The Creators Project Recap

<p> <a href="features/the_creators_project_recap/"><img src="http://www.qromag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/creatorsproject.jpg" alt="The Creators Project" /></a> </p> <p> On Saturday, June 26th, Intel and <i>Vice Magazine</i><span style="font-style: normal"> combined to form ‘The Creators Project', a multimedia event...
The Creators Project

The Creators Project

On Saturday, June 26th, Intel and Vice Magazine combined to form ‘The Creators Project’, a multimedia event drawing from all sorts of artists, visual, sonic & more, taking over Milk Studios in the West Village/Chelsea.  A ‘launch party’ for the ongoing Project, running from 2:00 PM to 2:00 AM, Milk Studios (a former milk warehouse for distribution) hosted multiple floors of multiple projects, including musical performances (though they didn’t start until later in the event).  And it was all for free – all you had to do was register and see if you were selected, but it seemed like everyone who registered was selected.

Diversity was the name of the game, perhaps too diverse, but there was a lot going on:

 

The Rapture, The Loading Dock
The Rapture

The Rapture - with saxophoneClick image for full gallery

Kicking off the music of the evening of Creators Project were New York’s own Rapture at around 6:00 PM.  After putting out Pieces of The People We Love back in 2006, and touring with the likes of Muse (QRO album review), The Rapture seemingly disappeared for a while.  But that’s not unusual for electro-rock bands, which take more time making their records than most, and do more tours off a given record afterwards than most.  Still, it was nice to see The Rapture back, playing old & new songs (including saxophone) to a pretty packed Loading Dock – including folks not only across the (still-open-for-traffic) street, and even looking down from up on the Highline.

The RaptureIf you exited the pack under the roof and went out onto the sidewalk, there were some great gelatos on offer under the sun, as well as middling-but-there burgers (though some little kids seemed to always be jumping the line and grabbing the burgers – thought this was a 21+ event?…).  And The Rapture were raised up high enough above the crowd that you could see from out on the sidewalk, despite the sun-to-shadow view (no word on the view for those on the street or on the Highline).
The Rapture

 

view of The Highline

But after The Rapture closed, there wasn’t any more live music until 8:30 PM.  That was likely planned to get everyone coming to the event for the music to arrive early for the bigger-than-many-who-came-later Rapture, with a break short enough that you wouldn’t leave (not with free drinks & gelato, though the burgers ran out), but long enough that you’d explore the non-musical parts of Creators Project.  And the drink lines lengthened without music to occupy people, further pushing one to explore (also a factor in the long drink lines; the small cups, even for Heineken, at the main bar on the ground floor – though upper floors had bigger beer cups that the clever would keep, then ask to be filled at the ground floor bar).

Yet even after exploring, couldn’t tell you exactly what The Creators Project is.  There were rooms with odd pictures, some creepy thing by The xx (QRO live review), old school video games, screens displaying chosen tweets about the event (including ones with the false rumors that Thom Yorke & Drake were there, trying to start Drakegate II – QRO photos) and more.  The eighth floor seemed the most interesting (aside from the VIP penthouse that you weren’t allowed to go in if you weren’t ‘very important’, but would be teased with when the elevator you were in to leave the eighth floor & go down would first go up to the penthouse and offer you a glimpse of the better life…), but could only access it by elevator – these giant freight elevators with security telling you that it was full when it clearly wasn’t (weight issues, they said, but isn’t that what freight elevators are for, carrying lots of weight?…).  So, by the time the music started again, never got a chance to return to the artsy eighth floor.
gelato

 

Gang Gang Dance, The Loading Dock
Gang Gang Dance

Click image for full gallery

The Rapture (see above), in their rock ways, were a bit of an outlier at Creators, as the Project musically seemed to focus more on experimental and dance – and both make up Gang Gang Dance.  Highly touted in Big Apple artistic circles (including getting a feature on them in The New York Times), they’d previously seemed more ‘art’ than, you know, ‘good’, with over-percussion & a squealing female singer.  But at Creators, that was toned down, or at least not as noticeable – though also not as remarkable or memorable, either.
Gang Gang Dance

 

