More thoughts continued

Music is inherently an art form meant as a community event. By its nature, it is a shared experience, and somewhere along the line, most venues have forgotten this. Live music is treated in the same way as going to a theater to view a movie – come in, sit down, shut up. The lights dim for show, the credits roll, the lights come back on and everyone leaves. This works for a summer blockbuster, but it shouldn’t for a concert performance. There is supposed to be some give-and-take between the audience and the performer, and the maybe even the audience and the venue owners.
The Silent Barn isn’t the only place to tap into this idea. At the Glasslands Gallery in Williamsburg, wall space is literally given over to the community to play with – large collaborations of paintbrush and spray can provide the backdrop to live music performances. At a recent show, a group of performance artists hosted an event there to promote a documentary of their trip from England to Mongolia in a beaten up jalopy. They built, among other things, a “kiss the dictator” booth complete with Fidel Castro costumes (for guys and girls), a rodeo saddle made out of cold cuts and a plastic udder protruding from a giant wooden yak filled with White Russians. Glasslands is officially a club (with a liquor license and all), but the owners and promoters like Todd try their best to underscore that fact. With bands playing and people mingling with their Solo cups full of yak juice, the vibe is closer to a demented house party than any bar or music venue in Manhattan.
The Glasslands’ liquor license aside, one might think that a DIY show would be fraught with peril when considering legal questions, or perhaps more specifically the attitude of the NYPD. There is definitely the sense, strolling through the Silent Barn, that it could all come crashing down at any minute. Underground music and underground clubs certainly aren’t two concepts new to New York – people have been doing the same thing since the era of Prohibition, and even when a place that could loosely be defined as “DIY” or “underground” becomes mainstream – like CBGB’s – it still could fold at any moment. Todd knows that his little live music wet dream won’t last forever; his philosophy is to keep moving one step ahead of the police cars and eviction notices.
“I don’t have any problem with the NYPD,” he said defensively. His biggest defense slogan is that all clubs are in some way illegal – usually in terms of capacity. The ones that get busted are more a show of force by the police or fire departments than anything else – Todd cited an example of Webster Hall, one of the biggest clubs in the city, getting shut down for capacity just because the fire department wanted to get on the front page of the Post.
Still, his DIY shows – less established and less likely to plead their case in front of a judge or a community board – are more susceptible to attack. In its infancy, the Silent Barn was almost shut down thanks to rival club owners calling in fake complaints for fighting or teenage drinking to the Brooklyn police. Todd has managed to dodge that threat – crediting the city’s inundated 411 system for being to busy to care – but some other attack that dooms the Barn in the future is only inevitable.
It’s a shame, because the Knitting Factory, or worse, places like Crobar will exist forever – perpetual meat factories where human cattle are herded in to slurp down their $15 Bacardi and diets, all to be kicked out promptly at 4:00am. DIY shows like the Silent Barn and Glasslands are incredibly not for their garish appearance or even the cheap drinks. Their appeal lies in an attitude that defies the nightlife business. It isn’t a business for Todd; it’s a community event. Money is asked for purely to keep the rusty machine running, he’s not out to start VIP rooms for Paris Hilton or P Diddy. Once the show starts Todd is just another face in the crowd, munching on a stale slice of pizza and sipping his can of Bud – a symbol of the accessibility of the scene. The bands follow suit – the same one that began the Friday night playing for the crowd ended up being a part of it – the drummer and guitarist both sipping plastic cups of whiskey, the singer resting on a couch gossiping with her friends well past 4:00am. What starts out as five roommates in a warehouse apartment in Ridgewood not knowing what to do with themselves soon becomes their friends inviting friends-of-friends, until half of Williamsburg is sitting in the living room, like one giant sleep over – and that’s Todd’s goal. A community acting itself out.

