A Guide to Party Expo, Brooklyn’s Newest Wu-Tang-Approved DIY Venue

Brooklyn Vegan brings word of a new Brooklyn venue, Party Expo, which is seemingly going public with a Japanther show this Wednesday–$5, limited to 75 tickets, no alcohol, either for sale or BYOB. So what is this place, exactly? Well. Their first show was back in January, also featured Japanther–along with SXSW upchuckers the Death Set, Cerebral Ballzy, and others–and was a benefit for the space. It was most assuredly BYOB:

The space is called Party Expo for the obvious reason that there really used be an honest to goodness party supply store there. The space is run by Ed Zipco, from the now-departed Chief Magazine, and some of the same people–including Stephanie Monfort, Matt Jones, Jonny Aquadora, and Luke Spieldenner–who booked Bodega, the 1089 Broadway venue that had a nice run until the floor caved in and they shut the place down. The goal this time around seems to be to make the new venue legit. “Thanks again to everyone who came out,” the organizers wrote on the Superchief website after the January Japanther benefit, “we made a lot of money for renovations to make the place legal for more shows soon!” Wednesday’s show seems to be the first really public experiment since then, though Shai Hulud is just to latest of a bunch of punk bands to play there in the last couple months. Party Expo also hosted a bunch of shows during last week’s Bushwick DIY Festival. If they’re serious about not getting shut down, they might want to think about scrubbing their website of all the drinking and smoking photos they’re currently hosting. Just ask Lit Lounge what happens when you don’t.

Wednesday’s Japanther show is explicitly a dry show, which is sensible, because the venue has a bunch more coming up–11 in April alone, including YIMBY-recommended Brooklyn sludge dudes Batillus and a reggae show with Roast Beef Curtains (?!) on 4/20. Right now, Party Expo’s booking ethos seems to have a lot in common with ABC No Rio’s Saturday hardcore matinee: fiercely independent, often completely obscure, and pretty consistently punk-oriented. Of course, like ABC, they’re using the venue for other purposes too. Like shooting Wu-Tang videos!

Raekwon can definitely remember the name “Party Expo”–“Superchief Magazine,” not so much. Wu-Tang are the first of what Party Expo presumably hopes are many commercial clients for what are supposedly “5 STORIES OF RAW VIDEO/PHOTO PRODUCTION SPACE.” That’s pretty impressive if these dudes have all that. They’re also offering up some of the upper floors as rehearsal spaces.

So far, very promising. Let’s nobody get this place shut down, alright?!