We had the opportunity to do a walk through of the venue before attending a musical performance by Mary Lambert. The founders of the venue, Steven and Marc Kaplan, share the vision that SubCulture will serve as an environment that cultivates community, ingenuity, and new connections to different creative mediums. They selected the basement of the Culture Project because they felt that the location best fit their creative and aesthetic vision. They also felt that the close-knit NoHo community would be the perfect home for their venue as the neighborhood fully embraces the performance arts.
The actual construction of the venue took about four months to complete and they initially started the conception of the build-out in August of 2012. They faced a very daunting task of renovating and morphing the 100+ year old basement into the multidisciplinary concert hall. The end result is a very modern space, but it maintains some of the character of the original structure. The underground haunt provides the perfect acoustics for concerts. When Marc and Steven are vetting potential artists, they are really seeking out performers that deliver a dynamic performance. Their tastes are very diverse, and ultimately they want SubCulture to support artistic disciplines from a multitude of genres.
Her performance was very moving and she showcased the true depth of her talent; all the while engaging with the audience in a jokingly affectionate manner. She has the vocal maturity and range of Adele with the wit, satire and sharpness of Lily Allen. With her accompanied vocalist, the songs “This Heart” and “My Moon” vibrated richly and fully  in the space.  Her “spoken word” track, entitled “I know girls (body love)“, was a very emotionally provocative number. The audience was completely entranced by the lyrics in this song and by her pace of delivery. The acoustics of the stage served Lambert justly.