Our buddies at the Alamo Drafthouse like to celebrate the history of film and Mondays is dedicated to films about or around music. “Music Mondays” as it were. We at The Museum of the Weird like what they do a lot so we want to encourage you not only to come down and check out their regular special screenings but come down a little early and bring a friend. You see, the deal is, buy a ticket to Music Monday, bring it and your buddy down the street to the Museum, show the staff your Alamo ticket, and when you buy a tour pass to the Museum of the Weird, your friend gets in free with you. Now that’s something to sing about!
For over 30 years, Martin Bisi has recorded music from his studio in Brooklyn’s Gowanus neighborhood. After a chance New York encounter, the studio was founded with money from Brian Eno, who subsequently worked on the album “On Land” there.
Working with Bill Laswell and the band Material, Bisi recorded Herbie Hancock’s hit “Rockit” in this underground space. This was the first mainstream, popular song to feature a DJ and a turntable, utilizing ‘scratching’. Following that success, Bisi worked with many other influential musicians there, including Sonic Youth, Swans, Angels of Light, John Zorn, Foetus and the Dresden Dolls. He has recorded across many genres, from experimental music, to hip hop and indie rock in the old factory building by the contaminated Gowanus Canal.
However, the future of the recording studio is in question as it is squeezed in by the encroaching gentrification of the neighborhood. A new, massive Whole Foods supermarket across the street is the latest addition to this once out-of-the-way area, that Bisi fears will increase property values to the point of pushing out long-time renters and artists like himself.
SOUND AND CHAOS: THE STORY OF BC STUDIO includes interviews with musicians such as Michael Gira of Swans, Brian Viglione of the Dresden Dolls, Bob Bert, who played on Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising, Bill Laswell of Material, JG Thirlwell aka Foetus, Grand Mixer DXT, Jim Coleman of Cop Shoot Cop and Michael Holman of Gray (with Jean-Michel Basquiat) and creator of famed 1984 hip-hop TV pilot Graffiti Rock.