This Shit Slaps: No Vacancy Premieres The Listening Potty Experience

Flickering candles light a room no larger than an average bathroom stall and shine onto the words "Joy and Focus" printed on each wall. A large cartoonish head with a fixed expression of anguish, tears in each eye, sits next to a toilet that's splattered with black paint. An open mouth calmly gapes above the toilet with its face unfinished, leaving a line that trails up to the ceiling. Padding on the floor and walls hush the sounds of the nearby road and keep your focus on musical recordings by Marcus Moody, which dive straight into the emotional landscape of the artist's past.

"There comes a point in a long-term relationship where you can't really talk to each other anymore," Moody explains with gravity. "After a breakup, I moved to Mexico to quit everything, but the world said fuck you and surrounded me with musicians who lured me out of my home just by practicing around me."
The Listening Potty is a an immersive installation Moody created for the No Vacancy 2024 artist program in RiNo, at 3911 Walnut Street. The installation opened on November 9 and presents an opportunity to take an intimate walk through Moody's music with him by your side. Reservations to this experience are still available online for the remaining dates on Saturday, November 16, and Sunday, November 17, as well as November 23, 24 and 25.


With the help of fellow No Vacancy resident artist Kate Major, Moody used his understanding of carpentry, music production, visual art and performance to create The Listening Potty. A lifetime of art, music, chaos and grief culminate in this installation, all tied together by music. But that's not all: The roof of this small room also serves as a stage. Moody will perform a live set there on Thursday, November 21, at 8 p.m.
The Listening Potty's intimacy allows listeners to connect to Moody's themes of love and loss; there is no avoiding the true subject matter. "This is anchored in grief," Moody says, "and the different approaches to it."

Moody is working to heal his own wounds and find a way to live peacefully in this complicated country. Through this project he is inviting music and art enthusiasts to sit in these feelings with him, riding the waves of emotion with another person close by. After a long journey of exploration and learning, The Listening Potty is helping him find some solid ground within his artistic identity and life.

"No Vacancy has been a huge confidence boost," says Moody. "I had this realization that I can be anything. And this euphoria washed over me."

He's been releasing music as Marcus Schmoody, with his first demo releasing on all streaming platforms this summer. But The Listening Potty is where you can really connect to the artist's mind and his life, exploring love, grief and change. As his No Vacancy residency nears its close, Moody is looking out to what will come next.

"I want to manifest a new music industry that is built around artists, not artists being sucked into institutions," he says. "This live experience is an alternate way for people to experience my music, with no risks."

The Listening Potty, 3911 Walnut Street, is available via reservation on Saturday, November 16, and Sunday, November 17, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., and November 23-25, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; tickets are $5. Live set is 8 p.m. Thursday, November 21; tickets are $13.