There’s Something Going On: An Intro to NYC’s Indie Scene and the Darlings Who Run It
Some of them knew each other since high school, others came to New York in search of a change of scenery. A city that has arguably the richest history of arts and countless legendary music scenes, from the Lower East Side to Bushwick, Brooklyn, this is a place where things happen.
But that’s not the surprise here. It's not every day you hear the phrases “alternative pop" and "underground and DIY" get brought up together. To be fair, the young artists in this crowd are much more than those pale phrases. They bend genres as if the walls never existed, with references across eras and regions, all through musical talents and expertise that are unmatched by groundbreakers anywhere else. They write stories of their own happening here right in the heart of the Big Apple, sounds that resonate far and loud with people exploring the pain and joy of their twenties.
It’s a sultry evening in Williamsburg. In this anticipating crowd mixed with attendees and artists on the bill, there’s the “Acclaimed Singer-Songwriter/Producer,” “Brooklyn’s Own Olivia Rodrigo” and the “Industry Outlaw.” You start to question how you can even fit all these characters into the same room, but if the room turns out to be Baby’s All Right, it becomes a lot less crazy.
The disc junkie aesthetic reminiscent of pixie dreams makes this gem of Brooklyn one of a kind. On the night of his album release party, Richie Quake packs the house out. In a city that moves at a speed that is almost inhuman, to attract a crowd before the first set takes wonders.
Quake’s stage presence goes beyond the effortless coolness and calculated frenzy that define his music. He performs like a rockstar — he knows how to angle his guitar to fit a picture-perfect snapshot, he coordinates at just the right moments with his bandmates, who, along with Richie Quake, constantly gesture inside jokes with their friends who stand up front and center in the crowd.
Quake knows how to control a crowd exceptionally well, as do his friends. The opening act of the night, Beau, a French-esque alt-rock outcast group, flirts with the crowd with their infatuating guitar riffs and captivative showmanship. While the girls of Beau, Heather and Emma, have been friends with Quake since their high school years, Frank Corr, Quake’s bassist who is also known for his own project Morning Silk, met Quake soon after his move to New York City. He spends the night ripping bass and occasionally flipping off — lovingly, of course — his friend and collaborator Andrew Selkōw, better known as the face of Middle Part. Alongside these confident performers on stage are many more artists with their own solo projects, many of them also dabbling in producing, fine arts, and modeling, just to name a few.
But if there has to be one brightest starlette amongst this stellar cast of artists, that would be Anna Shoemaker. Still, it’s hard to determine whether the abundant cheer during Quake and Shoemaker’s performance of their track, “Crawl,” is solely for the excellence of the track, or rather the simple appearance of the two friends. Right after Quake makes a heartfelt monologue to the crowd about the song “Like Smoke” from his latest album, I Want Some!, Corr happily walks out to the crowd and links arms with one of the producers of this album — none other than Middle Part/Selkōw — as the two of them scream the words back to Quake, as the rockstar on stage gently performs an acoustic version of the track to close out the night.
Quake’s latest album, I Want Some!, sets out to replicate a day-in-the-life, the colossal events that repeat and rewind. While there’s no bleakness attached, the sound of the project provides no glamourization — no main character soundtrack type beat, that’s for sure.
“You have to go inward to go outward,” Quake elaborates on his intent behind the sound. “I wrote this album because I feel like people don’t pay enough attention to their lives. They are always being distracted, always looking for an escape. We’re convinced by our culture, our society, and media to ignore the subtleties and the niches of our daily lives — we need to be paying more attention to the small moments.”
He adds, “I’m really just trying to convince myself, you know what I mean? At the end of the day, I’m trying to get [myself] to understand that.”
He’s a believer in the school of thought of “Write drunk, edit sober.” A vessel for his music, Quake does a great job at making every element of his songs cohesive and in sync, but not just musically or emotionally — these go hand in hand. During our Zoom conversation, he mentions the use of distortions as a way to represent a “powerful, visceral experience” through a more aggressive sound that attempts to replicate live music. It certainly makes experiencing those distortions live another level of exhilarating thrills, as feelings layer over each other and collide.
But even the blurriness in the visual elements of his music has meanings. “Something about wanting to be in motion,” Quake begins thoughtfully. “I think my music always feels like I’m going somewhere — I think it’s because I like to consume music while I’m moving. I love lying down and listening to music, but my favorite time to listen to music is in the car, when I’m walking, or I’m on the train going somewhere… Because you’re going somewhere in your mind. You’re physically going somewhere and you can take things in, and your mind gets a little lost in the music. I just want to get that kind of feeling of being in motion and moving through time and space.”
