New York

The Knitting Factory's story is a common one among once-gritty, artistic types: after decades flourishing in lower Manhattan, sustained by cheap rent and the co-mingling of like-minded miscreants, it was priced out by a ruthless housing market, forced across the East River, and, in doing so, became dull. Inside the entrance of the new KF, the simulacrum of its former punk-seediness in the form of infinite posters plastered to the walls are wanting for the musk of stale beer and that familiar sticky-film on all surfaces. The pretense peters out just past the ticket counter. The front room is a condo-developer's definition of a sports bar: flat screen TVs, pseudo-industrial floor-to-ceiling windows looking onto the passing Williamsboogers, and a window behind the bar that looks into the performance space in back. Gazing at the silent bopping in the next room is far more entertaining than the TVs or the patrons, though doing so is more akin to watching a tired reenactment of a bloody-battle--the moves are there, but the spirit and gore are gone. And that sums up the new Knitting Factory. I don't doubt some great bands will go there, I don't doubt I'll have to go back at some point. And I don't doubt I'm the only one who feels this way.

Photo:  Molly Riordan