Uncivilsation Festival 2026
Uncivilisation Festival III
Record Shop
360 Van Brunt Street; Red Hook, Brooklyn 11231
Friday, 9 Jan 2026; 6-10pm
$10 suggested donation
Red Hook keeps its secrets well. The neighborhood is home to Brooklyn's largest public-housing complex, a Tesla dealership, the only ikea in the five boroughs, and modern brutalist condos alongside weathered cottages, remnants of the nineteenth-century maritime trade. It's not easy to get there, which gives the neighborhood a tight-knit, provincial feel. Bene Coopersmith opened Record Shop in 2015. The Google-hostile name makes it a hard place to find, but Coopersmith has attracted a crowd drawn to great music and even better ambience. Old-timers from the neighborhood sit around reading or gossiping, clapping along to whatever music is playing on the system, often at volumes so loud that Coopersmith and his guys have to shout to each other while pricing records. There are two pianos; salvaged art about Robert F. Kennedy; a small, eclectic collection of books curated by Coopersmith's wife, the writer Sousan Hammad. On some nights, the records are pushed out of the way for raucous improv jazz or noise shows. A set of speakers is always angled toward the street, an invitation to come join the party. In the middle of it all is the playfully gruff Coopersmith, greeting customers with hugs and handshakes, maybe an invitation for some leftover birthday cake. Suddenly, the name makes sense. It's just a record shop but it's the people Coopersmith collects who turn it into a refuge, a community center, a collective dream state, a makeshift town square. A condo went up next door, but the skylight still gets a lot of sun. No matter what, it's always bright inside. Hua HsuBen Stapp Solo Tuba
Rick Rosato Solo Bass
Thomas Morgan Solo Bass
Ben Monder Solo Guitar
Uncivilized & Friends House Band / Froggies Single Release (artwork by Cécile McLorin Salvant)
Tapestries by Johannes Vanderbeek
RESOURCES
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncivilization_(manifesto)
https://dark-mountain.net/about/gathering-places/uncivilisation/
http://www.ecoshock.org/2009/12/uncivilized.html
https://www.brooklynvegan.com/stream-nyc-jazz-group-uncivilizeds-new-album-garden-ft-jaimie-branch/
The original Uncivlisation Festival, located near Wales in 2010, was all about place. Based loosely around "Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto", a zine-book published in 2009, the festival took place annually until 2013, each time featuring music, food, and talks which contemplated the role of civilization post–Climate Change. But it was more than that: A statement about a lot of things, and about nothing specific. A community that gathered around art and placemaking as a means to cope with the blowbacks of industrial society. A happening that embraced chaos and the unknown; a rewilded odyssey into our inner campfire desires.
The musical project Uncivilized, formed circa 2012 in New York City, was conceived while reading the manifesto in a hidden Google Chrome tab at my office job. Feeling disillusioned writing recycling reports at the office, and with the music industry in general, the term Uncivilized—capital U—really stuck, and captured the goal of the project: to find a community which simultaneously embraced the freedom of improvisation, and the mystery of song—towards some sort of post-postmodern sonic environmentalism.
This all sounds high falutin. It sounds contrarian. It's probably both, but the concept has grown and expanded over the course of nearly a decade to include a resumé of performances, residencies, and recordings that are uniquely vaporous and inviting, despite their outright experimentation.
CONTACT
uncivilizedtom (at) gmail (dot) com