It's not all that likely, but visitors to the 39th annual Atlantic Antic street fair on Sunday could have wandered up Boerum Place in downtown Brooklyn on their way home, where they would have encountered an imposing McKim Mead & White building on whose doors were posted bills promoting upcoming shows by Tony Conrad, Bill Orcutt, and Talibam! A curious few might have wandered into the lobby, where they would have heard the piercing strains of an electric guitar, muddied with multiple echoes. For $10 (suggested donation), they might have even gone inside, where they would have found themselves in an ornate, marble-lined theater left in a state of gentle decay, with a few dozen patrons seated on folding chairs watching Jason Bartel from Fang Island play solo improvisations on his double-necked guitar.
If they had found me in my fifth-row seat, I would have told them that they had discovered Issue Project Room, which over the past decade has been one of NYC's most vital and influential experimental-performance spaces. It has also been one of its most itinerant: starting out in a garage in the East Village, Issue moved to a silo on the Gowanus canal in 2004, followed four years later by a forced relocation to the third floor of the Old Can Factory.
The move to Boerum Place, which was spearheaded by Issue's late founder Suzanne Fiol, came with a 20-year rent-free lease, but also a host of unforseen . . . issues (no pun intended.) In August 2012, a 50-pound wrought-iron lantern attached to the ceiling broke loose, forcing a seven-month closure while engineers conducted a full review of the space. Early next year, Issue will close once again for 18 months while it undergoes renovations to bring it up to code and "adapt it for multidisciplinary performances." Given the unfortunate outcome of City Opera's similarly nomadic existence, one wonders if Issue should have waited another year or two before making their move.
But, far from being down and out, Issue is in a festive mood, celebrating its 10th anniversary with "Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain": a two-month festival featuring a who's who of experimental musicians, many of whom have been regular performers at Issue over the years. In addition to Bartel, Sunday night's show featured the Dan Joseph Ensemble, with Joseph on hammer dulcimer, along with harpsichord, marimba, flute and strings. They performed Joseph's 2009 tribute to Fiol, Tonalization (for the afterlife), an unabashed celebration of tonality which melded Asian folk-sounding melodies with Glass- and Reich-like structures. Suzanne no doubt would have loved it.
Closing out the night was Jonathan Kane's February, featuring four guitarists building a wall of sound while Kane smashed away at the drums in a wild frenzy. Kane, a longtime Issue veteran, dedicated his set to Suzanne, whose screams he said he can still hear in old YouTube videos of his performances at the Can Factory. Here in the marble vault, the combination of drums and guitars was like standing next to a jet engine on the tarmac: thrilling, overpowering, and ridiculously loud; the intesnity of the one million-plus people who showed up for the Antic had nothing on this.
Ten Years on the Infinite Plain continues at Issue Project Room through 10/26, with upcoming performances by Nate Wooley, Rhys Chatham, William Basinski, and more. More information on the festival here; more pics at the photo page.