Institute of Contemporary Arts

First Stop Brooklyn

Date: 23 November 2006

Etherea Records

In a somewhat distant place from my familiar routine of work and life in London (head space and geography both), I'm suddenly sitting in my uncle's flat on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, listening to Tom Petty (Stephen is a theatre director, and has a penchant for musicals, so we were lucky to find this between 'M' for Mamma Mia, and 'R' for Rocky Horror Show), slurping lite beer and putting my feet up for the first time in hours. Despite only arriving on Monday evening - which feels an age away already - we seemed to have crossed most of Manhattan on foot, in a combination of sunshine, cloud and heavy showers (that's the bit I did in a pair of pumps and no socks).

Anyway, enough scene-setting, the day is not yet over and there is more work to do - a phrase I think I might find myself repeating more and more (hopefully I'll work round the cliché next time though) over the next three months, as the reality of my sabbatical sets in. I've taken three months off from my role as press officer for the film and music programmes at the ICA, to work on a documentary project, and we are in Manhattan because New York and its five boroughs are the first port of call on a three month tour of independent record stores across the States - the subject of which we are committing to film between now and February 2007.

Back in the UK record stores have been the subject of newspaper column inches over the last year or so - Rough Trade has been formally bound in the pages of Rob Young's book (published by Black Dog), news reels claim vinyl sales are massively on the up (over a million 7 inch singles have been sold in the UK in 2006 - three years ago in 2003, the figure sat at less than 170,000.), and yet the internet and downloading are having a simultaneously detrimental effect on the life span of small independent shops, with Stone Fish records, two branches of Reckless and more all disappearing in less than a year.

Stateside things seem to be following a similar pattern. Since 2003 the official figure of small indie stores closing sits at around 900, which is 25% of stores across the USA. Tower Records has gone bankrupt for a second and final time, and yet vinyl is also seeing some sort of a revival. And it is these questions and contradictions, which we are hoping to explore in our film, alongside a more general celebration of the communities and musical experiences that these stores offer up.

So far we've had an amazing bit of assistance in the form of Tim Broun, a friend of a friend and human encyclopedia when it comes to the last 20 years of New York's alternative music scene and the stores that sit around it. His local knowledge, contacts and general enthusiasm for our project has been incredible - he's hooked us up with a host of stores, venues, DJs and New York's resident music enthusiasts, each of whom seems to want to be involved and has another set of suggestions and ideas for people we should talk to and places to explore.

On Saturday morning he took us on a walking tour of down town Manhattan - we spent several hours strolling from Greenwich Village on the west side, over to the East Village, taking in over a dozen stores along the way, accompanied by an alternative sight-seeing tour of iconic musical spots - from the corner of two streets where the New York Dolls shot the cover for their first album, to the recent grave of CBGBs, which was sent to a better place only a few months ago - the local area around it is developing at a rapid rate, and the rent got too high. All that's left is the metal skeleton of the sign, and a few black and white stickers, a small memorial for a place of such formative and creative significance for New York's music and art scenes.

Today, we are in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, across the river from Manhattan, and an area which could most easily be described as the east end of New York. Williamsburg is home to the biggest creative community in the States, housing artists, musicians, etc who have moved out of Manhattan due to extortionate housing prices, and now nurture a satellite community of galleries, cafes and bars, small independent shops and studios. It's the home of Marquise Dance Hall, a small store selling second hand records and books, also housing a little gallery out the back and a garden where they screen 16mm films in the summer. It' s just off the main drag (Bedford Avenue) on Grand and Roebling, and run by an artist and filmmaker couple called Mark and Ayca. It's been open about a year, and today we interviewed Mark about the set up, the local community, and how he sources all the records - they specialize in a lot of folk, ethnic, free jazz, avant garde and punk, all laid out beautifully in old wooden crates and tea chests.

One interview down, and I am working out how I might be able to re-create a place like this back in London, and retire romantically on the profits from vinyl and old art books.