The back room at Gold Sounds was wall-to-wall bodies, and squeezing up towards front with my camera was nearly impossible (shoutout Sophie for getting me in there). It’s also younger than I’ve ever seen Gold Sounds, plenty of X’s stamped on the backs of hands. By the time the music started, there must have been 250 people in the back room, around the pool table, up against the bar, and spilling out the front door in chatty exuberant groups. This is the Gen Z underground, and it’s only getting hotter and sweatier in here as the crowd swells in anticipation. And yes, that is someone taking concert photos with a "vintage" Nintendo DSi.
Held against the backdrop of the New Colossus Festival, the Lower East Side’s biggest music industry event, Doolittle hosted a free 18+ party March 7th at Gold Sounds that rivaled even the sickest of industry shows. DIY is far from dead.
Queens-based band Nowhere kicked the night off with an indie rock set that the crowd tore up. The pit was wild, friends came up to stage dive. It’s rarer to find bands from Queens (and don’t even get me started on the Bronx), because the scene is so congregated in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side. In the 6 days I attended New Colossus, I didn’t see a single Queens-based band. Nowhere is part of the burgeoning the Queens scene. I ran into their frontman handing out flyers for an anti-ICE fundraiser show on March 14th at The Queensboro in Jackson Heights. Nowhere has the vision and drive to change the New York scene for the better and give back to their communities.
I have to also shout out Kouskous Heaven, who closed the night after Doolittle. Hailing from New Brunswick in Jersey, Kouskous Heaven just wrapped up their All is Regular, All is Divine Tour supporting their debut album Music for Angels. Their lead singer’s angelic voice floated over progressive fingerpicking and riffs from their guitarist.
By the time emo band Doolittle took the stage, the venue was so packed that I literally couldn’t keep the fog of war off my camera lens, leading to some absolutely sick foggy shots that I couldn’t recreate if I tried. That’s a very uniting theme here; you can’t recreate these nights if you tried.
Doolittle defines themselves by their DIY attitude and an unwavering commitment to their ideals. Their shows are free, all-ages, and a safe space for everyone who loves live music. When I asked them about the choice of date, Doolittle frontman David Russell just laughed, “I honestly had no idea.” After almost a dozen successful “Secret Saturday” pulling in hundreds of fans to shows in odd venues or basements, it’s become clear that Doolittle shows serve as an alternative for the hundreds of thousands of music lovers who can’t afford to attend multiple $20 shows a week.
“The industry doesn’t like us,” David Russell shone with the sweat of hundreds of fans in front of him, “They can’t stand DIY, they can’t stand minorities… but we wanna keep this shit going, so keep going to shows,” he pointed into the crowd. “Who gives a shit if it’s a Doolittle show, if it’s an emo show, if it’s a rock show… just show up.”
A uniting theme of the New Colossus industry panels was the need for more support of the scene, local bands, and local venues. The pathway to making that dream a reality while fans struggle to make ends meet was unclear. Nobody has an easy answer, but shows like this are a reassuring sign that this is a predominantly economic struggle, rather than a loss of interest in the scene. Fans will show up for free all-ages shows, and that may be the key to building a fan base that will blow shit up for you when the economy gets out of free fall.
Doolittle goes international with dates in Philly on 3/14 and Jersey on 4/24.