vintage electronic sounds — via his proprietary oscillator — he achieves what might be called “electro blues.” His occasionally spoken or shouted vocals are backed up by synth loops and ambient noise that unspool into infinity. Throw in a bit more dissonance, and replace Simeon with a fresh-faced urban artist, and Silver Apples could be mistaken for any number of solo operators from the Not Not Fun/Olde English Spelling Bee axis of American primitives and sonic manipulators.

Silver Apples with Oneida

Simeon concluded the set proper with “I Don’t Care What The People Say” – a statement of purpose from The Garden, the group’s long-lost third LP; here, Simeon’s manic vocals and increasingly frantic instrumentation built to a fever pitch, the light show exploding behind him. The track ended abruptly, and Simeon left the stage to thundering applause. The house lights still turned down and the applause showing no signs of abating, he returned to the stage with Oneida drummer Kid Millions, eliciting a roar from the audience. Simeon deadpanned, “You asked for it,” and began playing “Oscillations” (according to Simeon, the first song he ever wrote) as Millions launched into a percussive assault. They were quickly joined by the rest of Oneida, turning the song into a roaring free-form jam that merged the former group’s repetition-obsessed aesthetic with Simeon’s penchant for synth manipulation. It was an exhilarating collaboration that capped a night of profound musical and artistic collaboration.

During the two nights I was fortunate enough to attend, the Joshua Light Show Fest veered away from any hackneyed notion of psychedelic revival or hippy-dippy pandering. Instead, the acts ran the gamut of psychedelic forms, from MV EE’s open-ended interpretation of American folk and blues to Woods’ singularly twisted bedroom pop sensibility, from Oneida’s impenetrably heavy excursions into feedback to Silver Apples’ ragged electronic maneuvers. The take-home message of the Joshua Light Festival wasn’t that psychedelic music has returned in any obvious fashion, but that the inspiration of the original psych groups of the early 1960s has persisted in the consciousness of a diversity of musicians — subsequently spilling out in a startling variety of permutations.

Words: Max Burke
All Photos: Lori Baily, via Brooklyn Vegan

After the scene faded, White moved into professional television production. Although his trippy visuals were forever immortalized in the memories of clued-in boomers and the freaky party scene from Midnight Cowboy, White would not revisit his light show past for nearly 40 years. In 2004, he teamed with artist Gary Panter to recreate some of the light shows for a one-off at Anthology Film Archives. Renewed interest in the classic light shows has peaked in recent years, and White has been performing regularly with his ensemble of visual alchemists and artists to accompany acts like Yo La Tengo, as well as various iterations of the Darmstadt New Music series and one-offs at the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center.

The Joshua Light Show Festival, which premiered last week in New York, is a festival of contemporary psychedelic music, curated by Nick Hallett and paired with the light show’s distinctive visual component. The festival ran for over consecutive nights (the opening night with Steve Moore and itsnotyouitsme, and closing night with Dean & Britta and Spectrum) at the Abrons Art Center, a community center at the Henry Street Settlement, which has its own history as an incubator of avant-garde practice, including big name past associates like John Cage, Jackson Pollock, and Martha Graham.

A young Joshua White

The theater is modestly sized with a stately, classic design — a bit rough around the edges, but certainly a change of pace from the DIY spaces and grungy clubs and bars where you’d usually expect to find acts like Woods and MV EE. The thrill of seeing them in a classier, more traditional venue — with all of the attendant legitimacy that the Joshua Light Show implies — was central to the evening’s appeal. Woods and MV EE have a longstanding association, centered around the friendship between Matt Valentine (MV) and Jeremy Earl, Woods’ lead singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter. The similarities between the two groups are not immediately apparent, but once you scratch the surface, their artistic kinship begins to make sense: both forge their own unique universe of sound, populated with intimate and personal references.

Woods’ debut, At Rear House, was named after the small Brooklyn studio where they record, while MV EE records are brimming with allusions to recording locales like “Maximum Arousal Farm” or “Privacy Mountain.” Within these private spaces, both hone a craft that is singularly spooky and fragile, but compulsively listenable. Woods’ uncanny knack for hummable melodies and finely tuned sense of how to play noise and pop elements against one other to sustain tension make for an arresting combination. MV EE tend to prefer dissonant instrumental passages, always threatening to dissolve into complete cacophony — until they deploy that perfect folk-pop vocal hook or momentum-building guitar lick, that is, pushing the track into overdrive.

MV EE, the core duo of Erika Elder and Matt Valentine — here augmented by backing group The Golden Road, consisting of John Moloney on drums and Ron Schneiderman on bass, long-time associates of freewheeling psych collective Sunburned Hand of the Man — kicked off the night with “Satisfied,” a set staple that has appeared in numerous guises throughout the years. This particular rendition was unually straightforward and down-tuned, perfectly in line with the blue hues of the light show backdrop.

