Relaunching May 1, 2007, the New York Night Train zine is now principally a New York music resource with extensive local showlists, record reviews, free digital media, news items, etc. The record label, with releases from Kid Congo Powers, Kid Congo and the Pink Monkey Birds, Grand Mal, Viva l’American Death Ray Music, The S-S-S-Spectres, and one on the way from MC Trachiotomy featuring Quintron, is also still chugging along. Finally, New York Night Train still DJ’s, throws parties, and puts together shows.

What’s new? In terms of the listings, there’s not only now an interactive calendar (mouse over the date and get the shows) and a showlist feeding into the right column, but e’ ve expanded the list beyond a weekly scope and added parties and dj events. The rest of the site will cover much of the same material as in the past – with more guest contributions, more regular MP3s and videos, the addition of show reviews, and a number of other content-related matters still in development.

The site’s simpler, chronological format may perhaps warrent the categorization of ‘blog.” But, like a proper site from the days of html and roses, like our old Train, the new one is organized into specific sections to help you find what you’re looking for. This is all a work in progress – so if you have any trouble with navigation or display, feel free to contact. The old material from 2005 or 2006 is still up in our old archives page and some is incorporated into the new.

I would like to thank Marc from the S-S-S-Spectres to whom I am eternally indebted – take my firstborn please…

Enjoy and put it to good use…. And take out an ad.

Thanks,
Jonathan Toubin
Soul Proprietor, New York Night Train

This entire enterprise initially materialized as an effort to focus on underground music history. Issues One and Two featured guitar legend Kid Congo Powers (Gun Club, Cramps, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, etc.) discussing his vast musical journey in mp3 audio and text. Clocking in at around four hours combined, the piece also included mp3s of his music, a close look at his extensive discography of nearly one hundred recordings, photos from his personal collection, and, even a CD that became the genesis of the New York Night Train label.
Satisfied with the first two issues, and, in our age of speed and brevity, still a firm believer in more in-depth first-person historic profiles from our little end of the universe, I nonetheless felt compelled to streamline the behemoth and shift the focus to simpler, more utilitarian concerns as it all wound up much more time consuming than I initially imagined. Plus, surprised by the response when I recommended a show, reviewed a record, linked to a news story, or posted an audio file, I recognized a need for more New York underground resources. This was the birth of a more elegant and functional site that focused more on contemporary music.
In March 2006 New York Night Train organized and promoted its first live bills – record release parties for Kid Congo Powers and Grand Mal at Tonic plus three official and unofficial South by Southwest shows. The success of these events, which included everone from GoGoGo Airheart to Vietnam to Julee Cruise, led to more similar activities. Next, after Ian Svenonius and Calvin Johnson contacted me about putting together a couple of DJ nights in September 2006, the Train also began promoting parties and, after my friends at Motor City approached me about taking over Wednesdays, I began pulling my records out of storage – both promoting and DJ-ing weekly. Thus far the weekly guest DJ’s have included members of the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, TV on the Radio, and a number of others. I also began DJ-ing random public and private parties elsewhere (mostly within a close proximity to either end of the Williamsburg Bridge).

Bogged down with work (freelance journalist, web designer, web producer, etc), DJ-ing, the label, throwing shows and parties, playing music, and other obligations, by early this year I had neither the time nor energy to continue my site (hand-coded and catalogued in pure HTML). So I accepted the assistance of the handsome and, more importantly, technically inclined, bassist from S-S-S-Spectres, Marc, and we began slowly developing a pHp site that would do the work for us….
And that’s what you’re starin’ at…