The Major Lazer braintrust (Diplo & Switch) put this mixtape together for La Roux while working on new material in Jamaica. It features a bunch of JA-inspired blends, special remixes, dubplates and more but you don't really need to be sold on this thing - we are giving it to you today for FREE.Grab it here.
There's a new Church of Tarvu recruitment video:
The original after the jump:
Say Hebbo! from Torvakian on Vimeo.
Why doesn't Williamsburg have a movie theater? It's the one thing that's truly missing in the neighborhood and every time we have to fight with the crowds at the horrible, overpriced Regal theater in Union Square we are reminded of the question. Great news came yesterday when The Brooklyn Paper reported that "indieScreen-a small theater with only 12 rows, 93 seats and a 17-foot-by-8-foot screen is expected have its official opening as an independent film house in late June". In addition to the (small) theater which will be located on Kent and South 2nd Street, a bar and restaurant will also be available on site.
*Image c/o The Brooklyn Paper
Twin Sister celebrated their album release last night at Glasslands. Naturally the album is excitedly anticipated as Twin Sister's second EP Color Your Life received critical acclaim for it's breathy and inspired sound with its romantically hazy approach to ambient and pop rock music.
Twin Sister invited the experimental trio Data Dog and Lost Boy to open for them. While Data Dog chose to play with the same lighting scheme used in that part of Willy Wonka when they go on that boat down the tunnel, Lost Boy illuminated the entire stage to film their set. Regardless of their aesthetic choices, both bands were well received but the over heating crowd was anxious to hear Twin Sister's performance.
Twin Sister kicked off their performance with, "Milk & Honey" and could not look more excited to perform before such a loyal crowd. However, the celebration was put on hold for a moment when the sound failed. When the sound returned moments later, DJ Amrit Singh of Stereogum was playing The Coors' single, "Dreams" and Twin Sister invited a karaoke moment before launching back into their set.
This summer, Twin Sister will be playing with the ambient experimental Bear in Heaven. Click here for more tour dates and check out more pictures from Glasslands after the jump!
Twin Sister
Lost Boy
Data Dog
Our very own Marlow and Sons are finding new uses for their house-butchered cows. 40 to 350 bucks now scores you a simple, sweet looking leather bag. Might fine looking, if I do say so myself.
via NY Mag
Readers...somebody needs your help right now. Andrea's dog "Puppy" is missing. He is a corgi. He lives in Bushwick on Central Ave between Jefferson and Troutman, so start there. Call 847-636-8833 if you find him!
For its latest issue, The Neighborhoods Issue, GOOD asked a handful of designers & illustrators to "create flags celebrating their neighborhoods." Both Greenpoint and Williamsburg are represented in the project, with flags designed by Playlab, a design company here in Brooklyn.
Below left is Williamsburg, below right is Greenpoint:
I reached out to the studio to get the story behind each flag -- what they represent and how they came up with the ideas. Here's Playlab's response:
We designed two flags for GOOD Magazine, representing the neighborhoods we live and work in. One for Williamsburg, and one for Greenpoint. The flags show extreme generalizations of what comes to mind when the majority of people think about the two places, whether or not they frequent the area. For Williamsburg, this is plaid and tapered, skinny and cuffed jeans. For Greenpoint, it is Polish sausages and the Polish flag.
Check out the whole grid at GOOD.
Here's one from Craigslist that needs some splainin': We made everyone's morning in Mccarren Park.
We met so randomly, and had such a great night. Me English girl, you tall sandy haired so sweet and cute. We made Mccarren Park our bedroom, and really didnt effing care. leave in a month as you kno, so please get in touch thanks love
PBR's been sold to a guy who once managed Vlasic Pickles. How appropriate! The deal went down for $250 million, though as Consumerist notes, "for only a dollar more they could have gotten a shot of Jameson to go along with it." Recession Special!
Two tattoo'd NYC bike messengers went before Judge Judy to argue over a lost (or stolen & sold) bicycle. This clip has all the important markings -- flannels, tattoos, fire, a "friend's band," the internet, custom bikes, and fashionable hair. It truly is the biggest thing to hit our judicial system.
The Plaintiff, Christopher Villanella, believes his former roommate John Foraker sold his custom bicycle for money. The bike was built by Velo Brooklyn (1342 Dekalb Avenue), and he paid almost $2,000 for it.
The banter between Judge Judy and her Bailiff Petri Hawkins-Byrd about bicycle prices is a particular highlight. Watch the whole clip after the jump.