When the group transitioned into “Easy Livin’,” a classic rock tune dedicated by Valentine to the late Jack Rose (presumably with the hope that the sorely missed Rose is living the easy life somewhere better), the light show began to reflect the performers’ increasingly lively musicianship, transitioning to a bright orange and red color scheme. Suddenly, Valentine let loose with a devastating guitar solo. This virtuosic attack set the tone for the rest of the set, with each tune beginning as a head-bopping country rock piece and slowly careening into a full-on freak-out. The light show kept pace, vesting each successive piece with a dominant visual theme — liquid bubbles floating in space, for example, or even a vintage marionette, which flickered briefly into view during one particularly fuzzy passage. Whenever the group took a hard left into abstract territory, Valentine would refer to the resulting cacophony as “nukin’ it.” As an apt description as any.

After exploring nearly every side of their sound — including a pretty, but unexpectedly faithful take on Dylan’s “Positively 4th Street” — the band decided to end on “Tea Devil,” with Valentine welcoming the audience to “roll in as they roll out.” After a tentative start, the tune saw Valentine bring out his modified banjo for some free-form jamming, his instrument sounding more like a sitar than a bluegrass mainstay. Valentine beat the banjo pickups into submission while drummer Moloney came into his own on the track, laying down a confident percussive backdrop.

The group eventually ended up at “Get Right Church,” a tune that has been percolating in the MV EE catalog for years, and that appears to change drastically from one performance to another. Just a month ago, the group played to a packed house at Silent Barn — with Michael Flower sitting in on bass — and delivered a “Get Right Church” as wild and ragged as they come. This evening’s take was more reserved, but hit upon a new fragile beauty, with MV EE closing out the set trading a capella verses as Valentine reluctantly squeezed the last few notes from his guitar. The result, when coupled with the dynamic light show, was a watershed set from the duo.

Woods, live at the Joshua Light Show Festival on May 13, 2010

On record, Woods are a lo-fi pop band who occasionally dabble in noise and extended jamming, but are usually a showcase for the song craft of Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Taveniere. Live, however, Woods’ sound can be more unpredictable, as the group expands to four members including G. Lucas Crane, whose custom tapedeck/audio manipulation rig is responsible for the variety of cracks, creaks, and howls that interrupt Woods’ straightforward pop musings.

As Woods filed on stage in silhouette against a green backdrop, Crane lit an incense stick to set the mood and the group took off, jamming on a riff from “From The Horn,” the brief instrumental passage that closes out the first half of their latest LP, At Echo Lake. Next to to G. Lucas Crane’s unwieldy and manic sound-manipulating ways, Kevin Morby’s boyish good looks, focused stance, and retro bass stylings made Woods suddenly feel like a house band for a self-styled hip variety show from the mid-60s. You could almost imagine Ed Sullivan announcing, “And now ladies and gentlemen…Woods!” and the camera panning over to these four dapper gents.

The set was a judicious balance of focused jamming and pop numbers, including a number of tunes from Echo Lake. “Blood Dries Darker,” “Suffering Season,” and “Time Fading Lines” were all given convincing airings. Divorced from the rough home-recorded sound that Woods prefer for their albums — and given the full band treatment with a solid sound system — Woods proved that although they achieve greater acclaim and popularity with each new record, they are more than ready for the big time, and are undoubtedly one of the defining rock bands of the moment.

As the set barreled along, the background expanded from its initial primary color scheme into an active field of suggestive imagery, spilling acid on one of Thomas Kinkade’s bucolic fantasies of America. The contrast between the muscular instrumental passages provided by the Morby and Tarveniere’s solid rhythm section, the fragility of Earl’s echo-laden vocals, and Crane’s unpredictable sonic embellishments was reflected in the light show imagery, which settled into a red and green color palette, suggestive of classic notions of pscyhedelia. Woods reached the home stretch of their set with Crane wielding a trumpet and Earl executing a precise, lengthy guitar solo. He seemed as hesitant as Valentine had been to let the moment end, but eventually relented. As the lights came up, and both bands returned to the stage for a well deserved ovation, Valentine high-fived and shared a valedictory hug with Earl — a charming moment that summed up the collaborative and mutually respectful nature of the evening.

Words: Max Burke
Photos (in the order in which they appear): John Ruscher, EardrumNYC; The Joshua Light Show website; Woods’ MySpace

Samantha Cornwell: I know that you do all of your own album art work for Sun Araw, and seem to have a pretty clear vision of how you want your music to be represented visually. How do you feel this aesthetic unity effects the Sun Araw experience and sets it apart from other musical projects that you are familiar with? Have you applied a similar rigor to previous musical projects of your own?

