A rock show and a rave at the Tenth Street Baths, a new gallery opens its doors in Chinatown, Werner Herzog movie night in the backyard of a skate shop and more happenings in NYC

This week in New York Episode 002 (April 22)

In The Moment is a weekly guide to the events, spaces, and people shaping nightlife and culture in New York City and beyond.

3rd Space and Loose Buttons present Bathhouse Show

Through 3rd Space, Spencer Papandrea has spent the past few years booking live music wherever the room wasn’t built for it. Laundromats, dumpling shops, boxing gyms, churches, dive bars, warehouses... In Spencer’s words, “you could say that the continuity is discontinuity.”

His latest run of shows with Lip Critic put 3rd Space in Rolling Stone. Lip Critic’s frontman, Bret Kaser, said it best. The shows are about “celebrating being alive, spending time together and having new experiences.”

Platforms like 3rd Space are proof the underground is still alive and well in New York, if you know where to look.

For his latest show, Spencer is collaborating with New York–born band Loose Buttons. I’ve known them for years and they’ve been a constant since I first moved to the city, playing everywhere from Elsewhere to Baby’s All Right to Union Pool and plenty of other rooms that matter.

So when Spencer told me he was working on a show with them, I expected something quintessentially New York. And it doesn’t get more New York than the Russian & Turkish Baths in the East Village.

Everyone in the city has an opinion on the baths. You’re either Team Boris or Team David. Your first introduction to banya culture might have been a rave there in 2013, or something passed down, stories of grandparents hitting the platza alongside celebrities and New Yorkers who’ve been coming since 1892.

The Russian & Turkish Baths on Tenth Street is a New York institution, and something like this doesn’t come around often.

This bathhouse in particular is historic and notorious for reasons I won’t go into. Hosting a show there, where guests can also get the full bathhouse experience, had been a pipe dream for us.
— Spencer Papandrea, 3rd Space

In terms of the show at Russian & Turkish Baths, we grew up in New York and have been going to bathhouses around the city together for years. We actually shot the first Loose Buttons album cover at one in Sheepshead Bay. My parents are from Ukraine, and growing up we were always going to banyas around Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’ve been bringing friends and bandmates along for as long as I can remember. We’ve also known Dmitry from Russian & Turkish Baths for a couple of years, and I think that familiarity gave him the trust to let us do something like this the right way.

When we started thinking about how to bring this new album to life in a way that felt fun, unexpected, and true to us, we kept coming back to the idea of creating something that felt like real magic. Not just a show, but a moment you couldn’t quite recreate anywhere else. So we reached out to Spencer from 3rd Space and Dmitry, and it really took off from there. Spencer has a real ability to make that kind of magic happen in the most unlikely places, and the way 3rd Space curates events is on another level.
— Eric Nizgretsky, Loose Buttons

Joining Loose Buttons is New York electropop duo ideasforconversations. The city is “going crazy” for ideasforconversations right now, as Lucy Nece from Earmilk puts it, “and pretty soon, it's going to be many cities”. To close out the night, we get a full-on rave at the Baths, courtesy of Dollmaker and Ayegy. This event is extremely sold out, but there might be a few more tickets released last minute. Join the waitlist. Or follow 3rd Space to keep poster on the next time they pop up at the Tenth Street Baths.

Date: Friday, April 24th @ 10:00pm

Location: Russian & Turkish Baths, East Village

Inanna Gallery opens on Eldridge Street

You may know artist-turned-gallerist Katya Austin from her Sunday Salon series, hosted at a variety of places around the city including most recently at National Arts Club in Gramercy and the newest Chinatown bar Tawny. Last month she curated a show at Shutter Gallery at 17 Eldridge St. This month she takes over the space to launch her own gallery Innanna, with a group show titled Life, Death Life. I asked Katya about why she opened the gallery and why in Chinatown and why now.

The reason I started the gallery because for the past couple years, I've been throwing these events called the Sunday Salon and it just help me build this beautiful community of artists that show up and share their work and so all natural to kind of move it to a permanent location and Also keep the Sunday salon it'll stay nomadic and the way it is, but I get to kind of formalize that energy that I've cultivated and really share it with the world in a way. That's like actually trying to say something specific that being that it's important to have physical spaces to gather in and to share art in. And it's kind of a rebellion against like all the crazy rent prices in New York that are just sort of like killing life for artists and is my attempt at creating a space where people can just kind of be an exist and yeah fucking do the New York thing which is like why it's important for it to be in Chinatown because this energy has been here forever.

I still think that the energy is here and we gotta be the ones to cultivate it and make it not extinct it's a big bohemian I guess but that's how I got my start. I did a reading at 17 Eldridge, and then I started getting hired by the guy who runs the space and then he offered me to create my own show and then he decided he didn't want to do the gallery anymore he wanted to focus on the shop. I was able to kind of get some support to be able to take over the space and just keep it for a bit. I have no expectations but I have a vision so I’m gonna spend every day chipping along you know devoted to this thing, the space, and help my vision come true.
— Katya Austin, Inanna Gallery

The VIP reception for the gallery is tonight. RSVP here.

Date: Wednesday, April 22nd @ 7:00pm

Location: 17 Eldridge St, New York

FA Movie Night – Werner Herzog’s The Fire Within

Hot off a series of bicoastal screenings for a film about venerated graffiti artist MQ, our friends at Fucking Awesome are doing a simultaneous screening of The Fire Within: A Requiem for Katia and Maurice Krafft in New York and Los Angeles. A profound film that everyone must experience at least once, and the serene backyard at the East Village location of FA is a great place to do so.

RSVP here for New York and Los Angeles.

Date: Thursday, April 23rd @ 8:00pm

Location: FA New York, 420 E 9th St, NY + FA Hollywood, 6556 Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles

For the travelers…

• COLORS is kicking off TONES in Mexico City, a multi-faceted event series that is hitting Madrid, New York, Paris and London this year. Expect music, art, performance all the way through the weekend. RSVP and get tickets here.

• Los Angeles based MAMA brings its night market to Downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, courtesy of CLOT and Adidas. Expect bites from a ton of my favorite spots in LA, including Bridgetown Roti, Heng Heng Chicken Rice, Chifa, and more. Performing is one of my most played artists from my high school days, Toro Y Moi, as well as Olea, Passionfruit, DJ Prepare and Quinn Blake. Get tickets here.

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