We first told you about 3rd Ward's shiny little food truck, Goods, back in October. Since we're practically neighbors, we've noticed some activity in the lot over the past few weeks and had a chance to take a look. It's classy! And with the rest of the lot, Goods should offer a fun little yard to grab some grub just steps from the Lorimer stop.
The food will be your standard American fare, although prepared by Alex McCrery, identified by the Brooklyn Paper as "former sous-chef at New Orleans’s legendary Commander’s Palace."
The 25-foot 1946 Spartan trailer (they used to make airplanes in WW2!) from a junkyard in Ithaca will serve fare for all three meals. We're looking at burgers, hot dogs, Brooklyn Lager-battered fish and chips, biscuits, sausage egg and cheese, hash browns, and Intelligentsia coffee. They will deliver, offer take-out, and host a 35-seat garden out back.
Opening day: June 9th.
Neighbors of "The Woods" took over a recent Community Board 1 Public Safety Committee meeting to stomp out a plan that would expand their backyard garden by like, seven stools.
Bar owners Dave Rosen and Matt Relkin "wanted to add seven stools in an adjacent backyard and have the area serve as a meeting place for community groups and the pick-up spot for a neighborhood community-supported agriculture group to grab its vegetables this summer," but neighbors can't handle any more noise.
Eyebeam just announced a really interesting show called Re:Group, which aims to examine "models of participation and participation as a model in art and activism." It opens June 10th with a talk at 5pm and reception 6-8pm.
Re:Group features work by thirteen artists, designers, hackers, activists, and collectives exploring both the potential and limitations of participation, networked collaboration, and distributed labor. From the "crowdsourced" projects Ten Thousand Cents and White Glove Tracking to the tactical media art of The Yes Men and Ubermorgen, from the urban interventions of John Hawke and The Institute of Infinitely Small Things to the open platforms of Ushahidi and MakerBot - the exhibition represents a diverse range of critically and socially engaged work that rethinks the institutional practices within urban planning, civil engineering, transportation, industrial design and production, relief work, and the news media.
A subway hero descends then vanishes:
After a woman fainted onto the tracks Monday evening at the Union Square station, the man jumped onto the track bed to try to revive her, witnesses told the police. Seeing the lights of an Eighth Avenue-bound L train, and probably realizing he was out of time, he hastily positioned her body in the trench between the tracks, then hoisted himself out as the train roared in, the police said.
The New York Times ran a trend piece yesterday on a pioneering population of hipsters who have chosen to live their fringe lifestyle in more the geographic sense. The story goes: settling young artist types, who used to take root in Williamsburg for its low rent-to-space ratio, have started falling even farther from the Big Apple [tree]. Rosendale, NY, just 90 miles north, sounds like it has everything an emigrant from the borough could want: a cafe/nightclub with an "eclectic menu" and a "Brooklyn feel", copies of The Brooklyn Rail, and the occasional Maggie Gyllenhaal sighting. Williamsburg expats may feel right at home in Rosendale, which “lacks a supermarket but has a surprising number of restaurants — four on Main Street alone, including the Rosendale Cafe, a stalwart vegetarian and folk-music institution.”
So hipsters are getting out of town! For the internet's sake, I hope this rural hipster migration is real because “hicksters” is just too appropriate of a neologism to go unused.
Pictured- the new "just over the river," from the town of Rosendale's website.
[Original Article - NYTimes]
A 26-year-old woman fell into the tracks at Union Square yesterday evening, creating a flurry of police activity and concerned commuters. According to Gothamist, CBS & the New York Post, here's what happened: The woman fainted and fell onto the tracks after feeling "dizzy," and was run over by an 8th Avenue-bound L train.
CBS: "Emergency Medical Technicians who first reached her were shocked to find nothing more than a few cuts to her head."
Gothamist commenter: "I was there and saw the whole thing. The train DID NOT stop before hitting her, it went right over her. I don't know why they would say that it stopped, but hopefully the part about her being OK is true."
NYPOST: "Cops said the woman may have fainted and there was no criminality."
Reports differ as to whether or not the train stopped, but either way, she must've fallen into the middle portion between the tracks as she didn't suffer any serious injuries other than cuts on her head. She was taken to Bellevue Hospital. According to a witness who tweeted about the scene, "she may have lived cuz she was sort of lying down in the middle."
Imogen Heap is playing this Tuesday, May 25 at Hammerstein, and we've got a pair of tickets just burning a hole in our inbox. Who wants 'em? Head over here and leave a comment, or tweet as @freedubya, and you're entered to win. We'll announce a winner tomorrow morning!