Cameron Stallones: I want the zones to flow all the way through, start to finish, eyes to ears, brainpan to inner visions. That’s really powerful and important to me. I just can’t help but get stoked about the object-creation side of it anyhow, such a heavy scene! Not to mention the ability to physically realize for others the inner-zones that you’ve been dwelling in so long while recording. Thankfully, in most of the other bands I’ve been in, people have been down and had similar goals. In Magic Lantern the artwork is always a collab, but those dudes like getting down into it, making something really thorough. I guess those are complicated ways of saying I can be super picky, though. But a lot of the bands I idolize are those that were super singular in their aesthetic visions as well as their music. I just see it as preparing the way for the jams, folding them in love.

In a previous interview, when discussing the difference in vibes between HEAVY DEEDS and ON PATROL you described HEAVY DEEDS as having a “perfect world” vibe; in ON PATROL, those energies meet the real world. You also described ON PATROL as an “application” or a “compromise”. Based on this, would it be wrong to say that the quest for Utopia is an important theme in your work?

Woa, well, I wouldn’t say quest for Utopia myself, but I’m definitely looking for how to live. I can’t really help bending most of the stuff on my mind into the shape of what I’m working on, and for me Sun Araw has always been a pretty spiritual project. ON PATROL was a direct result of the major “All Night Long” hangover, you know? I lost two of my dearest voyaging partners to Portland a while back, and was kinda finding myself going it alone, floating free, and it seemed important for me to figure out how to keep on the night after HEAVY DEEDS are done. That sort of energy is vital, powerful, and the real deal, but it’s not sustainable — nor is it meant to be. Those ascendant moments are short lived for our own benefit, I think. So for the rest of the time, you gotta get On Patrol, you gotta Mind Psalm and get on it. I was really surprised to see how that energy manifests itself so pro-actively: it’s a job, it’s a beat. But that’s how it came out, and seeing it now, it makes a lot of sense. It’s full-time! But it’s joyful work, the only work, and it keeps you out of deep trouble.

Is there anyone making music right now who you feel a strong aesthetic connection with, other than people that you’ve been grouped with through a label, or through the press?

Definitely there’s a lot of people around that I love and respect, some of whom are a huge influence on me personally, if not musically. But I usually process Sun Araw as a fairly solo inner-voyage: letting down the nets in the dead of night, hoping to catch some food, you know? There’s a lot of people who do that, but I think working that way produces pretty disparate voices. That said, some of those big fish are running amok, tearing through the nets of a lot of like-minded people. So I’m always pleasantly surprised to see similar vibes cropping up and blooming all over jams from people I’ve never met, people I know, people I wish I knew. But almost always, when you hold those similarities up to the light you see how they’re appropriated from completely different, even contrary angles. But that’s the strength in it: angle after angle after angle, I want that Picasso vision. Let me see every side of it at once.

Since I know that you do illustrations for your album artwork, and are currently working on a music video that you directed yourself, I want to talk a little bit about your interaction with visual art. Who are some visual artists (from any era) who you really connect to? Do any of these artists influence your visual style at all? Your musical style?

Musically I’m mostly influenced by filmmakers, especially long-take brothers: Tarkovsky, Altman, Bela Tarr, Greenaway. I’m pretty devoted to long-form, mantric music and so I’m all about straight lampin’ in deep focus: angle after angle on the melodic object. I get a lot of inspiration from that breakdown of the illusion of fixed perspective. As far as my album artwork, I probably get more inspired by typography, first-wave independent jazz covers, and yeah probably other record covers mostly. I get way down with anyone creating mystical spaces. I love Augustin Lesage, some of the darker, more tripped abstract Gorky’s. Something about true early twentieth century zoners is so much heavier than anything you see in painting today, especially those abstractions that flew in right before the whole thing got intellectualized and manifesto-ed. Those dudes trained their mystic sight; they saw some serious business.

On a related note, what do you find to be some of the challenges of connecting your musical style to a visual medium?

It can be a real struggle, but for me to feel the total flow it’s really necessary. It’s always the last part of the process, and up to that point you’ve spent so much time inside those jams, turning them over and over, that assigning visuals seems kinda reductive, even though it’s important. I try not to illustrate or show the whole situation. You want it to be an expansive force, so I look for a powerful portion that can turn the floodlights on, light it up from the inside.

What do you find most exciting about working on a solo project? Would you ever consider including additional collaborators?

