COLUMNS COLUMNS LANDMARKS THE BRONX DAPTONE The places, spaces, A column on and monuments of the gear and NYC's musical past, processes that inform RECORDS present, and future. the music we make. if you ask neal sugarman, saxophonist and co-owner of the Daptone record label, to describe their PAST FEATURED LANDMARKS 1 MAX NEUHAUS’ “TIMES SQUARE” LEONARDO ALDREY, a Red Bull Music Academy Bushwick headquarters, he might use words like “hom- 2013 participant, is a composer based in Barce- ey” and “low-key.” Indeed, this mud-colored, two-family 2 THE THING SECONDHAND STORE lona. He’s interested in interfaces: the tools and row house looks more like a flophouse than a recording 3 THE LOFT systems people use to make sounds, and how studio and label office, especially when contrasted with 4 MARCY HOTEL those interfaces determine the kinds of music we the new steel-and-glass condos across the street. 5 ANDY WARHOL’S FACTORY can make. Right now he is working on something Yet this modest building has produced some massive 6 QUEENSBRIDGE HOUSES 1 6 called Tonal Pizza, in which he reimagines the ges- records, such as Amy Winehouse’s 2006 Grammy-win- 7 RECORD MART 7 5 8 DEITCH PROJECTS 8 tures people use to make music, from the one-to- ning Back to Black album. More recently, major-label 5 9 AREA"SHELTER"VINYL QUEENS one relationship of pressing down a piano key to artists including Michael Bublé, Chris Rock, and Bruno 7 5 things both more intuitive and abstract. Mars have used the Daptone facilities to record songs 10 STUDIO B 11 MARKET HOTEL like Mars’ hit single “Locked Out of Heaven.” Otherwise, 2 RBMA: What is Tonal Pizza? the label largely skews local, with Brooklyn-bred artists 10 3 like Sharon Jones and Charles Bradley on the roster. 9 8 8 Leonardo Aldrey: Tonal Pizza is the name that my Daptone’s lo-fi approach—literally splicing and ed- MANHATTAN housemates gave to my project with a more nerdy ti- iting tape with razor blades—gives their soul, funk, 4 tle: “Computer-assisted interactive system for tonal gospel, and afrobeat records a trademark veneer, as if navigation in real time.” It’s a software-based system they’ve been aged to perfection in a cask. “Most of our that processes data from different kinds of sensors recordings are done on an old Ampex eight-track ma- 11 using principles of tonality to transform gestures chine,” says Sugarman. “We want it to sound like we’re into music. When I told my friend that the graphi- not in a recording studio. The [room] doesn’t get in the cal representation consists of a circle with different way of the sound of the record.” LOGOS radii and “slices” that work as a selector of “tonal in- The Daptone story starts in 1998, when Sugarman’s gredients,” he said, “Okay, it’s like a tonal pizza.” future business partner, Gabriel Roth, had a recording studio in the basement of afrobeat supergroup Anti- RBMA: What inspired it? balas’ space in Williamsburg. They formally founded WHAT: DAPTONE RECORDS The origins of the label in 2001, and its first two releases—Sharon WHERE: 340 GRAND LA: Two ideas: playing music at a higher abstrac- Jones and the Dap-Kings’ Dap-Dippin’ with Sharon STREET; 115 TROUTMAN iconic images from tion level than one-to-one control over pitch and Jones and the Dap-Kings and the Sugarman 3’s Pure STREET, BROOKLYN volume, and collaborative music performance. I’m Cane Sugar—were recorded there. But that neigh- WHY: OLD-SCHOOL SOUL NYC's musical history interested in the “grammars of music,” how chords borhood was gentrifying quickly and when their rent MADE NEW explained. and scales have different tendencies to move in spiked, Sugarman and Roth moved all of the equip- WHEN: 2001-PRESENT certain directions and how they relate to the sensa- ment to Sugarman’s apartment. Eventually they found tions of tension and relaxation in music. a building in Bushwick and renovated it with the sweat STATEN ISLAND equity of their artists and friends. BROOKLYN mtv, the first 24-hour music-video after more than eight months of work— RBMA: Is the idea to give up control? Despite their far-flung locale, fans still find them. network, launched on August 1, 1981, and long before the MTV name had even “People walk up, knock on the door and say, ‘I’m from LA: Ha ha! I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up con- France, I love your records, can I have a tour of the stu- revolutionizing both music and television. been decided upon—that Olinsky posted a trol either. The idea is not to completely give up dio?’ says Sugarman. “Which is really flattering and very The brand image that