Transitory Tales #1: The Tea Factory

It was two blocks away from my first Bushwick apartment. I would shuffle on out with my backpack on sweaty afternoons in the summer - past the Walgreens, the laundromat, young kids and their siblings swerving on bikes in the streets, the perpetually broken fire hydrant/local cool down stop, the meat kebabs frying on the little red and yellow wheeling carts – and head to the Tea Factory for band rehearsals. It carries, and continues to carry, a name as a historically acclaimed artist loft building, once dubbed “The Primal Loft” by The New York Times due to countless fire hazards and code violations associated with like lofts in the 70s. It was owned by Spice and Tea Exclusively Ltd, so the building name had its intention in claiming a stake in history – an anomaly in Bushwick's ever growing gentrification.

I would buzz the double doors and trudge my way up three flights of cheap industrial stairs and piss yellow walls, my drumsticks rattling in my backpack, watching the wall graffiti wax and wane with each new tag, followed by a management effort to wash it off. Although the building lobby and stairs took on the air of an old manufacturing complex, the cold and sterile lighting was abandoned by the time the hallways were reached. Lined with apartment doors on both sides, it felt like coming in to a cave coaxed by warm light and a dim, humming space. Tar like, matte black paint puddles had hardened and dripped across the artificially shiny wood floors. There was always music playing – Fragile by Yes on KRK studio monitors, a rehearsal carried by a drummer sounding like a colt using its legs for the first time, guitarists playing power chords through a $50 Boss distortion pedal.

A running theme in my life seemed to be that I would abandon hobbies or skills that I felt I wasn't good enough at. As someone with imposter syndrome churning at full throttle in their mind and a Zoloft prescription, this was not an uncommon experience. My relationship with the drums was one of them. Although my first instrument, much of my time in music practice went to vibraphone at the expense of my drum practice time in high school. I started to lose my skill. I watched it fall away and thought it might be for the best. Occasionally I would sit in on a jam session with the ever discerning jazz crowd, after the encouragement of a couple drinks, but I could only laugh my way through my skill's shortcomings. I couldn't take it seriously, not when I knew so many incredible drummers in NYC alone who hadn't had their big break. I did a rock tour when I was 18, and didn't play much again until I played a show on drums with my New School friend at Pine Box Rock Shop and got asked to join a new ambient, dream-indie rock band following the performance. I thought it could be good for me to revive my skill, even if not in a major, outstanding way. And then began the regular Tea Factory trips.

Our rehearsal space was at my friend John's loft, which he shared with two other musically inclined roommates. The space was merely illuminated by string lights and windows from the bedrooms glaring out, and it was covered wall to wall with a plethora of amps, musical instruments - including a silver graduated Deagan vibraphone - broken PA's, horribly mismatched drumstick pairs, and miscellaneous deep purple and charcoal gray fabric tacked in place where sound absorbing felt didn't suffice. It had this dark, scrappy DIY look, and yet it worked. A headless spray painted and appliqued mannequin stood mounted at the center of the room like the space's honorary effigy. The drums appeared on a platform of their own like it was displayed on sale at Guitar Center, and I would wiggle past the amps and scoot behind the ride cymbal just to get to the drum throne.

On the first day, John came from the right side with an open baked sweet potato in hand, barefoot, post-joint smoking. “Yo, what's up,” he greeted me with a nonchalantly raised hand. “Welcome to the spot.” And throughout my time there, despite the smell of sweat after three hours with broken AC, a rather claustrophobic arrangement, and the interruption of roommates returning from bodega trips, it was a place of calm and rest. One thing I learned deeply on my rock tour at 18 is that rock drumming requires an entirely different mindset from jazz and improvised music. It is simpler, more repetitive, less interactive. It became a place to re-root my musical understandings – not everything had to be intellectualized or theorized. That was something I desperately needed to get back in touch with in regards to my music. I could let go – float – on top of ambient guitar loops, indie disco beats, renditions of Moses Sumney and Fleetwood Mac.

Eventually I ran out of time for the band. It was already enough to produce and manufacture my own album and tour while often tuning out of my Lang classes – hanging on enough to get a passing grade and a mediocre grip on reading material. I didn't play the drums again for a while, and I was afraid to. With so many insanely talented drummers on the island of Manhattan alone, it felt like there was no point. I do find myself missing the band, but the attitude that that space manifested – how different it was from the rest of my frequented music spaces. Throughout my life, it operated as my own sort of creative haven for musical talents that had sparked largely in my childhood and adolescence that I later abandoned.

Little did I know, this building would call me back. It proved very serendipitous. Once was to shoot photos for Tom Tom Magazine - my first major magazine publication - and again recently, when my best friend Cara's boyfriend, Ethan, moved in to his new place a door to the right from my old band rehearsal spot. The industrial stairs didn't feel any different. The sterile yellow-white light in the lobby had the same cast. I felt like a Tea Factory alumni of sorts – a student of chaos theory, rediscovering an instrument I had deemed “a lost cause”, the crucial missing puzzle piece in my musicianship at the time. At the end of the back second floor hallway, the left side was the old rehearsal space. The right side was Ethan's.

