COLUMNS COLUMNS LANDMARKS THE THE BRONX The places, spaces, MARCY HOTEL and monuments of NYC's musical past, in 2005, after gentrification made significant in- present, and future. roads into Williamsburg, Marcy Avenue was still, in the A column on words of Wolf + Lamb’s Zev Eisenberg, “a dump.” But the gear and the fledging party crew saw the potential for a future PAST FEATURED LANDMARKS 1 MAX NEUHAUS’ "TIMES SQUARE" processes that inform headquarters when they leased a squat brick building, 2 THE THING SECONDHAND STORE once a machine shop, at the intersection of the Williams- the music we make. 3 THE LOFT burg Bridge and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. This three-story structure, the color of benign neglect, would become the Marcy Hotel. 1 But Zev (“Wolf”) and his DJ/producer/label part- ner Gadi “Lamb” Mizrahi, both native Brooklynites, saw what the rest of the world didn’t: a perfect spot for QUEENS late-night soirees, the noise of which—minimal tech- no, house, and a grab bag of eclectic sounds—would be masked by the cars roaring overhead. They gut-renovat- 2 ed the space using found materials as décor, a 1920s noir style emerging after they looted a crumbling old theater 3 a friend had purchased upstate. Old film strips made MANHATTAN for a partition by the entrance, and giant film-rewinding spools were set with lights and pronounced chandeliers. The sub-class of audio snake-oil sales- Initially Zev and Gadi had a wine-bar concept for the men has it easy. Not because we’re all easy space, but that idea was jettisoned after a trial run. “It marks, but because they’re not exactly quickly became obvious that it wasn’t meant to be a wine selling snake oil. Every piece of gear—ev- bar,” says Zev, “but [rather] some kind of underground ery resistor, every last milliounce of gold loft party.” And so the Marcy Hotel was born. “No rules. LOGOS plating—affects the signal path. What they Very DIY. It was a liberated way to party,” he says. And say is true. the music hewed to a similar “variety show” format, fea- What they don’t say though... that might turing live acts, MCs, and genre-defying DJs and produc- be more important. In this space, I’m in- ers like Nicolas Jaar and Soul Clap at the helm. WHAT: THE MARCY The origins of terested in the way our gear works invisi- The Marcy opened at a time in post-Giuliani Manhat- HOTEL bly—not so much how a piece of technol- tan when dance music had largely been co-opted by lux- WHERE: MARCY ogy affects the signal path, but more how ury brands and bottle service. The underground scene AVENUE, iconic images from WILLIAMSBURG it rewires our brains and determines our was pushed to the fringes of the outer boroughs, un- NYC's musical history WHY: NO-BULLSHIT creative processes. spooling in dank warehouses; despite such limitations, TECHNO PARTY Analog versus digital—that old chestnut. or maybe because of them, it was a heady time, and Wolf WHEN: 2005-2011 explained. Analog equals warm! Digital equals cold! + Lamb tried to channel that spirit through the Marcy. What does this mean?! To find out, I spoke “No lines, no bullshit,” says Zev. “People would just get STATEN ISLAND with Red Bull Music Academy 2013 partici- lost in the music, everybody having a good time.” BROOKLYN pant TJ Hertz, a Berlin-based producer who It wasn’t long before the Marcy outgrew itself—after records as Objekt. He’s turned in excellent colonizing the yard next door, the Marcy succumbed to remixes for Radiohead and SBTRKT, as well neighborhood complaints and it closed to the public in as pristine salvos for Hessle Audio and his 2011 (it currently serves as Wolf + Lamb’s record-label he recalls, “and RZA, Ghost, Power [Oliver own label. He also writes digital signal pro- headquarters). But it inspired a new wave of Brook- the wu-tang clan’s bat-winged w cessing algorithms for Native Instruments. lyn-based producers and parties, and Wolf + Lamb con- made its first appearance on the group's Grant, Wu-Tang executive producer], If anyone can “hear” digital, it would be the tinue to impact fans across the