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nostalgia
January 9, 2015

Revisit Fischerspooner’s Sweat-Drenched Downtown Glory Days

By Nana Asfour

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Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner

How telling is it that the essays in the newly released book on Fischerspooner — the musical duo who helped to launch the electroclash phenomenon and became an emblem of late-’90s, downtown New York — are all written by leading art-world figures? Very. Not only were founding members Warren Fischer and Casey Spooner art-school graduates, but the band played at some of the hippest galleries in town, and their audience was just as likely to be composed of fashion hounds as it was of hard-nosed artists.

With outlandish costumes (often featuring face and body paint, crazy wigs, and avant-garde getups), extravagant performances, and cheeky music, Fischerspooner embodied a rah-rah spirit that permeated the fashion, clubbing, and art worlds at the time. The two knew how to put on a good show. While Warren — a classically trained musician who claims he hated electronic music before he started the band — worked behind the scenes, Spooner, the front man and lead singer, strutted and gyrated onstage, singing his self-deprecating lyrics and talking directly to the audience, taunting them as he went. The result was not only high-swinging, wink-wink entertainment but also a sense of intimacy between performer and audience that none of the other electroclash bands were able to achieve.

Fischerspooner was New York through and through. Though they met at the Art Institute of Chicago, where Spooner was studying painting before switching to his more innate calling (performance art), the two musicians joined forces in the city and their concept was entirely homegrown. Their first performance was at, of all places, the Starbucks on Astor Place (as he notes in the conversation with his bandmate that runs throughout the book, Warren had deemed the choice of venue “subversive”; Spooner, meanwhile, did not find it “devious” at all). Right away, they captured the attention of the downtown New York scene, and very soon after, that of art-world bigwigs such as Gavin Brown, Jeffrey Deitch, and Klaus Biesenbach, who recognized the band’s impact on the contemporary scene and invited them to perform at their venues (they all reflect on the band’s importance in the new book). In one memorable show at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Spooner and his dancers — the band’s members continued to swell through the years, reaching about 80 at one point — held an uninterrupted four-hour performance in the dead heat of the gallery. The stifling sweat-fest rivaled the most ambitious performance art.

From the beginning, the duo devised their project as something short term. And, in a sense, it didn’t last very long — not because they ran out of ideas but rather because they became victims of their own success. As they grew in fame, playing internationally and drawing 6,000 people at one performance (in a reflection of their wide appeal, in 2001, Levi’s released a limited-edition pair of jeans named after them), they were pulled and stretched beyond their locality and beyond what they were originally about. Once they lost their connection to local places like Starbucks, the pair seemed to have lost their dynamism. Being an international glam band, after all, wasn’t something they set out to achieve. And the music they made their name on was over very quickly. Even though they had foreseen that electroclash had a sell-by date and were smart enough to try something different by the second album, 2005’s Odyssey (their two other full-length albums are 2001’s #1, and 2009’s Entertainment) — it was difficult to reinvent themselves in a way that came close to the original incarnation. Fischerspooner may yet have a comeback, but one thing’s for sure: They are emblematic of a carefree, artifice-embracing era in New York soon swept away by unimaginable tragedy that changed the city irrevocably.

