The landscape of live music in New York City is continually changing. Performances in peoples\u2019 homes date back as far as music itself. The spirit of that kind of more personal venue is now an integral part of the New York scene. People are taking unexpected spaces in off the beaten path locations and turning them into venues that are as significant to independent music as the bars on the Lower East Side. Over the summer, I fell for this new kind of venue after going to three of these music hideaways.<\/p>\n
Monster Island Basement | 112 River St, Brooklyn | toddpnyc.com<\/strong> Heading down to the basement, there\u2019s a makeshift bar near some couches on the right that opens into a small warehouse room, where a band is playing in the far corner. This night\u2019s event was put together with the help of Todd P., who is the Bill Graham to the Brooklyn DIY scene. I got there early to see the bands I knew, but ended up watching them all\u2014and the crowd didn\u2019t dwindle one bit either.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no guidelines for how to enjoy a venue like this. You arrive, you grab a drink, and you wait in an adjoining room while another band finishes. This night, bands who don\u2019t know each other become friends. Audience members take it all in. For a few hours, a musical community converges, cares, and enjoys. And more importantly, all the music is really rockin\u2019.<\/p>\n Glasslands | 289 Kent Ave, Brooklyn | glasslands.com<\/a><\/strong> The setup of Glasslands strikes the balance between DIY space and normal bar. The main factor is that they have an actual bar with a variety of drink options as opposed to the more typical DIY setup\u2014a bucket of beers on ice joined by a bottle or two of hard stuff for a shot or a whiskey coke. Places like Glasslands are turning every night of the week into an amazing underground music party in Brooklyn. So much so, that Sonic Youth\u2019s Thurston Moore will be bringing one of his projects there in the near future.<\/p>\n
\nI had never heard of this place the night I went to see a band I love called El Jezel. These DIY venues can be hard to recognize, often without any signs or flyers of any kind, keeping you questioning if you\u2019re about to crash some event you\u2019re not supposed to be at. Sometimes you know you\u2019re there when you see people smoking<\/a> near an open door in a big old factory building like this one.<\/p>\n
\nA friend of a friend was performing with his band, Thee Oh Sees, at Glasslands. A short walk from Monster Island Basement, I had to Sharpie a fake hand stamp to get into the sold out show. The place was packed, reaching temperatures and humidity levels higher than the worst day of summer. But it couldn\u2019t have been more exhilarating. After a decade of attending shows in NYC where the audience is a little too well behaved and unresponsive, the Glasslands\u2019 crowd ate up everything Thee Oh Sees were laying down, bumping around into a near mosh as devotees sang along to every word.<\/p>\n