Goodbye Tonic

[J Larsen]

What are the odds that the "gentrification" of the neighborhood & the health department "raid" on Tonic are totally unrealted coincidences?

I got .006472% just now, but I'll have to check my work when I'm in a more sober state.

[7/4]

Maybe I shouldn't say this in public, but Manny is the reason I almost never go in DMG, despite living about two minutes away. Seeing how he treats some of the staff has really embarrased me on more than one ocassion. Plus he has denied the existance of several albums that I was looking for, which is just annoying.

See folks? I wasn't over doing it.

If you do have to hold a conversation with Manny, be sure to tell him how ugly the pre-Y2K DMG web pages are and how it's about time he do something about how they look.

Edited April 1, 2007 by 7/4

[JSngry]

What are the odds that the "gentrification" of the neighborhood & the health department "raid" on Tonic are totally unrealted coincidences?

I got .006472% just now, but I'll have to check my work when I'm in a more sober state.

Higher than I'd imagine!

[J Larsen]

Good to see you, Manny.

[7/4]

Good to see you, Manny.

[clifford_thornton]

I think Manny is a bit stockier than the pics I've seen of Clem, though!

[CJ Shearn]

damn, what crappy news Tonic is closing

[Soul Stream]

I'm sure it will be a shot bar with a d.j. in no time....

[Jason Drake]

I'm surprised and shocked how much the neighbourhood looks to have changed..I stayed at a friends place on Norfolk Street around 15 years ago...I remember it being a pretty rough area, nothing like the photo's posted above. Has all of the lower east side gone this way ?

[J Larsen]

Not quite. It ain't park avenue - not yet. Norfolk, atrocious blue condo notwithstanding, is still pretty dingy. But for the most part, the heroin dealers are out and cheesy bars are in.

[7/4]

trendy cheesy bars.

[clifford_thornton]

I've never had any problems per se with Manny, Bruce, or DMG. For CD's, they've got a pretty strong stock.

Bruce did rag on Teddy Charles' Evolution once, though...

[clifford_thornton]

Actually, come to think of it, DMG has some of the craziest prices I've ever seen in a store on used records.

[7/4]

Actually, come to think of it, DMG has some of the craziest prices I've ever seen in a store on used records.

That's mostly the market.

Anything else is Manny's fault.

[J Larsen]

Actually, come to think of it, DMG has some of the craziest prices I've ever seen in a store on used records.

I have to agree with that - the new pricing (esp on the cdrs) ain't that hot either, but I'm sure they have five-figure rent and are doing what they have to do to survive.

[J Larsen]

The rate of the transformation of Bowery is staggering. Crash Mansion has to be one of the most embarrassing new-ish institutions in lower Manhattan.

[clifford_thornton]

sidenote: can't remember if yr into Koerner CT (tho' i think it's a rule everyone should be) but he & Tony have been playing weekly at the 400 Bar since the New Year-- just found out myself, hopefully someone's been taping.

edc

Only saw Spider John once when I was up there, as part of some anti-whatever (meta-hipster) festival. Good shit indeed, though it was kind of a blur.

If I were still in MSP, I'd be there!

[epistrophy arts]

Vision Festival saves the day!! from Patricia Nicholson

Friends of Vision,

Arts for Art responds to the closing of Tonic with a concert series

based on Tonic’s cancellations. On seven nights in April and May,

musicians who were scheduled to play at Tonic, will now be playing

one block east, at the Clemente Soto Velez LES Gallery. The number of

venues where this music is consistently presented in Manhattan is

deteriorating to a dangerous low. Arts for Art and the Vision

Festival will be working with CSV to address this issue by hosting

these concerts, as well as seeking a way to continue to present this

music on a regular basis. The April schedule follows, and the May

concerts will be announced soon. It is imperative to have places

where artists of this caliber can be heard in Manhattan on a regular

basis. These performances are funded in part by a John Zorn benefit

performance.

