The year is 1998. The year I was born. In this year, New York City has experienced a purge of their former selves with Mayor Rudy Giualiani’s attacks on oppressed people whose skin usually resembled Black or Brown. Giualian’s terror started four years prior, in 1994, where he won the mayoral position from David Dinkins. And with this win, the age of Giuliani’s terror nested under Times Square’s redevelopment from a haven with homosexual activity, such as prostitutions, sex shops, and sex theatres, into the commodified Disneyfication. “He [Giuliani] identified homeless people, panhandlers, prostitutes, squeegee cleaners, squatters, graffiti artists, “reckless bicyclists,” and unruly youth as the major enemies of public order and decency, the culprits of urban decline generating widespread fear”, writes Neil Smith for Social Text. Ingraining police forces onto his city, Giuliani struck fear into Black folks, as seen with the 1999 shooting of Guinean immigrant Amadou Diallo, and helped the rich gain more riches. “At this time, police aggressively targeted New York nightlife and queer sociality through the select enforcement of the city’s Cabaret (No Dancing) Law”, writes GLQ (Duke University’s Lesbian and Gay Journal). In effect of Giuliani’s terror, queer nightclubs such as Clit Club (a lesbian nightclub in Meatpacking District), Sound Factory Bar (a queer nightclub near Times Square), The Roxy (a roller skating queer nightclub near Chelsea), The Palladium (billed as gay club by Studio 54 owners’, but catered to straight and queer scene), closed to over-policing and Manhattan’s gentrification. Sable Elyse Smith, a queer fine artist, wrote queer’s folks experience with nightclubs in her 2016 essay “Ecstatic Rebellion”. It reads: “I want to dance … the club is a sanctuary for queer liberation.” So, when Mayor Giuliani brought excessive policing to New York he brought terror to queer nightclubs. And now, nearly twenty years later, a new terror could potentially chokes the air out of queer culture. It’s name? Coronavirus.
In the late 2010s, New York’s Dick Appointment and H0l0 were apart of the growing ecosystem of queer establishments catering to queer people. In this oral history/overview I interviewed Dick Appointment founders, Kenni Javon and Martez Smith, their photographer, Kadar Small, and one of H0l0’s founders, Sam Hillmer, to gain a better understanding of business before Coronavirus and to see the future of clubbing after Coronavirus.
Founded in July 2017, near Bushwick, New York, H0l0 have built a diverse audience through nontraditional formats, such as their podcast Place of Assembly where they examine physical spaces that houses an creative community, and their embrace of different musical genres, The nightclub would see their fortune turn to gold in 2019 when their visibility grew and their Instagram followers would shoot to 8,000 followers (currently near 10,0000).
Sam Hillmer, Founder, Partner, and Director of H0l0: 2019 was without a doubt our best calendar year. It was best in that the business was most viable financially, which is important, and also because we presented the most work (almost 1000 events) and worked with communities of the greatest diversity. I felt we were functioning as support to emergent communities of creative practice in NYC most profoundly that year. We also began a practice of helping to present events outside of our building, which was exciting and allowed us to work with larger audiences.
An event that really embodied the spirit of h0l0 and our commitment to serving a diverse range of communities and demographics within the milieu of outsider culture practice was the 2nd night of our first XENNIAL fest back in July of 2019. We began with a panel discussion on intergenerational community building featuring Arts for Art, and members of 8 Ball Radio. A happy hour DJ set featuring the curators of the Secret Friend party ensued in the bar. The early program in the back room featured an array of outside composition and improvisation with Larkin Grimm, the band Zs, the band Bladerunner (feat. Special guest Nico Jarr), culminating in an epic set by free jazz and black radical composition pioneers Wadada Leo Smith and Andrew Cyrille! It was an absolute honor to have them in the building. The late-night we had two line ups, the bar curated by the leadership of Discakes (Pauli Cakes and She Marley Marl) and the backroom curated by MoMa Ready featuring Kush Jones and legendary footwork pioneer, producer and DJ Traxman. Importantly the headlining talent from both the early and late programs were from Chicago, pioneers in their fields, but from different generations of creative practice. Also, both bills contextualized the headliners in terms of younger, more emerging artists. Also importantly, the curators of the late-night bar program in the front room are leadership within the POC/LGBTQIA+ dance music and performance communities.