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For the first Starbucks show, which the band restaged a year later (this photo is of the restaging), front man Casey Spooner wore a black T-shirt, bla... For the first Starbucks show, which the band restaged a year later (this photo is of the restaging), front man Casey Spooner wore a black T-shirt, black pants, a white belt, a headset, and a repurposed blond mullet hairpiece — a pretty tame getup in comparison to the wild outfits that the singer would don in the Fischerspooner performances from here on out. (By the second appearance at Starbucks, Spooner had upped the ante by several decibels; he appeared stark naked save for a strawberry-red vinyl bikini, black paint that was smudged all over his forearms, and a wolfish black face mask.) “That performance really marked a fundamental shift in my personal creative perspective,” says Fischer, who was a classically trained musician and, before forming the band, hated electronic music. “I moved from being cynical and ironic to being invested.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Spooner performing during the hours-long, uninterrupted sweat-fest at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in 1999. “Casey and Warren tried to make a moment worth... Spooner performing during the hours-long, uninterrupted sweat-fest at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise in 1999. “Casey and Warren tried to make a moment worthwhile from the very little we were left with — only cultural leftovers and hand-me-downs,” writes Gavin Brown in his essay for the book. “They patched and re-stitched, repeated and borrowed. They forged a hammer out of irony and history was their abandoned playground. And from it all, they made some exuberant and absurd claim on future possibilities — a strange new Vaudevillian freedom of speech.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Spooner performing at Gavin Brown’s enterprise, 1999 Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
The cover photo of Fischerspooner for Index magazine captured the attention of both Jeffrey Deitch and Klaus Biesenbach. “I encountered that image all... The cover photo of Fischerspooner for Index magazine captured the attention of both Jeffrey Deitch and Klaus Biesenbach. “I encountered that image all over New York — on the walls of artists’ studios and on the desks of galleries,” writes Biesenbach, who invited Fischerspooner to perform at KW Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin in 2001. “The whole city was captivated with this calculated and confrontational image of glamour and savagery.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner at the Deitch Projects gallery, 2002. “Through Fischerspooner, our gallery discovered an audience that we didn’t know existed,” writes ... Fischerspooner at the Deitch Projects gallery, 2002. “Through Fischerspooner, our gallery discovered an audience that we didn’t know existed,” writes Jeffrey Deitch. “Prior to collaborating with Fischerspooner, the audience at Deitch Projects was fairly typical — people who were professionally involved in the arts, people who made art, wrote about art, collected art, and dealt art. With Fischerspooner, we attracted a tremendous new audience of people who embraced progressive culture.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Here is Fischerspooner performing again at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in 2000. “We really tried to dive in head first into this empty swimming pool that... Here is Fischerspooner performing again at Gavin Brown’s enterprise in 2000. “We really tried to dive in head first into this empty swimming pool that is the space between art and entertainment, pop culture and 'high' culture, and to try and make something meaningful and lasting,” notes Warren Fischer in the conversation between him and Spooner in the new book, Fischerspooner: New Truth.  Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner performing at the Pyramid Club, 2000. “They fulfilled an innate libidinal desire for spectacle and guilt-free pleasure,” Biesenbach wri... Fischerspooner performing at the Pyramid Club, 2000. “They fulfilled an innate libidinal desire for spectacle and guilt-free pleasure,” Biesenbach writes about the band. Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Stills from the video for “Emerge,” Fischerspooner’s major hit single, which appeared on their first album. “It is fascinating to see how their influe... Stills from the video for “Emerge,” Fischerspooner’s major hit single, which appeared on their first album. “It is fascinating to see how their influence infiltrated culture, and how so many of today’s performers draw on their innovations,” writes Jeffrey Deitch. Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
From the video for “Emerge.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
Fischerspooner performing at the Deitch Projects gallery, one of six times, on Wooster Street, 2002. “There was such fervor to see the performances th... Fischerspooner performing at the Deitch Projects gallery, one of six times, on Wooster Street, 2002. “There was such fervor to see the performances that those who got tickets felt like they had won the lottery,” writes Deitch. “The art world had never experienced anything like that anticipation. Their performances represented an extraordinary peak in creative energy — it was the point when our gallery transformed from merely a conventional New York City art gallery to a space for more hybrid approaches to art and aesthetics.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
A gold version of Fischerspooner's first full-fledged first album, #1. “Fischerspooner found fame at a moment of pivotal change within the music indus... A gold version of Fischerspooner's first full-fledged first album, #1. “Fischerspooner found fame at a moment of pivotal change within the music industry,” writes Biesenbach. “The release of their album #1 coincided with the first time one could easily burn CDs on a personal computer. In fact, #1 was the first album that I copied on my computer. It seemed everyone burned copies of that album. The group exemplified the public’s embrace of free bootlegged music, which subsequently caused a revolution in the distribution and sale of music.” Photo: Damiani Fischerspooner
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