Today, Friday March 13, 2009 at approx. 1:20pm I was riding with traffic on Bedford Ave, approaching the intersection of Lorimer St. I was hit by a silver Chrysler sedan (who was a car service car) turning right on to Lorimer. I was wearing a silver windbreaker, riding a black + red track bike with white rims (yes, with a front brake and yes, I was wearing a helmet).
I counted at 5 to 10 people in the area who I believe saw the accident take place. However, no one would come forward as a witness. One mustached fellow (Thank you, whoever you may be) took pictures, but I didn’t get a chance to get his name before leaving in the ambulance. Sadly, he did not arrive until moments after the accident happened.

Here’s the Craigslist ad: Hit by Car in Williamsburg. If you were there, help this guy out!

c/o Yoko Sawai
A week or so ago I popped into the Cake Shop to hear the musical meanderings of Japanese experimental musician OORUTAICHI as well as Rings side project Drawlings and Lights. While musically the bands seemed pretty disparate, it was a surprisingly entertaining set. I wish more of you had been there.

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Remember on The Wire when Officer Pryzbylewski was teaching at the school in Baltimore and all the kids were growing up to be corner boys and fighting each other and he was just trying to make a difference (I think it was kind of like Dangerous Minds)? That season could never happen today, because of FLOCABULARY. It’ll teach you social studies, language arts, math, and science all with awesome jams.

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Photos by Clarissa Roudabush

Now that it’s Friday, I feel like I can talk about my wanna-be weekend Wednesday at Glasslands. We’ve all been there before– when its past your bedtime, but all you really wanna do is dance. Although warmed up by the musical stylings of Neon Coyote and DJ Mike Dextro (and a few vodka sodas), all I wanted in my life was some Alaska in Winter. Before I could catch my fix, a pleasant surprise named Charlie! took the stage. In the fashion of more recognizable man duos such as Chromeo, these boys summoned their inner if-Kanye-was-a-Power-Ranger-that-had-to-sit-still. Listen, if you add a 2-step to NIN’s ‘Closer’, no matter how much I think I’m going to hate it, you’ve pretty much got me sold. It just really makes me miss the days when I lived with three dorky sound engineering boys.

Finally the one man band Alaska In Winter (aka Brandon Bethancourt) appeared, and the presence of the ladies in the male dominated room became apparent. But past the fact that Alaska’s frontman looks good in fur, his artful performances are exactly that– performance art. Details such as the removal of a tie in his video orchestra to Brandon’s real time clothing removal on stage showcase some crossdisciplinary skills. Put him in a glass box and this boy could make it at P.S. 1 any day.

We caught up with Bethancourt about tex mex, deep space, and crashing at Zach Condon’s place before the show. Check out the interview, as well as some AIW wardrobe changes, after the jump…

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They review Young Jeezy first, then move on to “My Girls” about two minutes in.

Hat tip to Stereogum.

Photo courtesy of Indie Passion.
If you’ve never heard of Savoir Adore, you will. As long as the Almighty God of Indie Rock is a just and righteous god, the pop rock quartet headed by co-songwriters Paul Hammer and Deidre Muro is fixin’ to explode. Their set at Death by Audio on Tuesday drove this home with a wild, pop-inflected vengeance. A few months ago, I stumbled across them opening for Bishop Allen at MHoW, and they were really damn good. But this week they brought out the heavy artillery–an arsenal of new songs from their upcoming full-length debut, In the Wooded Forest–and they proved themselves serious contenders for the title of Most Underrated Band in Brooklyn.
Savoir’s brand of fairy tale pop has always been strong in the hooks department, but their new songs had a new level of sophistication and their older songs sounded more fleshed out. The encore, a barn-burning fist-in-the-air anthem with the unlikely title of “Transylvanian Candy Patrol,” took advantage of Hammer’s ample riffing skills and Muro’s spectacularly emotive voice and left the crowd floored (especially a pack of drunken Deidre-admirers behind me, who, once they found out her name, proceeded to chant it at every opportunity). The track (available for free online listening here), is great recorded, but you need to see them live to hear it in all its distorted, Pixies-evoking glory.
P.S. Darwin Deez opened, danced choreographed dances, and sounded great. Plus, their frontman’s appearance somehow inhabits the gray area between Hasid and hipster, and, for that alone, they deserve a mention.