Our friends at QuietColor are throwing a "magic wedding" party tonight at Monster Island Basement. They're talking live bands, magicians, and an actual ordained minister performing an actual real-life wedding between Miss Katie Kristine Darling and David Randall Sherman! Bands include Project Jenny, Project Jan, Swimming In Speakers, Carnivores, and Sunglasses.
They write, "You may think you know the drill, you've been to weddings before, but we guarantee you'll never be a part of one as magical as this. Live bands and magicians will entrance and engage you while love and refreshments abound! Your attendance makes you a member of the wedding PARTY, as we go all-out to send away the happy couple in truly sensational and jovial fashion."
magic wedding from christopher mulligan on Vimeo.
Tonight @ Monster Island Basement (128 River St @ Metropolitan Ave) - 8PM | All Ages | $10 |
The City Reliquary (370 Metropolitan Ave) is throwing a block party this Saturday on Havemeyer b/t Grand and Hope St. for your bicycle! Bring 'em, show 'em off, win prizes, see music, party down.
Contests include: Best VINTAGE Bike, Best Shiny Bike, Best Family Bike, Best Mutant Bike, Best, BMX, Best WORST Bike, Best in Show and much more! Win great bike prizes donated by: Outlier Tailored Performance, Velo Brooklyn Bushwick Bike Shop, Affinity Cycles, including TWO FREE BIKES from TREK and NYCBikes!Performances by: Heels on Wheels, Lucky Chops Brass Band, the Rude Mechanical Orchestra, plus DJ Stacher & Dirtyfinger on the turntables all afternoon!
Block party is noon - 6pm, after party at the Reliquary is 6pm - 10pm.
Hey everybody! Quick, go comment on this FB post to enter to win one of two pairs of tickets to see the New York Dolls play at Warsaw Saturday night.
This Saturday at Enid's:
Books Through Bars moved, and we’re having a party to get us back on our feet! It features awesome librarians and excellent music, so you'd best be there.The Desk Set (a group of young librarians who throw dope parties to
raise money for organizations promoting literacy) are hosting a party
at Enid’s in Williamsburg to pay for the postage we need to get back
to sending books to people incarcerated all across America.After our old space was damaged by fire, Books Through Bars moved to
our new home in Freebird Bookstore, and we’ve built up a big backlog
of packages that need sending and letters that need replies. 100% of
contributions go to either postage or packing supplies, but we’re a
bit behind and need plenty of help.So, now you know what your Saturday holds: dancing, drinks and librarians.
Books Through Bars benefit with The Desk Set @ Enid’s, 560 Manhattan Avenue in Williamsburg
10pm and on. Suggested Donation at the door.
Pavement tickets go on sale at noon for the Williamsburg Waterfront!
Our favorite coffee shop Second Stop is opening a small juice bar in early June which will be called Get Juiced. Get Juiced will be located "in the little store next to the Cafe on Ainslie Street" & will feature organic juices and smoothies made from fresh greens from the rooftop of The Brooklyn Grange. We can hardly wait!
*Image c/o Flickr
LCD Soundsystem's latest, This Is Happening, finally hit stores this week (grab a digi-copy here), so this Thursday's sold out show at Terminal 5 will be absolutely bouncing. It's the first of four sell outs for James Murphy, the gang, and their openers Holy Ghost!.
Want to go rock it but having trouble scoring tickets? Us too, but fear not! Free Willy's got your back. We've got a pair of tickets up for grabs and you can put your name in our proverbial hat by doing one of two things...
1. Follow us & Tweet something like: "Hook it up @freedubya for LCD tickets @Terminal5! RT to enter."
2. Fan us over in PrivacyLand and leave a comment on this update.
That's it! We'll announce the winner around 2pm tomorrow. Good luck!
[photo by the talented ryan muir via flickr]
Good effort by these budding indie rockers on "Nothing Ever Happened," who even got noticed by the band they cover, which wrote, "This made all of us really happy." The solo bit around 4:00 is pretty sick, and the full video pan around 4:20 shows you the entirety of the situation.
Footage by the L Magazine's Emmanuel Cruz.
Last year, the UK's Deluka came crashing into Brooklyn with local label Vel Records and haven't been able to stop the momentum since. The indie electronica band has found a special place for themselves with sonic references to anything coming out of Italians Do It Better and fellow UK rockers The Joy Formidable... and like their bio says, 2010 is the year Deluka just may well become your favorite band.
Deluka will be taking over NY for the next few nights with shows starting tomorrow at Ella Lounge followed by performances at Cameo, Piano's, and Nublu (in that order). We've got a pair of tickets for one lucky reader to check them out on 5/20 in Williamsburg at Cameo Gallery, all you have to do is go comment on our Facebook thread for a chance to win.
