04: JAKE ROSENTHAL, CO-OWNER, ELSEWHERE and POPGUN PRESENTS

Nothing is Boring episode 4! [subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play]

Jake Rosenthal's job is institutional fun. As (former) co-owner of the beloved (and former) Glasslands Gallery (RIP) and current co-owner of PopGun Presents and Elsewhere, Jake and his partners run NYC's most established independent music booking company and Brooklyn's largest independent venue.

PopGun, and, by extension, Glasslands, are known for booking acts just at the cusp of international popularity. Just by way of eg, as the list is long, Glasslands, a room with ~300 capacity, hosted MGMT, Yeasayer, Lana Del Ray, Disclosure, Icona Pop, Deerhunter, Tame Impala, Haim, and Jay Reatard, most of them for their first NYC shows. 

Jake and I met several years ago when Glasslands was notified that their iconic, cloudy upstage sculpture would no longer be overlooked by the fire marshal. It was beautiful but dangerous, as all beautiful things are. A mutual friend introduced us and suggested we work together to replace the clouds with something new — that project ended up being a bunch of tubes. You can read about it here if you like.

Jake and his parter Rami bought Glasslands from the former owners, ran it for several years, were chased out by Vice Media (a devious backstab you can read about nearly anywhere), and continued to run PopGun, the booking and promotions arm of their operation, while they planned and constructed their recently-opened Bushwick venue Elsewhere (with new partner Dhruv), a significantly larger space more or less purpose-built as a 3-room venue with a roof space to come.

“Elsewhere is a big experiment in how large you can make an independent business.”

I talked to Jake on Sept 12, 2017, about 1.5 months before Elsewhere first opened to the public on Halloween. Despite that the venue's opening has been an undeniable success, even this close to the opening date, Jake was very much in the weeds and pretty pooped. You can hear it.

In this interview, we talk about third party security, building "as legal as possible", inspectors, service to a community, working with emerging artists, growing while staying independent, being a purist in an art business, the commercial support infrastructure for touring artists, running a music venue bar vs a normal bar, being music venue history nerds, and getting that tot money.

As mentioned in the intro, Mayor Bill Deblasio (left) at Elsewhere signing the repeal of the historic cabaret law (1926-2017) with Dhruv, Jake, and Rami (left to right). 

CBGB's bathroom comes up in this interview so here you go. Image courtesy of Flickr user thenails — click for source.

03: SZEKI CHAN, OWNER and DESIGNER, 7115

Nothing is Boring episode 3! [subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play]

Today's guest is Szeki Chan, designer, and owner of 7115 by Szeki, a low-volume vertically-integrated clothing company.
 

7115 has a manufacturing facility in Guangzhou with a full-time staff of technicians and craftspeople producing their clothing and housewares year-round, as well as two retail locations here in NYC, and yet produces pieces in small runs at relatively low cost to the customer.

As owner and designer for the brand, Szeki is responsible for forecasting, designing, manufacturing supervision, retail merchandising, customer support, and everything in between.

This conversation ended up being a mix of technical details around materials and construction with quite a bit about the flow of information — up and down the chain, from retail customers to production and back, and how the company iterates on its design and manufacturing process to take that feedback into account.

“Every part of the detail we put into the clothes are part of the design - it’s not just about the look and feel of it but also how is it being constructed and how much is going to cost to construct and how much is the cost of fabric and how long is it going to last the person — and all of these - of course there’s no algorithm, you know - you plug it in — it just all comes from experience. The number one thing would be to me - the most valuable thing is to understand your customer … how do they usually justify a purchase? ”

All images courtesy of 7115 by Szeki.

02: ADAM BAILEY, MAKEUP ARTIST

Nothing is Boring episode 2! [subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play]

Thank you so hard to everyone who tuned in for episode one - all of you who subscribed, rated the show, sent in feedback, and told friends - double thank you. Big time. Bigly.

This episode was a hoot to record. Herein I talk to my old friend Adam Bailey, makeup artist for stage, film, and TV, and out-and-out Southern gentleman. 

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“There is a time where the material will occlude the nostril. ”

Adam has done a prosthetic nose for Samuel L Jackson, worked on music videos for John Legend and MGMT, and realized sculptural work for fine artists. He's been working in makeup for 20 years and it shows. Not in his face. In his experience.

In this episode we get into it about all kinds of latex, foam rubber, release agent, blood effects, vinyl, Dick Smith, John Landis, the HD/UHD transition, working with the post FX departments, contact lenses, teeth, gore, pyro, and a lot more. Adam is a fun guy who makes makeup sound like play.

After we recorded this episode, I visited Adam's studio and he made a cast of my face. It was an experience. Please enjoy the pictures below.

Please enjoy, rate us on iTunes, subscribe, tell friends, spread the word. Thanks for listening!

Adam's work on Martin Short for The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt

Bald caps are a big part of the biz

01: CODY MASTERS, FOOD SCIENTIST

This is the first episode of Nothing is Boring [subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or Google Play], and we start it here with the guy who provided the inspiration for the show.

I first met Cody at a wedding, and the brief conversation we had blew my mind. So much so that several years later I thought if I could get enough of that lightning in a bottle, I'd have a podcast.

As such, it's only fitting that Cody is our first interview on the show, and it's a great start. Science, taste, controversy, lab-grown meats, pea protein, GMOs, golden rice, ugly produce, pickup weights, and trace minerals all make an appearance. 

“I’m not a starch expert ... but I call my rep at National Starch, there’s like 12,000 different types of starches out there.”

Since we don't do bios on the show, here's the skinny on Cody:

Cody Masters got his start as a nutritionist and cut his teeth in the restaurant kitchens of New York, but his job is more like that of a chemist than either of those trades.

The recipes he makes are produced on industrial scales and sold in national grocery stores and chain restaurants. He calls them 'formulas' (we know, it's 'formulae'), and they're expressed in percentages and incorporated in things called vacuum tumblers.

Cody has a some perspective on how industrial food operations can feed the world with integrity. This talk leaves us with more questions than we came in with.

Since this was a phoner, I don't have any pics of Cody so here's some stock photography of some sciencey shit and a creepy monkey getting down on a banana, which, together, are topical.