Bklyn Sounds 8/1/2023 - 8/7/2023 + Endings, Beginnings, Reunions

Reviewing a weekend through a community musicking lens + Shows: The Comet Is Coming + IBEYI / "globalFest" / J.R. Bohannon x 2 / Jon Dixon / Toribio's "Bring Dat Ass" / "Tokyo Pop" / more

There are a few reasons I write about live music, and encourage going out to see it in-person. There’s the art of the musical performance. There’s the emotional and spiritual energy that such performances can elicit in both artist and audience. And there’s the interactive social context that such events give cause to or soundtrack. I often call the combination of these elements “musicking,” a phrase and idea I picked up from a book by Christopher Small, which is one of Dada Strain’s ur-texts. (Thank you forever Ben and Emma for that rec.)    

As musicking weekends go, this past one in my corner of New York felt very special. Why? Well, the logistical bit was that there were a few great shows on the schedule, some involving old friends and beloved colleagues, some by visitors, some sharing bills, some I’ve been dying to see. Much of this is not unusual. But this weekend’s gigs also had a sense of historicity, of beginnings, endings, and renewals. Most importantly, there was a reaffirmation of community imprinted on these days and nights. That feeling reared its head over-and-over-and-over again, of a community built partially (if not wholly) around music. A community that — on a weekend I am sure many of us wanted to be at Beyonce, but couldn’t — remains strong and full of possibility.

It began on Saturday afternoon at the Saint James Place annual block party. Which is different from the great Saint James Joy (SJJ) block-party dance event — but isn’t really, since Gail Bryan-Vill, the matriarch of the Vill family responsible for SJJ, aka the party that helped many Bklyn dancers survive the lockdown, is also the Block Association president. Despite the day’s soaring heat, the party was bumping, DJ Spinna special-guesting with the tunes, Karlala’s newly expanded pink soundsystem showing off its Barbie origins, and a multi-generational “Brooklyn block party dances to house music” vibe that was beyond special. SJJ can’t happen as often since the re-start, but the annual block party is an incredible reminder of what the Vills did (and still do) to make space for community. And how broad that community is.

Afterwards, I went to public records, where Chicago’s excellent International Anthem label has a quarterly residency. It was putting on a show that featured the Chi-based duo New Future City Radio (aka Damon Locks on samplers/vocals and Rob Mazurek on trumpet/sampler), with NYC synth player, composer and long-time Dada Strain comrade Lori Scacco as opening act. The music was fantastic — Lori performing the sounds of her Longform Editions piece, Damon and Rob building on the improvising with samplers-and-narratives aspects of their new album. 

But a lot of the celebratory aspects were, again, down to the people. International Anthem’s Bklyn residency brings friends in from out of town, but is also an in-town magnet — and that combination provides insight to how folks who seem to travel in different circles are actually old friends and colleagues. There’s little I love as much as finding out that people I already have a strong affinity for, have their own relationships, more so that the relationships may be decades-long. But among those is helping create introductions between these people, who may already be friends in sound. The union of music, the consistency of that bond, and the social fabric it helps weave carries on, still undefeated. On this night, it again felt momentous.

(L-R) Jocelyn Brown, King Hippo, Lori Scacco, Dada Strain, Damon Locks, Tara Aisha Wills (photo: Megiapa)

I had one more stop Saturday night, a good-bye. As I wrote last week, The Rub has been one of Brooklyn’s populist hip-hop/mash-up/future-soul/electro-hipster staples for the past 21 years, and is now calling it quits, (As a regular party - there will be special one-offs.) When it began, The Rub had Fader/Turntable Labs roots and turn-of-the-century energy, but it soon became a reliable place to have an everybody-gets-in, everybody-knows-every-great-song good time. (It was also part of my own grown-folks-who-love-music-and-a-good-time community, after one of my very good friends married a Rub DJ, and that friend brought in more and more friends, including my own partner, etc. etc.) I was not a regular, but every time I went, it was a sloppy blast, and I wanted to pay respect on its last night. 

So it made me indescribably happy to find how much The Rub’s community had grown since my last attendance. Not changed — it was still primarily older folks having a goodass time with each other, rowdy but also respectful, still crossing classes, races and sexualities — but just even more diverse and assured of who they were and why they were there. No bullshit. It was amazing to see bachelorettes grinding next to older queer women as Low Budget (whom I hadn’t seen since Holler-f*cking-tronix) dropped Daddy Yankee. Or bro-looking dudes doing shots one minute and then a group wop the next, while DJ Lindsey played Tweet. Or The Rub’s cornerstones, DJs Ayres and Eleven, bringing out the party’s longtime door-person Rahnon for a bow and salute. It was a scene that can never get written about in the culture press because it’s not been hip enough for at least a decade. But The Rub’s forever-glory was not about notoriety or fabulousness — or even “art” — but about the Saturday night work that music and dancing have been doing for centuries: making life better, and easier to get through. This party did that elemental thing. I laughed, and I danced, and I cried, and I hugged friends and people I hadn’t seen in ages, and then my ass faded home. 

The “art” bit came on Sunday when I returned to public records for a day of programming curated by the mighty King Britt for his “Blacktronika” project, which the longtime Philly DJ/producer has turned into a music curriculum at the University of California-San Diego. As its name suggests, Blacktronika is concerned with the intersection of African diaspora sonic traditions and electronics, music King has been involved with his whole life. This was the first “Blacktronika” even on the East Coast. And the day’s two primary draws — a rare opportunity to see Britt duet with the great drummer/composer Tyshawn Sorey, and a reunion by NYC’s turn-of-the-century rap outsiders, Anti-Pop Consortium — brought together a sold-out crowd of overlapping audiences. The level of bold-faced names from the worlds of music, art, literature, film-making, and fashion whom the day’s MC Charlie Dark collectively referred to as “cultural soldiers” was really something to behold. 

So was the music. Britt and Sorey improvised for an hour, through melting equipment and heart-stopping rhythms — I’d been waiting to see them do this since their incredible 2021 album, and it was somehow even better. Yet the afternoon and evening belonged to APC, and the energy that surrounded them for the next few hours. They sounded fantastic, funny, strange, and utterly in the moment (calling for a moment of respectful silence for Sinead), a hip-hop most definitely from the past, but full of aspirations that had not been achieved and still seem possible, probable, or, realistically, maybe just utopian. It was the strength of the bond in the “room” — between artists and audience for sure, but even more so, amongst the audience members. It was a long strange reunion not only on-stage but off-. People who hadn’t seen each other in eons, some who’d brought kids, or new partners into the fold, here to give presence to their own past. Nostalgia? Yes. Though not just. There remains so much more life to live outside (despite? through? because of?) the atrocities and set-backs we face in the day-to-day. Here was a moment of musicking together, to recharge batteries in order to go back into the fray, to celebrate together the best that the world and the city has to offer. 

It worked — making it hard to walk away from the evening, or from the weekend. 

THIS WEEK’S SHOWs: