How a DIY Renaissance Will Save the Music Community
This conversation is part of an ongoing series in partnership with NYC Nightlife United highlighting the status of the music industry. We’re inviting artists and professionals from our local NYC music community to pick a collaborator to speak on an issue they're most passionate about. In our fifth piece, A.F. Cortes, New York based photographer and filmmaker, and “nihilist queer revolt” artist Dreamcrusher discuss the rise and fall of the Brooklyn music scene in light of COVID-19. Before March, A.F. had begun filming his upcoming documentary, Brooklyn is Burning, exploring the city’s independent music sub-culture featuring artists like Dreamcrusher. Now in the wake of a pandemic, the project and the country have both dramatically shifted. Below, the two artists discuss how in order to move forward, the music industry and the country must both rebuild and leave their faulty structures behind.
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Illustration by Steph Lau
A.F.: So I really wanted to start with, I guess, an introduction of you and I. I'm A.F. Cortes, I'm a photographer and filmmaker from Colombia based in New York City for the past 20 years.
Dreamcrusher: Oh, 20 years? Nice.
A.F.: '98! Twenty two years. Yeah. It's been a while.
Dreamcrusher: I'm Dreamcrusher, I'm originally from Kansas, based in New York. I do electronic music and I'm loud, and stupid and crazy and annoying. And I'm getting fat in quarantine, lots of beans and rice and potatoes.
A.F.: And you're very generous and an extremely talented artist I would say. And quarantine has been really rough for all of us. I'm also kind of not being very careful with my diet.
Dreamcrusher: Oh my god. I did just get.. what's it called? Like a green powder for juice. And I've been doing that every morning, with like a smoothie. So I'm hoping that will get rid of my pregnant belly. I'm eating for two you guys!
A.F.: I hear you. I'm also kind of in the same situation, but we need to get our shit together. So I guess the first thing I want to talk to you about is, we're coming from a very rough week, what are your feelings? It's impossible to start a conversation without talking about Justice Ginsburg, the status of the country and we're so close to an election. How do you feel about it?
Dreamcrusher: My usual feelings on this are, the country is always going to be bad. When homeboy Christopher Columbus came here, he committed a genocide, and no reparations have been paid to Native Americans. No reparations have been paid to the slaves that came over here from Africa, South America, all over Europe too, Italians and Irish people, Chinese and Japanese people as well. No reparations were paid out. I feel like this land is cursed. I think everything is coming to the light now. And people are now going to be forced to decide to do something about this that is going to compromise their comfort. I think the pandemic happened at a very opportune time. It showed everybody's reptilian interior and there are so many people that got wealthy while millions of people died and that is very bad. So what are we going to do about it? And I think that Justice Ginsburg dying is really scary because the GOP, they're not even eulogizing her. They're just like, well, whose next?
A.F.: McConnell's tweet was an hour after she died, like less than an hour. It was right away.
Dreamcrusher: Exactly! It was just like, “Woah, what the fuck?”
A.F.: And shamelessly after he did to Obama nine months before the election. And this is 46 days before the election.
Dreamcrusher: I made that post about her… I didn't like her, she was real cute but she was shitty to Native Americans, she was shitty to Black people. She made fun of Colin Kaepernick when he started this protest with the NFL and all that shit. But she also did a great deal for women's rights. And she was one of the only supreme justices that wasn't completely fucking stupid. And while she's not my icon, she was important. Just because I don't like her, doesn't mean that she's not important. And the fact that people are jumping to replace her, it says a lot about the side that needs to get voted out.
A.F.: Yes, I completely agree. And it's great that you start with homeboy, Christopher Columbus. Because to me, when you talk about Christopher Columbus and you talk about the statues and the things that are getting removed left and right, everything comes down to location. I grew up in Colombia where we learn history thinking that Christopher Columbus was a hero. So the way history is written is he's a hero. So that to me is already fucked up... I don't think he's a hero, he's a villain from that perspective. It is crazy, but necessary that we need to relearn our history starting with Christopher Columbus and then everything that happened afterwards. Not just only here in the US, in all countries in Latin America.
Dreamcrusher: Yeah, it's really easy to continue to repeat a cycle when you don't know all the facts from everything that made today possible. I didn't know the reason why Catholicism is so popular in so many places. It's because of people like him who arrived at a tropical paradise and were like, "Oh, what's all this? I want it. Give it to me. Oh, you don't want to give it to me? Well then I'm going to kill all of you then. Oh, you don't have brick buildings? We're going to build those brick buildings... You have to do what we do or you're not civilized." And the reason why things are so bad now, the reason why the world is literally turning into a fireball right now, is because human beings are not reckoning with the shit that went on with our ancestors.
A.F.: I guess history repeats itself. And I think we are smarter than that as humans. And it is time that we learn from our previous mistakes and move forward. What this election has taught me is that fellow humans are not willing, or don't want to, learn from our mistakes. It is not about canceling homeboy Columbus, it is about giving his right place in history. He was the one who might have “discovered” this new land, but he was not a hero of the story. That's very important to define who is the hero, who is the villain, or who's both at the end of this complex story. A good hero is half villain and half hero. So that said...
“What this election has taught me is that fellow humans are not willing, or don’t want to, learn from our mistakes.”
Both: [Laugh].
A.F.: What do you think about the current status of the music industry and what's going to happen, especially in New York. You have a crystal ball, what does your crystal ball say?
Dreamcrusher: I think we're going to have to abolish music publications and I think we're probably going to have to abolish record labels. I personally rely on peer to peer everything because... I think it's so funny, my music's not really that intense, it's not! But if you ask the right person, they think that it's just this hell bomb that dropped from the fucking skies of Narnia and might destroy the planet. So they don't cover my work, they don't talk about my work and they don't talk about my contemporaries' work. But what's sad is if I were a different color or if I were associated with some white manager in capris, that would call fucking Rolling Stone and be like, "We've got this new artist, he's great. If you don't do it, I'm going to call my dad." I don't have any of those people around me, it's just me and whoever I happen to be releasing work with at the time. And it's been that way for... I started this project in 2002—
A.F.: Wow, 18 years.
Dreamcrusher: It's been that long since I haven't been signed to a label. So because of that it's hindered me quite a bit. But also I'm not willing to do a lot of the things that so many people are willing to do in order to make it. I'm not willing to sell myself, I'm not willing to sell other people. I don't want to play the game. I want to express myself and have fun doing it and hopefully have the exposure to show other kids who are like me, that it's possible for them to do what they want and be successful doing it. If we can't abolish any of these things, then we need to change these things.
I know a lot of journalists and executives that don't want to tell me the truth because it could cost them their job. So there's fear there. And I want to know what the source of the fear is because things have at least gotten more dire for everyone, specifically, people who work for themselves, like DIY musicians and stuff like that. And in order for anything to be better, once the economy gets better and venues start to reopen, we're going to have to stop the bullshit. Like, you can afford to pay me to shoot me, you can afford to have an article about new music specifically that isn't pop, that isn't indie shit. You know what I'm saying? There's a lot of really good music out there and always has been. And it's been really sad to watch a lot of those kids get pushed to the side because it's a little too fringe for whatever they think their audience is. And what it comes down to is, it's people deciding for the masses what they think they want, rather than presenting options for people. And it fucks it up for everybody, it fucks it up for the photographers, for the writers who want to write about other stuff. I remember finding so much new music on TV, like MTV when they used to play music.
A.F.: Yeah, I remember also watching Headbanger's Ball at 5 in the morning or something.
Dreamcrusher: Yeah, they would always play new music. And then somewhere along the advent of streaming had something to do with it. But that's not the whole answer. I think that the people in charge either got older or dumber, or both. Every time I imagine record executives now, I just think of somebody with a fucking snap back hat that says "dope" on it with stickers on it, and shitty capris and an ugly polo shirt and on their cell phone all the time. And they're not listening to anything, just slinging shit in the background. I just imagine a complete shit head and I can't convince those fucking people that my music is good because I don't want to.
A.F.: That applies also to me, to filmmaking and photography. I've been in meetings with those type of characters that they're on their phone all the time and not paying attention to you, but they're there. I just don't understand why they waste their time being there if they're not there mentally with you. I think that's part of all industries. It's hard to make art that is true to yourself and not sell yourself, but also make a living out of it.
Dreamcrusher: I actually change my answer to that. The issue with music right now is, for me at least, the people that are in charge with taste making and releasing music, don't make music, don't go to shows, they live in a mansion and don't live in the city, they’re power hungry. They don't care about music. They don't listen to music more often than not. And if they do, they're not listening to what's current. So those kinds of people should not be telling the masses what to think about music. And they shouldn't be telling writers that the articles that they want to write about new music can't be published.
“The issue with music right now is, for me at least, the people that are in charge with taste making and releasing music, don’t make music, don’t go to shows, they live in a mansion...”
A.F.: There are so many kinds of music blogs and zines and independent publications... I feel there's a new renaissance of journalism and publications and things are kind of covering interesting music, I feel. So there's some hope there.
Dreamcrusher: Yeah, I'm hoping that's the case. I know some people who worked at bigger publications who just got pissed about [how] every three months there's a new editor in chief and every three months there's a new writing staff. And it's just like, "I can't keep up with this. And I'm not getting paid enough to put up with this. I'm going to start my own shit." It's going to take that. But what's sad is the system itself is predicated around being the most successful, and getting the most ad clicks, instead of it just being about who is putting up the most interesting and most critically thought about articles, about new music and all that stuff, which I think is more important.
A.F.: I hear you. The other part that I wanted to cover was a little bit of the thesis of the film. And it’s been challenging because I have a point of view of an immigrant person in New York looking at our music scene that has evolved through the years. And I've been in music all my life. I've seen different iterations of the music scene, same as you. But I do have the benefit of being in my 40s, being in a few extra places just because time allowed. The thesis of the film is, "While America is divided by partisan and sociopolitical rhetoric, the players of this local scene and their loyal audiences remain united through their unwavering acceptance of their own differences. Gay, non-binary, straight, Black, white, Latino are all joined by the sounds of this scene." So that is the part that I want to cover with the film. Obviously, there's more parts to it, if you go to NYU and bars around that area, maybe you'll find a different scene. But that's not the part that we're going to cover with this film. I don't know if you have any thoughts on that?
Dreamcrusher: Yeah, I mean, for me personally, I'm from a rural city in America. And it got to a point when I was playing back in Wichita, I was basically only playing one dive bar that happened to be across the street from campus. And specifically because there were no all ages venues in Wichita, really. The one, Eagle's Lodge. I remember distinctly playing there once before they closed. And then I was just playing at this bar called Kirby's that was like a shoebox. And I love Kirby's, it's great. But people got sick of seeing me play at the same place every week because no one wanted to tour with me, no one knew who I was. So that's when I started a GoFundMe. I wanted to go to New York specifically because I saw from afar, Death by Audio and Glasslands and 285 Kent and seeing so many different kinds of people playing in New York City with each other. And the concept of that was crazy to me. I was like, "I have to go, I have to go. I want to get my Black ass over there." I did not succeed in my GoFundMe, I didn't even get halfway. And then I got an e-mail from somebody who is based in Bushwick, and was like, “You want to come tour with me? We can go on the East Coast.” First tour I'd ever been on, my second time playing outside of Wichita. And I jumped at the chance.
You find good people in New York and you stick by them, at least in my eyes. I was really lucky that when I got here, people happened to like what I do, to a certain extent. And I didn't have shit when I came here. I had like maybe 250 dollars from the tour. And I had to make it work. This is better than what I'm used to and what I grew up around. I hate my hometown. I hated growing up there. I wanted to get the fuck out. It was terrible. And I feel like I would have died. I actually think I would have died. My mother was already really sick, I had just lost my job, I had no other options. And I know a lot of other people that move here from other places feel that way. But I draw the line at these motherfuckers that come here from privilege and come here from money and decide to change New York rather than immerse themselves in the culture here and immerse themselves in the various communities that are here. It's already set up, you just need to figure out where you fit. And the fact that so many people who come from a certain background come here and do that always has pissed me off. But I think that what's great about this documentary and what the potential that I see for it is people will see me. People will see bands like Surfbort who come from such different places in life... It's so hard to avoid the music scene here. There's always music going on, there's so many different venues, mid tier venues specifically. And what COVID has showed us is New Yorkers are kind of spoiled. We got a lot of good shit here, a lot.
A.F.: That's the reason I moved here. I come from Colombia where the music scene is completely divided. Like, if you're in to metal, you just go to the metal shows. If you're into experimental music, you just go to those and your friends are into that thing. You can't mix someone that likes metal and indie with goth. That is a no no. I grew up with that. And I always had a very broad kind of music taste I liked. I love experimental music, but I also like indie bands and I grew up playing in a metal band. And that's something that I find fascinating in New York, that you [can] go to one show and the next day you could go to a Deli Girls show, and the next day you can go to a BODEGA show and sometimes you find the same people... And those artists are so different from each other, if you go to a record store, all those artists are going to be in different aisles. But my point is that bands are very different than in [Colombia]. For me, it's fascinating to see a common thread with these bands and this scene. And I also see a lot of diversity within those bands, like a band like Native Sun, that is proud of their immigrant heritage, for example, and that's cool, that's their message. Stuyedeyed are talking about police brutality and growing up in the projects... There's a common thread there that I think is very important. And that's the part that I'm very sad that we might be losing if COVID wins.
Dreamcrusher: Yeah, I hope that people stop trying to open up venues prematurely because it's better to close your venue than to be shut down. So many venues have the opportunity to say, we're going to hold off on this and look for alternatives. That is such a blessing that no other city in America has. People play here so often, not only because there are so many places to play, there's so many people here who are open to the experiences and there's an ecosystem around DIY here, that doesn't exist anywhere else… You can go to a show, support a band and New York will make you decide whether you're really about it or not. And I really like that about this place. The energy here is very specifically geared toward that. And I really appreciate that. I've been really ragging on people who run venues who are open right now and trying to do shit because there are other options, viable financial options for venues who need to open but shouldn't. And the fact that some of them are not taking that route is really disappointing. But at the same time, look at who's in charge of the country! I can't convince a record store owner or a venue owner to not open when the government isn't even subsidizing its own cultural scene. So, I can't really blame them for opening shit prematurely and not trying to have shows because what other viable option is there? Unless you're going to sell crack!
“The DIY movement will always exist. The issue that will always come up, though, is whether it’s an actual community or whether it’s a scene. And I think more than ever, we need community, not just a scene for people to exploit and make money.”
A.F.: And to the point of who is running the country, I was just thinking, I don't know even remember when reality TV started to become a thing back in the 2000s, like MTV?
Dreamcrusher: Flavor of Love!
A.F.: Reality TV was the thing that was taking over television. And we were all watching, but also disgusted by it. And the big irony is one of the stars of one of those shows is the person in charge of the country.
Dreamcrusher: Yeah. I was just going to say, the reason why DIY even exists is because, I mean I'm sure there's going to be some white people who will read this article and be like, "What are you talking about?" But when jazz became a thing, it was deemed an experimental niche up until white people started to like it. And then once they liked it, they realized that the only good jazz musicians were Black and allowed Black people to play in clubs but did not allow Black people to patron the clubs. So Black jazz musicians had to open their own venues in order to play for their own people.
The reason why 285 Kent, Glasslands and Death By Audio were even made to exist is because the kinds of bands that were playing in those venues couldn't play anywhere else. And if they could, it was because they were connected to the right people at the right time and all that shit. Post COVID I think that there's going to be another DIY renaissance, because there has to be. There's so many young people making amazing music that no one that's in charge of anything major gives a shit about. And they're going to make a place to play because it's going to keep them sane, it's going keep them driven. The DIY movement will always exist. The issue that will always come up, though, is whether it's an actual community or whether it's a scene. And I think more than ever, we need community, not just a scene for people to exploit and make money.
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