FREEwilly got Deluka to answer some questions about their Brooklyn faves, how danceable songs can have melancholy lyrics, and that Franz Ferdinand is still kinda cool. Check out the rest of the interview after the jump, as well as the video for Deluka's "Cascade"
First things first-- the band is named after a hooker. Why?
Kris Kovacs: Well, as Bobbie Gillespie once said; “Everyone’s a Prostitute”…and musicians, well they’re the biggest whores out there. Oh, and we needed a band name. One of us had just caught Pretty Woman on the TV, and we’d never noticed before, but Kit De Luca had ‘casually’ spent all the rent money on drugs! I mean, it’s not even made a big deal of, barely even touched on, which we found strange. Plus she had all the best one liners, and was generally more bad-ass than Roberts’ character. Like, who shouts after a friend “work it baby, work it!”? Genius!
How did Deluka come to be? And how do you feel your sound has changed since your beginnings?
Ellie Innocenti: We all really met at the Jug of Ale pub in Moseley Birmingham. Kris used to be the DJ there, and Steve and I played there all the time in our respective bands. Dan used to come and get drunk on a Wednesday as it was a Pound a Pint. We all grew up at this place, we would watch and support each other. Kris was also making instrumental electronic music and needed a vocalist and someone to develop the songs, where as I was writing songs on an acoustic guitar but had always been into electronic and indie bands, so we both had what the other needed. We set up a ramshackle studio in my bedroom, and used guitars and toy keyboards to write music.
You guys have been known to experiment quite a bit with your sound, like sampling children's instruments and turning them into parts of danceable, and dare I say grown up, electro-pop songs. How did that start?
KK: It started with Ellie remembering she had an old keyboard in the loft that she’d had as a kid and sampling the beats from it. We slowed down the tempo and recorded all it had to offer into the computer and chopped it all up into separate hits. A bit of programming later and we had the makings of a tune. Then we started looking around for anything else we could find. We’d go to garage and car-boot sales and pick up toy keyboards. It almost became part of the artistic process, we set parameters like; they couldn’t be too new, or more than Four Pounds. We’d run home all excited about hearing what sounds it had, and what the ‘new song’ could be. The thing is sometimes the keyboards didn’t even make it onto the finished record; they just gave us the inspiration to start writing. Other times it would be the main hook. We used one most recently on a Band of Skulls remix we were asked to do actually.
You've done some acoustic sets recently, for radio and otherwise-- how does Deluka's sound translate?
EI: Well I cut my teeth playing my songs on an acoustic guitar when I was a kid, because that was the way I wrote them… so it doesn’t seem so strange to me now, and I think the songs are strong enough without all the smoke and mirrors of production and electronics to still come across. It’s a good way of giving radio stations a little taste of Deluka in its most basic form too. If I’m honest though, I much prefer us when we are on stage playing the songs as we intended them-- loud!
Do you think your UK fans differ from the fans here in Brooklyn, the home of your record label?
KK: Brooklyn fans really like to have a dance, and we love that, we are essentially a dance band with guitars. I mean, don’t get me wrong-– they dance in the UK too, but in Brooklyn they know how to party. I don’t really know any other differences, if there is one thing we’ve discovered it’s that we’ve got a varied fan base!
I heard you guys were really impressed with Fiore the other night, any other Williamsburg establishments you've been happy to discover?
EI: Yeah there are couple of places we keep going back to like Fabiannes for Brunch and Tai Thai for dinner. I’m a fan of Brooklyn Adorned having got my most recent tattoo there, and we’ve had some pretty late nights at Union Pool.
When it comes to electro-based music, people tend to immediately assume the songs are somewhat joyful since they inspire dancing-- is that true?
EI: Possibly, people may automatically assume that, but it’s actually quite the opposite for us. Most of our songs are lyrically quite dark, and have come from a place of ill-feeling or wrong doing. It’s always cathartic to go and dance away your troubles to a melancholy pop song, and you can definitely do that to Deluka.
"Sleeping Is Impossible" was used for the recent installment of Grand Theft Auto-- who is the song about?
EI: Oooh I don’t name names! I don’t like to rob people of an imagination either. I will say though ‘sleep’ or lack of, has always been a recurrent theme in my lyrics, this is because anything that tends to keep you awake at night is generally the stuff that effects your psyche, the important things in life, love, hate, anger, passion, worry, the list goes on!
What are three albums you can't live without?
EI: This can change on a daily basis, but things I will always come back to are; ‘Hunkydory’-David Bowie, ‘Purple Rain’- Prince and ‘Parallel lines’-Blondie.
