EVERYBODY LES – MOMENT NYC / Subterra / Drom

A live communal music experience – celebrating Lower East Side traditions of group improvisation – featuring members of Groove Collective, Los Cumpleaños, The Hieroglyphics, Subterra Soundsystem, and The New JBs, with special guests, local heroes, and live music experiments.

The event will kick off with a rapid-fire presentation of 100 years of LES/NYC music history in 20 minutes!!, followed by a live conducted group improvisation – This genre-defying tribute to the neighborhood’s connection to Butch Morris, Sun Ra, Ornette Coleman, and John Zorn will feature members of Groove Collective, with Hieroglyphics Ensemble founder – Peter Apfelbaum, Eric Lane (Los Cumpleaños, Joan As Police Woman), and surprise guests mixing free-spiritual-jazz, lo-fi, rock, hip-hop, and dance grooves. The third part of this event will expand the band, adding guests and Subterra regulars. Musicians will mix it up with audience-provided prompts and participation, and finally morph into a community open jam, synchronizing time, voices, and space in transient creative moments, culminating in a group interpretation, deconstruction, and possibly unrecognizable version of Charlie Parker’s, “Now’s the Time”. This event will feature musicians in all stages of life and career, featuring people who have worked with Don Cherry, Tupac Shakur, Celia Cruz, Elvis Costello, Tito Puente, Vernon Reid, Cab Calloway, Defunkt, Chucho Valdez, Curtis Mayfield, Tom Brown, Sugar Hill Gang, Harry Belafonte, Wu-Tang, Digital Underground, Eddie Palmieri, Cecil Taylor, Levon Helm, Pharoah Sanders, Fred Wesley, Bernie Worrell, Guru, Donald Byrd, Clark Terry, and countless others.

“Since the days of Five Points the Lower East Side has been a place of mixing cultures, danger, drinking, dancing, debauchery, drugs, resilience, resistance, and music – all pushing the limits, and often breaking the laws of the day. This melting pot has inspired and attracted outcasts, artists, and misfits for over a century. Sex workers, drag queens, beatniks, yipees, free jazzers, rumberos, and punk rockers all found the creative freedom to thrive here. We are really excited to bring some of this history into a present-day interpretation of what the area represents to NYC and the world of music.”

– Genji Siraisi, Executive Director, MOMENT NYC

We are giving away one free copy of Jesse Rifkin’s fantastic new book, “This Must Be the Place – music, community and vanished spaces in New York City”, and 2 free vouchers for Jesse’s, Walk on the Wildside, NYC music tours. The book and vouchers will be given away to 3 random lucky people arriving before 7:30 pm. More information at Walk on the Wildside tours: https://walkonthewildsidenyc.com/

Doors open at 7 pm. Show begins promptly at 7:30 pm. Admission is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Tickets are available at Dromnyc.com. People facing financial limitations can be added to the $5 guest list with email signup and RSVP to [email protected]. This is an all-ages event.

This partnership between MOMENT NYC, Drom, and Subterra Art Space is part of a series of MOMENT NYC / Drom programs made possible by funding from The Live Music Society, The New York City Dept of Cultural Affairs, and the New York State Council on the Arts.

Ilé Ìlù | House of Drums: A Celebration of Afro-Descendant Music & Culture

DJs & Live Music: Jazz, Bata, Rumba, Palo, Bomba + Visuals/Art, Food & Bar.

Saturday, May 13 · 7pm – midnight

Golden Palace 123-08 Jamaica Avenue Queens, NY 11418

Event Schedule
7pm | Doors – DJs Nina Creese & DrumPriest
8pm | Food, Bar Open
8:00pm| JAZZ BATA
9:00pm| DJs Nina Creese & DrumPriest
9:30pm| ANTHONY CARRILLO
10:30pm| Rumba/Descarga Jam
11:30pm| DJ’s w/drums
Visuals by BigShortsFilms/Iris Goodwin
*Minors must be accompanied by an adult guardian.
*Hot food & bar cash only

Click For Ticket Link


Blurring the lines between culture, tradition & performance, Ilé Ìlù | House of Drums is a place to become immersed in Afro-descendent culture live in NYC. Featuring world-class artists from the African music Diaspora, a Yoruba market, Ancestor & Ifa shrines, art+visuals, plus DJs + food/bar. The Òtúrá Rigbè Temple in Queens becomes a traditional village bringing together traditionalists and lovers of music & culture from across the vast NYC community and Afro-descendent culture – from West-African/Yoruba Ifa, to Ghana/Akan, Brazilian Candomble, Palo Congo, Division 21, Haitian Vodoun, Garifuna, Santeria, Trinidadian Sango, Rastafarian – all these expressions of African culture are ALIVE and vibrant in NYC. However, these different communities have been somewhat isolated and their incredible musical traditions. Ilé Ìlù | House of Drums celebrates these traditions in a setting organically connected to traditional (Isese) culture.

Giant Step – Retrospective 1990-1995

Event promo image for MOMENT NYC: Giant Step – Retrospective 1990-1995 at SOBs Sunday, March 5th 2023

A convergent moment in downtown New York City club history

MOMENT NYC invites you to a retrospective on the groundbreaking underground Giant Step party of the 1990s. This roving downtown party attracted generations of artists, jazzers, MCs, dancers, celebrities, and fashionistas – an eclectic mix of all kinds and personalities, creatively intermingling. Unique and of its time but also part of a long continuing tradition of underground music and dance club culture in NYC nightlife. This was the club where artists like Jamiroquai, Massive Attack, Gilles Peterson, Guru’s Jazzamatazz, Daft Punk and Digable Planets first performed. It was also a jumping off point for local artists like Groove Collective, Dana Bryant and Repercussions. Giant Step inspired other like minded parties from Los Angeles to Toronto and beyond.

The event will feature the photography of Alice Arnold with archival audio; a panel discussion w/ Maurice Bernstein, Erica Lee, DJ Smash, and David Hershkovits; and after-party DJ set by DJ Smash w/ guest performers.

6:30pm Discussing ’90s NYC Giant Step parties in the context of NYC nightlife history

David Hershkovits (founder of Paper Magazine), facilitates a discussion with Maurice Bernstein (Giant Step co-founder and CEO), Erica Lee (former Director of Events at Giant Step, and DJ Smash (original Giant Step DJ)

8pm Live exhibit of photos by Alice Arnold, Giant Step archival audio mixes, and context

8:30-11:00 After-Party DJ set by DJ Smash w/live guest performers

Tickets available here

Early bird $8 tickets available until Feb 14th here

This event is all-ages with chaperone