Mac DeMarco, Heems, and Other New York Luminaries Remember Late Baby’s All Right Cofounder Billy Jones: ‘He Was the Wheels on the Bus’

Billy Jones, the cofounder of the New York music venue Baby’s All Right, died on June 7th, at age 45, of glioblastoma—an aggressive and malignant brain tumor.

Jones moved to New York in the aughts and made his mark almost immediately as a booker of talent at now-defunct venues like Elvis Guesthouse, the Dance, and Sin–é. But his greatest project in live music was still to come. It’s hard to say what today’s New York music scene would look like without Baby’s All Right, the small but lovely Williamsburg venue he opened in 2013 with Zach Mexico. Baby’s quickly became the coolest venue in town—a Copacabana for the indie set, a 280-capacity venue capable of packing people in for a big night—including club shows by the likes of SZA, A$AP Rocky, and a then-16-year-old Billie Eilish—with only minor, innocuous turbulence. Every time I went to Baby’s, I marveled at how well it operated: convenient, fearless, and fun, like a nightclub populated by the people in your neighborhood. As opposed to big venues with outrageous prices and corporate backing, Baby’s was for expert fans looking to the answer for the question: Where can I see my favorite unheralded artist at?

Jones was a relentless connector, a passionate venue owner, and a man of otherworldly charisma whose sheer exuberance could uplift any event. He was more than a fixture in the New York music scene—he was someone who fostered community, often uplifting artists and DJs that wouldn’t have been given chances by significant institutions.

In New York, a city where everything is attainable and unreachable, it’s easy to exclude people when you’re hustling, or even thriving; Jones’ friends and collaborators say he always made people feel included in the big New York life he built. The week after his death was announced, we spoke to some of them about his impact.

Joanna Cohen (collaborator, Elvis Guesthouse): I met Billy in 2013. I was going to South by Southwest every year back then. I was scouting bands for some labels, and I met him on the street, on some “You guys are obsessed with unsigned artists, we should know each other.” He was friendly towards me, and we made good impressions on each other. After that, I did some programming at Red Bull Music Academy; when it came time to help with programming for Elvis Guesthouse, which was one of his first entries into DJ-focused spaces, he gave me the call. We met up and he said, “I want to give you a chance to do this with me.” The things that we were able to do at Elvis together were incredible, when I look back at it. He was always coming to me for booking ideas; he booked them at his many different roles as a guest curator. Like, not many people know, but he did some curating for Frieze, NeueHouse, and Tribeca Film Festival. I was right alongside all of them.

One of our favorite nights we did — because I was his ear to the ground in the DJ world — I had this dream to bring Soul Sister to New York. She was this vinyl collector in New Orleans who had this legendary party there at this venue called Tipitina’s. I was going to New Orleans a bit around then because I have a friend who lives there, and I came back and said, “Billy, we have to get this woman,” and he said “What’s it going to take?” He was obsessed. That really [showed] the trust that he had in me, because he took a risk on someone he wasn’t that aware of. It ended up being her first New York show in ten years. He loved the non-pretentious energy that she brought. And we both opened for her, which was hilarious.