MOMENT NYC
Residential Music Spaces
Oral history, archival media, and social dance party
Featuring rare materials from Alan Lomax, Studio We, & the Silent Barn
With:
Author and NYC music historian, Jesse Rifkin
Studio We archives and live remixes by the Underground Producers Alliance
Silent Barn resident, promoter, and Withfriends co-founder, Joe Ahearn
Sunday Feb 2nd, doors at 2pm, program starts at 2:30pm
at Rubulad
address with tix here
Tickets $20
not a flof
Live Remix Dance Party
NYC has a rich history of residential spaces being used as unlicensed, DIY performance spaces, from Jazz musicians routinely playing at Harlem rent parties in the ‘20s; Yoko Ono and LaMonte Young staging a concert series in Ono’s Tribeca apartment in the early ‘60s; to singer-songwriter Lach hosting antifolk open mics at the Fort, his L.E.S. storefront apartment, in the mid-‘80s; to composer William Basinski and artist James Elaine presenting avant-garde music in Arcadia, their Williamsburg loft, in the early ‘90s. We’ll be celebrating that legacy at Rubulad on February 2nd, by diving into the histories of three very different residential venues from three disparate music scenes: Music historian Jesse Rifkin will introduce a rare screening of Ballads, Bluegrass, and Blues, Alan Lomax’s short film documenting one of the many invitation-only folk music shows he staged in his apartment in the early ‘60s, including rare performances by the likes of Doc Watson, Willie Dixon, Roscoe Holcomb, and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. The Underground Producers Alliance will present footage and audio from Studio We, the cutting-edge “loft jazz” venue run by musicians Juma Sultan and James DuBoise in the early ‘70s. Finally, promoter and Withfriends co-founder Joe Ahearn will screen and discuss documentary footage and photos from his longtime residence, the Silent Barn, the influential Ridgewood, Queens show space that hosted a wide variety of indie artists in the ‘00s and ‘10s. While this event’s focus is on long-gone venues, it is our hope that this treasure trove of material will illustrate the ongoing importance of non-traditional performance spaces in the city, and perhaps even inspire attendees to take matters into their own hands and create venues of their own.
