The Cameo

We long ago ran out of fingers on which to count Williamsburg music venues. But what caught our attention about the five-month-old Cameo, a combination gallery/recording studio/performance space hidden behind the Lovin’ Cup Cafe, are its artistic collaborations: Bands commission an artist to create the works exhibited while they play—and vice versa. The practice is encouraged by co-owners Nicolette Krickl, a fashion designer–painter, and Josh Sampson, a music producer. “Traditional rock clubs are so boring and out-of-date,” Sampson says. “We’re taking it one step further and making sure people are looking at something really cool while they’re listening to music, so both their eyes and ears are being satisfied.”

Ben Sollee with Phillip March Jones
Folksinger Ben Sollee has an appreciation for his roots. When he toured last summer, he proudly displayed this fact both musically and visually by performing in front of one of fellow Kentuckian Phillip March Jones’s 20-by-12-foot “barn paintings,” canvases made using dirt, grass and flowers ground into the paint. So it was only natural that Jones would return the favor by inviting Sollee to perform during his monthlong art show at Cameo in March. “My work and his music come from the same place, and we tend to do things that are about our identity as Southerners,” says Jones. “Bands and artists generally work together, but it’s always that the artist does an album cover or a T-shirt, and there’s nothing interesting about that. We were just trying to represent.”

The Albertans with Adam Keller
Last summer, the Albertans came down from Vancouver to Portland, Oregon, for a show at artist Adam Keller’s performance space, Rererato. The creative types clicked instantly, and so when the group planned a three-night residency at Cameo, they asked Keller to spice up the set. Experiments Involving the Descent of Light Particles was the answer, a canopy of raffia and fabric strings that changes color under a video projector. It is as trippy as it sounds. So trippy, in fact, that an entranced Sampson might just make it a permanent fixture.