Fifth Bar Lexicon
Fifth Bar refers to the Fifth Bar Collective, the artist-owned record label and creative enterprise founded by CRATB members, headquartered in Red Hook, Brooklyn.
Overview¶
Main article: Fifth Bar Collective
The name "Fifth Bar" drew from music terminology--a bar (measure) being a unit of musical time. The "fifth" carried multiple resonances: the five core members of CRATB, the musical interval of a perfect fifth (one of the most consonant and structurally important intervals in Western harmony), and the idea of something beyond the standard four-bar phrase--an extra measure, an extension, the part of the music that keeps going when you expected it to end.
The collective encompassed not just a record label but a creative campus in Red Hook, Brooklyn that included recording studios, production facilities, and the infrastructure for an enterprise that grew to include film production, multimedia, and arts education.
Linguistic Notes¶
In casual usage, "Fifth Bar" functioned as both the name of the organization and a metonym for its physical location. "I'm heading to Fifth Bar" could mean the offices, the studios, or the broader campus. Band members and associates used it interchangeably.