He goes candid for choosing music as his poison of choice, adding, “It’s like, if I could say it, I would say it, but I can’t. If I could say it perfectly with English words, then I wouldn’t need music. And music is just that thing for most people. Whether it’s music, movies, or any kind of art, [people] use it to fill whatever void it is that you can’t physically speak and express. I can’t really take credit for being a mastermind of the lyrics or how the music sounds. I try to be as passive as I can. Obviously, I have the intentions and I have ideas that I want to satisfy but ultimately my goal is to allow myself to be as open as I can.”
It’s hard to put Quake’s musical style in words. The most accurate descriptor might be “reminiscent.” His songs make perfect soundtracks to not-so-mellow melodrama, but be aware, as these soundtracks might take over the narrative entirely because they are just so addictive. A perfect balance of indie pop and punk rock, he reminds you of Radiohead but sounds folksy from time to time.
If you try your hardest to pin down the musical influence in Quake’s music, it certainly is possible. But really, it’s the feelings present in the veins of his music and lyricism that make you think of all the greats who came before.
In fact, it seems to be a specialty for his crowd. “As a songwriter, it’s just so nice to be able to talk about things and just let it go,” says Anna Shoemaker. “You don’t really have to answer anything.” Shoemaker was coined “Brooklyn’s Own Olivia Rodrigo” prior to the release of her debut LP. While she herself might not necessarily agree with the sentiment, the blatant honesty of her lyricism and the vibrant liveliness of her songwriting certainly makes her more than qualified for her own breakout moment soon.
Maybe that’s why “Mariah” feels like a pure outburst of, well, feelings. Not only is “Mariah” a sonically exceptional track from her debut, Shoemaker has a special place for it too. “It was hard for me to put it out because it was really a vulnerable side when I was — maybe I still am — angry,” she shares. “It’s just a weird thing to put your emotions out like that. It was kind of a breathe-out moment because, who cares? That’s just how I feel. It doesn’t matter people resonate with it or not. That’s my experience.”
And people did resonate with it, like… a lot. What Shoemaker calls an “angry bitch song” got reintroduced to the public with its own TikTok moment. “It was really crazy,” Shoemaker describes with a smile and her cat on her lap. “I definitely didn’t expect that, but it was really cool. So many people have been reaching out about this song, and I think it’s such a cool song for people to relate to because it’s definitely an ‘angry bitch song.’ And I was always afraid to be angry as a woman. I just think it’s okay to be angry and to experience that.”
“I’m Your Guy,” her most recent ballad, written and produced alongside Quake, is a solemnly beautiful song challenging the traditional, heavily-gendered protector role. In a sense, it’s an idea she has reiterated quite a few times. The way Shoemaker sings about femininity is a different kind of gentle, and is beautifully accurate.
“It sounds so corny but it’s just this idea that love is transcendent of anything,” Shoemaker explains on the idea that inspired “I’m Your Guy.” “If you want to protect someone, you just want to protect someone; you want to be there for someone. It doesn’t really have anything to do with the roles in a relationship. I’ve been with controlling people who want to protect you for the wrong reasons, and I just think there’s nothing more romantic than wanting to be there for someone for the right reasons, just because you really care about them.”
Shoemaker is the nicest cool girl who is not afraid to admit her feelings. With the help of her friends in the scene, she has translated those feelings into love-fused melodies featuring a lot of electric guitar. It’s hard to envision that she once wrote mostly on her own, as her community here in NYC has become a prominent part of her music over the years.
“I never could talk to anyone about music or writing,” she says regarding her pre–New York writing years. “I almost felt kind of embarrassed, but driven because it was my own thing that I was doing. The second I moved to New York, this whole other world opened up to me. I was like, ‘Oh, you can work with other people.’”
Shoemaker recalls when she first started doing sessions with her friends present in the studio, explaining, “At first, it was hard for me because I grew up writing really privately, kind of like diary type stuff. But I think the more confident you become of yourself, the more I’d really appreciate working with someone like Richie who can be like, ‘Oh I think you can do better than that.’ Because he knows I have a better line. It’s hard to be vulnerable in any kind of relationship so I think that’s why I’ve become so close with a lot of the people that I work with, because it’s such a close thing. I would say Richie is probably one of my best friends.”