***********

What: Vision Tonic

Time: sets at 7:30pm and 9:30pm

Place: Clemente Soto Velez LES Gallery

107 Suffolk Street, New York, NY - one block east of Tonic!

F or J,M,Z to Delancey-Essex Street

Tickets: $10 per set / one drink minimum

More Info: http://www.visionfestival.org or 212.696.6681

Sunday April 15

7:30pm The Voltage Spooks Trio

Keith Rowe, Michael Haleta and Rick Reed

9:30pm Zeena Parkins and Wobbly

Tuesday April 17

7:30pm The Thing

Mats Gustafsson, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten, Paal Nilssen-Love

9:30pm Desiring-Machines with special guests

Joe McPhee & Dominic Duval plus

Clifton Hyde, Paul Hartsaw and Jerome Bryerton

Wednesday April 18

(no 7:30pm set)

9:30pm Oliver Lake and Eugene Chadbourne

Sunday April 22

7:30pm Nasheet Waits and Friends

9:30pm Steve Beresford with Aki Onda, Ellery Eskelin, Shelley

Burgon and Shanir Blumenkranz

[J Larsen]

Thanks. Looks like I have my plans for the 17th.

[J Larsen]

Just received this via mass email:

Okay -- it's official. We are planning a demonstration at Tonic on

Saturday, starting at 11 am.

Below you will find the flyer we're distributing -- both in text form

and in PDF form.

Please forward this flyer on to everyone you think might be

interested in coming down to support our action. We will there

playing music and hope to have a great peaceful demonstration that

calls attention to how much we need a place like Tonic to keep our

musical scene vital.

We will be sending out more mailing tonight: we need bands to play at

the club; people to make sure the demonstration stays calm and

peaceful; and all the press attention we can get.

Thanks for all your help.

#-------------

CULTURAL EMERGENCY

Musicians and Friends:

It is time to Claim what is our Right!

COME to TONIC

Saturday April 14th

FROM 11 a.m. until...

107 Norfolk Street

(between Delancey and Rivington)

WE MUST DEMAND:

AN ADEQUATE, AFFORDABLE SPACE, CENTRALLY LOCATED IN THE LES!

TONIC IS BEING HANDED OVER TO THE REALTORS.

WE ARE MAKING AN APPREAL TO THE CITY, TO EITHER GIVE US THIS SPACE OR

ONE COMPARABLE IN SIZE FOR THE USE OF AVANTJAZZ/NEW MUSIC/INDIE

COMMUNITY.

WE CAN NOT LOSE SUCH AN IMPORTANT HOME!

YOUR PRESENCE - YOUR MUSIC- YOUR VOICE – YOUR ART - IS ESSENTIAL.

SHOW THE CITY YOU CARE ABOUT WHAT IS HAPPENING.

DON’T LET REALTORS DECIDE NEW YORK CITY’S CULTURAL FATE!

STOP THE LOSS OF IMPORTANT VENUES, ONE BY ONE FORCED TO CLOSE BY RENT

INCREASES AT AN ALARMING RATE.

STOP THE DESTRUCTION OF THE LES AS A CENTER OF DIVERSE & VARIED &

UNIQUE CULTURE.

Tonic is scheduled to close on Friday, April 13th, 2007.

The following day, we will gather to fight the eviction of this

crucial venue, the diminishment of our livelihoods, and the

destruction of our culture by peacefully resisting. Please join us.

For the last nine years Tonic has been at the center of NYC

experimental music. When the tsunami of rent increases and mal-

development engulfing the LES forces its closure, NYC will have lost

the last avant-jazz/indie/new music club in Manhattan with a capacity

over 90. A vibrant community of musicians and fans worked for years

to maintain Tonic -- raising over 100,000 dollars through benefit

concerts and donations to pay off debt, fund repairs, buy a sound

system, and keep the club open in devastating times such as following

9/11/01.

We’re taking action now to dramatize the market failure of which

Tonic’s closing is a symptom, and to ask that the city save this home

for us or provide a minimum 200 capacity, centrally located venue for

experimental jazz, indie, and new music.

We want for ourselves and the communities around us the right to stay

around long enough to enjoy the culture we’ve created, not harassment

and a bum’s rush into eviction the minute real estate decides we’ve

made the neighborhood ‘safe’ and ‘cultured’ enough for them to cash in.

This is where we tell the landlords, developers, and the city:

Enough. Genucht. Basta ya!

