July 3rd St Marks Church Benefit recap...
Just to recap, last week I threw a benefit party for the historic St Mark's church in New York with A-Ron the Don and Ethan Swan. (Bronwyn Keenan from the Guggenhiem Museum asked A-Ron to do it and he brought Ethan and I onboard). The Guggenhiem, RVCA, Supreme, www.ruckus.com, a slew of generous individual liquor and food donors and a serious team of volunteers and Interns (The St. Marks Roaches) came through with so much support it was nuts. In total about 2000 people came and over $12,000 were raised to help renovate the building where Patty Smith played her first show, Sam Shepard staged his first two plays, and Andy Warhol screened his first film, along side countless other historic landmark art events of the last 40 years... and we were only trying to raise $9000...
The mood was excited but relaxed, with people going back and fourth between the church's beautiful garden/graveyard/courtyard and the main chapel area where the bands played. Nobody threw fits about paying the $5 cover which went directly to the cause (except NeckFace who insisted that there must be a guestlist, funnily enough), and everybody in the world's friends seemed to be there.
...below are the photos that I took throughout the night... with a camera with a broken focusing mechanism...
Superstar Drag City session musician and the Mighty Flashlight, Mike Fellows, dj’ed the garden the whole night... these photos were taken very early in the night, as he dissapeared into the crowd after an hour.
He had my favorite dj set up of all time... It looked like he was signing people up for a goodvibes march next summer.
Fatboy (KidAmericaTeam) and his bar team... things were getting hectic as soon as the doors opened at 7:00...
Ian/JR/Jeremy running the door.
This is the inside space, before any of the bands played... it was so mellow...
DJ FREE SIMON (dj'ed inside before and between all the bands all nite) and batboyKent.
Ethan Swan handled all the performer logistics for the whole thing. There were 8 bands and three djs. He was starting to get stressed about the logistics. Dash Snow and Jamal Griswold were hoping to hold him down.
I'm sorry, it was kind of hard to not take this photo. Marcus (RockersNYC)/Dash and friend.
The bands started just after 9:30 pm, with Patric Cleandenimn and The Living Image playing first. I knew nothing about them except that all four members had attended Cooper Union. They were a totally beautiful surprise. Not to hater/weird out, but they kind of sounded like an amazing version of what that fake band called Cold War Kids are supposed to sound like. Actually, that doesn't do Patric Cleandenimn justice. They are totally super super good in their own super super way.
Criddler, Creeper, Pager.
Young Lords perfomed some sort of americanna rock. I'm not sure if they always run an american flag on their bass drum or if it was some sort of nod to the next day's impending pollitical holiday.
There was this crazy phenomenon happening by this point in the nite, which was that as the space in the garden filled, huge gaps between the people remained where the church's crypt/mounds were. You would look out at people packed so tightly around this sort of organically shaped seas of space, and then realize, whoah, there are other people way under the space where it looks like there are no people. Crypts.
The sound in the church can be pretty hard to handle. Drums and loud amps sound really really boomy... Kria Brekkan (aka Kristin from MUM and Doctess from Animal Collective)'s sole interest in playing the show was the church's legendary grand piano. The sound for her set was beyond perfect. And everyone sat.
Dash, A-Ron, Thomas from Rub N Tug, Jordan Bennet
I can't remember if I first heard of Modrocket in California at the RVCA homebase or in NY from A-Ron... they got down with both teams simultaneously, before any of the band members were even 18... The girls all live in NY, and 3 of the 4 live within a few blocks of the church. They are young and not fucking around. Please expect so insanely much from these kids.
Yess!
Nate Harrington (FamilyStoreLA/AaronRose'sHelper)/DanHougland(Excepter/OtherMusicNY)/JoshDibb(AnimalCollective)
Effie Briest are a six woman new york avant rock super group... I had been hearing of them for at least a year now, but had never gotten to see them... and they were fucking unreal. Incredible.
Their sound was so powerful and humongous. Fully amazing.
In spite of the fact that I only got one photo of them playing (what?!?! YIKES!) Lizzy Truly and The Fibs fully rule. A lot. ...and a special side/fried/back-in-the-day note: the keyboard player, Erin Krause, used to work with Aaron (Rose) and I at Alleged Galleries in New York... I'm sorry there are so few Lizzy photos!
