Exploring How Innovation Can Spur Community in Underground Music at Nightfund’s London Event
There are many risks and great reward in making sure community-led venues exist for underground music
Before last week I’d never heard of the Brunel Museum. Located in London’s Rotherhithe neighborhood, the “educational charity” preserves the story of the Thames Tunnel – the world’s first tunnel built under a navigable river. Engineer Marc Brunel and his son built the passage between 1825 and 1843. Originally intended for horse-drawn carriages – yet primarily used by pedestrians – the tunnel was converted into a railway passage in 1869 and remains in use today.
Housed on the southern border of the Thames, the museum includes the project’s caisson – also a world first – which is a watertight retaining structure typically used to support construction of water-based projects like dams, ship repairs and underwater tunnels by creating dry work environments. According to the museum, inside this caisson in 1827, Brunel organized the world’s first ever “underground concert party.”
Today when we think about “underground concerts” we aren’t so literal – we’re referencing subcultures that are only subterranean in metaphor (usually). Typically we’re talking about experimental scenes, operating at the margins of social norms and/or the law. And almost always, they don’t stay underground for long – they’re the catalyst for cultural evolution, the cradle of the new. And lest we resign ourselves to a fate of humdrum and blah, it’s those spaces and scenes that we need to preserve most.
Last week, Nightfund – in partnership with the UK dance music promoter Goodness – organized an event at the Brunel Museum, celebrating experimental arts and their communities with both a panel and an underground (literally and metaphorically) show. Started by Jonty Harrison and Thor Kverndal, Nightfund rose from the ashes of the web3 rave decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) The Willow Tree, whose mission was to collectively own and operate a global network of music venues. Nightfund emerged as a more focused effort to support London’s club culture, manifesting in real life for the first time at the Brunel.
Left to right, moderator Louise Henry and panelists Sarah Fewtrell, Karolina Magnusson Murray and Shain Shapiro
The panel discussion featured Karolina Magnusson Murray, head of the Art Department at the artist-led, community-driven nightclub Fold; Sarah Fewtrell, nightlife producer at The Yard; and Shain Shapiro, sound diplomacy at the Center for Music Ecosystems.
Titled “Nurturing experimental arts and the surrounding community,” the discussion was moderated by Louise Henry, program development manager at London Funders. The group discussed the myriad innovations and risks involved with nurturing club spaces. Afterwards, we descended to the depths of the caisson to immerse ourselves in the aphotic musings of Surgeons Girl and industrial post rock of Seefeel, channeling the underground energy first planted there nearly two centuries prior.
“We’re not going to have all the questions and we’re not going to have all the answers – this is the start of a conversation,” Henry said as we settled in, introducing the panelists and contextualizing the importance of their work. She directed her first question to Magnusson Murray. “What impact does this type of work have on communities?”
“Innovation comes from experimenting,” said Magnusson Murray, who captains Fold’s multi-disciplinary not-for-profit arts platform FuturShock. “We’re trying to change the way people think about lineups. I don't like saying lineups – it's more conceptual. We’re thinking about the artists that make sense and rethinking the way you can use a club space.”
Fewtrell jumped in. “A club isn't just a club.” The Yard also uses its space as a theater, and Fewtrell continues to explore other ways to use the venue. “Why don't we just put a mechanical bull in the space and see what happens?”
And indeed, why not? “The issue is translation,” said Shapiro, who works with cities and governments all over the world to find novel ways for communities to use music to solve problems. “Most of the people I talk to are old white guys in suits – guys who have been elected who do everything they can to get elected again. A lot of MPs think a music venue is the back of a pub or the O2,” he continued, referencing the massive arena in Southeast London that plays host to global superstars. “But a club can also be a community center.”
Convincing the powers that be to embrace this mindset isn’t easy, though. “Innovation can go two ways – play and risk,” said Henry, who oversees London Funders’ £100 million funding program that’s focused on creating systemic change within civil society funding. “To what extent does risk factor in the work you're doing?”
The Yard’s Fewtrell answered, “it's something I have to consider all the time. I want to provide a space to allow people to do what they want, but I also have people breathing down my neck to keep the lights on. It's a balance. But the risk does push forward the innovation.”
Inside the caisson
Magnusson added, “People come because we've built a community and they see what we're trying to do and feel like they're contributing to it, which helps mitigate the risk.”
