Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2006, Blaðsíða 43

Four years ago, when I lived in Brooklyn, Wil-
liamsburg was losing its cool, which is to say
it was cool and everyone knew it. To indicate
how mass hip the neighbourhood was, it’s best
to refer to one incident: In 2001, a graffiti
artist from Williamsburg stole a friend’s photo
from a gallery opening as a joke, and escaped
in a getaway car… along with his buddy, Ryan
McGinley, the photo editor of Vice and the
youngest photographer to ever have a solo
show at the Whitney. When the New York
Times reported on it, the number of band
members, magazines and graffiti crews boggled
the mind.
Other signs were things like a tiny blue
paperback called The Hipster Handbook,
describing, in hilarious detail, the tiny style
points that everyone in the neighbourhood was
pushing on the world when they were doing
indie film, indie music or commercials.
Even as the world was noticing Wil-
liamsburg, locals realised the neighbourhood
was done for. Rent doubled and more, local
bars got on national television and then drew
clientele that wanted to be on national televi-
sion. The Williamsburg cultural magazine the
Brooklyn Rail, dedicated to the local galleries
and deep thought, didn’t have a member of
staff who lived in Williamsburg by the end of
2003. It was enough to make a body move to
Jersey.
Less Pacino, More Swayze
Point Break LIVE!, a stage production of
the 1991 Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze
blockbuster, is exactly the thing that the hipster
Williamsburg would have shunned. The play
is profoundly entertaining, well-acted (on our
night, even by the guest actor, a volunteer
pulled from the crowd to recite Keanu Reeves’s
wooden lines) and it has a fundamental mes-
sage: mainly, if you think you’ve grown up and
gotten book smarts, realise that you still likely
connect with Keanu Reeves’s leading man ide-
ology and come off every bit as much as an ass
as he does. Somewhere along the production,
as 250 people were laughing hysterically at an
indie actor imitating Patrick Swayze and stat-
ing, “We live to be radical,” more than a few of
us in the crowd caught the double-edged irony.
For this reason, Point Break LIVE!
wouldn’t have survived when Williamsburg was
full of overly serious artists who were desperate
for work. Daily, you had to acknowledge that
art and independence were the highest possible
callings. Now that money has fully crept into
the neighbourhood and the artists have left,
the art can ease up on trying to be genuine and
start connecting, which is the scary part.
Point Break LIVE! connects most strongly
with the frat boys in the audience, people that
the show’s co-creator, Jamie Hook, tells me
are “complete dicks who ruin the experience.”
They don’t. But this doesn’t stop Mr. Hook,
still dressed in drag from the show, from inter-
rupting our interview to approach the group
of severely inebriated men on dates and telling
them, “You guys are total assholes and you re-
ally bothered us.” A hurt frat boy responds first
by showing money, then with various state-
ments of admiration, all starting with “Dude,
listen.”
It is not the kind of artist-to-receiver ex-
perience Mr. Hook probably dreamed of when
he was putting on August Wilson to empty
theatres, but it is the kind of interaction that
goes on in every other art form – hearing it in
live theatre is, in a way, refreshing.
On parting, Hook explains that pulling
someone at random from the audience and
having them read Keanu Reeves’s dialogue is
not intended to mock. “Not everyone can be
Al Pacino,” he says. “And not everybody needs
to be. What this play demonstrates is that
Keanu Reeves is the most generous actor of his
generation.”
Williamsburg now has a lot more of the
“generous” types, people who don’t expect to
be called geniuses, and who are in little danger
of being labelled as such. Because of the non-
geniuses, an independent play is making more
money than it ever would have were it playing
for artist-friends. The hip neighbourhood is
now a place where people can be artists and
make a living… and then flee to be around a
cooler crowd, one that doesn’t open sentences
with “dude”, or mention money as a primary
critical judgement, nor openly display enthusi-
asm.
No Rock in Brooklyn
“They advertise you can smoke whatever you
want. Don’t worry at all,” Josh Loar, the sound
guy from Galapagos, tells us, a spliff between
his teeth and a Macintosh in his lap.
Mr. Loar, a composer from Los Angeles,
isn’t so down on Williamsburg, Brooklyn – he
makes a good living scoring independent films
and local commercials, and his band, Electric
Light, has a number of clubs to play at. It’s
not California. There is no chance of getting
a place to live and record in, but, with a few
concessions – Loar and his wife
live in a fourth-floor walk-up
in which, with some frequency,
dead rats appear – you can get by
decently. For $60, he regularly
rents three hours in a large stu-
dio, outfitted with amps, drums,
PA systems and a bathroom
with a shower but no lock, to do
Pro Tools magic. On the night
we join him, a racket comes
from all four rooms.
We tell Loar that we want
to hear the next Yeah Yeah
Yeahs. A classically trained
percussionist, he responds that
Brooklyn is not what you’d
expect if you only knew it from record stores
and music videos.
“There really isn’t any rock coming out of
Brooklyn anymore. Ever since the Bravery,
people who liked music just had enough of
retro-rock. All you see now is experimental jazz
or people looking for ultra-traditional, some-
thing like The Two Man Gentlemen Band.
You hardly ever see a drum set anymore. Even
the hip-hop is about retro drum machines.”
Pressed to name any rock bands, he admits
there’s a retro-90s movement out of Montreal,
and he’s heard that the next Wolf Parade is in
the space next to us.
We bring the management of Sweatshop
into the discussion. He’s never done better
business – the studio is looking to buy another
floor, as so few people are allowed to make
noise in their newly upgraded buildings.
Some musicians are afraid to even store
their equipment at home. He waves at himself,
displaying jet black hair, piercings, tight pants
a little too low. “If you look like I do, you can’t
rent anywhere. Nobody wants to rent to a
musician. You know what I say when I have to
THE BEST WAY TO GET
TO BROOKLYN:
ICELANDAIR FLIES DIRECT FLIGHTS FROM KEFLAVÍK TO NEW YORK.
For more information, log on to www.icelandair.is
ICELANDAIR PROVIDED TICKETS AND A STIPEND FOR THIS TRAVEL PIECE.
We Live to Be Radical
Brooklyn Goes A-Type
by bart cameron photos by gúndi
hGrapevinehonhtourh:hBrooklynggroomm
>>> continues on next page
43