Coming on the heels of the closing of CBGB's, Sin-e, Fez, The

Continental, and numerous other varied downtown venues, the closing

of Tonic represents the shutting down of NYC's most important live

music experimental jazz, indie, and new music scene.

This wave of live music space closings constitutes a market failure.

The downsized or geographically marginal venues arising in the wake

of the established club closings are not generating enough to

maintain the economic viability of this scene. If there is not

immediate and sufficient PUBLIC INTERVENTION, either in the form of

limiting rents, or supplying alternate space and funding - or both -

New York City will lose an essential part of its heritage, culture,

and economy.

“My band plays some of the biggest festivals in Europe...Meanwhile

there’s only one club I can play in New York and it’s about to close.”

Steven Bernstein, Trumpet player and leader of Sex Mob and the

Millennial Territory Orchestra

(NY Times)

According to Patricia Nicholson Parker, organizer of the Vision

Festival:

“We have come together to say we deserve a space and in essence, we

have already paid for our space. Musicians contribute to the economy

of this city every day with world class performances. In the case of

Tonic, many musicians came together and invested in the space.

Through benefits and organizing they raised significant sums of money

(100+ grand) for the venue, Tonic. The city needs to acknowledge

this. It is good for the city and good for the artists and their

audiences that the city make available a musician-friendly community

club/space which holds up to 200 audience members. It is important

that it not be in the outer boroughs but be centrally located in the

LES where this serious alternative music has been birthed and where

it can be easily accessed by audiences.”

#-----------------

[J Larsen]

Well, I got back from the last show at Tonic about a half hour ago. I'm depressed. NYC has really lost something for me. That was a special place.

[7/4]

April 16, 2007

Music

Requiem for a Club: Saxophone and Sighs

By NATE CHINEN

There was plenty of exuberant noise at Tonic on Friday night: shrieking horns, fuzzed-out guitars, the jackhammer thump of a bass drum. It could almost have passed for a typical night at the club: two sets of improvisation organized by the saxophonist John Zorn and an installment of the Bunker, a techno party hosted by Bryan Kasenic, a k a DJ Spinoza.

But Friday was the final night at Tonic, a hub and hangout for avant-garde musicians, a constituency with few reliable resources. For them the club’s eviction, because of rent arrears, has hit hard. “It’s a disaster,” said Stephanie Stone, a concertgoer who has frequented Tonic since Mr. Zorn’s first event there nine years ago, a few months after the club opened.

Back then Tonic was an outpost, situated on a stretch of Norfolk Street on the Lower East Side that might charitably have been described as rugged and obscure. Formerly a kosher winery, the space had attracted the attention of Melissa Caruso and John Scott, proprietors of Alt Coffee, a cyber cafe on Avenue A. Together with the accordionist Ted Reichman they had been presenting experimental music at Alt Coffee regularly. Tonic was an entrepreneurial expansion, with costs cheap enough to support the risk.

Now high-rise condominiums tower over the space on either side, an apt illustration of the squeeze of gentrification. In some respects it is surprising that Tonic survived as long as it did. Facing similar rent pressures, numerous clubs have shut down in recent months, notably CBGB and Sin-é. (Alt Coffee closed last week too.)

“Our rent has doubled since we opened, and business has not doubled,” said Ms. Caruso, who is now married to Mr. Scott. “We’ve always struggled in that building,” she said. “Whether it’s flooding or a complete disaster with our plumbing system, it just seems that we’re hit with something every couple of years that’s a huge expense.” In the most recent setback Subtonic, the club’s basement lounge, was shut down by the city for permit violations.

It was fitting that Mr. Zorn presided over Tonic’s swan song: his initial two-month stretch of programming in 1998 was what put the club on the map. His two sets on Friday night were a succession of ad hoc instrumental lineups. Some — like a trio consisting of the saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, the pianist Anthony Coleman and the drummer Gerry Hemingway — delivered the glorious dissonance of top-grade free jazz.

Other performances were less idiomatic, but had a common denominator of tonal friction and dynamic variation. Among the dozens of artists in rotation were the keyboardist Annie Gosfield, the pianists Sylvie Courvoisier and Vijay Iyer, the clarinetists Ned Rothenberg and Chris Speed, and the guitarists Elliot Sharp and Marc Ribot. All of them found a home in Tonic, to one degree or another, over the years.

