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The Golden Years of DIY in Philly
Do-it-yourself ( DIY ) garage rock may have started in New York City , but that ’ s surely not where it ’ s ending up . In recent years , the hiking prices of rent , the gentrification of artist hotspots , and the prevalence of labels have done all but physically push DIY artists out of the city . The question remains : where are they going ?
There isn ’ t one definitive answer ; there are , and have always been , pockets of artist-friendly spaces across the country . But perhaps one shines a bit brighter than all of the others . To insinuate that Philadelphia ’ s music scene is bursting at the seams because of a decline elsewhere ( read : New York ) would certainly be an oversimplification . But to say that this is not what ’ s happening would also , in a way , be false . Through no fault of their own , New York seems to be succumbing into the natural order of things . Order becomes disorder , and vice versa . There ’ s a basic chemistry happening between these two cities — it ’ s entropy and enthalpy . Both are necessary for DIY culture to continue .
As artist-run venues like The Silent Barn close their doors in Brooklyn , Philly staples — like First Unitarian Church and PhilaMOCA , among others — are holding their ground . Not only that , but there aren ’ t enough grouchy neighbors or finicky landlords in the world that could take down the city ’ s vibrant house show culture .
Matty Klauser — owner of house venue the Tralfamadore , booking manager at Connie ’ s Ric Rac , co-founder of Paper Scissors Media , and general jack-of-all-DIY-trades — attributes this to a few factors : affordability , access to spaces , police activity , straight-up exhaustion . “ I think New York has become too demanding while giving too little to the artists . I don ’ t think there ’ s any time to build a community ,” they said . “ I think that people are so exhausted that the community is hard to build . And then , when you do build a cool DIY space , what ’ s it gonna last ? A year , tops ?”
Klauser grew up in Brooklyn not too long ago (“ I ’ m thirty-one . I ’ m not young , I ’ m not that old ,”) and remembers a much different environment . One where “ there were weird DIY venues … there were underground places , there were places you could be seventeen and drink .” There was a certain unpredictability — a disorder . “ There were weird things to still be found .” Like a Balkan dance club where they “ didn ’ t check IDs and … sixty-two year old Russian women [ walked ] around serving vodka .” New York didn ’ t always play the role of the big , bad wolf of the emerging-arts world . For a while , “ it was very wonderful . It was a beautiful time . There was just like this air of circus and fun and who gives a shit .”
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Now , things have changed — and rather unceremoniously at that . Klauser spoke extensively about licensing laws and the immense burden that inflated rent and gentrification have placed on New York ’ s once-thriving DIY scene . “ What helped support the art scene was the crime , the lack of police presence , was the fact that it was expensive , but it wasn ’ t unlivable ,” they explained , stopping themselves in the early steps of a good rant . “ I think when New York started to bounce back really hard in its economics , and the money moved in , and the corporations moved in , and the rents went up , those little places that were doing this suddenly were under the eye of the policies and under the eye of the current licenses .”
Philadelphia , a city filled with spaces that scream venue-potential , appears a haven when compared to the symptoms of the DIY-apocalypse described by Klauser — lack of funds , heightened supervision , noise complaints , monopolization of space . A classical-opera-singer-turnedpunk-performer , they moved to the city roughly seven years ago after beginning to feel a bit suffocated by the “ buttoned-up ,” dog-eat-dog world of classical music — where “ your best friend might be singing a role that you ’ re their understudy , and if they get sick , you succeed , and shit like that .” They noted that , when deciding to move , “ one of the things that really caught [ their ] attention were the arts communities in Philly ” and the fact that the city “ was very down-to-earth and bare bones .”
Something important to know about Matty Klauser is that , as a teenager , they used to host a yearly “ mini-music fest ” for their friends from high school called “ Klaus-fest ,” using a mixer given to them by their parents at age fifteen . An organizer since birth , they quickly became involved in booking shows at Philly favorites like Kung Fu Necktie , The Fire , and Connie ’ s Ric Rac . So , three years ago — once they moved out of an apartment and into a house — the Tralfamadore was born ( using the very same mixer , which still works nearly fifteen years later .) Named after the home planet of Kurt Vonnegut ' s fictional alien race , the venue is the logical conclusion to Klauser ’ s journey as an artist . It marries the order with the organic — carving out a unique space in DIY for hyper-organization , cleanliness , and consistency quirky . And it ’ s run by someone who understands what it is like to be on both sides of the microphone .
It also serves as one of the primary locations of good how are you ? fest , a three-year-old music festival started by the media company / artist collective / record label / unstoppable force Paper Scissors Media . The name comes from an inside joke with Secret Nudist Friends bassist Andy Slepman , who “ instead of saying ‘ hello ,’ he would just