Shea Stadium co-founder Adam Reich and his studio. — Photos by Andres Jauregui

Queens can keep its Citi Field: there’s a new Shea Stadium in Brooklyn, and for the moment, it’s geared mainly towards the minor leagues. Named after the former home of New York’s major league underdogs, a new all-ages music venue in East Williamsburg provides a unique service for Brooklyn’s young, start-up bands. Instead of receiving pay, all bands that play shows at Shea score a professionally mixed live recording of their set.

	Alex Levine of the So So Glos at Shea Stadium. Click for more.

“There’s so much happening around here, and a lot of D.I.Y. shows don’t have the means to really record performances, so I thought that it would be a good idea,” said Adam Reich, a 23-year-old audio engineer who started the venue with friends in April.

With its graffiti-tagged white brick walls, stage constructed of cheap lumber, semi-busted toilet, and exposed pipes running across its not-quite low ceilings, Shea Stadium has all the attributes of a Brooklyn DIY venue. And, in keeping with the scene’s values — and the club’s namesake — aesthetics fall a far second to what’s actually being accomplished in the space. In addition to helping young bands dodge the prohibitive cost of booking studio time, Reich and his partners are constructing “a public library of recordings” on a terabyte hard drive. While that library is focused on the bands, it’s by all means inclusive of that element that makes Brooklyn DIY so great: community.

“People have their home set-ups, and everyone has ProTools on a laptop, but it’s very rare that you can invite an audience into your living room and roll tape,” Reich said.

At Shea, the crowd is part of the set, which is ultimately part of the archive. Microphones dangled from pipes at the back of the venue’s main performance space — just beyond the plexiglass window of Reich’s mixing booth — hone in on the crowd’s audible interactions with the band. It might not occur to listeners accustomed to studio albums, but capturing the energy of the crowd at a boisterous show is nearly as important as recording the band itself.

“You’re in the moment, and it’s pretty much prime time,” said Julie Jamora, who sings in Grocery Thief, a newer Brooklyn band. “You’re in front of the audience, and you can tell, in that sense, whether it was a good show or not.”

After a few exhibition shows to work out the kinks in sound recording, Shea Stadium hosted its official opening day on Friday, May 22nd. A four-act, all-ages benefit for the broadsheet concert calendar Showpaper, the crowd on opening night — both on stage and in the audience — was on the younger side. The audience was raucous, especially for the headliners, an accordion-fronted band called Whack, but the vibe was communal, inclusive, and appreciative.

“Every DIY venue is important to me, so I don’t want to single one out in particular… but I think what they’re doing here is definitely an important thing for the scene,” said Gabriel Weinstock, one of the event’s teenaged organizers. Although he and co-organizer Sophia Warren are still in high school, they have a combined three years of experience throwing shows on their own. Most of it is done with little to no monetary gain, a constant in the scene. The door for the opening benefit at Shea Stadium was only $5 — cheaper than bleacher seats at the ballpark.

“Everybody in New York pretty much isn’t living off of playing music. We do this because we love playing shows like this. It’s the DIY scene. You get a better crowd and the space is less uptight about it, so money isn’t the issue,” Jamora said. “It’s exciting to get paid, but mostly, we just play shows for fun.”

Shea Stadium
85A Debevoise Ave