East Side/West Side: Club-hopping in downtown New York
by Seth Rogovoy

(WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., January 25, 2001) -- Sure we’ve got great music venues right here in the Cultural Berkshires - at least a few world-class places with world-class performers. But sometimes a change of scenery can do you good. And I bet even those folks who run local performances spaces wouldn’t begrudge anyone a weekend of club-hopping in New York City, to check out what’s new and exciting on the experimental scene, or just to get the sort of energy charge that can only be had on the streets and sidewalks of Manhattan. And I know for a fact that several of them jump at the chance to go down to New York and get a fix of Big Apple nightlife as often as they can.

When I go to New York, I typically head downtown, where I can rely on two clubs in particular on nearly any night of the week to be presenting something unique, challenging or provocative. They are also venues that are the essence of New York, within and without.

The Knitting Factory, at 74 Leonard Street, is probably ground-zero for downtown jazz and genre-defying avant-garde music. Utterly unassuming from the outside - I nearly walk past it every time I go, sometimes more than once in an evening - the place is a veritable playground once you’re inside, with no less than five different performing spaces in the four-story building, sometimes all going strong at once. These range from the main performance space, a theater with a stage and a balcony, to a bar area, the “KnitActive Soundstage,” and the “Old Office,” a room off the bar which seems more like an old utility closet than a former office space.

On any given night the Knit features anything from industrial noise to avant-jazz to singer-songwriters to free-jazz to hard rock. About the only thing you can be assured of not hearing at the Knit is anything that will ever be on the pop charts, MTV or commercial radio.

Otherwise, it seems like anything goes, from poetry slams to jazz-bluegrass fusion to ska to bebop. One week in November saw artists ranging from Karen Finley to David S. Ware to Ravi Coltrane to the Jazz Mandolin Project. Familiar names like Lou Reed or Pat Metheny occasionally show up on the Knit’s calendar, but more often the weekly schedule is sprinkled with a combination of well-known downtown artists like Marc Ribot, Anthony Coleman, Roy Nathanson, Zeena Parkins, Ben Perowsky and Curtis Fowlkes alongside performers you’ve never heard of like Elf Power, Cheer Accident, Kolevi 6, Bablicon, Edison Woods and Sonic Sum.

For example, this weekend the Knit features Boston-based trio George Garzone and the Fringe, Henry Elsesser, Neptune and Glue. On Friday night, Seeds of Wisdom hosts a CD release party after the main performance of the evening, featuring Steven Bernstein’s Millennial Territory Orchestra plaing “reefer songs,” with vocalist Babi Floyd. That’s a typical lineup at the Knit, and artists like Bernstein will often debut or experiment with their latest projects, which may never go anywhere other than the Knit.

If I were contemplating a trip to New York, I might head down to the Knit on Tuesday, Feb. 13. On that night alone you could hear the Brad Shepik Group, a quartet led by the avant-world guitarist that includes bassist Fima Ephron and drummer Michael Sarin, and take in vocalist Nora Yorke, who specializes in the love songs of Jimi Hendrix, Barry White, Marvin Gaye and Mick Jagger.

Or on Thursday, Feb. 15, you could catch reedman Marty Ehrlich’s Travelers Tales, featuring tenor saxophonist Tony Malaby and drummer Bobby Previte, followed by “P.S. I Love You, A Belated Valentines,” a program of three avant-pop performers, including Jennifer O’Connor, Wise and Foolish Builders and Nerve Generators, and cap the evening off with eclectic classical-jazz group The Other Quartet.

For more about the Knit, including a concert calendar and live webcasts, visit www.knittingfactory.com www.knittingfactory.com.

The Knitting Factory is located in the Tribeca district of downtown, on the west side of lower Manhattan. The east side alternative to the Knit is the aptly-named Tonic. Located in a former kosher winery - a few huge wooden casks remain in the basement and have been carved out to make seating areas - Tonic, at 107 Norfolk St., is in some ways grittier than the Knit (someone ought to introduce Tonic to Ajax, particularly the bathrooms), but even more edgy and experimental. Tonic touts itself as New York City’s “only musician-curated club,” which no doubt accounts for its mix of arcane and obscure acts like Radical Anxiety Termination, the Polar Bear Club, Big Lazy and Subtext. But all is not arcana at Tonic. You just missed John Zorn’s Improv Night at Tonic last night, and the room has hosted well-known performers including Dave Douglas’s Charms of the Night Sky ensemble, Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid, Joe Maneri, and Medeski, Martin and Wood, who even named an album after the place.

Tomorrow night, for example, the club presents a double-bill of musical experimenters including Kim Gordon, Ikue Mori and DJ Olive plus Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, and Zeena Parkins (yes, there’s one-half of Sonic Youth in there somewhere). This Saturday night, two of my favorites from downtown are performing: avant-cellist/composer Erik Friedlander, and downtown-drummer-of-choice Joey Baron and his ensemble.

There is occasionally some overlap with the Knit at Tonic - on Friday, Feb. 2, for example, Steven Bernstein brings his Millennial Territory Orchestra to Tonic. But for the most part Tonic goes its own way, and slots its performers into themed series: New Music, Songwriters, Films and Subtonic (that’s the basement lounge).

Tonic might actually be best known as the only venue in New York with a weekly klezmer gig. Every Sunday at 1:30 and 3 p.m., Tonic hosts its famed Klezmer Brunch. Curated by clarinetist David Krakauer, who frequently performs there with his lively group Klezmer Madness, the Klezmer Brunch features an eclectic array of klezmer and Eastern European Jewish music, including the traditional, Old World sounds of fiddler Alicia Svigals, the rowdy Hungarian village dances of Di Naye Kapelye, and Yiddish songs and ballads by Carol Freeman’s Song of the Shtetl.

On Sunday, Feb. 4, Margot Leverett, one of contemporary klezmer’s finest practitioners of classic klezmer clarinet, performs at Tonic. Given Tonic’s lineage and the overall heritage of the Lower East Side, Tonic is one of the best places in the world to enjoy klezmer music. The food is great, too. For more information about Tonic, visit www.tonic107.com www.tonic107.com. So any time anyone wants to head down to Tonic or the Knit, just give me a call.

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshires Month on Jan. 25, 2001. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2001. All rights reserved.]