The net effect of this program was to provide a platform for reflection around intergenerational community building, linking across geographic regions, and many enclosures of creative practice sharing physical space and the possible dynamic of conviviality across and between these diverse actors that can result. There were representatives from many communities, ages, and locations in physical space represented by this program. A little star power from Nico Jarr helped as well.
This was a true curatorial and organizational triumph for H0L0, that really embodied our intentions.
The club scene in Brooklyn, most importantly New York, was growing a renaissance of queer spaces arose from New York’s staples only founded success in Washington D.C., Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump. Dick Appointment’s Kenni Javon and Kadar Small were partying H0l0 and other places in New York.
Kadar Small, Photographer and Videographer of Dick Appointment: The Box [venue located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side]. Then I went to One Oak [venue also located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side]. I went to a lot of clubs inside the city in the Lower East Side, since I was in the FIT [Fashion Institute of Technology] area and live on campus in the Chelsea area.
Kenni Javon, Founder of Dick Appointment, DJ and Stylist: Papi Juice [a Caribbean and Latino queer based parties, located in Bushwick, Brooklyn], H0L0, and The Spectrum [a closed venue catering to Black males, was located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn].
Where clubs and party series were coming to an end, such as Black owned Club Langston and The Spectrum, the dawn of clubs catering to queer generation Z audiences came ahead. And H0L0 seemed to be a perfect kin to Dick Appointment.
Kenni: For me it was more looking for a venue that ‘worked’ and fit our aesthetic. I’ve been to H0L0 numerous times for other events so I reached out to them and they were open to the idea. We had our second installment there [in November] and it worked. I gave them something no one else was able to.
Martez Smith, Co-Founder of Dick Appointment, Promoter of Dick Appointment: The relationship between Dick Appointment and H0L0 is really symbiotic, if I’m not might mistaken I think Dick Appointment was the one of the events that brought H0L0 the most revenue.
Agreeing to this as one of the highlights of 2019, Sam and Dick Appointment came together in August 2019, Dick Appointment would bring nearly 125 people to H0L0 and in November 200 people, and finally in February (the month of their I-D Vice Article) 250 people. This can be thanks to the prolific celebrities accompanying the party series, their collaboration with Papi Juice, and H0L0’s building repertoire of featuring prominent artists such as DJ Lag (produced “My Power” for Beyonce’s Lion King Soundtrack) and bubbling queer DJ Tygapaw. But then in March 2020 Coronavirus both the plans of Dick Appointment and their host H0L0.
Martez: We had envisioned everything until August, it was supposed to be our year with our appearance on I-D.
Kenni: We wanted to go to Miami, California, Atlanta, North Carolina. We have a large following outside of New York City so we thought we’ll take our followers to other places of the nation.
Kadar: Initially I was just so stressed in quarantine for it’s happening, like in general only because I had certain jobs lined up and like now, like I feel like everybody realized, nobody realized that it really was happening until it started affecting them personally.
Sam: Most of the first half of 2020 was basically booked. It was a huge blow for all those events to not happen, to a lot of people. H0L0 was started with no capital, just access to the space, an amount of waived rent for a period of time that had long ended by 2019, and access to a bunch of gear, much of which was given on long term loan or donated. We have made money needed to gradually improve our space, and we definitely all felt there was a long way to go, but were making headway. These being the conditions, when we suddenly stopped making money, we had to work hard to settle outstanding debts, as our business is 100% predicated on continual operation, there is no reserve of resources. That was tough, but we managed to knock out almost all of it, still settling a couple of lingering items. Our first response to Covid was to do very little. It was clear from the beginning to us that this would be a long term situation, and we wanted to be certain about the best next steps before doing anything besides raising money.
