Karen Plemons

Silent Barn's Nat Roe; Alison Sirico; Mustard Beak's Nicolai Kurt and Niina Pollari; Parallel Art Space's Rob de Oude; Ashcan Orchestra's colorful hand bells

Like a lot of panel discussions about art, Saturday's Silent Barn Public Meeting #2—a talk and concert sponsored by the currently on-hold DIY space in the carpeted and wood-paneled upper room at Ridgewood's Gottscheer Hall—had a lot of talk about community engagement. Unlike a lot of arts panel discussions, however, the community was actually there to talk back. In a way, it's a mark of success: here are a dozen young arts entrepreneurs basically spinning theoretical yarns about how, eventually, they'd love to involve people from the community in what they do. As it turned out, the community was already there. And they didn't always appreciate being talked about like some foreign body, loosely orbiting the artistic world.

More >>

Karen Piemons

"Scary Mirrors": A suggestion for the new Silent Barn space.

"Dog Farts," the official minutes of the committee working to find a new home for Silent Barn's February 20 meeting, outlined some of the concerns leading up to the first Silent Barn Public Meeting, a sort of combination student council meeting, shareholder information session, panel discussion on the nature of DiY, and concert. That session, which would focus on the future of the pleasantly bedraggled Ridgewood live-in show space that shut its doors for good last year, was scheduled for March 2—a little over a week away—and things weren't totally in place. Who would put the mics in the flower pots for the sound installation? Who could print the zines ("Jordan thinks maybe he can print them at work (what will they do, fire him?")? Who would convince the owners of Gottscheer Hall, the Queens bar with intimidatingly sized European beers and sedate German-expat regulars that had been booked for the event, that the Silent Barn crew wasn't some kind of "freaky devil cult"?

By Friday, though, Gottscheer Hall had been transformed: sculptures covered the heavily trodden burgundy carpet; a map of Brooklyn and Queens showing the over 100 spaces the Silent Barn crew has investigated as new homes was pinned to the wood-paneled walls; and a table laid out with dozens of handouts asking for help ("Can you help us with soldering irons?") also showed a few of the suggestions received through the online survey on the future on the space, the Barn Exam. (An entire poster was dedicated to one suggestion, "scary mirrors.")

This combination of well-meaning let's-put-on-a-show enthusiasm and open-source fretting is typical of the current state of affairs at Silent Barn—or "Silent Barn," as it was referred to, as if it was more concept than place. Indeed, as G. Lucas Crane—a wild-eyed and bushy-bearded lifelong Brooklynite who's emerged as something of an unofficial spokesman for the space—put it, since its move from 915 Wyckoff last year Silent Barn is as much "energy" as anything else.

More >>

The Silent Barn's Kickstarter campaign has officially been deemed a success, with the formerly-in-Ridgewood venue/performance space/art space/etc. ready to use the $40,595 it raised through the peer-to-peer fundraising program (as well as money from benefit shows and other initiatives) to start casting about for a new space—and, as is customary with Kickstarter campaigns, to send out thank-you presents to people who were particularly generous. The people behind the space posted a message to their supporters on Facebook that has thank yous to important people, an update on their move to a new location, and, should you be so inclined, information on how to get involved in the next steps of the DIY space's development. There's even a test!

More >>

Maks Suski

The now-shuttered Ridgewood venue Silent Barn has been raising funds for its rebuilding and relocation since it was burglarized in July. Silent Barn's organizers took their campaign to the peer-to-peer patronage site Kickstarter, which requires people raising money through its site to set a particular fundraising goal before embarking on their money-raising; if that goal isn't reached by a certain date, no cash will be disbursed. Over the weekend—just a week shy of the campaign's September 18 deadline—the DIY venue's fundraising target of $40,000 was hit, which allows for the Barn's future to begin taking shape. "Making our Kickstarter goal does firm up both our resolve and the relevance of our projected budget," said Woods tape manipulator/Silent Barn guru G. Lucas Crane. (That budget, by the way, has been posted online, in case you care to peruse it.) "Now we can focus on finding a new space, which is the next step."

