05/28/09
Text: Scott Indrisek
Brooklynites, take note: smart souls will be flocking to Glasslands Gallery this Saturday, May 30th, for the final Art Train Happening, with DJ sets from Jonathan Toubin and Jon Spencer (yes, that Jon Spencer, formerly of the exploding blues.) Also featured: "live music by Preacher and the Knife, performance by Raul de Nieves’ Try Cry and Hula Hoop Harlot Melissa Anne and her cast of professional side-show performers, go go dancing by The Marmaladies, visuals by Mighty Robot AV Squad, décor by Live With Animals Gallery." Stay late, freak out. The festivities start at 10pm and last until 4am; cover is only $7.
What exactly is Animal Train Happening, you ask? We'll let the press release speak for itself: "A partnership between New York Night Train and Live With Animals art gallery at the Glasslands Gallery, Animal Train Happenings have been a revolutionary semi-secret subcultural multimedia theme party featuring DJs, performance, projections, and dance in an entirely informally formalist environment designed, constructed, and lit entirely by local artists. While we are aware that ours has been one of the wildest, most fun, and original dance parties in town, we are also proud that it has also remained a bras d’ honneur in the face of the mediocre, unimaginative, and economically exclusionary day-to-day mechanics of 21st Century New York art, music, and nightlife in general – remaining popular without giving into sponsorship, high door prices, compromised aesthetics, etc. Our parties, many of which have been primarily word-of-mouth, and which have taken participants below the ocean floor, into prehistoric times, into Warhol’s factory, Candyland and a number of other fantastic places (see our Myspace to see all themes and performers), have interwoven many generations of underground’s finest artists, like Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle and Psychic TV) and Lady Jaye, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, Ian Svenonius (Make-Up, Nation of Ulysses, etc), Kid Congo Powers (Cramps, Bad Seeds, Gun Club), Gibby Haynes (Butthole Surfers), and the father of avant garde cinema Jonas Mikas, with emerging musical talent like Golden Triangle, Ghost Exits, Pterodactyl, S-S-S-Spectres, and Puddin’ Tang. Find out more information, images, and video from past Happenings here.
Anyway, after nine awesome parties that have included everything from police busts, overcrowding to the point of electronics not functioning, an infinite cycle of the broken and the fixed, we have decided to call it quits after this, our tenth party, The Circus. We would love to continue but the amount of time and money required to entirely reconstruct the environment of the venue with each party, and fairly pay nearly a dozen participants (including the aforementioned legendary figures), combined with our desire to keep an inclusionary door price ($5 - $7), has meant a boatload of work for anywhere between a financial loss or a meager profit. Perhaps even more significant, the two partners have become too busy. Jonathan Toubin has become a successful international DJ of late, constantly on tour and spinning somewhere in the world practically every night of the week. Vashti Windish’s band, Golden Triangle, has become a hard-touring and recording independent act and her gallery, Live With Animals, has become a prolific and renowned art-space. Both Toubin as a DJ and Golden Triangle were in their infancy when Animal Train Happenings were initially conceived two years ago and now both projects require too much time and effort for the duo to continue to throw this party.
Though Animal Train hates to abandon you, we leave you with one of our finest parties yet...As always, expect surprises (and cotton candy)."
We'll see you there.