After Lizzy, A-Ron came out to get everyone riled up before The Virgins played. Maybe my favorite moment of the nite: when he called Donald (the Virgins' front person who had just dyed his hair '91 alterna red that day) "Lollapalooza" on the stage before they played.
The Virgins are kind of the new NY downtown scene hometown hero band... Like, not DIY punk/indie land, but like, nitelife/scene band. They are totally sweet people, and their songs are ruling and totally accessible. They just signed to Atlantic, so they are going to get kind of majorly major big, soon. Really rad jams. Killer Pop for the team!
The police had come by this point and made everyone either leave the outside garden area or go inside the church where the bands were playing, so the inside was completely packed... probably a little over a thousand people were watching.
A-Ron took the stage at the end of their set... from this photo it might seem like it should have sounded nearly rap-rock...
but it was more arena/beyond thunder dome. The energy was insane. Can you see the guy on the right throwing his crutches in the air? This moment was really the peak of the nite.
The stage got so mobbed out after they played. Total team photo opps beyond one million.
Awwww, man....
And then after the Virgins finished, and after a long technical delay that made it seem like things were all fully over, well after 3:00, and after most of the thousand people that were there up until just that moment, Car Clutch played-Car Clutch is a thing that I do with Ethan Swan, who plays in BARR with me, as well. But Car Clutch is no speaking, just "dark bangers." Total 3:something a.m. small group jams. (All CC photos were taken by Andrea Longacre White. Thank you Andrea.)
So far, I've gone out of my way to not post any photos of myself on this blog. I guess my resolve breaks down here.
Its kind of funny, we seem to always have at least one or two people kind of involving themselves with the band at each show. A-Ron was sort of the 3rd member of Car Clutch at that show. Chopping game.
Rub N Tug dj'ed after us, at 4:00 am, but the lights all went out-they played in total darkness to about 30 kids that actually danced until 8 AM- and we had been there since 3 pm. I'm sorry, Rub N Tug, no photos... But also, speaking of no photos, I realized that I never got any photos of Bronwyn Keenan, who initiated the whole event and asked A-Ron to come on board and bring Ethan and I along in the first place. She was running around all nite, handling things past the speed of lite. And I only got this one photo of Father Frank. He runs the church and rules beyond possible description (a squatter since the 70s who now runs a church that only holds community oriented performance art events...)
A-Ron, Father Frank, and JR.
Thank you so much to everyone who came out!
The mood was excited but relaxed, with people going back and fourth between the church's beautiful garden/graveyard/courtyard and the main chapel area where the bands played. Nobody threw fits about paying the $5 cover which went directly to the cause (except NeckFace who insisted that there must be a guestlist, funnily enough), and everybody in the world's friends seemed to be there.
...below are the photos that I took throughout the night... with a camera with a broken focusing mechanism...
Superstar Drag City session musician and the Mighty Flashlight, Mike Fellows, dj’ed the garden the whole night... these photos were taken very early in the night, as he dissapeared into the crowd after an hour.
He had my favorite dj set up of all time... It looked like he was signing people up for a goodvibes march next summer.
Fatboy (KidAmericaTeam) and his bar team... things were getting hectic as soon as the doors opened at 7:00...
Ian/JR/Jeremy running the door.
This is the inside space, before any of the bands played... it was so mellow...
DJ FREE SIMON (dj'ed inside before and between all the bands all nite) and batboyKent.
Ethan Swan handled all the performer logistics for the whole thing. There were 8 bands and three djs. He was starting to get stressed about the logistics. Dash Snow and Jamal Griswold were hoping to hold him down.
I'm sorry, it was kind of hard to not take this photo. Marcus (RockersNYC)/Dash and friend.
The bands started just after 9:30 pm, with Patric Cleandenimn and The Living Image playing first. I knew nothing about them except that all four members had attended Cooper Union. They were a totally beautiful surprise. Not to hater/weird out, but they kind of sounded like an amazing version of what that fake band called Cold War Kids are supposed to sound like. Actually, that doesn't do Patric Cleandenimn justice. They are totally super super good in their own super super way.
Criddler, Creeper, Pager.
