90 King St. provides inclusive space for artists

Date: 12/26/2023

NORTHAMPTON — After throwing and playing basement music shows in his Hadley house for over a half a decade, Kasey Greene wanted to find a more “solid” space for artists to share their work.

“We still throw shows sometimes at the house, but I’m 34 now, so I feel like I’ve aged out of the house,” said Greene, who spent a lot of his life living in Western Mass.

At one point in time, Greene said there were many show houses, especially because of the whole debacle involving Eric Suher’s venues. But as life goes on, people grow older and move away, which means show basements come and go as the music scene continues to evolve.

“Since coming out of the pandemic, there’s been some smaller college houses I’ve noticed that have popped up, but they kind of go away just as quickly as they opened,” said Greene, who recently moved to New York from Hadley.

Although there are still some show houses scattered across Hampshire County, Greene and two of his musician friends, Elliot Hartmann-Russell and Cooper B. Handy, recently decided to keep the art scene spirit alive by opening an intimate venue on 90 King St. in Northampton called “Everything Must Go.”

The spot, which opened this past May, is a multi-faceted community space. Outside of being a gallery space, it also spearheading live shows, hosts community events, and functions as a shop that has clothes, vinyls and tapes from local artists — many of which have played at the 90 King St. venue.

“For me, this place is a way to take it to the next level, where we can have an inclusive space for everybody,” Greene said. “It’s a way to be a touch more professional, and because of that, you can invite more types of artists in your space. It’s just a way to be more solid.”

Since opening, the venue has hosted live shows for in-town and out-of-town musicians who want a spot to play, according to Greene.

The acts who have performed at 90 King St. since the venue opened range from a variety of genres. So far, Amherst musician, songwriter, poet and comedian Mal Devisa, two-piece Western Massachusetts punk band Film & Gender and Brooklyn, New York band Tetchy are among the many who have played at 90 King St.

During the weekend Reminder Publishing talked to Greene, the venue hosted a punk show one night and an electronic show another.

“People want a place to play, and if the venue looks good, people will hit you up, and be like, ‘hey, I see what you got going on there, it looks like a really good thing,’” Greene said.

According to Greene, some shows have low turnout while others have a bigger crowd, but it all depends on what the performers and fans make of the venue.

“I think right now, the main thing is communicating to people that the shows are only as good as you make them,” Greene said. “This isn’t just a space you can come to hang out late. It’s a show space, a venue space.”

The shows spearheaded at the venue typically cost $10 to $15 to get in, and according to Greene, 25% of the earnings go to the shop while the rest of the money goes to the artists who played that night.

With that in mind, running this space is mostly a labor of love for Greene, since the majority of what they do is volunteer work at the moment. The goal right now is to keep the shop and venue running while making sure all of the artists are paid for their performances.

“We’re kind of like an unofficial nonprofit, where we’re not actually profiting, but the space gets to exist for community purposes,” Greene said. “That’s the kind of energy we’re trying to bring in is people who don’t necessarily need to be paid, but they can help this place prosper. And once we get it running and have multiple supports, then we can start talking about people actually hiring employees at the shop.”

Other events

Outside of it being a venue for live shows and a shop for clothes and other items, 90 King St. is also a place that hosts other events, some of which cost money while others are free.

Greene said they have a monthly Northampton-based reading series called “Rouge Readings” as well as a “Noho Film Society,” the latter of which is run by Greene’s housemate.

Eventually, Greene said he wants to have a monthly movement night, which would involve a free dance where people “can just move around.”

One of the aspects of the space that Greene is most proud of, though, is their display of local artists, which manifests through zines, books, their art gallery and a section for vinyls, tapes and CDs from local musicians who want to get their work out.

The shop also has a listening station where people who visit can play a tape from a local artist and see if they like the music.

In having these vinyls, CDs and tapes, as well as the listening station, Greene feels like he is filling a large void felt in the record store community.

“I think the issue of other record stores, especially ones that have a lot going on, it’s kind of like, you can never find the local bands; you can’t find the music that’s contemporary or the bands that are just blowing up,” Greene said. “We’re kind of like an unofficial label for Western Mass in a way. You can drop your music off here and sell it.”

The multi-faceted nature of the space has spawned a lot of interest from people of all ages and all walks of life, including the LGBTQ+ community.

“I think the ethos of this venue is closer to the LGBTQ+ community ethos, so people dig it, which I’m really happy about because I want this to be an inclusive space; that’s the point,” Greene said. “I also want this space to bring people together of all different ages too. That’s really important.”

The space so far has served anyone from a younger college crowd to people who are in their 50s and 60s. According to Greene, who said the latter demographic usually comes to shows because this is the type of space they remember going to when they were in their 20s or 30s.

“I think the area really needs a cool community space that’s an event space, but you can also buy things and in some cases, you can actually get your art into it,” Greene said.

The future

Because the location has only been open for six months, Greene said they are still working out the kinks. They are re-signing their lease in January, so hopefully after that, they will develop a mission statement and form a board of directors of sorts to help them run things even more efficiently, because a lot of what they are doing now requires more people to help.

“We’ve kind of been doing everything at half speed right now, but it’s a nice engine,” said Greene, who added that they hope to bring in event organizers as well as a couple more consignors to hopefully help them run the shop itself.

It is also worth noting that Greene, Hartmann-Russell and Handy all have their own musical endeavors that they tend too. Greene is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who plays with his psych rock band Carinae and the piano-driven, melodic rock n’ roll band Ruby Lou.

Hartmann-Russell was recently on tour for his own project and also runs a label called Requested Records, which is based out of Turners Falls.

Handy is currently blowing up right now as an experimental singer-songwriter under his moniker Lucy. He just did a sold-out stadium tour opening for King Krule and also plays in a band with Greene’s housemate called The Taxidermists.

Needless to say, the three musicians are also busy with their own lives, which is why finding more event organizers to get involved with the shop is important.

“I’m always playing shows, booking shows, so it’s like it gets tough,” Greene said. “You want to be able to be here all the time, but you also have to go out and do your own thing. So that’s a goal for us next year — get more people involved and strike a balance.”

In the meantime, Greene is happy to have a space that expands on what he was doing in that Hadley house. Even though he has moved to New York, the spirit of the scene lives on.

“It feels better opening this space,” Greene said. “I felt like I could move away for the first time, because moving away wouldn’t mean what I built would end.”

Readers can learn more about the space by visiting their Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/90kingst/.