The Gateway is hosting the Bernie Sanders benefit show December 10. All funds will be donated to the Bernie Sanders campaign and/or local Bernie Sanders chapters. Details here.
I decided to visit this spot in Bushwick called The Gateway (1272 Broadway) because my friends in Super FM and Psychiatric Metaphors were playing and I’d heard good things about the vibes there. My good friend from home–I call him Pdub–is actually friends with the guys that run the place; I found this out by talking to one of four managers/owners: Rob Granata, who also plays in Makeout Club. The bands played on the second floor with a mirrored wall and a DIY sound-deadening-padded wall opposite. Like a Chesterfield sofa flattened out and hung up on the wall. There were cool light effects and sweet Vox house amps, one of which decided to quit half way through Shit Storm‘s set. The smoking deck and dual bathrooms offered ample changes in scenery between bands and cigarette breaks.
I interviewed Rob (mentioned above) and another member of the team, young Nelson Antonio Espinal (henceforth referred to as Nelson) in the (at the time) unfinished downstairs bar area. Here it is. Read em and weep.
Sexual Rob
Party on Nelson
Rob: There’s four of us actually, the other one, he’s not here because he works a lot, but he’s like our electrician-mastermind dude.
RR: Who’s this electrician-mastermind dude?
Nelson: Thierry.
Rob: Thierry Laurent. Yeah, like he helped us build the breaker boxes and do all that shit, wiring- he built the stage, he’s a rigger.
RR: Right so the other guy is Ned. I guess he’s the big boss?
Nelson & Rob: [in unison, more or less] He’s the poppa bear.
RR: Poppa Bear, ok and what does Rob do?
Rob: I kinda oversee, make sure everything is fuckin going alright.
RR: You’re here for most of the shows?
Rob: Yeah, yeah. I mean we all are right now because we’re switching off working the door, doing bartending, working sound and lights, all of us have been here, like Nelson’s handling the calendar, but I’m here to make sure that like the bar is stocked, people are here, fuckin you know all this stuff, especially you know when it gets more up and running. I’m the overseer.
RR: So first question is: When did this place open?
Nelson: We took over in September, we opened up in October, so we uh, opened up upstairs… [I interrupt with some redundant comment]… we built upstairs in 30 days.
Rob: We had to mop the floor, build it, and open it.
RR: Were all these mirrors in here already?
Rob: We tore half ’em off upstairs and built those like plush sound panel things, that’s actually sound proof.
RR: Yeah, it looked like a DIY job. So you say Ned’s the Poppa Bear; was this place his idea? Is he the main guy?
Rob: I mean yeah, it was originally me and him, and we weren’t trying to do a venue; we were trying to do rehearsal rooms. We were lookin at big spaces to go in and build like 16 practice rooms for the bands out here to rehearse, cuz right now we’ve only got Sweat Shop or like whatever; there’s not really that much out here. It was crazy, the building we looked at needed a bunch of money and work to get up to code, and we just wanted to do some band rooms and perhaps a venue or a cafe, but then this place came up and it was already kinda built, kinda weird, so we could just kinda decorate it and do a venue, y’know? That’s where Nelson came in, he was gonna book Thursdays, he booked a shit ton of shows, it caught on and now he’s like the booker. So now we’re all just kinda partners in it, just tryin to make the coolest fuckin spot in town.
RR: Yes, fascinating stuff. Can you tell me anymore about how you got this space?
Rob: The dude who had this space before. I mean it was open until a month ago, so we took over the upstairs first, cuz it was a Caribbean bar, “St. Lucian Paradise.” You know for 16 years- he used worked for the MTA and all this stuff and he opened a bar, and upstairs was a rental room, so he gave that to us first. All four of us built out the upstairs, painted and what not. Then we took over the downstairs on the first of October, so we decorated all this. [There were supplies everywhere, we were ashing cigarettes on the floor, my kind of decorations] We’re gonna launch this on Halloween, so there’s a lot of room, you know? The previous owner wanted to retire, he had it for 16 years. He was a bus driver, he retired from that, ran a bar, he just wanted to get out of it, we saw it, he saw that we wanted to do it and we just went like “fuck it, let’s make the gnarliest fuckin venue here we can, cuz it’s hard you know, we all play in bands, we play at Shea Stadium, or Palisades, all that stuff, but there’s not enough to go around for all the stuff that’s going on. We’re musicians and we want to treat bands right.
RR (to Rob): You play in Makeout Club right?
