And on to the big show! With the A\V-Aerie stage in place, courtesy of Marshall Preheim and Pat Kenneally, we were ready to throw our first last-night revival. This concept of the convertible stage came to me on a very wide awake late night, as I brainstormed some thoughts about Nomadic Studio. Formerly Open End Gallery, and then re-christened A\V-Aerie, it captured a lot of the spirit that non-traditional underground venues held. First of all, it wasn’t underground per se, as the venue was on the third floor of a loft in the Fulton Market, but you get the point. I had seen countless shows there, from gigantic jazz ensembles to scrappy and ferocious off-the-radar bands, to exceptionally curated fine art exhibitions all under the watchful eye of proprietor, Marshall Preheim. I even got to play there once or twice, and Marshall was always amenable to ideas I’d bring him. As with a lot of unofficial venues, there was a bit of indescribable magic that comes from seeing a performance in something other than a black-painted rock club. It came through in the bands, and it came through in the audience. And also, with a lot of unofficial venues, it wasn’t long for this world.
Well, in February of 2009, as the city started its crackdown on unlicensed venues, A\V-Aerie was raided by the DBA, and shut down with a quickness. It was a blow to the non-profit venues of the city and made a clutch of headlines as a PPA license couldn’t be obtained, even for a place that functioned entirely on donations and a ‘pay-what-you-can’ model. I loved that place, and so many others did too, and so we had the bands that played the night it was closed down come back for an encore. We had the stage and sound system and parachute, as well as a re-imagined A\V-Aerie mural by Rob Funderburk back on the wall, so with the bands back for another go at it, we were on.
Tim Kinsella of Cap’n Jazz, Joan of Arc, and Make-Believe opened the event with a sonorous and lovely set for voice and guitar. This is funny, but I distinctly remember how exquisite his SG sounded through my keyboard amplifier. One-man band, Willis P. Jenkins (Leroy Vinegar) followed up with an impossibly complicated set of dance music built on drums, keys, loops, voice and lord knows what else all generated live by him and him alone. The night closed out with a raucous set by Baby Teeth (Abraham Levitan, Jim Cooper and Peter Andreadis) who topped their oddball hyper-sexualized music with tight three-part harmonies. For the record, the bands didn’t play the same sets they did on the night of the raid, nor did we ask them to. Also for the record, the library was directly across the hall, and hopefully we shook up some summer studying with an utterly gratifying evening.
Faiz