Some more thoughts on the Barn

It’s 9 o’clock on a Friday night, and the crowd is just starting to file in. Guitars and microphones are being sound checked, fans are casually sipping on cans of beer and Dixie cups full of mixed drinks. The band mates have just started to show up, and are warming up a bit before their set.
No one had to wait on a velvet rope line, though. There was no neon sign in front of the place, telling fans that they had arrived. They didn’t pass their ID off to a surly, 300-pound bouncer either. Their drinks didn’t even come from a long, wood paneled, stool adorned bar.
The first band of the night starts playing, a slow, simple beat of guitar plucks and the singer’s moaning permeating through the heads of the audience. The band isn’t sitting on a stage, however, they’re in someone’s kitchen. The audience is mingling and listening on couches and chairs in a living room, a TV and Nintendo in the background. A pair of guests, eager to hear the music from a slightly closer vantage point, are resting on a washing machine.
The fans of live music here didn’t go to a swanky Manhattan super club like the Knitting Factory or Irving Plaza, they rode ten stops deep on the L train to Ridgewood, on the far border of Brooklyn and Queens, to the Silent Barn. They walked on a siren-soaked street, stopped across the way from a scrap yard, and entered a metallic door with a broken handle that looked as if it might have fallen victim to a SWAT team battering ram not so long ago. The only sign telling visitors that they had come to the right place was a 12-point font sized “(…)” and stick-figure style picture of a barn, both written in black sharpie. A scrawny kid in skin tight jeans with a hairdo spanning the stylistic accomplishments of the Mohawk and the mullet was the one looking at IDs and collecting the cover charge. Cocktails were mixed and served inside a makeshift closet, prepared by one resident of the barn while another tore off the tops of twelve-packs of Budweiser.
“The difference between the Silent Barn and some of those bigger Manhattan super-clubs is, well a couple of things,” said Todd P, the guy who pretty much put the night’s entertainment together. “There’s no artificial divide here between audience and performer. You go to one of those clubs, and the bands are cloistered away. You never see them.”
This is just the beginning of a long list that can be compiled on the difference between the Silent Barn, a so-called “underground” venue, and those places that are more likely to appear in TimeOut New York or the back of The Village Voice. The audience experience is tailored, in what Todd would have one believe, in an intentional way, completely opposite to that of a regular bar or club. Visitors are allowed, and quite possibly encouraged, to mingle and socialize into the morning hours, well past when the band has already packed up their equipment. Not to say that the band has left – quite the opposite. Most stay to drink a $3 Bud can or smoke a cigarette on the roof with the rest of the crowd.
“The only thing I can say about the Silent Barn against other places is that it’s much more tastefully done,” said Josh Brown, one of the former roommates who still helps put on shows there. “The people who run this place are very respectful. They aren’t trying to screw anyone over.”
This mentality, in fact, seems in direct opposition to the New York, and let’s be honest, Manhattan nightlife scene. Most clubs and bars in the city have been engineered to engage their patrons in a pure business transaction throughout the course of their stay. Money is gruffly taken at the door, one is shoved through the front door into a mob congealed around a bar serviced by underpaid and typically underachieving bartenders.
Bands are normally treated in two ways. If they are big enough to warrant a green room, they stay there for 90 percent of the time, and then play for a cookie-cut extent of time on the stage and leave. If they aren’t that big, they still play the same cookie-cutter kind of time (although slightly abridged), but are relegated to a corner of the house, where the acoustics suck and their equipment is never properly sound checked. People like Todd and Josh just can’t seem to understand the point of going to places like that.
“You’ve got friends, you’ve got equipment. Find a place, charge a couple bucks at the door and there’s your show,” Josh said. “That’s all DIY is.” This thrown together quality of a DIY show at a place like the Silent Barn is exactly how it gets its appeal. The doors open at 8:00pm typically, but the first band could play anywhere between ten minutes and two hours from then. That would be frustrating, if it wasn’t kind of the point.
“With the bigger clubs, it’s just a business transaction,” Todd said. “The minute the band stops, the lights turn on and the big bouncer goons tell everybody to get the fuck out. Why? Because they are employees getting paid, and they are doing what they think they are supposed to.” The point at DIY shows is that people are supposed to mingle, communities are supposed to act themselves out in public spaces. The drinks are cheap, and half the time given away for free. Audience members ping pong between discussions with people they’ve never met before to talk about the bands, the area, or the giant wall mural of a seagull eating a bowl of spaghetti in front of them.
The decorating is an incentive in itself here. The barn’s interior is an insane amalgamation one would never experience at the typical New York venue – adorned with relic player pianos, arcade machines from the 1980’s and wall illustrations that defy explanation (upon entering the main living room, headless monsters in hooded sweatshirts are the first greeting a guest receives). The furniture and artworks on the walls are in fact just another way for visitors to break the ice; at the first time there, one can’t help talking to somebody else about the unicorn that’s riding a rainbow in space right behind the drummer.

