Have you ever seen a man play an umbrella under an iron horse? Neither had I, until I attended Mecha Sonic Sessions 2 at an undisclosed location in deep Gowanus.
On Saturday, May 21 I went beyond Smith and 9th streets. Across from Bayside Fuel and a metal scrap yard stands an innocuous looking cinderblock building near Hamilton Parkway. A bohemian crowd hung around outside chatting, smoking, and waiting for the show to begin. Passing through an iron door I entered an underworld full of music, industrial noise, and fire.
With 40 performers and 20 acts, it’s challenging to summarize, but in essence Mecha Sonic is a melding of jazz, powertools, and pyrotechnics in a carefully crafted series of avante garde works orchestrated with classical precision and stunning theatricality. The show pushes the boundaries of multiple art forms and results in an experience that is exciting, surprising, thrilling, and at times even a bit dangerous.
During one act alone, I witnessed Dalius Naujo conduct an orchestra of three baritone saxophones (Dave Sewelson, Lathan Hardy, and Stefan Zeniuk), trumpet, and tuba backed by a Tom Waitsian junkyard band clanging off kilter rhythms on pots, pans, and an oil drum while a 500,000 volt Tesla coil crackled lightning blue bolts of electricity over the whirring of circular saws and the alarming whistle of a huge acetylene tank that shot 15 foot flames inside the massive industrial space. Fire and the fear of being blown to bits generated enough heat to make me break a sweat.
Other highlights included sultry singer Sage Sovereign descending stairs with a fiery crown backed by the snaking, swinging sounds of early 20th century New Orleanian jazz. An expert fire eater, Sovereign later extinguished flaming wands down her throat. It should be noted that the producers took precaution by having a fire crew and EMTs on site.
The aforementioned “umbrellist” Ken Butler played a mind boggling array of homemade instruments including two hockey sticks and a tennis racket, a broom, a fishing pole and badminton racket, a balloon, a sword, a knife, and finally the umbrella, proving that while almost anything can be strung, it takes a genius to conceive and realize these mad, surrealistic visions.
The final act I witnessed was a battle between bikes and horns. Two motorcycles revved below a corrugated metal door and lunged threateningly at the crowd but were faced down by the brass section who blew them back with a skronking wall of sound, shooing them away like pesky flies who roared off into the night. Sadly, I missed the seven-foot long “graphic equalizer of fire” called a Ruben’s tube. Mecha Sonic is an almost overwhelming display of rich spectacle that can be taken in installations or absorbed as a whole.
Even intermissions were intriguing as an ominous, steadily building hum (like a giant vacuum cleaner) emanated from a set of synthesizers covered with a jumble of wires plugged into innumerable sockets, circuits, and blinking boxes. It was as if Dr.Frankenstein’s lab had fused with the command center of Star Trek’s USS Enterprise maintaining a constant tension that kept the crowd continually on edge.
Hot, carny freaks with heavy eyeliner, nose rings, dyed hair, tattoos, and leather boots later turned out to be part of the show, blurring the lines between performers and audience members, adding an interactive quality to the programming.
All of this magic emanates from the brains of Stefan Zeniuk, Dan Glass, and Chris Cortier. These three wizards met at the intersection of music, theater, art, and industry.
Zeniuk is a NYC-born saxophonist, bandleader, animator and DJ. He is the inventor of the Flame-O-Phone, a fire-breathing baritone sax, which has been seen in viral videos from Postmodern Jukebox, Improv Everywhere, Maker Faire, and more. Zeniuk has performed and recorded with Vampire Weekend, Father John Misty, and The Violent Femmes. His original animations have been featured on NPR and in Billboard Magazine. He also DJs on WKCR 89.9 FM, and since 2008, has led the psycho-mambo band Gato Loco.
Glass is a fabricator, sculptor, event producer, and maker of experiential and participatory art. Projects include a propane-fueled calliope of musical flamethrowers, the Smash Truck mobile destruction room, and themed parties such as SafetyFest. He is also a freelance journalist who has written about solar eclipse chasing, urban exploration, trespass theater, GPS failure, the future of freight transportation, and the psychological effect of viewing Earth from space for New York Times, Atlantic, Citylab, Gothamist, Los Angeles Times, Wired.com, Vice, and others.
Chris Cortier is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, video artist, engineer, and inventor. He designed and built most of the instruments for Fire The Band, the brass band where all instruments shoot fire. He recently completed a tour of the US with Atlas Obscura, playing an interactive synthesizer installation he designed with a user interface made of vegetables, including a potato-powered keyboard. As a musician, he has played with Patti Smith, Michael Stipe, and Matthew Barney, and opened for Reggie Watts as well as Squirrel Nut Zippers.
But Mecha Sonic also receives input from its various performers who continually suggest new ideas. As a result it is growing in scope and scale. Though Zeniuk, Glass, and Cortier are glad to exhale after this tremendous production, they are already thinking of Mecha Sonic 3, “probably sometime next year”.
When asked if they could envision bringing Mecha Sonic to an officially designated performance space that more closely complies with safety codes, the producers say they are open to the idea. One could envision it happening at Lollapalooza or perhaps even St.Ann’s Warehouse if the fire marshall were to approve.
For the moment, this totally unique experience flourishes underground by invite only. Until then, fans of adventurous music, theater, and performance art can keep abreast of future Mecha Sonic Sessions on Facebook and watch extensive footage on YouTube. It’s a wonder that such magic still exists in 21st Century New York, or anywhere really.