I don’t like to ever put rules or restrictions on anything, but I think Sun Araw will most likely remain a solo voyage. I’ve done collaborations in the past and will in the future. I’m working on three right now, actually. I love writing and jamming with other people, but that just usually compels me to start a new project with them, if it seems like it’s bearing fruit for the long haul. Araw is a Tagalog word that means “sun” or “day,” and there’s a heavy Sun Day zone for me in there: sacred rest, that’s a big part of it. I think it will always kind of be a retreat for me, from whatever else I’m doing at the time.

Do you think you will continue to make music as “Sun Araw” for the long haul? If you ever stopped making music, what do you think you would do instead?

Oh yeah I hope to. But I hope to do a lot of other stuff. I’m a big film geek, and I work with film in my day job. Directing the “Deep Cover” video and shooting it on film as opposed to digital, was a calculated move to force a serious re-stretch of those muscles, get some juices flowing in ‘em. I’d really like to make some films. I’ve got some stuff I’m working on casually. We’ll see what happens.

Sun Araw, “THE STAKEOUT: REPRISE” (ON PATROL, Not Not Fun)

Interview: Samantha Cornwell
Photos: Cole Prentice

To cruise deeper into the zone, please visit Sun Araw’s website. ON PATROL and HEAVY DEEDS can be purchased directly from Not Not Fun, though you can also stream both albums and more right here.

Following a mysterious cop raid two weeks ago and the announcement — earth-shattering for some — that

The history of Market Hotel, for example, does not begin with the music venue Todd P founded with the So So Glos in February of 2008. In fact, the building was constructed in the mid-1870s, when it housed the offices of a local bank (remember all those boarded-up windows along the sides? Those were designed to keep the whole place flooded with light, pre-electricity style). Among other historical nuggets, it is also rumored that the ballroom was used as one of the location’s in the classic ’80s film Ghost (specifically, as the fleabag abode of the “bad” ghost in said film), though I think I am going to have to go back and watch it again before I can vouch for that 100%.

But perhaps the most surprising thing you would have learned is that from here on in, Market Hotel will be known in music and bloggerly circles as The Market Hotel Project. Over the course of the two-hour meeting — the purpose of which, I gleaned, was primarily to recruit volunteers — Brooklyn concert mogul Todd P announced plans to convert the semi-legal all-ages club into a full-blown non-profit venue and community center. From the way he described it, this new incarnation of Market Hotel — revamped and police proof — will be kind of like Market Hotel on steroids; in addition to 7 nights of musical programming a week, “curated’ by local promoters from all over the musical spectrum, it will be home to art exhibitions, Yoga classes (aka Body Actualized Control), community groups (including those that do not involve hipsters), artists’ workshops, and just about any endeavor with a big heart and a small budget.

Todd P was vague as to how long it would take for this shining utopian vision to pan out, though he implied that it could take anywhere from 4 months to a few years. In the interim, Todd P explained, Market has to endure three rites of passage in order to spread its wings and fly as a grownup Market: 1) legalization and declaration of 501(c) non-profit status, 2) architectural renovation (including the installation of a new sound system, a new stage, new electricity fixtures, new bathrooms, and even handicap access), and 3) fundraising. Todd P estimated the project’s costs at a whopping $100,000 — though even this, he explained, was lower than it might be if the organization wasn’t able to rely partly on the resourcefulness and generosity of the DIY community.

True to his signature adhocist ethic (or what I like to think of his own DIY version of the American Dream), Todd P encouraged those present to think of the Market Hotel Project as a communal endeavor, and to understand that we can probably make a lot of this happen just by culling from the skills and resources that grassroots Brooklyn already has at its disposal. Volunteers with experience in video and web design, for example, could help design a killer Kickstarter Page; aspiring grant writers could help research possible funding opportunities; promoters, organize benefit shows. Not to mention the non-profit’s undisclosed executive board, which will ensure the continuing patronage and artistic mentorship of some of the city’s most illustrious countercultural VIPs.

And you know what? As quixotic as it sounds, and however true to its founding vision it actually will be, somehow I believe that the Market Hotel Project is going to happen. Isn’t the fact that Market Hotel happened in the first place kind of proof enough? When the Q&A was over, as I took my favorite lonely walk home alongside the JMZ, the question that stuck out most in my mind was not whether Todd P and his cohorts were going to pull it off, but how we (and I mean anyone who cares about the future of grassroots culture in Brooklyn) are going to go about it. The Market crew already seems to be overflowing with hair-brain schemes. If you have any to offer, just write the email address below.

markethotelproject@gmail.com

For a list of specific areas in which help is needed, visit ToddPNYC.

Words: Emilie Friedlander
Photo: Annie Escobar