Just like Shoemaker, Andrew Selkōw was also a NYC transplant — in fact, he’s been to quite a few places. In the past year, he’s split his time between Middle Tennessee and Brooklyn, working on the next Middle Part project, Time Is Elastic, alongside with his co-producer, Brian Zaremba. When asked about some pros and cons to living in New York, Selkōw is quick to mention his community.
“As opposed to LA, this isn’t the sparkly package that people are presenting,” Selkōw says. “It’s kids getting up on stage with ripped up T-shirts and saying, ‘Fuck it, I like art and I’m gonna come and play it for you. I don’t care what you think.’ And there’s a lot of acceptance in this community. There’s this competitive nature here that me and Brian both don’t like, but I think it’s just a matter of finding balance.”
One of the pair’s latest singles, “Harley,” narrates a tale of burnout that is all too familiar to young indie artists alike. But knowing Selkōw’s nomadic past, it adds weight to how NYC can especially be harmful for creativity at times.
“That song [is] about the tortured artist who wants to move across the country, written at the height of my burnout, [and] afterward we took a break and went to record in Tennessee,” he recalls. “It’s like, you feel so affected by the things that are happening around you and how fast they are happening, you just want to pack up and move across the country, get a rocking chair, get a wife and a kid, and live in the middle of nowhere. But it wouldn’t satisfy you. That’s the thing about New York. It moves so fast that you get burned out so easily. But you’re not going to quit —that’s what that song is about.”
He adds, “It’s like, ‘Hey, this sucks ass sometimes, but if I didn’t have art, I would die.’”
While both Zaremba and Selkōw give mentions to Y2K and the ’90s when describing their sound for Middle Part, the glittery, ’80s-esque synth and disco-inspired melodies are definitely some of the most memorable elements to their music. The musical palette might not be Barbie pink, but it feels bubblegum pink at the very least. Creating the sharp contrast, though, Middle Part’s lyrics often touch on subject matters such as breakups, mental health, and a disarray of self-sabotage. There’s something very mesmerizing to Selkōw’s vocal that adds to the cognitive dissonance: he’s really singing about some sad shit right now, but why do I feel better after listening to this?
“Funny you say that,” Selkōw begins, addressing the antithesis between the Middle Part sound and their lyricism. “It’s always this either upbeat or really digestible song but then there’s this looming existential dread that’s always cutting through the track. I think it’s unconventional and relates to a gray area of listeners [who] love catchy music but are fucking sad, and they don’t want to hear pop songs all the time. So we wanted to combine the worlds.”
And combine the worlds they did. When the two halves of Middle Part first gathered for the project right before the first quarantine in 2020, people were reverting back to music they listened to in their teens and childhood. Bedroom pop as a genre soared while music listening time drastically decreased simultaneously. Keeping this pragmatic data in mind, the two masterminds went to work, studying different eras and misses from their own childhoods.
“We were listening to everything that was coming out: a lot of Soccer Mommy, Clairo, and stuff like that,” Selkōw recalls. “Brian actually showed me a lot of ’90s music that I missed. I slept on My Bloody Valentine. One of my favorite The Smashing Pumpkins records was Adore and Brian showed that to me. And The Dandy Warhols. All these slow dives that I missed. It’s like, holy shit, how did I miss this? When I was a kid, I got the pop side of things, and I got NSYNC and Backstreet Boys, and I like the mainstream version of the ’90s. Brian was into these deep cuts, so I became pretty obsessed with it.”
Many of the breakbeat, boom bap drum samples, and acoustic guitar that defined the ’90s will soon make some guest appearances on the upcoming Time Is Elastic. But Selkōw’s musical study didn’t stop there. “Before we started the band, I was very observant,” he says, when asked why he seems to be friends with everyone and anyone, from everywhere and anywhere. “I listened to everything I got my hands on. I think initially it was like, ‘How do I stand out from what’s going on?’ And I collected a bunch of friends on the way.”
His friends call him “Andy,” and Selkōw certainly went the extra mile to make friends with everyone he found cool before diving headfirst into this music thing. In retrospect, Middle Part feels like a product of the communities Selkōw has gathered for himself. Throughout the interview, he brought up artists from DBA James to Yot Club, assigning credits for past encouragements to each and every one of his friends. But one thing is clear: while this project is certainly community-raised, Selkōw has become part of the beating heart of this scene and one of the most important masterminds behind everyone’s glittery production and brilliant songwriting.
