Who knew Bary Manilow grew up here? Williamsburg just got a little bit *cooler.* From men.style.com:
Q: You didn’t have a lot of money growing up.
A: Oh, none. Zero. Zip. Nothin’. I come from nowhere Brooklyn, New York. Williamsburg, Brooklyn. These days Williamsburg is kind of a hip area, but when I grew up there, the taxi drivers wouldn’t even go over the bridge, it was so dangerous.
Q: So you were the original Williamsburg hipster.
A: I wasn’t really a hipster. I was a geek.
“Copacabana” after the jump, but don’t do it on an empty stomach.
A.C. Newman and friends @ Bowery Ballroom
A.C. Newman opened his set with the first tracks from both his solo albums (“Miracle
Drug” and “There are Maybe Ten or Twelve”) but the highlight for me was definitely
“Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer.” There were so many people onstage and it reminded me a bit of seeing The Magic Numbers at Barrowlands in Glasgow, Scotland a few
years ago — which reminded me of seeing Fleetwood Mac with my dad in California for my 20th birthday. Oh life, oh music.
At one point Newman commented to the redhead on his right – saying “It’s kinda distracting when girls are dancing next to you — it’s B.S. — I don’t dance in front of you — it’s give and take!”
And as much as opener Dent May kinda freaks me out his magnificent ukulele was indeed magnificent. He freaks me out because well — watch the video below and let me know how you feel.
Seriously– I’ve become a super nerd. Check out one of the many live feeds I was following today about the sneak peak of the new iPhone operating system. I’m so excited, I could puke. Who knew copy & paste could be such a turn on…
Hey, let’s hope the upgrade is available before the Northside Festival so we can follow our turn-by-turn directions from venue to venue and show each other how cool we really are.
Billy Corgan’s been showing up in the music headlines recently because of his testimony before Congress in which he hoped to eek a bit more cash out of his cover versions of adult contemporary jams. Maybe all the talk got you to break out your old Smashing Pumpkins albums and wish for the days when Billy Corgan was young and angry and interesting. Well, I can’t give you that, but I can give you an amateur podcast in which a very nerdy DJ comments on Billy Corgan’s last record, Zeitgeist, while listening to it. Like a listening party with the smuggest high school D&D player in all the right ways. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED D/L:GET IT HERE
Considering that most of you graduated with a degree in art (or no degree at all), this town’s virginity well looks to be all dried up. Do you know any recently graduated virgins? I doubt it, but email them to us if you do and we’ll do some sort of auction or something. Chart via BuzzFeed
photo by bryan bruchman Over on Gothamist today, Matt & Kim talk Williamsburg condos ruining our view, living in a hallway on Grand St. and playing Todd P shows in whatever spaces Todd P can find. Did you know they only started playing their instruments in like 2003? Shows you can do just about anything in this here city, friends.
d.b.a. Brooklyn (113 North 7th) is having an English Ale tasting tonight. There is no cover, and it starts at 7 p.m., says MyOpenBar, which also asks that d.b.a. change the name of the event because, and we agree, it could be interpreted as something entirely else.
FW’s beloved The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (see interview) play a Brooklyn house party in this episode of Pitchfork TV. They also eat some weird cake and maybe get heartburn later? (via P4K’s twitter):
I’ve been teased a number of times already with the familiar ring of ice cream trucks in my ‘hood. And looking at the weather app on my phone gives me hope that the winter just might be over… Let’s keep our fingers crossed, kids. And until the fire hydrants start their annual transformation into sprinklers, we can all thank The L Magazine for something to look forward to until the sunshine, sweat, and Turkey’s Nest margaritas are a thing of the now:
This has been a long time coming, but we at The L Magazine are pleased to finally and officially announce the first annual Northside Festival. Taking place from June 11-14 in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, it is, as we’ve grown accustomed to saying, a four-day celebration of the independent music and art scene that thrives here in New York City, with live music being held at nearly every venue in the area (including some that haven’t even opened yet), and art events at some of the most relevant galleries in the neighborhood.