Sleigh Bells, 2nd Floor Gallery
Sleigh Bells

Alexis KraussClick image for full gallery

But upstairs on the second floor was where the real dance party was at.  Basically poaching three artists from the following month’s HARD NYC (QRO concert listing) on Governors Island (QRO venue review), the live music (as opposed to DJs, who were peppered throughout the event) up there kicked off at 9:00 PM with another, more recently highly-touted act, Sleigh Bells.  Their record Treats has been making serious waves in the blogosphere, and that + free drinks right next to the stage floor = clusterfuck in front of the band.  The photo pit maxed out as fans crushed up against it, while serious smoke & light show obscured the duo of Alexis Krauss and Derek E. Miller, though they certainly had the crowd going.
Sleigh Bells

 

Also around this point, the eighth floor apparently hit capacity, or at least that’s what security at the elevators were telling people when they’d arrive, let people off, but refuse to let people on, multiple times in a row.  They finally buckled and let people on who were headed to the second floor (though there were also stairs, if you could find them) or, of course, the VIP penthouse, if you were VIP…

Waiting for Interpol (see below), I missed Salem (QRO photos) in the first floor gallery – was only curious because this was the band who got booed off the stage at FADER Fort during SXSW (QRO review of another SXSW 2010 performance of theirs).

 

Interpol, The Loading Dock
Interpol

Click image for full gallery

Paul BanksWhen the music line-up for The Creators Project was announced, the big news (not counting later leak of the “special guest” – see below) was that Interpol were playing the event.  It’s been a long time since Interpol played, after the less-than-enthusiastic response to their less-than-great major label debut, Our Time To Admire (QRO review), then singer/guitarist Paul Banks’ solo project, Julian Plenti (QRO tour review), the band leaving/being dropped from their major at some point (they’re now back on Matador), and, not long before their first tour in a while was announced, the departure of bassist Carlos D (and that tour was cut seriously short, it was supposed to be mostly opening up for U2 – QRO album review – before Bono hurt his back & that tour was canned).  So, even if you hadn’t been into any of their work since debut Turn Out the Bright Lights, had to be curious.
Interpol

Daniel Kessler, not Dave Hamelinnot Carlos DBut what, exactly, were you expecting?  Interpol started with a new song, before hitting up older ones that the fans really wanted.  Carlos D, while not musically essential, certainly provided a presence on stage, and without him, Banks and guitarist Daniel Kessler (who’s the spitting image of The Stills’ drummer-turned-singer/guitarist-turned-now back to drummer Dave Hamelin – QRO interview) more had to provide the presence, Banks the stoic one, Kessler the more ‘into it’ musician.  But the band still is a restrained presence live, like their New Wave forerunners.
Interpol

(the photogs – though not your correspondent – were fairly aggressive during Interpol, climbing onto speakers for a better view.  And there was one with the weirdest flash ever, a circle around the entire camera)
Interpol photog

 

Die Antwoord, 2nd Floor Gallery
Die Antwoord

Click image for full gallery

A surprising addition to The Creators Project was overnight-internet-hype Afrikaner hip-hop duo Die Antwoord – surprising because their HARD NYC appearance was supposed to be their first-ever New York show.  A few months ago, the male-female South African pair of ‘Ninja’ and Yo-Landi Vi$$er, along with DJ Hi-Tek, exploded onto the internet, their rap using Afrikaans expressions – so much so that people suspected they might be a put-on internet joke.  But Die Antwoord are real, and after storming Coachella in April, they came to the East Coast for Creators.
Die Antwoord

First off: it’s hard to shake the feeling that there’s something racist, or just somehow wrong about hip-hop being done by a people (and at least semi-in their language) who invented apartheid.  Other (and more recent) than Germans, the Boers of South Africa (descendants of seventh-century Dutch colonists who speak Afrikaans, a mix of Dutch & English) are still the people most associated with racism (though I guess that’s racist, too).  The new South Africa wanted to dispel that image (as well as the post-apartheid, crime- and corruption-ridden one) with the World Cup, going on at the same time, but as white South Africa largely faded from international view once apartheid fell, that’s still the last memory one has of it, even if it’s wrong.
Die Antwoord