Of course so have many artists outside the orbit of improvised music. “You would be able to go to three different shows in a week and have three completely different musical experiences,” said Daniel Blumin, the former host of a popular WNYC radio show, who was standing outside the club with Drew Daniel of the experimental electronic duo Matmos.

Mr. Daniel, who has performed at Tonic, agreed. “There would be pin-drop-silent things that were very sparse, and then raucous hellish stuff,” he said. “The only thing they really had in common was a commitment to a kind of integrity.”

Along with Mr. Blumin, Mr. Daniel was waiting for DJ Spinoza’s shift, which stretched well into the morning hours. (On Friday the Bunker will set up shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at the Luna Lounge, a club that was priced out of the Lower East Side two years ago.)

The club’s increasing proportion of indie-rock and pop shows had alienated some musicians in recent years. “For the immediate community of players that I work with,” Mr. Reichman said on Friday afternoon, “this loss is reflecting a change that happened a while ago.” Yet Mr. Reichman was quick to credit Tonic with being the only centralized haven for the avant-garde jazz and improvised-music crowd.

“When the Knitting Factory went corporate rock, Tonic filled the void,” Mr. Speed said between Friday’s two sets. There are other sympathetic places in the city, he added, like Barbès and Issue Project Room in Brooklyn and the Stone in Manhattan, a nonprofit space opened by Mr. Zorn in 2005. But none have Tonic’s size (capacity 180) or the sociable environment sustained by Mr. Scott and Ms. Caruso, who took in Friday’s festivities with their one-month-old baby, Addison, in tow.

The indignation surrounding the club’s closure was best illustrated by the demonstration held on Saturday at Tonic by an activist group called Take It to the Bridge, led in part by Mr. Ribot, the guitarist. Lasting from 11 a.m. till shortly before 5 p.m., it culminated in two brief arrests.

In an interview that morning Mr. Ribot said the purpose of the demonstration was not to save Tonic, but to expose the need for city financing for experimental music. “New music serves as research and development for a much larger music scene,” he said. “It has a cultural and economic weight beyond its immediate audience.”

Moments later Mr. Ribot was playing a solo acoustic rendition of “Cold, Cold Heart,” as a worker on a ladder beside him wrestled with one of the club’s hanging speakers. During the afternoon a number of musicians took the stage, including Mr. Rothenberg, the pianist Matthew Shipp and the conductor Butch Morris. Patricia Nicholson, the founder of the Vision Festival, which will present several of Tonic’s previously scheduled shows this week in a neighborhood gallery (information at visionfestival.org), served as a de facto stage manager.

By 4:30 most of the club’s equipment had been carted out, and the room was empty of patrons. A smattering of police officers stood watch as Mr. Ribot played “The Nearness of You” (a wry dedication to the officers, perhaps).

Then there was an announcement that any lingerers would be guilty of trespassing. “I wouldn’t say that we want to get arrested, but we will not leave,” Mr. Ribot replied. Along with Rebecca Moore, another Take It to the Bridge organizer, he was handcuffed and led outside to a squad car. Across the street a gathering of supporters let out a cheer.

[clifford_thornton]

Wow.

[Guy Berger]

activists are planning yet another rally against the totally bogus real-estate conditions that forced indie concert hall Tonic to close this past weekend.

I'll admit I haven't been following this story closely -- what are "the totally bogus real-estate conditions"?

guy

[J Larsen]

activists are planning yet another rally against the totally bogus real-estate conditions that forced indie concert hall Tonic to close this past weekend.

I'll admit I haven't been following this story closely -- what are "the totally bogus real-estate conditions"?

guy

A huge (and inceredibly ugly) condo was erected right next to Tonic (actually condos went up on both sides, but the big blue one on the corner is more relevant to this story). In the course of contruction, the basement to Tonic was structurally damaged. The condo owners then supposedly reported to the city that Tonic's basement was unsafe, and it was condemned. Meanwhile, Tonic's landlord upped the rent from $5K to $10K, which is far more than the upstairs of Tonic alone could support. Now the building that Tonic was in will likely be demolished to make room for more condos.