Bringing The Underground Back To New York _ Interview With Craft

Craft _ Clock _ Page 2

You organise parties in NYC, called ‘Twice As Proper’? What kind of parties are these?

Well, Twice As Proper started out as a weekly local showcase in the lower side of Manhattan. Over the years we had some residencies in important clubs like the National Underground Basement. The National Underground was like a little Tresor in New York; it was a basement, very dark, big sound, and had late hours until the early mornings. Yeah, we did some cool parties there. Unfortunately the National Underground is closed now and we moved to Brooklyn where everything is happening. I’m doing some warehouse parties there now.

What can you tell us about the NYC underground scene? As in Europe, we have the idea that such an underground scene, like in Europe, does not really exist.

The underground scene in New York struggles a little bit because of the police. In Manhattan it’s not happening anymore. Things are moving deeper into Brooklyn. It’s now mainly partying in underground private warehouses with street art and stuff like that. But we’ve been doing some events in The 407 in Bushwick, I have some friends there and it’s really cool stuff there.
But the problem with the underground is that it’s really underground, it’s visually not seen from the outside and the events are small. The big events with the main headliners are in more flashier, expensive clubs, it’s just different. So yeah, the underground in New York… you really need to know someone to find out stuff about that.

Does that mean that most underground parties are illegal?

No, actually we try to keep everything as legal as possible, it’s just very private or hidden or somewhere where we have permission. But you have to know that New York is a difficult city to throw underground events.

Will that ever change?

Well, I hope so, with Giuliani as the major of New York it became very strict, for the past 15-20 years I guess. But the laws are kinda changing, they are becoming a bit more liberal with the mind again, kinda of like how New York was in the 80’s, but we’re still far away from that I think.

Did something else change under Bloomberg?

Well, I’m not sure, but cities change and Manhattan became so pricy, so business, so touristic, and the clubs are therefore more flashy. One of the main inspiring clubs in the early 2000s was Twilo. Twilo had a whole idea and mentality and community inside and that was just incredible. We don’t have that in Manhattan anymore. So we have to recreate that from the underground ourselves, from the bottom, which is cool because there are small and more intimate events now. The underground is like a team now, like some sort of community and people respect that.

Despite the fact that it’s difficult to throw a good techno party in New York, you see new talents coming?

Yeah yeah, we’re kinda building a collective of friends as well now. It doesn’t have a name but we’re all very united, a collective of techno producers helping each other to get on some labels and collaborating with each other. We really believe in each others projects, while we all sound very different.

Who do we have to look out for?

Well in New York i’d probably say Onda Skillet, Chamomile, Justin Schumacher and Chanski. These guys are doing some nice stuff.

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Podcasts, radio shows and event recordings
Craft Music Productions
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Twice as Proper website
Twice as Proper Facebook group
Feed The Raver Podcast show hosted by Craft
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