Seems ridiculous, right? Only in Brooklyn, right? Well, apparently these championships have been happening all around the world in the last few years. Here are some gems from one of the contestants:

Leonardo Gomez, 25, of Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, will be in the Recession Beard category because he started growing his fuzz in September, just as the economy began to fizzle.
“If there’s anyone who can change what’s going on right now it’s a beardsman,” he said, evoking Abraham Lincoln.
“I really think if President Obama would grow a beard, we’ll really start to see some huge progress in America.”

Can I also say that I came across this in the physical version of the Daily News, as in, this event made it to print– loves it. Here’s the web version.
So, go be a part of history this Saturday at Public Assembly. What do you have better to do?
PS- If you RSVP on Going.com, you get $6 off admission & Open Bar from 7-8pm.

image c/o nylon, via flickr
Tao Lin is what Nylon calls an “embattled Brooklyn author,” and has been called a “gimmick-crazed ‘writer’” by Gawker and, most recently, Carles of Hipster Runoff fame, a claim he sorta but not really affirmed to NYU Local. A simple search on Tumblr will show you what the bliggleblogosphere thinks.
But we’re not here today to speculate. Oh no, we’re giving away some free books from muumuu house! Read a bit about what you can win below, and to enter the contest, just simply email Tao a picture of you holding a fish filet and any GT’s brand kombucha (the drink, seen here), with your face in the photo. So that’s face, fish filet, kombucha.
Tao’s writings, at least the ones in his book you are a little bit happier than i am, border on insanity, randomness, the beauty of loneliness and surviving in our digital world. If you’ve ever thought about committing suicide via instant message before, reading one of Tao’s poems might make you seriously consider it. But in a good way, if that makes any sense.
Equally as awesome is Ellen Kennedy‘s poetry in sometimes my heart pushes my ribs. I particularly enjoyed the first poem in the book, called Eoody Mobby, which more or less follows a young, tender Woody Allen and his lover Ned Vizzini. The whole book made me want to type in lower-case letters and chase around aging icons of Hollywood, trying to fuck them. Here’s the first paragraph from the poem, which was meticulously typed out by Notes From Normalcy:

Woody Allen lies down on the bed. Ned Vizzini lies down next to Woody Allen. Woody Allen’s room has white walls. There aren’t any posters or pictures hung on the wall. Woody Allen kisses Ned Vizzini’s mouth. Ned Vizzini pushes his tongue into Woody Allen’s mouth and licks Woody Allen’s tongue. Ned Vizzini licks Woody Allen’s teeth. Woody Allen pushes his hand against Ned Vizzini’s crotch. Ned Vizzini does the same. Ned Vizzini unbuttons Woody Allen’s dress while Woody Allen touches Ned Vizzini’s face and looks at his eyes and his nose. Ned Vizzini takes off Woody Allen’s underwear with his foot and then takes off his pants. Woody Allen unbuttons Ned Vizzini’s shirt and touches his chest. Ned Vizzini has sex with Woody Allen. They make noises but are quieter than most couples Woody Allen thinks. Woody Allen is sometimes louder than Ned Vizzini.

The image above is a tiny-sized feature about Tao Lin’s literary collective muumuu house, as seen in the March issue of Nylon magazine. Unless you have super-eyes, its likely that you cannot read anything there, but you can see the original size on Flickr, by clicking here.
So go! Get those books. Well first get a fish filet and a kombucha and take a picture and then get those books.

Bedford Ave