1990-03-27 The Village Voice
On Point
By Richard Gehr, The Village Voice, March 27, 1990
Archived from: https://archive.org/details/per_village-voice_the-village-voice_1990-03-27_35_13/
This article profiles Quiet Life, a short-lived nightclub operated by Matthew Hill, Nick Hill and Brian Dewan. It was located in the basement of the Brooklyn apartment building they shared with John Linnell, and They Might Be Giants performed at least one show there. The venue closed down the same week this piece was published.
Unlike Williamsburg, which sounds as brown and grave as it appears, Greenpoint's a deceptive moniker for a collection of sandpaper-gray apartments, gloomy warehouses, and despairing factories. Of course, if you lived there, you'd be home by now.
But then where would you go?
You might try Teddy's, an r&b bar with off-duty cop clientele, or the mysterious Lizard's Tail. But now that the floating Rub-a-Dub disco and the Bog have faded away, life is darn quiet in the hinterlands of Brooklyn.
So I'm talking over the phone to WFMU announcer Nicholas Hill, during whose Sunday evening live music show you might, for example, hear Yo La Tengo in the studio backing Daniel Johnston phoning in vocals from God-knows-where. And I'm pumping him about Quiet Life, the folksy G-point club he sort of maitre d's. His fourth cousin, Matthew, rents the space and watches the door. In the background, Hill's wife is stage-whispering, "No! Tell, him not to print the address!" — a suggestion my wife has also made. So in the interests of domestic bliss, let's just say that Quiet Life's there for the finding on Havemeyer Street a few blocks east of the L train's Bedford Street station.
On most (and only) Saturday nights since last October, dozens — heck, scores — of locals have meandered into Quiet Life after discreetly making their presence known by tapping the door of this appropriately renamed former funeral chapel. In the dark, from the street, it lacks even the suggestion of activity. Pale light gleams through the stained-glass windows; apartment-house mailboxes greet the customer.
Pay the man five dollars and mosey into a minimal sitting-and-drinking room. Where the bereaved once grieved, folks now gather in subdued conviviality. It's a permanent wake, Jake. Pals and strangers, just hanging out and talking about stuff. Work stuff. Music stuff. You know — stuff. No fights, some light necking.
I prefer to hang in the inner sanctum, back in the chapel itself, the better to enjoy Brian Dewan's clock shrines and dinosaur taxidermy, Hill's wailing jukebox (imagine "Love Rollercoaster" playing in the background), and a blood-red paint job that looks a lot like home. Twin hospital beds and medicine bottles containing dubious substances provide a measure of... security.
A band's set up at the end of the room, right where you'd expect to find the funeral coffin. Several rows of neatly arrayed school chairs anticipate peculiar entertainment. Behind the equipment, an inverted bottle threatens to drip a strange green liquid all over the mahogany mantelpiece.
Before the music begins, however, people chat quietly among themselves while Hill complains in tones of mock exasperation that nobody's dancing to Irma Thomas, Pylon, the World Famous Blue Jays, and all the other cool music he's stocked the juke with this week. Typically, no one dances 'cause they're too busy yapping. And you're as likely to be seated betwixt the lead singer's aunt and grandmother as next to some groover in a backwards baseball cap. (Another sign of eminent sceneliness: lots of eyeglasses.)
Look, about the music I'm not going to bullshit you. It's hit and miss, even catch as catch can. In only two weekends I've discovered Paul McMahon (the thinking person's new-age surrealist), c&w kickers Angel Dean & the Zephyrs, and the indescribably maudlin Maudlins (a bleak, literate country band fronted by adenoidally gifted Amy Allison). Maybe you'll read this, crowd the club this Saturday, and discover Michael Hurley isn't your idea of a sophisticated thrill. Or you might hold off for Lydia Lunch the week after. Maybe not. As Hill says of his outerborough outpost, "It seems to have a mind of its own."