Silent Barn Magazine Piece

Picture standing in a room just big enough to cram in a couple couches, a TV, an arcade machine, a player piano and a kitchen complete with a refrigerator, stove and sink. Now picture the same room with a rock band playing in the kitchen area, the drummer’s back scrapping against the dish drying rack and the guitarist’s elbows rubbing against the refrigerator door. Now picture two hundred other people right beside you. Welcome to the Silent Barn, a converted warehouse turned by its five inhabitants into one of New York’s most popular underground music venues. Being in the living room/kitchen/stage, you might have trouble wading through the throngs of sweaty hipsters, but don’t worry. Tired of standing, you can always take refuge on a coach or a washing machine – provided someone isn’t already standing on it. Kids line the walls and even spill onto the roof, the club’s unofficial smoking lounge. Swimming all the way through the crowd will get you face to face with the band – no guard rails or security guards separate the madness. Some bands – like Crash Diet Crew, a three piece wall of sound from Williamsburg, don’t even set up a stage, they just play toe to toe with the audience. “I think it makes it accessible for both audience and performer,” said David, the band’s drummer. “It’s kind of this symbiotic thing, where you give [the crowd] energy and they give it back to you.” WIth no vocals, just a guitar, a drum set and a battery of keyboards, the band can galvanize the entire barn with a sound that, to a certain extent, defies explanation. The band winces when you call them psychedelic; their Myspace page jokes that they’re “surf rock” influenced. Veterans of another underground venue, Monkey Town, they played the Silent Barn for the first time in September. They had quite a ways to travel, even from Williamsburg To get to the Silent Barn, you need to ride the L train 10 stops into Brooklyn. From the outside, the building is completely unimpressive; across the street from a junkyard, with graffiti-clad metal railings bolted over the windows, you’d probably walk right past it, never realizing that inside is one of Brooklyn’s premier underground music venues. The only sign advertising the place consists of “(…)” followed by a drawing of a barn. Both are written in black sharpie on the dented metal door that acts as the Barn’s front entrance. When the door is locked, you get the sense that a couple swift kicks would topple it over, and that size 13 SWAT boots already have in the not too distance past. Once you talk, pay or sneak your way into the Silent Barn, the industrial air of Ridgewood and the general gloominess of its denizens fade into the collective madness of the Barn’s interior. Massive drawings and murals cover the walls – their subjects ranging from hoodie-clad headless monsters to seagulls eating bowls of spaghetti. Directly above the front door is a mattress with blankets and a pillow encased in a steel cage – the “guest room.” A makeshift bar where $3 Budweiser cans and Dixie cup mixed drinks are served flanks the hallway, with bedroom doors on either side leading into the five roommate’s quarters. You’re as likely to bump into someone playing in the night’s show as someone watching it, and that’s how the organizers like it. “The thing with the Silent Barn is, the people are hanging out,” said Todd P, one of Brooklyn’s busiest underground promoters. “There’s no artificial divide. You go to a big fancy club, the band is back in a sanctuary the whole time, they’re cloistered away.” Todd hosts almost half a dozen shows a week at the Barn and places like it. Taking on New York’s collective club monstrosity is one of his principle reasons for doing what he does. The Silent Barn, Todd’s venue of choice, is the ideal counterpoint to the Manhattan-centric club attitude: throngs of people, all ages, jammed into a living room. It’s a far cry from the velvet ropes and 300 pound bouncers of mega clubs like Webster Hall and Crobar. Give him all day, and Todd can rattle off a horde of reasons to stay away from those places. “Everything is regulated. The fans basically are being overcharged and treated like cows, herded in and herded out. The moment the show is over, the big bouncer goon comes up and tells everybody to get the fuck out. How does that in any way foster the community?”
His goal to beating those kinds of places lies in changing the club owning mentality -The Silent Barn might not get the same ticket sales as The Knitting Factory, but Todd is looking to win over his customers hearts and minds as well as their well-earned wallet candy. The Barn itself has gone through some alterations in the brief time its been around – if you look at the dozen or so webzines and blogs that publicize underground music in Brooklyn – like New York Night Train, Going or Oh My Rockness, you might find it referred to as the Raven’s Den or Club Krib. Walking down the Barn’s central hallway, the padlocked bedroom doors house an ever-changing cast of dwellers. Of the roommates, Lucas and John originally leased the place in Spring of 2007, however the other rooms have been occupied by various tenants over the course of the venues short history. Admittedly, according to original lease signer and former roommate Josh Brown, it takes a certain type of person to be able to live at the party 24 hours a day. He says he started promoting live music shows in his home state of Connecticut before moving to Brooklyn to go to college. Like Lucas and John, he wanted to continue promoting