The Ivy Mansion (New Brunswick, NJ)
[ Stats ]
Area > New Brunswick, NJ
Transportation > NJT (Northeast Corridor - New Brunswick Station)
Travel Time > 25 min.
Train Tickets > $17.75 (Round-Trip)
—
Space > The Ivy Mansion
Kid > Matt (Snake Vision)
Cover > $donation
Show > Screaming Females, Each Other’s Mothers, Hunchback, Cara Beth Satalin
[ Story ]
Been wanting to escape Brooklyn for a bit lately and it seems I’m not alone, since word spread I was hopping on a train out to Brunz last week and soon almost 10 kids were ready and rearing to head out to wreck shit with Titus Andronicus. Unfortunately, it turned out a pipe had broken that morning in The Ivy Mansion’s basement and the space had been flooded. Nothing permanent, but the show had been cancelled/postponed. Shit happens.
[ Lesson 1 —> Also check in on little house shows. Stuff changes without warning… dates/cover/bands/etc. ]
So, instead, we planned on heading out to The Ivy Mansion after ShowPaper distribution last Monday. You know, a distro afterparty. The train wasn’t crowded, and we only waited around for, like, 5 minutes. The show was supposed to go until 11 or so, so we figured we’d catch the last band or two (keeping our fingers crossed for Each Other’s Mothers and Screaming Females, both of which are fucking awesome. I’ve heard good things about Hunchback, too, not heard heard, but heard of). We listened to the Parts N Labor’s “Mapmaker” on the train, through ShowPaper’s official bag/boombox. Which I’ve been told also looks like a purse. And smells kind of gross. No one else on the train seemed to mind.
We got off the train confused, but after asking a few very stoned/drunk college kids, found our way pretty easily to the house (which is probably less than a 10 minute walk from the train station). Never trust people in cars to give you accurate walking time. Whenever they say “Er, it’s a pretty far walk,” they almost ALWAYS mean less than 15 minutes. You could hear the show halfway up the block, coming from this little brick two-story house, with a cute porch. The door was unlocked, and there were two kids in the living room watching TV. We could hear the show through the floor, so we made our way to the back of the house and down the stairs to the basement. Brightly lit, rusty pipes, merch table beside the washing machine and dryer, a pretty decent size of 30 or more kids surrounding the lead singer who had just collapsed into the crowd, pulling a stack of equipment cases down with him while feedback washed over us all.
Then it was over. We literally only got to see the last few notes of the last song.
[ Lesson 2 —> Look up directions from the train in advance. We got lucky this time, but I could see it being a problem in other places… ]
[ Lesson 3 —> Don’t be fashionably late. Sure, better late than never, but we fucked this one up. This isn’t New York, and shit actually starts on time most of the time. ]
But it definitely wasn’t NOT worth it. I got a Screaming Females CD, and met this kid Jarett who runs a zine called “Hub City Out Of The Basement” on the current New Brunswick music scene and has a house space called The Parlour. Found out about a couple shows coming up in December that I would’ve never known about otheriwse. Angie, our buddy from Each Other’s Mothers, grabbed some papers to take out to Long Island.
Our crew, which consisted of me, Anna, and Luke was not to be discouraged, so we got some beer from the closest bar (the bars sell six-packs you can take out - it’s slightly more expensive, but easily to find than a store), and then went exploring behind Rutgers, where there’s a river for chilling along, and endless amounts of graffiti. You have to hop some fences, and get a little scratched up, but it’s relatively easy.
We took the 1:25am train home.