It’s a late summer Saturday just before dusk, and Ariel Panero is scrambling around trying to keep things under control. He’s hosting a concert in a cramped parking lot in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood, and about 400 barely legal hipsters are wandering around the premises, eating Chinese food, drinking free cocktails, and smoking various types of cigarettes. A Volkswagen with its front end smashed sits in the middle of it all, surrounded by enormous bags of fireproofing material. The only light is provided by a few bulbs dangling in front of the stage. The lines for the porta-potties are ridiculously long.

This unorthodox venue is at least a little bit illegal. Panero has no noise permit, after all, and although he has permission to use the space, if anyone complains about the high volumes—which can be heard from three blocks away—his goose is cooked. Tonight’s show features under-the-radar acts the Smith Westerns, Knight School, Ecstatic Sunshine, Grooms, and These Are Powers. Panero arrived at 8am this morning to set up the generators, the stage, and everything else. But though he’s tense for a while, eventually he settles down and relaxes. He even finds time to chat up his parents, who have come out for the festivities.

In the end, everything goes smoothly, just like at the majority of the DIY-style events he hosts through his ironically-titled concert series Less Artists More Condos. With the goal of bringing the indie aesthetic back to Manhattan, the shows have featured bands as well-known as Wavves, Crystal Stilts, and A Place to Bury Strangers, although the majority are far less famous. The events are wildly successful, drawing increasingly large crowds and earning press from outlets like BrooklynVegan. “If you told me two years ago that I would be doing this, I wouldn’t have believed you,” Panero says.

Wearing purple pants, a thin layer of stubble, and sunglasses perched atop his head of thick black hair, the 24-year-old Park Slope, Brooklyn native describes his background. Before enrolling at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, he was kicked out of Brooklyn College—where he was a film major—for spending too much time going to film shoots. “I worked hard in my film classes,” he says, “but when I had to take biology and physics I didn’t do anything.” He drifted along for about six months doing catering gigs and other odd jobs before meeting a fellow music-lover named Alex Mallory, who lived in a West Village apartment. Mallory often threw big parties there, but since they were mostly attended by puking frat boys, Panero didn’t have a hard time convincing him to start hosting bands they liked.

Thus, Less Artists More Condos was born, and Brooklyn band Oxford Collapse played the first event in March of 2008. The series later did a concert in protest of CMJ, the popular music festival held every fall in New York City. “We want to be the anti-CMJ,” Panero says. “CMJ comes in and takes over the city, but it’s just an industry event. It’s not really aimed towards the fans so much as it is towards the industry.”

After too many neighbors complained about the noise, they were forced to leave the West Village spot, moving briefly to Williamsburg after-hours venue the Shank. Panero eventually decided to host the shows exclusively in Manhattan, with the idea of reinvigorating Manhattan’s underground scene. In an era when these sorts of indie-music showcases have been mostly relegated to Brooklyn, this has been no small task, but Panero is dreaming big. After the show in the parking lot, he hosted a concert on an old pirate ship that set sail from South Street Seaport, and upcoming plans include a show at a Chinatown church with Real Estate, the Beets, Total Slacker, and Beach Fossils.

Along the way, Panero has supplemented his role as organizer with that of tastemaker. Though he once listened mostly to hip-hop and classic rock, he now prefers noise bands, punk bands, and even pop groups, so long as the artists in question are writing unique music. “I like anything that’s going against conventions, anything that’s new and good,” he says. “I’m so bored with what’s happening in mainstream music.”

Panero has also helped introduce below-the-radar acts like Skeleton$, Darlings, and Grooms to wider audiences; the latter group even convinced him to manage them. His goal is to give quality unknown bands a chance for exposure, and he’s had some success—Philadelphia psych-folk artist Kurt Vile reportedly credited a Less Artists More Condos show he played to his signing with Matador Records, who had a representative in the audience. So many people trust his taste at this point that many will come to his shows even if they haven’t heard of the acts on the bills. The fact that Panero keeps prices low—never more than $10—and picks interesting venues also helps.

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Over time, Less Artists More Condos’ character has evolved. Nowadays, the event has taken on big sponsors and sometimes feels like a bizarre blend of indie subculture and corporate cooption of said subculture. Smirnoff, for example, subsidized the parking lot show; the company paid for all of the costs and even filmed a commercial for their “Be There” series. (You may have seen the one featuring people diving into a foam-filled rooftop pool.)

“I think we need to do whatever we can to get underground bands platforms in Manhattan,” Panero defends. “My goal is to get more people than they would have if they played in Brooklyn and just sent out Facebook invites.”

In any case, the Chelsea parking lot event ends up as his biggest to date. A graffiti artist sprays the brick walls surrounding the space, and a visual artist projects hallucinatory shapes on a screen at the front. The music is highlighted by Chicago group the Smith Westerns, whose extremely young-looking members belt out some seriously melodic, feedback-drenched noise-pop, despite some of the members being barely able to see from behind their long hair.

Due to train tracks running above, the sound quality isn’t as good as the professionally run venues most people here are used to attending. But the crowd doesn’t seem to mind. Many have pushed to the front, and even those who aren’t into the tunes are enjoying themselves, like the girl reading her copy of The Bell Jar near one of the light bulbs.

“I thought the show went brilliantly,” Panero says later. “The way I pictured it in my head was exactly how it turned out, and I was pretty shocked about that.” He and about 400 other people.

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