by Bill Pearis

people at Zebulon for an El Guincho show in 2010 (more by Erez Avissar)

Rumors have been floating around for a while, but now it's official: Williamsburg venue Zebulon, which has always been a great place for world music and jazz, as well as local and touring bands (including being the home of Grizzly Bear's first show in 2004) for about a decade (and almost never charged admission), will be closing its doors for good after their show this Sunday (12/9). The press release (via Zebulon's facebook) reads:

On Sunday, Dec 9 Zebulon will be closing its doors after ten exciting years of pioneering music and arts. Williamsburg has changed significantly since we opened, and unfortunately it is no longer possible today to continue the business in the manner in which it was conceived. Nevertheless, it's been a great run. We are proud to have given many celebrated artists a chance to play in an intimate setting or develop their sound in readiness for a larger audience. Zebulon has employed and supported struggling artists and their families, connected them to a wider musical community in New York and given them a stage on which to experiment. This is our final week so if you haven't been down in a while, please come and say hello/wave goodbye, and pay your respects to this gem of an institution. Thank you for your support and stay tuned for news of our next endeavors and adventures!

Major bummer for the neighborhood. The block Zebulon is on (Wythe between Metropolitan and N. 3rd) has changed drastically in the last two years: the bike club/repair shop, such a fixture for longer than I've lived in the neighborhood ('98),  is now a surf shop, and long-running diner Relish is now an very busy (and overpriced) Mexican place. Zebulon was the last holdout on the block from the early '00s Williamsburg expansion and will be sincerely missed.

The schedule of upcoming shows for Zebulon's final week (including Mike Wexler, Colin Stetson, Hubble and more) is below.

Continue reading "Zebulon closing its doors for good next week"

Instruments like this will be played tonight

Happy summer solstice! And what a way to kick off the season, it looks like it's going to be well into the 90°s today. Death by Audio will be celebrating it tonight (6/20) with Modular Solstice, a night of all modular synth performances by musicians who are or were involved in a project which uses analog electronics. (Let's hope for the instruments' sake DbA's A/C is up and running.) The lineup for tonight's show includes Drew McDowall (CSD, ex-Coil and Psychic TV), Mark Dwinell (member of Forma), Matthew Regula (member of Telecult Powers), Nathan Cearley (member of Long Distance Poison), and Jesse Derosa (member of Grasshopper). Doors for tonight's show are at 8 PM, first set at 8:30. Admission is $7.

Drew McDowall spoke to WFMU about what he's been up to and they touched on the DbA show, in addition to some other future plans:

You're playing the Modular Solstice Synthesizer show on Wednesday at Death By Audio in Brooklyn, what can you tell me about the instrument you will be playing? Lots of gear fetishists want to know, I'm sure.

As this is the first solo show that I've done I wanted to to make it even more exposed and solitary so it's going to be modular synthesizer. No other instruments. You'll have to come to see what it is.

What's next?

Putting the finishing touches to the next Compound Eye and CSD records. I've started collaborating with a few other people and doing remixes too. I'm doing something with Nicky Mao from Hiro Kone, i'm excited about that.

You can check out some videos of Captain Sons and Daughters (CSD) from their St. Mark's Church show in 2008 below.

Each artist performing at Death by Audio tonight has offered a one to two sentence description of their set. A couple of them actually sounds like it's about the music, but they're all pretty fun to read. Check them out below.

Continue reading "Drew McDowall (ex-Coil), Mark Dwinell (of Forma) & more playing 'Modular Solstice' synth show at DbA tonight"