Dear beautiful musicians and lovers of adventurous, renegade music, and all the friends who came to Tonic the day after it was closed 4/14/07 for the protest and action:

It was an honor to be with you all, keeping the music going as long as we could, at Tonic today. I need to be clear: for me personally, this is not just about Tonic, whether you gigged there or whether you even went to this particular space. This is not just about the loss of one more music space, though that has spurred this group of musicians and artists to action; it is about all the theaters, galleries, performances spaces and community centers we have lost already, and will continue to lose.

Before Tonic closed, we had already lost six small experimental theaters and countless galleries below Houston Street... not to mention small mom and pop businesses. This action came about because the musicians in this particular, longtime, LES community (that goes back 20 years, 9 of which found haven at Tonic - and that I feel very much a part of having a 22+ year history here) felt they needed to sound a rallying cry about a cultural emergency that New York has been facing for some time now, that has reached a critical point.

As someone who grew up in NYC's avant-garde art scene, via my parents and their documentarian/historian work and their absolute devotion to experimental art of all kinds, I have felt that too many alternative art spaces have closed at this point, and they have closed too quietly, too complacently. It is time ALL small creative and community spaces came together to declare their collective power, and their value, to this city. New Yorkers simply cannot let real estate developers dictate the entire cultural landscape and fate of this special, historic place. We cannot let landlords tell us what music we will get to hear in our neighborhoods, what art (if any) will be placed in galleries down the block - - but that is exactly what is happening. This is not culture formed by "popular opinion" or by true market value: This is about developers running everything and everyone that is not wealthy out of this town.

(Click on read more below to continue reading Rebecca's letter)

Alternative art spaces like Tonic attract audiences from all over the world. But the fact of the matter is, we could fill our spaces every single night of the week with rapt audiences - as we have done, as Tonic has often done - - and still not be able to pay these outrageous, insane rents. In communities like the Lower East Side and Harlem - - places completely unique to New York City --- the original characters and voices that differentiate these neighborhoods will be completely lost in this atmosphere.

I sat in awe today as I listened to the music of Marc Ribot, Doug Wieselman, Jim Pugliese and Nora Balaban, Dan Kaufman and Pamelia Kurstin, Matthew Shipp, Steve Wishnia and Eric Blitz, Ned Rothenberg, Roy Nathanson, Ras Moshe, Marco Cappelli, Sue Garner and Rick Brown -- and so many others... Poet Steve Dalachinsky recited his poetry as Patricia Parker danced... Butch Morris doing a conduction.... Gina Leisham's spirited song... the list goes on and on of brilliant people (forgive me now as my brain is so fried at this moment - but a full list will be compiled and posted here).... it is this community that I feel so much a part of, that has contributed constantly to the LES, that I would indeed go to jail for! These artists and all those that I have experienced here in NYC are what keeps me inspired, motivated, alive. These musical voices are the voices of the non-mainstream, of the people, magnified and projected, telling us that we are not corporate replicas - we are unique.

Artists previously raised over 100,000 dollars to keep this space running - that is how much they cared about keeping this venue (which wasn't a not-for-profit) here on the LES. That is an amount (adding in all the escalating rent the tonic owners struggled to pay over the years) that in most other societies would have bought the artists that building! Moving to Brooklyn or Queens is not an answer to this problem, as rents in those areas continue to escalate as well. The bottom line is, despite all this effort to keep Tonic going and the venue's world-wide reputation, the rent was just too exorbitant.

Please continue to come together to demand that this music, this art, these artists, this community - BE KEPT in New York City, and in this particular case, on the Lower East Side; that the city recognize its value as the rest of the world does... and that we simply be allowed to have spaces that we can afford.

Although I feel this has been kind of traumatic and surreal, it was an honor to be there with you all even if I was led away in handcuffs with Marc Ribot to support this cause... the steering committee who worked on this are my heroes (norman, patricia, barbara, marco, ned, marc) and thank you local 802 (joe, harvey and marisa), thank you to all the volunteers (Lisa, James, Ha-Yang and more) and musicians and music lovers and friends and all who supported this action, here and around the world. To my peer and friend Marc Ribot I say: it was an honor sitting in a holding cell a few feet from such an inspiring musician and thinker.

Love - viva la musica -
REBECCA