Despite having visited the building several times, each loft apartment was different. The loft for the first rehearsal space was shrouded in a special kind of darkness, illuminated by those dim lamps and fairy lights strung across the purple and dark gray cloth-tacked walls. The Tom Tom Magazine space was open – no upper floors, no secret rooms behind boards – a kitchen cast in light from large wall-to-wall windows, a hoisted white backdrop anticipating flash photography, a bedroom tucked away somewhere. Ethan's space had the least light in the main room – not a single window. There was a simultaneous dinginess and homeliness. Either that, or I was just smelling the homemade Chinese food Ethan and Cara had been negotiating over stovetop in the corner.

It was 10pm on a Friday, and my California-inclined Prius chrome had just dented from backing in to a stuffy section of snow. I was relieved by the warm hue and powerful radiator that greeted me at their front door. “Hey! Welcome, help yaself to some food!” Cara greets me with our familiar colloquial candor and a hug. I give Ethan a hug of acknowledgement and rap with a musician friend of his who came bearing Hostess powdered donuts and a knockoff AKAI MPC. Lines of coke were being organized on a mirrored glass tray with a spare credit card. I recognize Yussef Dayes on the JBL speaker, remembering that Ethan vaguely resembled him.

“You like Yussef, huh?” I say to Ethan, setting my stuff down on the grey-black couch in front of the teak rectangular coffee table.

He looks up from his carefully distributed five lines of coke and nods. “Yeah, I really dig that he's, like, a jazz musician but not really. You know? It's a genreless creation. It can appeal to all crowds.”

“I hear ya. I respond particularly well to musicians who are doing that right now. I think it's a part of my work, too. Having grown up with rock music and all that.” Serendipity. Yep. It presented itself again before I had a chance to even think about it.

“Hell yeah,” Cara chimes in, recovering from a dance spin and bringing her raised arms down over the front of her body. “You're about to bring that to my session in two weeks.”

“That's right!” I raise my fingers in acknowledgement. “We should probably talk about that now, yeah?”

Cara comes on to her knees, rolled up dollar bill in hand. “Yeah, let's go to the music room. You want a beer first? All we have is IPA. That's all Ethan drinks.” She laughs begrudgingly (her favorite, strangely enough, is Stella), and quickly eliminates a line of coke in her right nostril. She sniffs and scrunches her nose in response. Before I get a chance to respond, she gets up and grabs me a beer from the fridge anyway.

I help myself to a line and we enter one of the new rooms. This is where I understand that this loft in the Tea Factory is on the side of the building, facing outwards with a terrace. This is a part of the Tea Factory I was not familiar with. A massive bay window coaxed in deep red light with brick infrastructure lines the back wall of the room. This is an architectural motif I had seen in Bushwick, but not in the Tea Factory before. It reminded me of a speakeasy with its deeply colored low light standing lamp and faint stench of rolled cigarettes. Something about it was so familiar. It suddenly came to me that it looked like an LA club I had played while on a drum tour when I was 18. I remember using my fake Pennsylvania state ID to get in to those clubs, my heart pounding as the venue owner scanned the card for any inconsistencies. Evidently, she had overlooked the fact that the ID said I was 5'6. (I am an obvious 5'3).

“You mind if I smoke in here?” Cara says, propping herself up on the window ledge adjacent to the bay window and sliding the window up. NYC's 23 degree winter weather creeped in.

“Nah, you're good.” I sat down with my IPA and swallowed a salty coke drip that had made its way to my throat.

“Dude, I'm nervous about this recording.” Cara flicked her cigarette, the ash falling out the window. She was referring to her first professional recording of one of her original songs, which I had offered to play drums on. “Like, how do you do this shit?”

I shrugged. “Maybe it's cause I'm used to it at this point. But you just kind of do it. The anticipation is always way worse than it needs to be. You trust the process.” I paused for a moment of further introspection. “I think when you deal with insecurity and poor self worth for so long, your only solution to conquering fear is to run towards it. I had a teacher who once said that to me in high school, and I've always kind of kept it in my head. It's worked ever since.”

“Yeah, yeah. You're right.” Cara pushed the cigarette butt into the iron of fire escape and dropped it off the window ledge. “I don't know what I'm getting all worked up for.”

We share a laugh. “It is scary!! I know. I know. Trust me. But you'll be fine.”

Cara rallies Ethan and his friend to finally commence in the red light room. It's already 12:30 am. I'm on my way to squeeze myself behind the drumset, a familiar action making its way back, when Ethan mentions a bass player next door who usually comes over to play.

“Which bass player?” I ask, immediately thinking of John's scruffy mustache and pot singed smile. I remember the sweet potato. But it couldn't be – he told me he was planning on moving out. That was over a year ago.

“Ah, a buddy of ours, John? He's just right next door.”

“Wait, are you serious? He still lives here?” And it was genuine disbelief – up until I remembered a girl with creamsicle colored hair. His girlfriend. They were still together, and she lives near here. I had seen them once sitting on the stairs as I was walking home from the Knickerbocker M train.

In 15 minutes, John knocks at the door, bare Stratocaster bass in hand, baked into oblivion. “Yo!!” He exclaims, offering me a huge hug. A pang of regret hits me – it is COVID times, after all – but it had been so long that the pang only followed the emotion of recognition. Hugging him was familiar, like a giant teddy bear, and all the memories came flooding back. A semblance of the original Tea Factory crew would be together for one last hit.

And so we did, in the red light room, surrounded by brick and mortar, Boss distortion pedals, rolled cigarettes, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Red Hot Chili Peppers – anecdotes of my childhood, wrapping around full circle, as they always had at the Tea Factory.

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Based on true events. Names and certain specific details have been changed to ensure privacy.