B el o w : J u l i a n , n o a h a n d harlan on the staten i s l a n d f er r y . r i g h t: w i t h n ew y o r k ’ s f i n est .
than not it’s to make way for more luxury condominiums, but in a particularly ironic twist it was Vice Media that closed Glasslands and the non-profit Death By Audio in 2015 when the company bought the repurposed warehouse that housed the two venues. Even more unfortunate was how The New Yorker featured Bushwick venue Palisades on its cover at the end of April 2016 only for it to be shut down by the NYPD a month and a half later due to building code violations. It might be paranoia that leads Julian to tell me “the press kills things” but the assumption isn’t totally unfounded in this case, and I can see why I might be conceived as a whistleblower, even inadvertently. A deal-breaker befalls the remaining venues of NYC – nearly all of them are over 21’s only, and it’s Show Me The Body’s policy to play for people of all ages. “I think our scene is cool because it’s both underground and it’s for the kids,” says Julian. “The crowd isn’t inundated with young professionals and shit like that. It’s just kids looking to have a good time and party and shit. “It’s an interesting thing,” he says, “because in some ways there’s mad places to play, you could say. But what are those places? The Mercury Lounge, Baby’s All Right – these are places were young professionals can take their girlfriends and get a fancy burger. They’re not places for kids – most of them are 21+. When I was a kid I couldn’t go to any of the mad shows
that I thought looked awesome, because I wasn’t old enough, so I would never want to put anyone in that position.” “Part of it’s also, why should we have to slot ourselves into those places to begin with?” asks Harlan. “That’s the appeal of being an underground band. Why should we have to go to Baby’s All Right to put on a show? The crowd can’t even get in there. We’re not into creating barriers. Maybe that’s not the intention that those venues have, but that’s what they do. Right now we’re more interested in building our own spaces for people to go to. We’re looking all over to find good spots to play where everyone can be and not feel like they’re shut out.” John comps us one of our rounds of beers as we get the bill. We tip big and leave.
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he ballroom is full when we go back, with 300 odd kids split between the roof and inside where supporting DJs play a mix of bass and noise. We’d left Gabriel finessing the lighting situation – seems like he landed on turning them all off, except for a couple of spots that the band brought with them. It makes for intense anticipation as SMTB, the only live band on the bill, pick up their instruments come 1.30am. From out of the darkness kids are itching to go, encroaching the band’s floor space
even before Julian steps onto a speaker and twists his jaw and retches his tongue above them, bug-eyed and freaky. If the show itself is half as exciting as these tightly wound preceding moments it will still be quite something – a ritual of chaos; a hidden community letting go in what might be America’s maddest year yet. And that’s exactly what happens. As SMTB throw down their fierce amalgamation of hardcore, industrial noise and hip-hop, fans clamber to shout Julian’s lyrics back into his face. They feel exactly the same as he does about the struggle of New York living, communally stuttering “I go so far I push so hard / Just to live under this monolith” at the top of ‘Body War’’s title track before it drops into its rolling groove, and screaming, “I think about my city when I think about hell” in the more straight-up punk rock track ‘Tight Swat’. “Shit I never asked for / But it’s shit I’m down to scrap for!” From the opening, doomy ‘Aspirin’, which starts with the kind of metallic grinding that helps make HEALTH such an interesting noise group, Harlan’s bass kicks out a low end pummel, accompanied by odd electronic accompaniments that he manipulates from a pedal bank raised on a table top. Julian butts towards and away from the mic between verses. Noah smashes the shit out of his kit. The crowd pushes forward. The band’s own space diminishes. It’s probably a good thing that it’s all over in 20 minutes; with Julian pushing out
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through the crowd to god knows where. He never comes back. The party finally winds down at 3am so we drive to the apartment I’m staying at in the East Village to share some beers, a couple of joints and an ice cream cake whilst listening to War. It’s 20 blocks away and with a few of the band’s friends coming along also there’s no way we can all fit in Noah’s grandma’s space cruiser, which the band tour in and is currently also filled with gear. Still, we give it a good go, with David and I sharing the front passenger seat of what is a pretty small family car. A couple of days later Harlan will tell me how Noah and Julian share the driving on tour, and how when Julian’s behind the wheel they always get busted by the cops, but never when it’s Noah. “I don’t know what it is,” he says, “Noah’s just got this calmness.” Tessa is one of the band’s close friends wedged into the space cruiser. When I ask her what it is about SMTB that she likes, she says: “Show Me The Body are special to me because they awakened me to music I didn’t feel I liked. They opened my mind.”
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couple of days after the show Julian texts me an address of where to meet him, Harlan and Noah for lunch, at Doabha Deli at the north end of the Upper West Side known as Manhattan Valley. Columbia University is a block or two away and some of New York’s most affluent streets are a short walk in the opposite direction. ManhattanValley itself is hardly the Bronx in the ’80s but it feels like a relatively untouched neighbourhood, void of chain stores and alfresco cafes. It feels clean but authentic. The colloquial term for it, ‘White Harlem’, sounds about right. When I tell the band that I’ve never been this far up the island before, Gabriel says: “No one comes up here, that’s why we like it.” He and Julian live together nearby (they’re NewYork lifers and their family has been in the area for a long time) and Noah, who grew up in the suburbs of Western Massachusetts, is also staying on a couch around the corner, although he seems unsure of where he’ll sleep tonight. Harlan has lived in Long Island City, Queens, his whole life. He met Julian at Elizabeth Irwin High School down in Greenwich Village, a 1920s “progressive commy school” earlier attended by Robert De Niro. The pair clicked over Lightning Bolt and Primus, whose thrash funk influence can be heard in some of SMTB’s music. Julian’s further introduction to the hardcore community came when volunteering