But nobody on the second floor seemed to care, as there was an even bigger clusterfuck than during Sleigh Bells (see above), including the photo pit getting out-and-out destroyed by the crush of people.  And Die Antwoord seemed to deserve the affection, being playful and fun with their dance-hop.  Can they survive being an internet hype band?  Only time will tell.
Die Antwoord

 

Neon Indian, 1st Floor Gallery
Neon Indian

Click image for full gallery

Unfortunately, Interpol was the last band to play at the Loading Dock (city noise ordinances probably limited how late the open-to-the-street space could be used for music), but did catch Neon Indian between 2nd Floor sets, playing on the 1st Floor Gallery, right next to the main bar.  Alan Palomo is another hyped artist, both as Neon Indian and solo as Vega (QRO photos), but his live electronica has sometimes failed to live up to that.  However, he was with a band at The Creators Project, and not mopey like in so many promotional pictures (think sad Jake Gyllenhaal), but alive with action.
Neon Indian 

 

M.I.A., 2nd Floor Gallery
M.I.A.

Click image for full gallery

M.I.A.Mega-star M.I.A. being the “special guest” was a poorly kept secret, but she certainly fit with the ‘HARD NYC upstairs’ theme, as she’s headlining that July event.  And if you thought the 2nd Floor Gallery had been a clusterfuck before, that was nothing compared to when M.I.A. took the stage.  Well before her set started, there was a line to get into the specific space (which at first didn’t move, and then when it did, was repeatedly cut by people before security finally caught on).  Inside, the crowd didn’t completely fill the space thanks to the capacity restrictions, but also because they were already pushing up to the front.  And there was a long line at the bar, as everyone was getting pre-show drinks not only for themselves, but also for their friend holding their spot in the crowd (I got stuck behind two bros who were seemingly getting an endless amount of beers for who-knows-how-many people – every time the bartender would pour a beer, they would claim it, even if there were already five or six beers on the table that they’d already claimed…).
M.I.A.

DJ burqaVanilla's fallen so farAnd it only got more packed from there – no remaining photo pit meant I was standing behind another photographer in the tight pack, while two girls nearly got into a fight over the space right behind me.  But then M.I.A. came on, and the place went really nuts.  Whether you love or hate M.I.A. (and she recently has M.I.A.gotten some seriously negative coverage in publications like Pitchfork and even The New York Times), and no matter what you think of her politics (or their depth), no one could say she didn’t have the crowd going right from the start, with new single “Born Free”.  Decked in a cammo hoodie & steampunk goggles, M.I.A. was backed by synchronized dancers (including one who looked like Ninja of Die Antwoord (see above)-meets Ivan taste of the week?Drago in Rocky IV-meets-old school Vanilla Ice-meets-Mark-Paul Gosselaar as Zach on Saved By the Bell), and two DJs in colorful, head-to-toe-and-all-over burqas.

She also had about a million cameras on her, from fans up front with arms stretched high into the air trying in vain with their point-and-shots, to professionals on the sides with video cameras, looking bored.  About the time that the crowd, including me, began swaying involuntarily, I extricated myself.
M.I.A.

 

MNDR & Mark Ronson, 1st Floor Gallery
MNDR & Mark Ronson

superstar DJ Mark RonsonClick image for full gallery

While all of that was going on upstairs, international celebrity DJ Mark Ronson and up-and-coming electrolady MNDR were playing downstairs, in a much more comfortable setting.  But it was past midnight, and they were being hawks about going up the side of the nearby bar to cut the drink line, so took off.

 

 

Any new event/project whose poster says, “Welcome To Year One” can seem rather full-of-itself (‘Year One’ only works in retrospect, like Batman: Year One, as opposed to FOX’s short-lived cop show, Ryan Caulfield: Year One).  And anything multimedia can seem confusing and too diffuse – that’s why most people stick to one kind of media, or at least keep their kinds of media separate.  So it wasn’t surprising to leave The Creators Project not knowing exactly what it was/is – especially when everything is overshadowed by dance hall clusterfucks & other ‘too many people, too small a space’ issues.  But it was certainly a memorable event, and that’s probably what the creators of The Creators Project wanted.

 

And they do it all again, this time in London, on Saturday, July 17th: http://thecreatorsproject.com/events/the-creators-project-conquers-london

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