ISSUE Project Room celebrates the 20th Anniversary of its Artists-In-Residence (AIR) program throughout 2026 with performances by current residents and returning alumni. This anniversary season highlights AIRs whose work reflects the ongoing evolution of a much broader community of experimental artists who have helped shape ISSUE for over twenty years.
Over the past two decades, ISSUE has hosted the No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) at all of its homes: the Gowanus silo in January 2007, the Old American Can Factory in February 2009, and at the 22 Boerum Pl. theater in October 2013. Alongside founding member Keith Connolly (2016 AIR), they return to open ISSUE’s Fall season on Saturday, September 12th at 8pm at longtime partner venue, First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn.
Predicated on the storied 90's free jazz revival of their indigenous NYC, though beholden less to genre than to pure cultural impulse, the No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) operated in plain-sight obscurity for twenty-odd years performing and recording in and out of publicly sanctioned spaces, eschewing categorization, and cementing a roguish reputation that has remained indelible in their wake. Now in their self-described "cicada phase" as NNCK AD, the group will perform for the first time in thirteen years for one night only. A non-idiomatic collective improvisation to last approximately one hour, consisting of sticks and stones, strings moving at a speed, and signals to forgotten gods that can only be conjured by this cabal. It is sure to be a remembrance of things both past and yet to come.
Join as an ISSUE Project Room Member at any level during the 2026 Summer Membership Campaign and receive a free ticket to the event!
The No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) is an improvising collective of musicians formed in NYC in 1993. Favoring anonymity, autonomy, obfuscation, and the elaboration of cycles, they are presently back at work on what is to be their thirty-sixth album.