in the Big Apple. The Silent Barn was already being used as a venue, by the bands Skeletons and the Girl-Faced Boys. Lucas, Jon and Josh were promoting shows there, and when they heard that the previous tenants were leaving, they saw their opportunity to have full control of the place. And that’s when the space morphed into the amalgamation that it is. The end of the hallway is where most visitors end up; a massive room that functions as a kitchen and living room by day and a stage, equipment closet, and mixing room by night. Typically, it takes about three hours for Todd and his staff of interns to transform the kitchen into an area suitable for live music, by setting up the drums, speakers, amps and other various wires and electronics. Todd’s been doing this kind of work ever since he moved into Brooklyn seven years ago from Portland, Oregon. Todd P (short for Patrick) promotes underground music shows all over Brooklyn, from converted warehouses like the Silent Barn to more traditional venues, like local bars and nightclubs. As a general rule, he won’t work with a venue unless they lower their drink prices to an amount he finds suitable. In the case of the Silent Barn, the three buck cans of Bud certainly aren’t going to break your wallet. Still, Todd knows that’s where the revenue is . “No, no, let the girls work the bar,” he directs a skin-tight jeans clad intern with a Flock of Seagulls hairdo. “They’ll get a lot more tips then you. Work the door.” Throughout the course of a night’s show, Todd P won’t stop moving. Typically, he arrives about three hours before the doors open at a venue, to begin setting up the bar, the front door, the stage area and to meet the bands that will be performing. Seemingly in a constant state of raveling and unraveling audio cables, he will stop only briefly to instruct an intern, eat a quick slice of pizza or survey the room, hands on his hips and a slight beer gut protruding from whatever worn tee shirt he’s wearing that night. Todd nets 10 percent of the door for each night’s work – about 70 cents a customer at the Silent Barn. Todd’s staff collectively get 5 percent of the door and whatever tips they can siphon out of the barflies. The venue gets the bar, and the bands pocket 80 percent of the door – one of the best percentages in the city. Todd factors in 5 percent to cover the cost of putting the whole thing on. His wages, along with renting out rehearsal space for bands, keeps him stocked enough for pizza and beer money, as well as his rent-controlled, Long Island City apartment.
The bands that eventually play Todd’s set up and sound checked stages come from all over the place, geographically and sonically. In a single week, he’ll showcase a 60’s throwback band, complete with long frizzy hair and tranquilized female vocals, a hip hop DJ, a “death country” outfit and a noise rock band consisting of two members screaming in microphones and throwing themselves at each other. That very band, called Pillow Fight Fight, came all the way from Seattle to play. They showed up to the Silent Barn without talking to either Todd P or the roommates. Todd fit them into the bill by putting them on the basement stage – a dense, low-ceiling subterranean zoo where crowd members have as good a chance bumping into a support beam as another human being. The environment was perfect for Pillow Fight Fight: the drummer, wearing a modified crash helmet with a microphone wired into it, delivered staccato shrieks as the guitar player mashed himself around a corner of the room. The sound produced by the band was condensed into such a small space that there was a feeling that it was coming from everywhere, and audience members reacted by jaggedly flailing about as if in some pagan religious ceremony. Pillow Fight Fight is far from the only band to travel longer than just the L train to get to the Barn. When the female Japanese duo Kiiiii!!!! began their first tour of America some months ago – a trip that spanned both coasts and almost a dozen cities – they made a point to stop in Ridgewood, where they got some of their most enthusiastic admirers. The question then is, why do these bands make such an effort to play places like the Silent Barn. The answer is that commercial success has a history of catching up to DIY acts. Bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah!, and Interpol all have multiple major label albums and international tours set up, and they all got their start playing in venues similar to the Barn. The newest band to get critical attention out of the scene, called Animal Collective, embodies the current sound being developed here: audio samples from 80’s-style mix tapes combined jagged melodies and aloof, trance-like vocals. Many bands, with a comparably incomparable sound but not yet a blip on the pop culture radar, are hoping to follow Animal Collective’s lead. “That’s where I want to be,” David said, reflecting on the sound of his band, Crash Diet Crew. “To be doing stuff I can’t really articulate myself. That’s exciting to me, to not be able to characterize it.” As for Todd, he’s got no problem with his bands getting famous – he just wants to change how they are famously presented to the masses. “We are doing it in terms of, if music were invented yesterday,” he said. “You create a space, where people can come in and sit down at the same grubby chair at the Silent Barn every weekend, and they start to feel ownership. They start to feel comfortable…’this is a place, I can feel like it’s my place.”

Silent Barn Video

Silent Barn Slideshow