Young Lords perfomed some sort of americanna rock. I'm not sure if they always run an american flag on their bass drum or if it was some sort of nod to the next day's impending pollitical holiday.
There was this crazy phenomenon happening by this point in the nite, which was that as the space in the garden filled, huge gaps between the people remained where the church's crypt/mounds were. You would look out at people packed so tightly around this sort of organically shaped seas of space, and then realize, whoah, there are other people way under the space where it looks like there are no people. Crypts.
The sound in the church can be pretty hard to handle. Drums and loud amps sound really really boomy... Kria Brekkan (aka Kristin from MUM and Doctess from Animal Collective)'s sole interest in playing the show was the church's legendary grand piano. The sound for her set was beyond perfect. And everyone sat.
Dash, A-Ron, Thomas from Rub N Tug, Jordan Bennet
I can't remember if I first heard of Modrocket in California at the RVCA homebase or in NY from A-Ron... they got down with both teams simultaneously, before any of the band members were even 18... The girls all live in NY, and 3 of the 4 live within a few blocks of the church. They are young and not fucking around. Please expect so insanely much from these kids.
Yess!
Nate Harrington (FamilyStoreLA/AaronRose'sHelper)/DanHougland(Excepter/OtherMusicNY)/JoshDibb(AnimalCollective)
Effie Briest are a six woman new york avant rock super group... I had been hearing of them for at least a year now, but had never gotten to see them... and they were fucking unreal. Incredible.
Their sound was so powerful and humongous. Fully amazing.
In spite of the fact that I only got one photo of them playing (what?!?! YIKES!) Lizzy Truly and The Fibs fully rule. A lot. ...and a special side/fried/back-in-the-day note: the keyboard player, Erin Krause, used to work with Aaron (Rose) and I at Alleged Galleries in New York... I'm sorry there are so few Lizzy photos!
After Lizzy, A-Ron came out to get everyone riled up before The Virgins played. Maybe my favorite moment of the nite: when he called Donald (the Virgins' front person who had just dyed his hair '91 alterna red that day) "Lollapalooza" on the stage before they played.
The Virgins are kind of the new NY downtown scene hometown hero band... Like, not DIY punk/indie land, but like, nitelife/scene band. They are totally sweet people, and their songs are ruling and totally accessible. They just signed to Atlantic, so they are going to get kind of majorly major big, soon. Really rad jams. Killer Pop for the team!
The police had come by this point and made everyone either leave the outside garden area or go inside the church where the bands were playing, so the inside was completely packed... probably a little over a thousand people were watching.
A-Ron took the stage at the end of their set... from this photo it might seem like it should have sounded nearly rap-rock...
but it was more arena/beyond thunder dome. The energy was insane. Can you see the guy on the right throwing his crutches in the air? This moment was really the peak of the nite.
The stage got so mobbed out after they played. Total team photo opps beyond one million.
Awwww, man....
And then after the Virgins finished, and after a long technical delay that made it seem like things were all fully over, well after 3:00, and after most of the thousand people that were there up until just that moment, Car Clutch played-Car Clutch is a thing that I do with Ethan Swan, who plays in BARR with me, as well. But Car Clutch is no speaking, just "dark bangers." Total 3:something a.m. small group jams. (All CC photos were taken by Andrea Longacre White. Thank you Andrea.)
So far, I've gone out of my way to not post any photos of myself on this blog. I guess my resolve breaks down here.
Its kind of funny, we seem to always have at least one or two people kind of involving themselves with the band at each show. A-Ron was sort of the 3rd member of Car Clutch at that show. Chopping game.
Rub N Tug dj'ed after us, at 4:00 am, but the lights all went out-they played in total darkness to about 30 kids that actually danced until 8 AM- and we had been there since 3 pm. I'm sorry, Rub N Tug, no photos... But also, speaking of no photos, I realized that I never got any photos of Bronwyn Keenan, who initiated the whole event and asked A-Ron to come on board and bring Ethan and I along in the first place. She was running around all nite, handling things past the speed of lite. And I only got this one photo of Father Frank. He runs the church and rules beyond possible description (a squatter since the 70s who now runs a church that only holds community oriented performance art events...)
A-Ron, Father Frank, and JR.
Thank you so much to everyone who came out!
posted by Brendan Fowler at 9:20 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home