Bash Compactor: Original Cin

It happens too often that we only appreciate something once it’s gone. Luckily for Cinders Gallery, which threw art and rock shows in Williamsburg since the summer of 2004, the people who loved it made sure to show their appreciation last week when the gallery held its own funeral.

The Havemeyer Street space was completely packed with revelers, from kids who looked like they’d just moved to the neighborhood to Williamsburgers who’d been there since artists first started seeking refuge from Manhattan. Most attendees brought their own beverages, which, along with the band playing on the floor, the scattered chatter about whether the cops were going to break up the event and the fact that a lot of people didn’t know who the hosts were, made the whole thing feel endearingly like a artsy high school house party.

When I first arrived, there were only a handful of people standing around, cases of beer hanging from their fingers as they shared memories of the gallery. The windows at the front were lined with candles, and plastered across the walls were postcards from every exhibit the gallery had hosted, including one for a show called Family Portrait made up of retro family portraits taken of the artists dressed up as mid-century suburbanite squares.

"What makes Cinders different from other galleries is how community-based it is," observed mourner Meo Ward.

Perhaps that’s why Matt and Kim put an instrumental track on the Grand album called "Cinders," and maybe that’s also why notable local musicians, including Beach Fossils, Lucky Dragons and Maya Hayuk, came out to perform for the funeral.

Soon Cassie Ramone began a solo set. As she sat with an amplifier to play a series of quiet, personal songs, everybody gathered close. Ramone played in a short, chirpy, Johnny Marr-like guitar style, her vocals showcasing that washed-out feel that’s made her beloved. Throughout, the audience stayed engaged; her cover of Bobby Freeman’s "Do You Wanna Dance," was especially pleasurable, unexpected yet appropriate.

"Some of the most poignant, interesting young artists in Brooklyn work with Cinders and it shows in the bands that played tonight," video artist Jorge Torrens told me after Ramone’s set. When I asked the gallery founder, who goes only by Sto, how the funeral was put together, he said, "These are just all friends, who, when they heard about the funeral, wanted to play." He then assured me that while the space at 103 Havemeyer was dead, he and co-founder Kelly Bowman were already scouting a new space.

Still, it was a funeral. And though she had mascara running down her face, the black-clad Bowman did manage to pick a single moment as the best in the almost six years she had been running the gallery. "This," she said, without missing a beat.