Nelson: I play in Stuyedeyed. It’s a psych-garage rock type thing. A four piece.
Rob: We currently share a drummer.
Nelson: For the time being lol.
RR: So can you tell me a little about the inspiration for the decor? I noticed a samurai sword and a red boot?
Rob: Cousin, and the samurai sword was here, but the original things are coming from Dario Argento’s Suspiria, so we had a color scheme, it’s very Art Deco, and down here we’re gonna make it a bit lighter, like a crazy fuckin Hollywood hotel, a haunted hotel that you’ve never been to [laughs], massive and crazy, you know.
RR: So what’s been your favorite show here so far Nelson ?
Nelson: My favorite show we’ve thrown so far was Creepoid.
RR: Creepoid played here!??
Nelson: Yeah. Dead Heavens, Paycheck and the Byrds played as well. It was packed.
Rob: Yeah it was our first time building the room then getting to see it full of people and sit back and be like, “Oh my god, it actually happened.”
RR: And your favorite show, Rob?
Rob: Yeah that was also my favorite. I really enjoyed the Tall Juan show, that band from Austin was really killer.
Nelson: “Blacksploitation” [BLXPLTN]? or was it Annabelle Chairlegs? That show was really good.
Rob: I mean every shows been really good, we had the King Pizza show that was really good.
RR: Who played that?
Rob: Sun Voyager, Stuyedeyed.
RR: (To Nelson) Oh wait so you’re on King Pizza?
Nelson: Haha there’s a funny story about it, so opening night was October 1st; I had reached out to King Pizza cuz I was like, “dude, I fuckin love every single band on your label and I just want you to like partner up with us and bring all your bands through here.” I was already booking them, I was booking shows a month in advance before we opened, so I invited Greg Hanson to come through and Stuyedeyed opened the show. He was here for it. Afterwards we went outside and I said, “hey dude, thanks for stopping by” and then through conversation, we got picked up by King Pizza that same night. LOL.
Rob: It’s cool for me too, because I do a lot of studio work, I write alot, I write for other people, It’s cool to see what’s going on around here, all the bands, I mean it’s been mostly garage rock-oriented so far, but we want to move into, well I do electronic shit.
RR: I definitely see the potential for this space to host electronic acts and DJs.
Rob: Eventually we want to make it a circus, where you come in and like, it’s one cover, but we have two stages, like there’ll be a drag show going on upstairs, some rockin’ bands downstairs, and people intermingle with each other. A lot of venues, which I love, are doing crazy stuff like, I think Shea Stadium is the closest to what we’re doing, and of course Trans-Pecos. I want to tie in the night life of Bossa Nova and Tandem and mix it all together, because everyone’s doing a one dimensional kind of vibe, you know like fucking “mix it up” and make New York a great city for nightlife again.
RR: Turn this into the mixing pot huh?
Nelson: Yeah I think that’s the whole goal. We all come from a super DIY background, but our thing is that we four come from different points on the spectrum of DIY. So we basically want everything to be included here, we’re not an exclusive joint. We’re doing Island parties on Sundays, today alone I got hit up by ten DJ’s, just throwing fuckin parties.
Rob: Everyone I talk to is just like, “New York is just so homogeneous now,” so I was at my other job bartending and serving tables last night and someone was talking about how they wanted to move to LA or Austin because the nightlife is cooler, but I was like, “well you gotta come check out this space.” Our whole goal is to have people come through on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday night and not even look at what’s going on because you already know it’s gonna be a great time. We have the space to provide it, we’ll get the bands down here, and the DJ upstairs.
RR: Good name, The Gateway.
Rob: Yeah it reminds me of like The Limelight, and The Tunnel, all those crazy clubs that used to be around here. It’s got a little bit of dirt to it.
RR: Go into more detail about this Caribbean bar you’ve taken over for.
Rob: So basically, downstairs was this bar and upstairs could get rented out for birthday parties and things like that. The previous owner gave us that private space to start with while he tied things up down here. So we made the venue all upstairs, so like, as we’re sitting in here, you know, no one else has actually sat in this room, like everyone has an idea of what it is up there, dark, French, discotheque, fuckin, kinda vibe, but that’s just one aesthetic, we wanna make this like the main room, this will be where the bar is.
Nelson: Hang curtains and stuff.
Rob: Yeah like hang Ivy and stuff, you’ll walk in and it’ll be trippy.
