![]() ![]() Their adventurous approach was utilized for their coverage of Dennis Rodman in North Korea, which mainstream media criticized, labeling them “stunt” journalists. Their progressive efforts have brought attention and even criticism from mainstream media. From eating alongside Kim Jung-un and Dennis Rodman to traveling alongside fugitive John McAfee, Vice has shown no limits to the extent they will go to cover important and even dangerous stories. Whether it is North Korea or Belize, Vice reporters go where others cannot or will not. They gain access to places mainstream media can’t through their immerse and adventurous journalism. Any great city should value these sacred spaces, and it’s my hope that the spirit of Death by Audio will inspire them to keep fighting the good fight.The news organization and Brooklyn magazine, Vice, is well known for its unique journalism style. 2nd street were searching for an environment of creative freedom. Whatever small part, if any, Death By Audio played in the city’s troubling transformation from abandoned warehouses to nightclubs, Apple Stores, condos, and offices is for historians to decide. These spaces are vital to our survival-culturally, artistically, and creatively. Unfortunately, those spaces are becoming fewer and farther between, and it’s a terrible trend. Perhaps that’s not the case, but so long as there is a space for creative people to live in this city, they’re going to do amazing things. I feel grateful that we had the chance to do as much as we did, but I would not want to stand in the way of the next person who needs to do it.įor every underground music venue or ad-hoc art gallery that’s closed, I like to think another one has opened in a different part of town. Maybe it’s getting older, but I feel like being in a band, opening a DIY venue or art gallery, these things should be done by the people who need to do them. Friends of mine around the world are making great music it’s their life passion. I haven’t played in a band since my venue closed and that’s OK. I’ve spent much of the past two years making this film and it’s been both rewarding and cathartic to have the chance to make something positive out of a painful time. It was painful and destructive on many levels but I was able to make a movie about the experience and the utopia we lived in called Goodnight Brooklyn- The Story of Death By Audio. I’m not the first creative person to lose their home in this city, but the irony was visceral and frustrating: Vice Media, a company that built its brand selling advertisers access to underground culture, counter-normative ideas, sex, drugs, music, art, and youth took over our building and forced us out. We also had a recording studio, photo studio, workshops and bedrooms. For years it served as a music venue called Death By Audio. I lost a warehouse I called home just over two years ago. A glacier moving through your bedroom might seem slow from 10,000 feet away but when it’s your home, your favorite restaurant or community center, your kid’s favorite park, the speed of development and destruction happens fast. ![]() This city changes at a glacial pace, the pendulum swinging through neighborhoods of prosperity and tearing them down into poverty, erasing their memory and building something new. But what will a New York City without creative poor and working people look like? From the perspective of real estate owners and businesses that cater to the upwardly mobile, it’s a great thing. My friends skew more towards artists and musicians, and I can safely say that that demographic is leaving this city faster than I can remember. Maybe it’s the fertilizer that feeds new generations of immigrants. Bars, restaurants, bodegas and bagel shops close and change hands.
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