Some places understand the importance of that risk better than others. Henry mentioned a conversation she’d recently had with someone who elevated Berlin clubs to institutions on par with museums, “which is different from the UK,” she added.
“Germany has a different history than the UK,” said Shapiro, who is originally from Canada and now has British citizenship. “Electronic music was used to promote West Germany – club culture has had an engaged culture for 20 years. We don't have the institutional frameworks to support what Germany does. A lot of money is invested in culture here, but people don't know how to access it, and it's designed that way.”
“A lot of the land [in Germany] is owned by the state, so the pressure of real estate is less. There are higher taxes (52%) – it's socialism essentially,” he continued. “The whole point is to reduce barriers to access culture.”
When I spoke with Nightfund’s Harrison last year on the Big Brother podcast, he said something very similar about his intentions in this space. “It was really important to us that we lowered the barriers to entry,” he told me, referring to his work at The Willow Tree.
“And [the community] grew very organically – we brought in like 400-500 members within the first couple months. We had our North Star – our long term vision, but I didn't do a great job of laying out a really clear roadmap for the future of how we were gonna achieve that mission. But everyone was really excited by it, so we knew that there was something there.”
Nightfund was the continuation of that “something there.” It was envisaged as a community-driven rave accelerator whose treasury could be apportioned into grants. Rather than open the doors to hundreds of people in Discord, Harrison and Kverndal opted to keep it focused, gathering 15 people in an intimate Instagram group chat.
“If we can get to a point where we can rally the dance music community around supporting the culture,” Harrison told me, “if we can be as impactful as the Arts Council – except that our impact is steered by the communities who actually are at the core of this culture – that's the dream.”
The dream, in essence, is mitigating those issues of translation, where reliance upon the MPs and their equivalents is tempered by cultural collectives funding culture directly. We’re not there yet, though, and there are still plenty of politics at play. “We're preaching to the converted here,” Henry said to the room of 20 or so club enthusiasts. “Who do we need to be speaking to?”
“Most people who are allocating resources couldn't give a shit – full stop,” Shapiro said. “We work on all sides of the aisle. We don't work with dictators,” he said before pausing to add coyly, “but we do work in the UK.”
“You have to vote – know who's in your ward,” he continued. “Whatever venue you're passionate about, find two or three more, go to those, walk around those neighborhoods and learn about them.
“We are all fighting for limited resources in a climate emergency. We can create music with AI but we can't create emotion and expression. Our work is not extractive. We're using our minds, which is not a limited resource. What you guys love can be a solution to someone's problem.”
In 2016 I interviewed the co-founders of House of Yes, a nightclub in Brooklyn that features acrobats, houses a restaurant and curates community events for all ages. It literally started as a community center in the basement of a Brooklyn apartment before expanding into a space for aerial circus classes and accidentally became a nightclub several years later. It’s a gathering space for community, yet it’s plagued by a history of shutdowns and supposition that it’s up to no good.
Why do some of us object to clubs “based on a concept?” Clubs are spaces where people gather in the same way that community centers are. Is it sex? Drugs? Rock ‘n’ roll? The fear that night’s shadows will set alight a powder keg of sin that, with the tiniest flame, bursts into sex-crazed, drug-fueled, world-wrecking depravity?
After the panel, I headed down into the caisson for the first time – a cylindrical bunker without windows that mildly resembled a tin can that'd been kicked down the road for a couple hundred years. It was very fucking cool. Errant piping jutted out from the stairs, and geometric projections played behind Surgeons Girl as the artist bounced between pieces of hardware, playing an excellent live set that was equal parts ambient and techno.
British group Seefeel followed. First forming in the 90s as a more conventional rock outfit, the band gained acclaim when they adopted electronic production, finding their niche somewhere between shoegazers My Bloody Valentine and electronic music auteur Aphex Twin (the latter counted himself a Seefeel fan).
For an hour we stood and swayed in the depths of an old river can, finally succumbing to applause before, gently, climbing the stairs and heading home. There was no Caligulan chaos – there were just concerned citizens pushing back against the humdrum and blah, sharing a space with music in an unexpected place.
In every corner of the world there’s music and there’s empty space. Abandoned shafts with stories, potential gathering grounds for aerial circus classes and cultural transmission. And there are thoughtful people building common ground there, brick-by-brick, developing a language that people can understand on both sides of every aisle: music.