Fly By Brass Band
Rubulad
Brooklyn
Feb. 4, 2024
In my years in NYC I’ve spent many a Saturday night in Bushwick’s Rubulad — address to remain undisclosed. It’s one of those great weird DIY-scene fixtures that host shows and parties of a myriad sort. The nights are almost always hazy by the end and consist of intimate conversation tucked away in one of the venue’s many highly decorated hideaway lounges in between acts, smoking a few too many cigarettes and passing around a pint-bottle of liquor. It’s generally a really great time.
One of Rubulad’s benefits as a venue to have on one’s radar is the fact that it doesn’t necessarily serve any single scene. I’ve been to heavy metal Halloween shows, day-time punk raves, harsh noise festivals. Hell, name a genre and in the past year I can without a doubt guarantee that they’ve done show of that specific type of music featuring NYC’s best and most rambunctious offering of the form.
So when I saw that tickets were up for a bill of three brass bands, I snapped up a couple for my partner and myself pretty quick.
Brass bands? NYC? In my mind’s ear I could already hear the loud glitter of trumpets and rumbling tuba, the tight grooving drums. I was excited, truly! I had the sound in my head and couldn’t wait to see what the aforementioned “best and most rambunctious” version of this sort of music would be!
Now, maybe I’m an asshole. And that’s fine, wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been so accused. Maybe I’m an elitist for expecting that everything claiming fealty to genre or form always be some knowing riff on that form or genre. If I’m pretentious for hoping that the acts I’m going to see be the artiest version of what they claim to be, then so be it. But, damn — it really was just brass bands…
I can’t help but put my musicologist/unrepentant jazz-nerd hat on here. This sort of music — which is to say a party tradition of pop tune covers played by ensembles of various winds and other “marching” instruments, or to quote my partner: “This has been a night of trying to name that song that was playing in the Uber that one time …” — seems to have its roots in the American march music and New Orleans parade jazz. These roots, though, are shallow. Neither the functionality of military march nor the depth of field of the jazz ensemble is here. But … Perhaps I’m reaching for academics and diagnoses on the grounds that this sort of thing does little but remind me of my short stint in high school marching band.
It would be untrue to say the players of the touring act, Fly By Brass Band, performed poorly. That these musicians were of an ensemble and adept at their instruments is true enough. Though the music itself wasn’t for me, I can say honestly it seemed to be just the thing for everyone else. The whole crowd danced along, some even engaging in a high school prom sort of bump-and-grind. The air of a good time filled the room.
This feeling bothers me less than it used to, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing something in all this. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to engage with it. But, I’m glad everyone else there enjoyed it so much. I’m glad the room held no drama, and the crowd was unselfconscious. Perhaps there’s even a little jealousy in my spirit…