emerged with this prototype of that logo on the wall. He cites control but rather to make musical decisions at a cool for us.” Daptone staffers frequently oblige, even different level of abstraction. There is still control though the place is in a state of perpetual renovation. brave new visual world was as radical as what being inspired by punk, graffiti, and an but over macro-structures; the micro-control is left “It’s not a beautiful space, but it’s home.” !ADRIENNE DAY it represented. Well before Google Doodles animated children’s show from his youth, to the software. and GIFs, founding MTV creative director Winky Dink and You, which invited home RBMA: What pieces of software and hardware Fred Seibert flouted “good” logo-design audiences to complete scenes by drawing technology are involved? standards when he lobbied for Manhattan on clear plastic sheets draped over the front of their TV sets. The epiphany to make LA: The software is a patch of Max for Live that Design’s block-lettered M and spray-painted I use inside Ableton Live. For the data input, the T-V—and its concept of mutability—helping something that vandalized the establishment idea is to be able to use any kind of sensor (Ninten- establish the channel’s personality as young, and could be morphed in countless ways do Wii, camera, electronic drums, Phidgets, etc). rebellious, and unpredictable. turned out to be right for the time and the At the moment, the graphical representation is im- plemented through a Wacom tablet. TOP 5… Despite pressure to work with big-name medium. “Most logos are designed by print RADICAL designers, Seibert favored the unknown designers and then motion designers have to RBMA: Tonal Pizza has multiuser capabilities. How does that work? 1 2 3 4 5 firm—it was cofounded by his childhood figure out how to move them,” says Seibert. PROGRAMMERS PIERRE BOULEZ BILL GRAHAM AT JOSHUA RIFKIN ANTONÍN DVOŘÁK THE BOTTOM LINE In 1973, Boulez re- FILLMORE EAST This conductor and Prior to visit- Ravi Shankar and the friend Frank Olinsky. Seibert and Olinsky “That strikes me as kind of stupid.” LA: The idea of the Tonal Pizza as a multiuser moved the seats of Miles Davis opening scholar first argued ing the US in 1892, Ramones. Dolly Par- instrument consists of a group of “performers” Avery Fisher Hall in for Neil Young. Jimi that Bach’s great Dvořák had never met ton, Bruce Spring- grew up together in Huntington, Long The corporate types at the channel hated generating data though different sensors, and a favor of red rugs and Hendrix and the Voic- works for choir were a person of color. He steen, Lou Reed, PRESENTED BY foam cushions on the es of East Harlem. written for one part soon came to consider Patti Smith, Aaron Island, and Seibert credits Olinsky with everything about it, says Seibert, but accepted “conductor” who uses the graphical representation floor. The New York John Lennon and Frank per voice. In his slave songs, Indian Copland, Nina Simone, turning him onto music and the revelation it with the words “Music Television” added to determine at each moment the tonal context in Philharmonic played Zappa. The Who and spare time, he also music, and spiritu- Charles Mingus, and which the performance will happen. Bach, Stockhausen, Chuck Berry. Fleet- re-orchestrated the als “the future music Prince. Anthony Brax- Ives, Stravinsky, wood Mac and Van Mor- music of the Beatles of this country”; he ton and Messiaen’s that cartoons are made by people. “My father beneath it in Helvetica—ironically, that part Today, the art of pairing music from seeming- and George Crumb; top rison. The Beach Boys for The Baroque would incorporate “Quartet for the End ly dissimilar genres and sound worlds is known, RBMA: Do you have plans for turning the inter- price was $3.50. The and Creedence (!). Beatles Book (1965), these ideas into his of Time.” The club was an animator and commercial artist, and got hacked when the network redesigned the pseudo-scientifically, as “programming.” But in comparison to today Ruthlessness and gen- and revived the repu- “New World” Symphony, closed in 2004, and face into a larger-scale consumer product? the recent (and more humble) past, it was more he taught me how to use the tools of the logo in 2010. That it endured almost 30 years is too depressing to erosity embodied. tation of Scott Jop- written partly while is currently the home simply called booking a good show. Here are five think about. lin with his record- living at 327 E. 17th of (what else?) the New York City musical impresarios and venues (out trade,” says Olinsky.