There’s a requiem playing for NYC’s DIY music scene
The once vibrant world of underground bands and independent clubs that was once integral to New York City’s identity has been slowly shrinking over the last decade — and the latest victim is weeks away from turning its lights down for good.
Musicophiles are rallying around Our Wicked Lady to lift it out of a never-ending post-pandemic slump, a financial sinkhole that has been made worse by a drastically changing nightlife landscape.
“If this was, say, a pizzeria or whatever, it would be a lot easier to just close. People would be kind of bummed — but there’s a million other pizza places where you can get great pizza,” Keith Hamilton, 49, one of the venue’s two owners, told The Post.
“But as an event space and what we do specifically, we feel like what we have is very important to the community. There’s not a lot of smaller venues around and if this place goes away, we know it’s going to affect not only a lot of employees we have, but a big part of the community.”
Hamilton and partner, Zach Glass, opened the 200-person concert hall in 2015 to beef up the music scene in a then-much more industrialized Bushwick — even as neighboring venues began to fall.
That same year, Trash Bar, the iconic Rock ‘n Roll hall in Williamsburg, turned down its lights. In 2017, Bushwick’s Shea Stadium suffered the same fate, followed by Bar Matchless, Arrogant Swine, The Acheron and others.
The pandemic only accelerated the withering industry: both the Wick and the Well and the Pyramid Club shut down in 2020, while Kingsland put on its last show over the summer.
The iconic Knitting Factory was forced out of Brooklyn in 2022, but reopened with the revamped identity Baker Falls in the East Village one year later.
“Even though things were closing, it seemed like it was just par for the course of New York because things were opening and closing all the time. I think it was really when Covid happened that it was like, ‘S–t, the whole art scene in New York could be gone,” said Hamilton, of Bushwick.
Hamilton and Glass successfully weathered the pandemic storm, but have since been playing catch up.
Skyrocketing prices are mostly to blame, with insurance costs more than doubling since pre-pandemic. Hamilton and Glass have even had to slash programming to shave down the expensive bill, particularly its youth events, which would have cost an extra $50,000 per year to insure, they said.
But a changing music scene — and the nightlife landscape — has made it difficult to turn over a sizable profit;
“They don’t go out,” Glass, 46, said of the Big Apple’s Gen Z — which has been overwhelmingly giving up the bottle compared to older generations.
“We used to be the bar that would be like, ‘Hey, it’s 6 a.m., you have to go home.’ And now we’re like, ‘Hey, it’s only to 2, would you please stay?’
“Even the people who still do go out — they’re not staying as late and they’re drinking a little less.”
The dying culture could also be blamed on a drastically altered culture in the Big Apple, according to musician and documentarian Drew Stone.
Music is much more accessible than in the 80s through 90s — which he dubbed the “golden” generation of live music — making live shows less of a destination than it once was.
“It used to be part of growing up in New York, part of being a young teenager. We went out as much as we could. We couldn’t get enough live music,” Stone told The Post.
“For younger people today, community and culture means a lot of different things.”
The “New York Hardcore Chronicles Film” director also blamed gentrification, but not just of neighborhoods — corporations taking over music venues are always looking to book money-making big names, rather than newer bands hoping to cut their teeth.
That also means bookings across the city are becoming more homogenized across venues, making it more difficult for indie and unique artists to get a chance in the spotlight.
Various bands are on the come-up thanks to Our Wicked Lady, like SKORTS, a post-psych band that recently played at the 600-person Bowery Ballroom.
The band’s next performance will be back where it all started next month — SKORTS is donating a show for a weekend-long fundraiser at Our Wicked Lady in an effort to keep live music alive.
Tattoo artists, local restaurants, photographers and more are donating their services for the event. Customers have also been paying up to five times the amount on their tabs in recent weeks to help the venue owners stay afloat, Glass said.
“Artists need a place to do their art and the less places there are and the less opportunities for artists to be able to continue that way — you’ll lose what New York is,” the Greenpoint resident said.
“If you take out the exciting diversity of art and culture from New York, what are you left with? A really expensive, dirty city.”
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land ’