More >>

Maks Suski

"This is totally normal," G. Lucas Crane says as he drags an amp and a box full of cassettes into his former kitchen. The experimental musician (and occasional tape manipulator for Woods) studies the giant plastic balls hanging from the ceiling, which change color as people talk, and pauses. "What's up with those orbs?" (They're by Peter Edwards.)

All of Silent Barn's sound equipment is long gone. What wasn't stolen in an ugly break-in following their mid-July shutdown by the Department of Buildings has been put into temporary storage. And the venue's one-time residents have spent the day giving away what hasn't been stored—which is a fair bit. Showpaper editor Joe Ahearn, wearing a policeman's cap, stops a girl as she walks away with a maybe-working amp. "We need to take a picture of you with that."

More >>

The temporarily-on-hiatus venue Silent Barn has just passed the $30,000 mark in their Kickstarter campaign to rebuild the Ridgewood venue after it was burglarized and ransacked earlier this month. Those people looking to donate funds while away from their computers can now engage in some philanthropy as well: Tonight the band Bomb The Music Industry (that's them covering "El Scorcho" at Silent Barn above) has decided to pitch in for the cause, turning the record-release show for their new album Vacation, which is scheduled for tonight at 285 Kent, into a benefit for the venue.

More >>

24-ish hours after launching the Kickstarter campaign to help rebuild and replace the equipment that was lost or damaged during Saturday night's burglary, the Ridgewood DIY venue Silent Barn has already raised more than $20,000 of the $40,000 it says it needs to rebuild. Two people have even pledged $1,000, which gives them free entrance to the venue for life! The Kickstarter campaign will run through September 18; the video pitch, for those of you not familiar with the venue's past pre-burglary, is above.

Mike Wolf

Jooklo Duo at Silent Barn in June.

On Saturday night, thieves broke into the Ridgewood performance space Silent Barn and destroyed or removed an estimated $15,000 worth of equipment. The theft occurred just one day after local police stopped a performance featuring Steve Moore of Zombi and others. In addition to looting the venue's sound system, the burglars stole equipment from the indie video-game collective Babycastles, smashed furniture, ripped doors from hinges, and removed several thousand dollars in cash.

"They partied in there," said Nat Roe, who had organized the Friday show. "Took paintings off the walls and punched holes through them and threw them across the room."

More >>

Would you use this bathroom? Photo via Viceland Today

After CBGB's unspeakably vile bathroom went the way of the rest of the erstwhile punk venue, the truly immortally foul New York rock bathrooms mostly moved east, across the river, taking up unfortunate new residence in Williamsburg's myriad concert/communal living spaces. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most trafficked ones have tended to be the most vile: Glasslands, the Market Hotel, and perhaps worst of all, the Silent Barn. Luckily (for us, that is), some desperate videographer so desperately needed a place to shoot a music video last week that he agreed to clean the Silent Barn's ancient, flypaper-riddled bathroom in exchange for being able to shoot there. "Years of being shipped against my will to cut-rate sleepaway camps where my quiet and chubby nature had relegated me to the position of 'latrine swabber' had prepared me well for this moment," writes Matthew Caron. Then he posted the video:

More >>

Starring. All photos by Georgia Kral

While Baltimore-based one-man guitar chorus Ecstatic Sunshine never made it to Ridgewood, Queens for Friday's Silent Barn-hosted benefit for the local DIY broadsheet Showpaper, Dan Friel of experimental Brooklyn act Parts and Labor did. Those in attendance didn't seem to mind--it was a mellow night that just happened to feature one of the weirdest sounding bands we've heard in awhile. Let's call Starring--a Brooklyn avant-garde super-group of sorts, featuring members of Pterodactyl, Skeleton$, Talibam!, and more--"circus metal."

More >>