Tonic的最後一天

"After more than nine years as a home for avant-garde, creative, and experimental music, Tonic will reluctantly close its doors on Friday, April 13th, 2007. We simply can no longer afford the rent and all of the other costs associated with doing business on the Lower East Side. The neighborhood around us has been increasingly consumed by 'luxury condominiums', boutique hotels and glass towers, all making the value of our salvaged space worth more then our business could ever realistically support."

......."As a business, we take responsibility for mistakes made along the way. If profit had been our chief motivation we could have changed our programming to something more mainstream and financially lucrative. Instead we were more committed to a certain type of music and loyal to the community that supported us. As a result, we've always just survived but never really prospered."


這是紐約最重要的前衛音樂表演場所關門的聲明。我在這裡跟Thurston Moore, Yoko Ono, Vicent Gallo閒聊過，因為這是紐約最不做作的場地，表演者和觀眾幾乎沒有距離。
今天，四月十三日，是他們的最後一天，John Zorn是最後一個關門的人。
九年前，他們來到下東區時，這裡是城市的棄嬰。房租便宜到完全不用擔心。現在，由於Tonic，由於各個表演場所和餐廳，房租越來越貴，他們的隔壁蓋起了高樓。他們遂成為自己的犧牲者。

這是紐約藝廊和live house一再上演的故事。上個月另一家店Sin É (你可能知道Jeff Buckley有一張在這裡的現場演出專輯)關門了，去年CBGB關門。

這個城市，不斷在上演著金錢與藝術的鬥爭。而藝術似乎節節敗退....


延伸閱讀
紐約的新音樂革命前線---Tonic
CBGB走了，搖滾繼續下去