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The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
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PHOTOS: Live Music Venue and Bar 'The Owl' to Open on Rogers Avenue

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — A new space for live music is coming to the neighborhood this fall, created by veteran musicians from New York’s art rock scene.

The Owl Music Parlor at 497 Rogers Ave. is nearing an opening date, said owner Oren Bloedow, co-founder of the experimental rock band Elysian Fields who has been renovating the new Prospect-Lefferts Gardens venue for six years, he said.

The Owl's performance room seats 50 people. (Photo credit: DNAinfo/Rachel Holliday Smith)

Bloedow created the spot in collaboration with his longtime bandmate and musical collaborator, Jennifer Charles, who both came up in the 1990s playing at avant garde venues like Tonic and the original Knitting Factory in lower Manhattan. Both hope to echo the spirit of that scene at The Owl, both in terms of artists and audience.

“We really wanted the experience of the art and the music to breathe and to have an intimate environment for an audience to experience it, in an unadulterated, non-commercial setting, while having very good wine and spirits,” Charles said.

The venue features a full bar in the front connected to a performance space that can seat about 50 people and includes a grand piano and a professional-grade speaker system Bloedow hopes “rewards deep listening.”

“It’s for people who want to have a cultural exchange and are open-minded and patient. That’s my ideal patron,” he said.

The new music venue will have a full bar with cocktails, wine and beer.

The main focus at The Owl will be music, but the pair hope to invite poets, lecturers and any other type of performance that works in the space, leaving the specifics open-ended.

“I don’t want to know everything that’s going to happen here,” Bloedow said.

Bloedow said he plans to invite fellow artists to choose The Owl’s performances, a month at a time.

“Ideally, there would be quite a bit of guest curation here,” he said. “That’s really going to foster the breadth and unpredictability of the venue.”

Oren Bloedow has been renovating The Owl's Rogers Avenue space for six years, he said.

The club’s first major act is locked in; Bloedow said he and Charles plan to perform a special concert series for Elysian Fields’ 20th anniversary when the club opens — which, pending various approvals for a liquor license and other space permits, will be sometime this fall.

The Owl Music Parlor is located at 497 Rogers Ave. near the corner of Midwood Street.