GroupThink

Seattle’s Fourthcity Collective Pulls Programmers Out Of The Bedroom

(Photo coutesy of Fourthcity)

By Janna Chan for West Coast Performer Magazine

Walking through Seattle’s deserted Pioneer Square, you hear a steady beat and instinctively follow it to Temple Billiards. This incognito home of the Deep Down Lounge, located in the basement of the pool hall, looks more like a Satanic lair than the birthplace of a new electronic music movement—but looks can be deceiving. Welcome to Fourthcity.

The energy is high for a Monday night and for the past year and a half, the Fourthcity electronic and visual arts collective has drawn hundreds of people to this dank and dark basement by providing the unpredictable. Founded in January 2003 by friends Zach Huntting, 28, (a.k.a. Zapan) and Dan Naspinski, 25, (a.k.a. djn), the lounge has been a home base and gallery of sorts for young MCs, turntablists, dancers, musicians and artists to demonstrate their skills. One by one curious club goers descend a steep wooden staircase with incredibly loud instrumental hip-hop accompanying their trip. Once inside, visitors are greeted by plush velvet furniture and a low ceiling held precariously with wooden beams. On a long banquet table in the front of the lounge is a 17-inch screen PowerBook actively being diddled by a young man. Next to him are two turn tables, several TV screens and a projector flashing a random hodgepodge of mixed media. The faint smell of dead rats, instead of being gross, only reinforces the feeling that this is truly an underground movement.

Comprised of roughly 30 volunteer artists, Fourthcity is one of the largest and increasingly successful art collectives in Seattle. Perhaps best known for starting the Laptop battle phenomenon on the West Coast, the collective has moved-on to produce their first compilation CD on their self-titled record label [18 tracks which include IDM, jungle, drum & bass, straight hip-hop, ambient and R&B], and continues to rigorously promote the artists they represent—all on a pro bono basis. “We’ve never been paid,” says Huntting matter-of-factly. “I mean, we’ve been lucky enough to make money from the very beginning, but all of that money goes into a group account. We have a treasurer (Huntting’s wife Eiko Kowada) that keeps track of our profits and prevents us from dipping into it for our own needs.” Along with Huntting, none of the other artists in the collective have ever been paid. Music and artwork, as well as postering and physical labor, is donated to the Fourthcity fund that, in turn, pays for more posters and invests in much needed audio equipment.

Currently, Huntting and Naspinski are the only full-time members of the crew (Naspinski also works a full-time day job as a paralegal) and are responsible for booking tour dates, guest artists, recording and mastering music from their musicians and promoting, promoting, promoting. “We’re incredibly good promoters,” boasts Huntting. “We have consistently been building relationships with relevant people in the scene, and half of my day-to-day life is postering around town and sending and replying to massive amounts of email.” His work is definitely paying off. Around town Fourthcity’s name has become synonymous with hip-hop, but no one ever expected the collective to also garner “indie cred” among the rockers.

“When we started out, we were just a network of artists on a Web space,” says Huntting. “There were dancers, visual artists and all kinds of musicians on the site and these differences really inspired everyone involved. Later, when we officially became Fourthcity it was difficult to exclude people because they were into different things. We were never about that.” The collective’s reputation for openness has garnered a mixed bag of visitors to their Monday night events. Live musicians, who have included hip-hop trio Scape and indie fringe rockers the Infernal Noise Brigade, have played to diverse crowds made up of hippies, computer programmers, hip-hoppers, attorneys and students. With so many genres represented, it would be easy to say that Fourthcity was too unorganized to acquire any future success if it weren’t for one thing—the Laptop Battles.

“I saw my first laptop performance back in 1999,” said Naspinski. “That was considerably early for laptop music, at least for Seattle, and it wasn’t until April 2003 that we sponsored one of our own at the Deep Down Lounge.” Huntting adds, “That one was kind of a free for all. It wasn’t really a battle then but more like a showcase of different talent. We like to say that Bobby Karate won that first show when he blew out our subwoofer. That was basically the end of that battle.” Both of the guys say that they were initially inspired by the laptop cage matches that were happening in Chicago during that time. (According to them, a person would perform and then get dressed in a funny costume and attempt to distract the next performer while getting the crowd to boo or cheer along side them). Fourthcity took this theory and tweaked it by adding more structure and making the battle predominantly about music with focus on the artists.

Currently preparing for their fifth Laptop Battle, the Fourthcity crew is pleased, but not surprised, by the popularity of the events. The last battle drew nearly 600 people to the Chop Suey night club (the two previous battles were sold out) and dozens of amateur musicians were denied a chance to compete. Back in the day, these battles were very open and a good place for newcomers to demonstrate their skills. Today, interested musicians need to submit demos of their music beforehand and only 16 are ultimately allowed to compete. “These shows always bring out the bedroom producers,” says Naspinski. “The laptop is a new way of making music and maybe, in the past, people were too afraid to play their music for other people. The battles have changed all of that because people can easily see that they’re not the only ones pushing buttons and adjusting levers in their bedroom.”

The crew took the battle on the road in April to showcase their talent and promote the Fourthcity name. They received warm welcomes in Vancouver, B.C., Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and were recently invited to Chicago, New York and Puerto Rico to help kick off similar battles. The ultimate obstacle for Fourthcity, like any other artist, is whether or not their art/music will catch on and remain relevant to listeners. The issue was a no-brainer for Huntting and Naspinski. “We take Fourthcity very seriously,” said a steely-eyed Huntting. “We want this to be a career and we want to maintain our artistic integrity—but we have a practical perspective too: We like our music. There are 6.8 billion people in the world and there has to be some people who want to give us money to continue doing what we’re doing.” Well, laptops don’t come cheap.

The next national Laptop Battle Championship is September 24 at Seattle’s Chop Suey. For more information on Fourthcity artists, tour dates and where to send demos, check out www.fourthcity.net.

Posted by MissPicklez at September 1, 2004 08:55 AM