Studio B: Open for business

  • Published
    Wed, Feb 18, 2009, 20:00
  • Words
    Resident Advisor
  • Share
  • The embattled Brooklyn venue has new bookers, a new soundsystem and a new attitude.
  • Studio B: Open for business image
  • As any New York clubber can tell you, Brooklyn venue Studio B has had a rough go of it lately. The soundsystem was widely agreed to be among New York's worst, the neighbors have tried to shut it down and rumors of its demise have been plentiful. Thing looked set to change, however, when the club reopened in October after its closure for nearly the entire duration of the summer of 2008. Then came news that it was set to close yet again in December after the owners had had enough of the drama and quietly looked for a seller. Luckily, the good people at Fixed stepped in and offered their booking services for the club, helping to keep the venue open. For now at least. We caught up with Fixed's Josh Houtkin in advance of this weekend's gig with Trevor Jackson and House of House to give us the lowdown on what we can expect from the club in the coming months.
    Tell me about your decision to get further involved with the club. Basically after closing last summer, the club reopened in October. Things were going okay, but in December the owner decided that he was just over the whole situation and wanted to close the club for good. We were a bit bummed because we definitely feel that Studio B is the best place for our party, and overall just a great space. We were able to convince him that we could turn the place around by keeping things tighter. This means everything from hiring new production people to bringing in a new live music booker for weekday shows. How is this situation different than what Studio B had before? As I said, the club has always been a great space. There have been some really amazing nights there over the past three years. It was just missing a cohesive direction. We plan to correct all of the problems by using the same ideals that we do for Fixed. We want the place to be a great place for artists to play, where things are professional and they feel comfortable. On the flipside, we want the club to be a comfortable place for people to go and dance, hangout, whatever. The bottom line is we want to earn the public's trust back and bring the club to the forefront of NYC's music scene. Have you had run-ins with the police regarding the sound issues that were plaguing the venue before? Well, first off I should mention that in November the club installed a new disco/dj system. All of the old system is completely gone and has been replaced by a totally new system with mostly Turbosound components. In addition, the PA has been properly EQ-ed and sounds much better. Our new head of sound is currently working to improve both the disco system and the PA, so that will help. As far as sound issues with the police and neighbors, so far everything has been okay. The problems in the past were actually never with the police at all, they were with the neighbors. The club has made improvements with soundproofing the walls and doors, and now security does their best to keep people from standing outside of the club and making noise. We plan to do our best to address all of the past complaints that the neighbors had, and hopefully eliminate the problems. What do you guys have coming up? So far things are looking good for the next few months heading into Spring and Summer. On February 20th we're teaming up with the Prime Time guys to bring in Trevor Jackson, and we have the House of House guys playing as well, which should be really good. In March we have some huge nights with Alan Braxe, A-Trak, DJ Mehdi, and others. March 27th we are doing a Fixed party with Gui Boratto live and the "10 Years of BPitch Tour" with Ellen Allien and Thomas Muller. On April 11th, Beyond Booking is going to be throwing a Mutek night with the lineup to be announced soon. We also recently announced nights with Michael Mayer, Superpitcher and Yuksek. As far as live bookings go, we have upcoming nights with Ladyhawke, Late of the Pier, and The Whip.





RA