From March to June, Dick Appointment released several mixtapes to support their visibility amongst hetero and homosexual audience (it featured several of H0L0’s performers). While also hosting Zoom parties (to Kenni’s dismay because he only hosted two). While H0L0 came up with alternative motives.
Sam: We ran an outdoor location all summer and fall, began a more pronounced media series that includes a photo archive, podcast, and music release series, and reimagined our space as a work and rehearsal space, and place from which to stream events. We did manage to partner with the organization Big Room to have a relatively sophisticated streaming setup installed, so that has been a real value add. These efforts FAR From covered our costs, but they did manage to keep our hat in the ring as a space, raise a little money, and get some employees back to work. Our emphasis has been more oriented around providing resources to artists. We have a streaming set up and platform that is useful to artists, the release series helps to bring attention to artists, and we hope that the conversations we have with venue operators and presenters world wide will be a resource to artists, presenters, and creative communities. However, achieving heightened visibility, or monetization of our program via the internet, just isn’t something we focused on. I would say internet visibility is roughly the same as it was prior to pandemic. H0L0 generally does not push itself as a ‘brand’ or whatever, we are an artist resource and community gathering location, the rest is just what happens.
Now near the end of the year and heading into 2021 both of these entities are planning to expand in the age of Covid by branding.
Kenni: Hopefully, when Covid is over we can get back to traveling. I should be releasing Dick Appointment merchandise within the next month, and we’re also doing a dinner series, and I’m also thinking about doing a Dick Appointment lottery party where only select people will be invited.
Sam: Well… That is a difficult question. Yes, we have a New Year’s Eve stream plan. Beyond that? Who knows. We hope to continue to expand and build upon our online media offerings as a means of function as a support to artists and arts communities. I predict that the meaning and nature of successful live music businesses will change significantly post covid. I believe that venues will need to become very multifaceted to survive. Venues will need to function as live performance venues, online content platforms, artist resource centers, more not-for-profit type communitarian project-driven organizations, and for some, lifestyle brands featuring streetwear, etc to survive. Everyone will have to succeed at doing a little bit of everything, in order to be resilient. I believe this mirrors a larger truth about how music itself is evolving in the way it is consumed. The hyper prevalence of media, and the emphasis that is placed on ‘user-generated content’ renders everyone as a ‘creator’ or ‘creative’ or what have you. The division between artist and audience is essentially gone in essence, it is just a matter of specific concentrations of ‘creators’ in given places at given times. This will mean that the space most useful to artists and ‘creators’ will have a better chance at survival than a space strictly driven by hard ticket concert presentation. Additionally, the expectation that everything be present on the internet in addition to IRL will continue to ramp up. And outside/inside experience via the internet will be a basic expectation of every venue. I also think that an effect Covid will have on social space is an increased valuation of intimate gatherings. Fame as we have known it will become too costly and too dangerous to prop up, people will be after small, bespoke, gatherings. This will have an atomizing effect on the cultural sphere writ large. This will be good in some ways, and bad in others. Venue operators need to be ready. As for 2021, we are doing some renovations, expanding on and improving our offerings as a space, as a new partner has come on board. But all of this work is being done with an eye toward the extremely heterogeneous type of practice that will likely be required, at least during the early days of reentry, but likely on an ongoing basis, when we ‘return’. The truth is, there is no ‘return’. What happens next, will be something entirely new, with certain features much like those of the past, but with many more others that differ from the past. The experience of Covid 19 worldwide, will be of paradigmatic significance to the live music and performance sphere, and will likely bring about enormous changes that will radically transform the landscape of culture.
Dick Appointment and H0L0 are trapped like the world during the age of Covid. If dance floors does come back you can bet queer folks will lead the way in celebrating life. Kadar would say Dick Appointment means “a space where they know they’re going to be fully comfortable where they’re going to be fully accepted.” Whenever nightclubs come back, a new renaissance would be established just like the energy that was in Brooklyn before Covid.
