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Photos: Death By Audio's Last Show Ever
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 24, 2014
Modified Nov 24, 2014
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Nov 24, 2014
Modified Nov 24, 2014
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An easy way to freak out New Yorkers is to be really friendly. The city trains us to be skeptical of altruism, for good reason. What's your angle? What are you selling? Walking into Death By Audio for the first time, you could mistake its disarming decay as a screen for jerks and too-cool dilettantes. But DBA's only angle was music. And now it is gone.
Saturday's show was DBA's last, the culmination of more than a week of "Top Secret" bills that included Pitchfork mainstays like Future Islands and Ty Segall, both of whom found their sea legs performing at the space years ago. The former played last Tuesday, on a bill with DJ Dog Dick, one of many assurances that DBA wasn't about to shake its commitment to original programming in the name of sentimentality or self-aggrandizement.
By 3 p.m. on Saturday, people began lining up outside of DBA's door on South 2nd Street. A few hours later, it snaked around Kent Avenue to Glasslands, another venue that owes its closure to the rapacious growth of VICE media. Shane Smith's contractors had painted over an artist's "FUCK YOU," but there it was, back on the wall. Before the night was over, hundreds of copies of the glossy magazine were carted out to be ripped to shreds like confetti.
Towards the end of Lightning Bolt's set, drummer and singer Brian Chippendale wondered, "How do you play the last show?" The question was looped through his delay pedal and repeated itself as if to reveal its absurdity. There will be other spaces whose primary concern is fun and not profit. Yes, some people really are that friendly.
Tagged
death by audio
diy
vice magazine
williamsburg
original
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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