Bash Compactor: From Nothing, Radical

Last Thursday morning, Ari Spool made her way by subway from Greenpoint to Chelsea, one arm wrapped around a 25-pound box of LPs. She’d been taking delivery of vinyl from independent record labels for the better part of a month.

The records were for a pop-up record shop and art show at Rare Gallery on West 27th Street. Thursday was the launch party for the extremely un-Chelsea show, Psychedelic Summer, curated by Seattle design and music collective CMRTYZ. Featuring the work of artists dedicated to the resurgence of lo-fi music and art, the show opened with a reception and raucous performances by The Beets and The Babies. With the visual work of New York’s Cassie Ramone and Matt Volz, Seattle’s Carlos Ruiz and Columbus, Ohio’s John Malta, the gallery was transformed into a neon-scribbled space with the record shop built inside.

Volz, of The Beets, had some worries. “I was in here to hang my stuff up,” he said, motioning to his hand-drawn T-shirts and tapestries, “and they just had all these pallets. I was just like… shit.”

Rare’s owner, Pete Surace, echoed the sentiment. “Two days ago this place looked like a war zone. But it came together and they built it from experience. And that’s what Rare Gallery is all about—the experience of the artist.”

If that’s so, Psychedelic Summer is the art born of doodles, of daydreams and an obsession with youth; drawings of cheeseburgers, pizza, Mickey Mouse, unicorns, Nintendos, a “dessert empanada going for a shred”; the kind of painting and drawing that comes out of summer-school doldrums. It’s brutally honest. In that way, the art and music mirrored each other.

Malta, wearing jean shorts and an orange ball cap, hadn’t shown in New York before. “It’s awesome being taken more seriously. We all come from doing house shows and that gritty, punk aesthetic and the contrast between that and Chelsea is part of what makes this so great.”

Downstairs, The Beets’ set was a loud don’t-give-a-fuck wonder, with Volz sitting on the ground and playing recorder. A huge portion of the crowd knew every word. The Babies got even wilder. The suggestion of a circle pit by frontman Kevin Morby went only somewhat ignored. There was plenty of bodily thrashing going on; people dangled from pipes; a half-gallon of paint was spilled over one unfortunate young woman.

“I’m just so excited to be here,” Ramone told me, her parents examining her art nearby. “It culminates all my interests into one.”