Lach is Back ... And The Antihoot is Even Hotter!

Lach, the father of Antifolk, is back and so is the legendary Antihoot open mic - starting up again next Tuesday, the 23rd - but at a much bigger and better new location. Indie Sounds asked Lach to fill in some history and talk about the future.


Lach standing in front of flyers of acts who've played the Antihoot.
Photo by Lippe.

Indie Sounds: So, for the newbies, what is the Antihoot and its history?

Lach: The history of the Antihoot goes back to the mid-eighties when I first hosted the Antifolk scene in my illegal after-hours club The Fort on the Lower East Side of NYC. Antifolk was a reaction to the staid so-called 'folk' scene that clung like mold to the West Village.

A bunch of us (including Kirk Kelly, Cindy Lee Berryhill, Roger Manning, Billy Nova and a few others) were frustrated by that clique's refusal to recognize our punk-influenced acoustic music as legitimate so I started my own club on Rivington Street (dubbed that year by The Daily News as "the most dangerous block in NYC"). In the West Village, a club called Folk City had their weekly open mic or Hootenanny and I just called mine the Antihootenanny and eventually just the Antihoot for our form of music and art ... Antifolk! Over the ensuing years, The Fort would inhabit various downtown venues such as Tramps, Sophie's, Chameleon and finally Sidewalk Cafe, where it remained for fifteen years.

Thousands of performers came through the Antihoot over the years nd many, such as Regina Spektor, Beck, Michelle Shocked, Jeffrey Lewis, The Moldy Peaches, etc., went onto to international success and mainstream attention, while many more developed strong enough followings to sustain careers. It's hard to describe to someone who wasn't there, but Antifolk is a family of sorts, related by songlines rather than bloodlines.  Babies were born, friends died and the branches of this artistic tree has stretched across the globe. The roots of the tree always led back to the Antihoot.

IS: And now it's coming back. Tell us about it - what's the same and what's new?

Lach: What's new is that it's going to be at Webster Hall. That's like giving the Mets, the scruffiest baseball team in the country, Shea Stadium to play in. I mean, this is a landmark building, officially! It dates back to 1886 when Emma Goldman used to speak there. During prohibition, Al Capone had parties there. In the 50s it held host to Tito Puente, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Then, RCA bought it and recorded Elvis, Sinatra and Ray Charles there. In the eighties, it was The Ritz and everyone from Prince to KISS to Guns and Roses rocked the joint.

The Ballinger Brothers bought the building in the nineties and spent a lot of time and money revitalizing its former glory. These guys were brought up on a farm, they know the meaning of hard work, of planting seeds and watching them grow. They are self-made men with a true love of music, art and NYC.

Over the past two years, they renovated the room I'll be in, The Marlin Room, and restored it to its 1930s art decor grandeur. The room holds 500 but looks full at around 75. It's the biggest room The Antihoot has ever been in, the best sound system it's ever had.

The sound is managed by Grammy award winning producer Kirk Yano. The dude produced Public Enemy's Fear of a Black Planet, for christ's sake! There'll be no cover charge, no-one insisting you buy a drink minimum, we're all adults, if you wanna drink, drink!

What's the same is our philosophy that if you create a cozy, free-spirted atmosphere that is dedicated to what the artist has to say rather than their technical ability or their ability to buy the latest equipment than you will attract the true voices of our time. The artists who are more interested in expressing their honest voice rather than warping their souls to try to "make it". What's the same is I'll be hosting the night (every Tuesday with doors opening at 7pm), the sign-up is at 7:30pm with the show starting at 8pm and going into the early hours of the morning.

IS: You're also going to be booking acts for Wednesday's at Webster Hall. What are those night going to be like?

Lach: Wednesdays will be an ongoing series entitled, "Lach Presents..." and will feature five acts for five bucks. It's the best deal in town. You know, I left Sidewalk over a year and a half ago with no intention of ever returning to booking nights at a club or running the Antihoot again. But a strange almost mystical set of coincidences led me to meeting Gerard McNamee, the general manager and curator of Webster Hall. It was his welcoming attitude and beliefs that rekindled the flame for me. He and owner Lon Ballinger impressed upon me that Webster was a family-run joint that truly had a love for the East Village art and music scene and wanted to do whatever they could to encourage it and help it flourish. They basically gave me carte blanche and have been nothing but supportive.

The first thing I did was get rid of the deal that all musician's know all too well where a jaded doorman asks incoming patrons which band they came to see and then makes a note of it. The bands then get paid based on how many check marks are next to their name at the end of the night. This is a soul-sucking, scene-destroying policy. I avoided it at Sidewalk using the tip jar instead but Webster is too big for that to make sense so, instead, we are paying the acts flat fees based on my past experience with where they are at and then moving them up the tier as we see their draw improve. Look, for most acts at the baby band and mid-club level what they are really looking for is a great room, great sound, a bill that reflects who they are so they can gain more fans and a scene that's just a joy to hang out in. We can provide all of that plus a guarantee that increases as they progress.

For the fans it's just the best deal around, no door hassle, no drink minimum hassle and a room filled with your friends. It won't matter whether you know who is playing on any given night, it'll still be the only place that makes sense to go to in NYC on a Wednesday night.

IS: So, since leaving the Sidewalk in the summer of 2008, what's been keeping you busy?

Lach: I've been touring the UK mostly. In May of last year, I toured a double-bill with the British songwriter Neil Halstead (leader of Slowdive and Mojave 3). We really hit it off and he invited me to record an album at his studio in Cornwall, which I did. I'm just listening to the final mixes of that this week, actually.

IS: And apart from the Antihoot, what's next for Lach?

Lach: During my UK tours I would always stop by BBC-2 radio in Scotland and appear on Richard Melvin's various shows. Eventually he offered to produce me in a one-man show for the Edinburgh Fringe Fest. So, I'll actually be headlining at one of the Fest's hottest venues, The Gilded Balloon, in August, doing a show every evening at 10pm and then running The Antihoot there at midnight! With a schedule like that I think I'll be quite mad by the month's end which is one reason the one-man show is entitled The Day I Went Insane.

In the show I only play four songs and the rest is monolog and stand-up, and to prepare for it The Gilded Balloon is sending me on a six-city stand-up tour of Scotland in May. All of a sudden I have a stand-up comedy career.  Isn't that strange?

Comments

[Steve]

Minor correction...Kirk Yano was an engineer not producer for Public Enemy. His credits include working with everyone from Miles Davis to Madonna!