Music With A View
What do you get when you combine music videos and awesome live performances? BalconyTV!
Started in 2006, BalconyTV is a Global Internet music video network with a simple premise, to showcase musical acts performing on rooftops and balconies around the world. That’s it. No Real World Versus Road Rules challenges or Jersey Shore drama, just music. And not just any music, but live performances.
Powered by YouTube, the site has amassed over thirty million video views with BalconyTV stations all around the world in cities like St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires, Johannesburg and Seoul. To better understand what goes into a typical broadcast, I ventured to Brooklyn, NY to speak with Joseph Kelley and Chris O’Konski, the team behind BalconyTV Brooklyn.
I arrived at The END NYC around 5:30 p.m. on a Friday evening. Located in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, The End NYC is an ultra-cool music recording studio and rehearsal/event space which hosts and co-produces the shows. Joe and Chris couldn’t have picked a better location and venue. It’s every musician’s dream. If there was an indie musicians’ NYC tour, The End NYC would certainly be one of the stops.
After admiring the space and frequent outbursts of, “This is so fucking cool,” I was taken to the rooftop where all the magic happens. And what a rooftop it is, with its amazing views of Manhattan’s east-side skyline. I’ve checked out all 36 or so BalconyTV stations, and the Brooklyn outpost certainly has one of the better views thus far. Although Brisbane’s nighttime views are pretty bad ass well.
One of the things I was struck by is the elaborate audio setup. The folks at The End NYC actually route all of the audio for the performances through one of the studio’s audio consoles. There is a full drum kit that is mic’d, amps for bass and guitar and even monitors so the band can hear themselves. This is a legit show. Some of the smaller music venues in NYC don’t sound this good. The end result (pun intended) is a clean recording with even levels that can not be had by pointing a boom mic at the band.
Once the first band was set up it was time to start shooting. Each episode is about five minutes long. Chris films the performances with his DSLR Camera and Joe is the host. The anatomy of a show is always the same: Joe introduces himself, then introduces BalconyTV and the band, then inquires about what they are playing. Joe then walks off camera so they can play their set. As soon as the performance is over, Joe walks back into the frame and uses the rest of the time to promote the band’s tour dates, album announcements and social links. As sparse as this sounds, it’s really quite brilliant. At the end of the day, it’s not about the organizers and the hosts, but about the talented individuals and their work. Not to mention the fact that we live in an ADD society. Anything longer than five minutes would need to be a full-length film or a show on Hulu.
To get the most bang for their buck, Joe and Chris usually shoot 2–3 acts per session. This maintains a steady stream of content in their queue. On this particular day, I had the pleasure of watching performances by Everest Cale, Jacob Jeffries Band, and Silas Fermoy. Each band brought something different to the table, whether it was Silas Fermoy doing their first acoustic set (they normally perform with electronic elements), or Everest Cale channeling their inner tortured soul for a dark-rock track.
The final phase is video editing. According to Chris, who does the editing, the whole process only takes a few hours with the majority of the time dedicated to processing the video and audio then exporting/uploading it to YouTube. It’s safe to say they have it down to a science. It probably doesn’t hurt that all the bands are super talented and the staff at The End NYC are very good at what they do.
In addition to watching a bunch of talented, motivated and creative individuals in action, the most thrilling thing to witness was the level of camaraderie and sense of community. There wasn’t a negative vibe or “Debbie Downer” in sight. One can sense that everyone from Joe and Chris, to The END NYC staff and the bands, everyone has a deep love for music.
And that’s the real genius behind BalconyTV; it enables anyone with a passion for good music to consume, produce, promote and perform. The barriers to entry have been knocked down and a creative-arts ecosystem has emerged from the wreckage. Communities like BalconyTV are charting a new course for the future of music, and BalconyTV Brooklyn is on the front lines leading the way.
When did the Brooklyn outpost go live?JK: Chris and I launched BalconyTV Brooklyn in January 2012. We launched in the dead of winter. It was very exciting and luckily this last winter was a dry one so we didn’t lose much shooting time; however, it was absolutely freezing. Going back and re-watching the videos from our launch shoot are very funny to us now. I am all bundled up and artists are playing guitar with gloves on and such. Very rock ’n’ roll.
How did you team up with The End NYC?CO: At the time, Joe and I were co-producing shows for BalconyTV New York which did not have any electronic capabilities. We received emails from a lot of great bands saying they wanted to be on the show, but that they couldn’t perform fully-acoustic. New York is such a massive hub for all genres of music that we didn’t want to have to say “no” to a band because our production lacked adequate resources. We did some digging for studios in the area and came across The End NYC so we went to Greenpoint to check it out. After meeting their staff and seeing the space, we really couldn’t have dreamt up a better place to shoot.
How do you go about finding bands?JK: I work mostly with band bookings. I am always sent new music by artists and their representation. I work my hardest to give everything a listen and try to envision them on the balcony. We often sneak our friends in there sometimes as well.CK: We’ve also been featuring more and more bands that are recording at The End NYC, so there’s a lot of word-of-mouth that comes along with that. I will say that we strive for quality and variety in our show, so we carefully consider each artist and how they complement our previous acts. That being said, we feature acts both big and small and welcome all prospective artists to shoot us an email. We’re always looking for new talent.
You’re not directly compensated for being the organizers, right? It’s volunteer based. You just reach out to the BalconyTV headquarters and ask to host a show, correct?CK: That’s right. Starting a Balcony is relatively simple but maintaining one is the challenge. This past August marked the two-year anniversary of my first episode for BalconyTV, and I think I speak for most BalconyTV producers when I say that it’s not about the money at this point in the game. It’s awesome just to be able to rock out on a rooftop with friends and musicians while watching the sun set over the Manhattan skyline. The fact that we get to walk away from each shoot with a handful of new episodes is icing on the cake. BTV Brooklyn is definitely something I look forward to week in and week out for those very reasons.
What are your goals for the show? What do you hope to accomplish?JK: The immediate goal is to keep shooting and creating great videos for bands to share with their fans while also building a new fan base. I would love to partner with some companies to sponsor more videos. Also, larger bands are definitely a goal. I would love it if BalconyTV became an outlet all artists want to play when traveling through NYC. It is such a great platform and I can totally see us rocking some HUGE names soon.
CK: I want BalconyTV Brooklyn to become the premiere resource for live music videos on the Internet and a must-stop destination for bands touring through New York. The fact that we shoot our show in one take puts us in a small group of web-based music shows, and I believe that the audio we’re recording at The End NYC is what really sets us apart. A lot of bands have great music videos or a great album to promote, but have nothing to showcase their live performances. At BTV Brooklyn, we provide musicians with top-notch audio and video services for the sole purpose of getting them global exposure through our platform. We once had a band tell us that one of the biggest reasons they got signed to their new label was because of the video we shot for them. It’s those kind of success stories that push us to perfect our show. If we keep helping bands reach these new heights, then I’ll be fulfilled by our efforts.
Intro and Interview by Jamall Oluokun.
