Musicians, Venues Debate At GRYC
Varying widely in ages and ideas, members of a panel discussion last Saturday, Aug. 25 at the Greater Ridgewood Youth Council (GRYC) headquarters debated the positives and negatives of music venues and shows for residents of all ages.
Set up by the art collective Silent Barn, the panel included several young musicians, the GRYC’s Bob Temkin, Luke Chiaruttini of the Bushwick concert venue Shea Stadium, Brandon Perry of Radio23.com, local musician Sam Hilmer and Silent Barn’s Joe Ahearn.
It was the fourth in an ongoing series of discussions organized by the Bushwick/Ridgewood art group; previous discussions have centered around community involvement and volunteerism.
The meeting, moderated by Silent Barn’s Alison Sirico, began with a question posed to the three musicians on how they are able to perform at venues.
Maurice Douglas, a hip-hop artist from the group Hieroglyph Thesaurus who goes by the stage name of Shas, told the crowd that his start came from his time in a Beacon program at I.S. 291 in Bushwick run by Hilmer. Once he left the program, much of the work of booking shows was done on his own.
“We had to mature,” he said. “What made it easy is loving it; being able to do it and having fun doing it and being inspired the way that I was inspired.”
Rachel Trachtenburg of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players (a Bushwick-based family band), who also performs in her own rock band, noted that most all-ages venues are in neighborhoods in Brooklyn that have more crime.
“For people who are still living at home, their parents don’t want them going to these venues as much, sadly,” she said. “What’s easy is that there are a lot of good things going and a lot of new young bands that can inspire other people. I think there are a lot of cool scenes right now.”
Liz Hogg, an 18-year-old guitarist who has been performing since she was 14, noted that it’s harder to invite groups of friends to over-21 venues then they are underage, while all-ages venues make it “easier to make progress in every respect of being a band.” Hogg and Douglas’ hip-hop group would both perform in between discussions.
The money-liquor connection
Temkin asked the group about the connection between music venues and alcohol; Hilmer explained that venues that serve alcohol can have greater logistical issues centering on ensuring that they don’t sell alcohol to minors.
Ahearn added that many all-ages spaces in Manhattan operate on a “massive commercial level” that bring in larger, well-known acts. Smaller venues that charge less for tickets make up the cost by selling beer and liquor.
Trachtenburg noted that a recent attempt to book her band at a Manhattan bar fell through when the bar did not agree to open the show to all ages.
“They were like, ‘you know, obviously if we start letting all ages people come in, we can’t serve any alcohol. That’s where we make our money. We’re not going to do it,'” she said.
Why all ages?
The discussion then shifted from the musicians to the venue operators, and why they decided to open their shows to all comers.
Ahearn, who stared booking shows while in high school, told the crowd that “I really didn’t have an option; I wanted to help organize music and those were the places that were accessible.”
“It doesn’t make sense to limit the audience in that way,” said Chiaruttini, whose venue was recently the subject of a New York Times profile. He added that there are risks involved in an over-21 venue, such as increased police scrutiny.
“It’s definitely worth it to not exclude people from he shows they want to see,” he added, “and have people be able to throw a show and have their friends come and be a part of that community.”
Sirico then went toward the differences between all-ages DIY venues and youth centers such as the GRYC.
“The differences are vast,” Hilmer, who has experience with both, admitted. “A really important distinction to me is that all the DIY venues that I know of began through self-elected collaboration without any sort of mandate existing.”
Youth and teen centers, on the other hand, are often “connected to some kind of either governmental or corporate initiative.”
For example, a call for a teen center in a neighborhood like Brownsville may lead to funding from a local lawmaker toward a center. This, Hilmer said, “creates an economy where not-for-profit organizations compete for that money” for salaries and programs.
This creates “a very different spirit” at youth centers, Hilmer concluded; while they can be positive forces for the community, “you can never really totally forget that you do have to answer to these people who pay your salary.”
Temkin agreed that “we do have to answer to our local politicians.”
“On the other hand,” he noted, “if they give you money, we do have a space like this.”
Hilmer responded that “one thing that I think is totally under-explored” is the way youth centers and DIY venues can support each other.
Later on in the discussion Temkin promised that panel that he would “find out what it takes” to let bands perform at the GRYC.
“I think it’s possible,” he said. “It’s something I will explore.”
Temkin also noted that there are several venues available to the public such as the Seuffert Bandshell in Forest Park, and that prospective shows can be set up with the help of elected officials.
Rachel Trachtenburg’s mother, Tina, countered that “I don’t want to do that; I want to go somewhere and have 200 people here going ‘yes, we’re going to make art, we’re going to do that today, we’re going to play on a roof tonight.'”
How to do it
The subject shifted toward how the venues program and curate the music.
Hilmer noted that in his position operating I.S. 291’s Beacon program, he allowed student interest to foster classes. As an example, a student pitched an idea for a class on anime (Japanese animation), which led to a Friday anime club at the Bushwick school and eventually a class run by a former student.
He added that DIY venues have experience with aspects of booking events that youth centers have issues with, such as getting residents to events. City agencies and organizations, Hilmer stated, often check how many people attend events, and “that’s something that the DIY scene has had outrageous success with.”
Temkin later asked the musicians what they expect to get paid for their work.
“There’s a problem with artists being taken advantage of,” Hogg warned. “Unless it’s specifically a benefit show for a cause, if there’s any money being made, a band is a part of that profit, so whatever money is being made, some of it should go to everybody involved.”
Trachtenburg agreed, but added that most performers understand “if it’s a free show, you know you’re not going to get paid.”
Musical tastemaking
Later in the meeting, Ahearn piggy-backed on an earlier conversation on musical tastes by asking the crowd how they are exposed to music that’s not on the radio.
Trachtenburg explained that she finds new music by going to see bands she knows, but sticking around to see all the performers on the bill. Hogg claimed she tended to find music by comparing new bands to ones she already knows. Douglas finds new music from exploring the various collaborations that are common in the hip-hop world.
Hilmer, who grew up in the “wildly successful” all-ages 1990s Washington D.C. music scene, went on a colorful rant on the differences between that time and present-day New York City.
He claimed that “if you were a little weird around the time you turned 13 or 14 if you were in D.C.-which is a very conservative place-you were drafted into this [stuff],” he said. “We didn’t look up to people on the radio, we didn’t think about people on the radio, we didn’t think about MTV, we didn’t know what was on MTV, we didn’t know what was on the radio.”
New site for Silent Barn?
Members of Silent Barn confirmed to the Times Newsweekly that the site is deep into negotiations on a new space off the Myrtle Avenue- Broadway train station in Bushwick.
The art group’s previous location, at 915 Wyckoff Ave., closed in September 2011 after the site was burglarized and then closed by the city Department of Buildings.
The negotiations with the site’s landlord has progressed to the point where flyers at the meeting showed a possible floor plan.
Ahearn would note that the group will need additional funding to renovate the site and bring it up to legal code.
