Photo by Lauren Allen.
Brand New Noise is tucked away in the Halcyon Parking Lot behind an Irish pub in Lower Greenville.
“Don’t hesitate, come in,” reads a sign on the baby-blue brick wall facing incoming traffic. Inside, the shop resembles a converted backyard shed, with four separate appliances set up on three interlocking wooden tables.
At the helm is Richard Upchurch, who relocated from Brooklyn to earn a degree in audio technology from New York University, and is putting that degree to good use.
Though it may not be obvious from the outside, Upchurch’s workshop has become a destination recognized by many from both polar opposite walks of life.
“My customers are rock stars and babies,” he says, laughing.
Babies came first. In 2010, Upchurch built a small wooden box with a built-in audio recorder and playback board. Users could flip a switch, speak or sing into the box, flip another switch to hear their own voice, and experiment with the timbre and speed of the recording. Inspired by his own childhood experiences, he built it as a gift for his 4-year-old nephew.
“I vividly remember playing around with old-fashioned tape recorders over and over as a kid,” he says.
The gift was a big hit, and Upchurch set about refining the product, which is now known as Frankie.
Once I made one, the ideas just kept coming. A miniature Rachmaninoff piano. A tonguing drum with delay effect. A looping kalimba. All of these were made with built-in recording and playback devices.
At the time, Upchurch was working out of his office at New York University and began hiring students to help him build and design the product. Word of mouth spread, and soon Upchurch was asked to display the gadget in the gift shop at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
“Now I have to figure out how to make them,” Upchurch says, “and Etsy was really fun because I could see where the orders were coming from. This one’s going to Wisconsin, this one’s going to Japan.”
Upchurch includes a handwritten note in each box that Brand New Noise ships and frequently keeps in touch with customers via email.
“It creates a human connection,” Upchurch says. “These are handmade items, and a lot of time and energy has gone into them. By the time we put them in the box, we want to know where it’s going and how it’s going to be used.”
One of Etsy’s first buyers was Mark Mothersbaugh of the band DEVO, who bought everything the store had to offer. Upchurch thanked him and discovered that Mothersbaugh had used “Phone-Home Xylophone” on a movie soundtrack. The Lego Movie.
The “Whip It” singer was one of the first of many famous musicians to buy guitars from Brand New Noise. Upchurch quickly saw the opportunity to capitalize on the trend, creating a “Signature Series” of the original Frankie model, featuring rock star autographs on the back. Limited editions also included signatures from Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, The Black Keys’ Pat Carney and Mick Fleetwood.
March 2024ks Upchurch has been in business for 14 years and has been in Lower Greenville for 7 years. When we first started, we shaped, smoothed, and selected every single inch of every product by hand. We still do that by hand, but with hundreds of orders coming in every year, we needed to be more efficient. Now, we use custom CNC machines to automate the pre-assembly of each part and only assemble parts that have been disassembled.
Before it was a full-time job, Upchurch could spend as much time as he wanted on a piece, and the fulfillment he got was up to him. Now, it’s a business. He has a list of ideas for new products, but he doesn’t have much time to tinker with them. Upchurch has learned to find satisfaction in the constant cycle.
“I’ve always believed there’s something really beautiful about the process itself,” he says. “Discovering something, making it, and then re-creating it or trying it in a new way. There’s real art in that.”
With every cut of wood he carves into a product, he also strips away his creative inhibitions. His work isn’t complicated. It’s your voice, it’s your sound. Everything that’s made from it is up to the user, whether that be a rock star or a baby.
“I would hate to see these things end up in a landfill,” Upchurch said. “These aren’t cheap plastic toys. They should be passed down. They should be preserved as functional pieces of art.”