“I went in and worked on the Anna Shoemaker record for like three months,” Selkōw retraces his recent experience producing for his friends. “That was kind of the first time I took on a project. She called me and she was like, ‘I love your music and I love being a friend. I want you to do my record.’ I was skeptical at first, like, I knew it would be hard and I didn’t know if I had it in me. But I think we did about six tracks on that record. We started with ‘It’s Depression,’ [and] from there it was kind of me getting my bearings on how to produce for other people. Anna is such a quick writer, it’s pretty easy — she gets a song done in about a day — so I was just sitting on guitar and bass and keys and synths, just really trying to dial in her sound.”
He adds, “She wanted it to be reminiscent of Middle Part. Like specifically she said, ‘Can you Middle Part-ify this for me?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I got you.’”
Shoemaker’s record wasn’t the only one that got Middle Part-ified. “From there, I worked on three songs on the Richie Quake record that just came out,” Selkōw says, going through his time working on part of Quake’s latest project. “I did ‘Cherry Red,’ ‘Rollin Around,’ and ‘Won’t Think Twice.’ It was fun. That was two months of sessions. I was in there multiple times a week. Me and Richie sat down and had a meeting. He was like, ‘I love these demos that you have from this Time Is Elastic record’ and I was like, ‘Bro, this is cake, let’s do it.’ He wanted to have a more aggressive, raucous sound. And I was like, ‘I’ll pull up, I got you.’”
If you listen closely — and honestly, you don’t even have to listen that closely — “Won’t Think Twice” certainly sounds a lot like one of Middle Part’s singles. The two parties separately acknowledged that during writing sessions, and eventually, Selkōw brought it up.
“I’ve verbatim ripped off my own melody from the song called ‘Friends,’” Selkōw explains. “I was singing it a little bit and I was like, ‘Oh fuck,’ but Richie was like, ‘I like that.’”
He laughs a little and continues, “We didn’t say anything to each other. I was hoping he would forget about it but he ran with it. I was like, ‘You know what that is right?’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, no, I don’t want to say anything.’”
After having traveled and lived in places from Tennessee to Alaska, Selkōw has become hyper aware of his surroundings. It only makes sense that he’s the one to point out there’s something going on with this New York scene.
“Some of the greatest eras of music for the last two or three generations was rooted in New York, and I think there’s definitely a magic about this city,” he says excitedly. “When we first moved here, it didn’t seem like there was really much going on, except for the DIY thing. And to see all of us working on each other’s music, and now there’s this very consistent sound is pretty neat.”
In terms of how this scene first started, Quake reflects and narrows it down to two main explanations: the preference of New York over Los Angeles, as well as the need for a non-factory style for pop structure songwriting.
“There is a space in the underground for punk, hip-hop, hardcore, but then if you want to use pop structures, you go in the mainstream, [where] you have to use the formulaic, machine, factory-style music that you get when you listen to the radio,” Quake explains. “And I think we are just lucky to have found each other who have the same belief that, I like pop structure, I like making something that’s a verse and a chorus, I like having something that’s catchy, I like something where the lyrics and music are interesting.”
He continues on the topic of his community and their specialty in genuine songwriting through indie pop/rock, explaining, “All these collaborators that I’m working with, we all share a belief that we want to make music that’s good. We want to make music that’s interesting. We don’t want to be part of the machine.”
Towards the end of the interview, as we discuss the shift in mainstream music taste in the last few decades, the Music School Grad, New York native has plenty to say. “Let’s say the’ 60s. The things they had before that was classical and jazz,” Quake begins. “There were of course the people in the ’40s and ’50s. You had your Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin type, and Ella Fitzgernald… But that was jazz. The melodies our grandparents could sing off the top of their heads were so much more complex than what we have now. They change key, they change tempo, modulations coming from different time signatures, back and forth, because that’s just how it was, you know what I mean?”
And it was then that it all became clear. While this crowd of young musicians in NYC are in the eye of a brewing storm, this storm has come and gone many times before. It was here in the ’60s when Greenwich Village was forever changed by its folk scene; prior to that there was the jazz age that preceded the birth of pop music. Quake, Shoemaker, Middle Part and all of their friends never focus on genres, formula for popularity, or what comes next — they all knew it by heart. They are the mad scientists who got obsessed over perfecting their sounds and will not stop till god knows what they’re searching for magically turns up one day. They’ve exploited the range of musical genres to paint the full palette of emotions, to craft soundtracks that would capture moments and motions, and most importantly, to make music that moves heartstrings you’ve forgotten you had.
Connect with Richie Quake
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Connect with Anna Shoemaker
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Connect with Middle Part
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