RR: Sensational! Alright so, I’d like to have a discussion with y’all. What do you guys think about the DIY venue scene, what with all the venues closing in Williamsburg, or any comments on gentrification, etc.
Rob: Well Nelson grew up here and I’ve lived here for 10 years. I remember I used to live off the Halsey stop and remember goin to 285 Kent and Glasslands, back when the latter was really DIY, before it turned into a legit venue, you know. I like it, there’s options, we want to be a spot where people feel safe to chill and party. You know with the balcony in the back, you know like hangin out real late, wasted, doing whatever they want as long as they’re cool, you know? Like hook up with some chick or some dude. But I’ve been comin out here for so long, I don’t really mind the trend of sick venues closing because it’s just another part of the life here. It’s awesome to own and be a part of something that’s like helping the creative scene. The thing is we wouldn’t be able to do this, you know we wouldn’t be able to do it in the city or in Williamsburg or anywhere else. I mean soon you’re not gonna be able to do it here. It’s nice to be on the wave of like, “hey we only have this little bit of money but let’s do something crazy and quit our jobs and fuckin, open up and have bands come play, you know?”
Nelson: I’m a lot younger the other cats here. [He’s 21] But I’ve known these guys for a long time. I remember growing up and playing in punk bands and shit ‘n’ being like I can’t wait to turn 17 and play Glasslands or Death By Audio.
Rob: Yeah man I watched Glasslands from start to finish.
Rob: I mean eventually we aren’t gonna be so DIY, you know like, we’ll have all the ordinances and permissions in order and our door open as a legitimate venue.
Nelson: I never got to go to Glasslands or DBA, which sucks, I remember when Rob was playing in Beast Patrol at like Glasslands and I would always show up when I was 18 and I would always get shut out, never got to go in.
Rob: Well it used to be a lot crazier back then.
Nelson: Yeah well, this place is kind of like my opportunity to recreate that whole atmosphere for myself and for a lot of the younger kids that may have missed out too. I remember I was living in Florida, we were doing shows in foreclosed houses and shit, like, I just want to do it in a proper space.
RR: Oh so you’re gonna throw all ages and 18+ shows here too?
Nelson: Yeah thats the idea.
Rob: Yeah we’re definitely in a DIY head space right now, but we’re trying to move towards a more legit spot in the future. I mean the vibe is still gonna be rad and inclusive, it’s just that everything will be legal.
Nelson: Yeah I wouldn’t even want to be here if we couldn’t do those kinds of shows. To this day [Nelson wasn’t 21 at the time of this interview] I can’t go to shows until Friday, because of the 21+ restriction at most other venues. I don’t want to bar the kids that play in bands who are 19, 18 years old that wanna go to shows and fucking can’t because they’re too young.
Rob: That’s the whole thing too. It’s hard to do it in New York because everything got so crazy. You know legal-wise, so it’s like, we didn’t want to open a place that is a bar before anything else. The whole thing is if in 10 years we’re still doing this or moving on to some new spot, I want to be–when we close down–what Glasslands was when they closed or like Sugarland. We just want to give the people a place to make memories in. Keep it really loose you know?
Nelson: Yeah man, that feeling you just felt right now. We want people to come in and look at us behind the bar and be like “pssshhhhh. Yeah dude.” [with an exaggerated head nod and finger point]
Rob: It’s New York man, things shut down, and when we do, I want people be like “Damn, I spent my youth there, had an amazing time, saw this band and this band and this band, you know?”
They never specifically said it, but when The Gateway does die, they want to be missed. They want to be remembered fondly. It’s a magnificent spot with lots of room for improvement and I am excited to see this place grow to its full potential. It’s also somehow distinctively “New York” to go into a venture like this bearing in mind the almost inescapable fate of closing in the future. The juxtaposition of young Nelson’s limitless youthful fire and decade aged wisdom of Rob Granata offered me a fully self aware, and blindly passionate portrait of the personality of this new spot. I hope that this little interview piques the interest of more than a few readers and encourages people to get out there and check out the place. I mean Creepoid played there already and they’ve only been around a month. They’re like a crew of honorable pirates or smugglers on the high–dare I say wavy–seas of a massive creative exhale in the city of insomniacs. Take the reins, ride the wave, whatever idiom you subscribe to, make sure it brings you to The Gateway sometime soon. You will FEEL welcome.
Stay updated on Gateway events here.
Rob plays in Makeout Club and Nelson plays in Stuyedeyed. Check them out!