globe. ! ADRIENNE DAY 1993 debut single “Protect Ya Neck,” as and U-God, they came to the job at like guy whose business is, to some extent, the digital modeling of analog effects like tape part of a more detailed hand-drawn ten o’clock in the morning and picked it delay and tape saturation. illustration laden with the group’s spiritual up.” An early version showed a warrior’s Any time there's an effect with a feed- back loop, our ears expect the effect of the and martial arts-inspired symbolism. severed head, held by his dreadlocks by processing to enter the feedback loop as Mathematics, who designed the original a hand extending from the W, and had well. “Delay is an interesting example,” he tells me over Skype. “The filter—or, in the logo, says, “The thing was to try and make “Wu-Tang Clan” written through it in faux case of a tape echo, some saturation—goes something to stand out, kinda like the Asian-style handwriting. As RZA notes in through the loop.” You could speak of “dig- ital coldness” when that grit doesn’t make TOP 5… Batman insignia.” Although most of his the Wu-Tang Manual, “That one was too its way into the feedback loop, when the BROOKLYN FLEA work with Wu-Tang has been developing gory, but I liked how he wrote the letters, echoed signal is clean and precise. “You expect it to get dirty,” Hertz says, “but it RECORD FAIR 1 2 3 4 5 the group’s sound through a vast so I had him come up with the sword— never does.” FLYING LOTUS EL!P THURSTON MOORE THE BROTHERS PORTISHEAD Loved watching Steven Back in 2008, when The Sonic Youth DEMBY XL debuted the new repository of samples, the former graffiti because my tongue is my sword. But That’s our straw man “crude plug-in” MOMENTS Ellison sign some it was the Superstar frontman comes to buy When the market first Portishead single at type scenario. But for Hertz, “digitalness” is dude’s stomach at DJ Record Fair, El-P records now and then opened, my broth- the fall 2011 Record the fall 2012 Record sold his own records from one of our ven- er and I used to Fair. When the band artist turned producer from Jamaica, that didn’t reflect everything I was about less obvious in any one sound or effect than PRESENTED BY it is in the arrangements and productions Fair. and all this cool old dors, Phil Lanigan of play records in the played Late Night Queens, studied graphic and commercial either. So I told him it needs to represent gear he was getting Addicted to Vintage, schoolyard backstop with Jimmy Fallon the themselves, “where the tools steer the pro- rid of. Not sure most which still gives me at the Fort Greene week before, Fallon Brooklyn Flea’s Record Fair features collec- art at Thomas A. Edison Career and the sword, the book, and the wisdom.” ducer into working in a certain way.” DAWs people even knew it a shiver. Thurston’s Flea every weekend, promoted the Record tors, independent record labels, and shops like Ableton are loop-based environments was him. always totally blasé, and he’d wheel over Fair on air. inside the Smorgasburg food market in Williams- Technical Education High School. By the time their first album, Enter the just like you’d imag- the sound system from that can lead to predictable transitions burg. Vendors sell new and used vinyl, CDs, ine. down the block on a Math had already been messing around Wu-Tang (36 Chambers), came out later and structures if you’re not diligent. “That,” ephemera, and gear, and there are DJs throughout cart. Those were the the day. The Flea’s first Record Fair happened Hertz says, “sounds a lot more digital than days. with a few logo variations when it came that year, gone were the sword and book, on a hot day in 2008 in Fort Greene, and every bit aliasing.” !NICK SYLVESTER year (now twice a year) it grows bigger but also down to an all-nighter as “Protect Ya but the mark of the W—in yellow, and weirder and more fun. Here are Flea head honcho Neck” was going to print. “At the time, I still with Wu-Tang Clan written through Eric Demby's five favorite Record Fair moments. was doing carpentry work with my pops,” it—remained. ! SUE APFELBAUM 12 13.