It Was Just Tuesday Night

Over the past few weeks I’ve been pondering how the best years of my life fell into something called the “Indie Sleaze” era. If I'd been born earlier, maybe I would've landed somewhere between Fluxus, Judson Dance, Warhol's Factory, No Wave, or X-Girl. Instead, I arrived in New York just in time for what would later be called Indie Sleaze.

I keep seeing influencers and brands trying to curate outfits to fit into this style, and I ask myself why? At the time I was in it, I remember always saying to myself, “everyone here could really use a good shower or a bath, myself included.” I was a college student at SVA and somehow found myself at all the best art openings, warehouse shows, and most nights didn’t make it home until the sun was rising.

I was eighteen, fresh out of homeschool, and fiercely opinionated about music. Scott Walker was my all-time favorite artist, followed by artists like Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Shellac, Boards of Canada, Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, and Brian Eno. None of it matched the soundtrack of the scene I was walking into, but somehow that didn’t matter.

When you're in a movement, you don't realize you're in one. I do remember having a lot of fun, and everything felt like a new experience despite how predictable every evening became. My documentation of choice was disposable film cameras purchased from any drugstore on the corner of Manhattan avenues. The goal was always to see all the hippest photography openings on the Lower East Side, and most of them had open bars.

My entry to this scene was largely a lost lady’s New Jersey ID that was found on 3rd Avenue. Dana from Livingston, NJ was my identity to the doormen at various clubs and venues. I celebrated her 21st birthday at Lit Lounge much harder than I celebrated my own. Dana was five feet tall with blue eyes, and I was five foot six and always wearing heels, with very obviously brown eyes, but no one questioned it.

My friends and I would find ourselves adventuring deep into Brooklyn to find a communal warehouse for a house show. iPhones weren’t in everyone’s pocket yet, so most information came from Myspace. Most of all, we took a lot of photos.

I like to wonder what art students are getting into these days. The idea that they want to recreate this version of New York feels impossible to me. At the time, it wasn’t a style. It was just Tuesday night. We weren’t trying to look disheveled, we actually were and we barely slept. We weren’t documenting an aesthetic; we were documenting our friends because, even then, we had the sense that none of it would last forever.

Maybe that’s what every generation eventually discovers. One day your youth gets a name, a mood board, and an advertising campaign. I’m sure, the buyers at Urban Outfitters pushing this stuff were there too, carrying their own disposable cameras and trying to make the night last.