KK: Do compilations and ‘Best ofs’ count? ‘The Best Northern Soul Floor Shakers…Ever!’, ‘Dirty Hits’ by Primal Scream and ‘Franz Ferdinand’ by ‘Franz Ferdinand’.
And finally, if you weren't making music what profession would you like to take a stab at?
KK: I guess I would be a graphic designer, I am now of sorts. I’ve done and still do all the Deluka graphics, flyers, myspace and record sleeve, etc. Maybe I’d be an artist or do something with moving image, or put out a rare ‘zine. I don’t know, something considered portentous no doubt!
EI: I would most likely be using my brain to write literature. If I’m not writing music I like to write stories, or using my hands to create avant-garde hairstyles on people, like Edward Scissorhands!
This is my 2nd year with this lovely CSA (only their 2nd year too!) and they still have a few berry shares left.
From the website:
Each week you will receive 4 quarts of blueberries alternated with 4 pints of red and yellow raspberries or blackberries. There are two raspberry seasons, one in early summer and the other in the fall.
Shares are $320 and go for 13 weeks, from July 5th to September 27th.
Email Southsidecsa@gmail.com for more info or to hand over your money.
Williamsburg will finally be getting their very own Crif Dogs location later this summer off the Bedford Avenue Stop.
Eater writes:
The only surprise in this story is how long it took them. Last night PDT's Jim Meehan confirmed to Metromix that the owners of creative hot dog shop and St. Mark's Place quasi-institution Crif Dogs is expanding to Williamsburg after nine years in business. He doesn't spill specifics but notes it's off the Bedford L stop on either Bedford or Driggs and will open in late summer. If it does well, they'll consider expanding even further.
*Image c/o Flickr
I have to admit when I first heard Free Energy's "Dream City" I was enamored by it's T.Rex-ian opening, and also a bit annoyed by the bubblegum flavor. But after finding itself on almost all of my playlists last summer, I decided my subconscious was trying to tell me that DFA's Philly-based rocker boys were a crew to keep an eye on.
Since then, the band has released their debut full-length, Stuck on Nothing, and I've accepted that I want my classic 70's rock to come back in a modern way (à la high-waisted everything). The bottom line is, Free Energy knows who they are and exactly how they want to sound-- bringing classic rock hooks and guitar riffs together with the pangs of indie-pop. No summer BBQ or nap in McCarren Park would be complete without them.
I got a chance to chat with two-fifths of Free Energy after they opened for the legendary Iggy Pop at last week's Ray Ban party at Music Hall of Williamsburg about rock 'n roll mythology, Bob Seger, and how it's nice when buzz bands are actually good.
Check out the rest of the interview, as well as Free Energy's video for "Bang Pop" which premiered on Myspace today, after the jump... And be sure to catch them at Bowery Ballroom with Jukebox the Ghost on 5/29.
If you had to explain your music to someone who has never heard it, what would you say Free Energy is all about?
Paul Sprangers: I just tell people Rock 'N Roll or Classic Rock, I guess.
Geoff Bucknam: It's kind of back to the air of Rock 'N Roll as an expression of joy and lust and love. I think it's Rock 'N Roll stripped down to emotional drive. No? [looks at Paul] Is that too much for you?
PS: I mean, it's pretty slick. It's pretty composed and thought out, but as far as what we tell people it sounds like or what we describe it as... It's just Rock 'N Roll. Like, that's what I tell my mom. I wanna add, too, that moms really like this band.
GB: And we love moms.
Opening for Iggy Pop tonight, you chose to cover "Success"-- why?
Paul Sprangers: It was the only song that really sounded closest to what we do naturally as a band-- sonically, melodically.
Geoff Bucknam: And it's a good mantra.
PS: Yeah, and then also it's pretty funny. It's a little...
GB: Tongue and cheek?
PS: [laughs] Yeah, possibly.
GB: Or maybe not. Maybe it's totally serious, you'll never know now.
Out of all of the bands you guys have played with, who has been your favorite?
PS: I really like Foreign Born, they're incredible.
GB: Slash Fool's Gold.
PS: Yeah, Fool's Gold... Delta Spirit are amazing. Those guys are about to do their thing, they're really good.
You guys have been touring a bunch, any upcoming cities you're really excited about?
PS: Glasgow. I'm really psyched to go there. The party atmosphere there feels kind of lawless but it's really beautiful and old. It kinda reminds me of Philly a little bit, actually. You just feel like anything goes, the people are cool.
How do you think that differs from the party atmosphere here?
GB: Uh oh, that's a loaded question.
PS: I don't know too much about the nightlife scene here. I only go to shows, so I don't really know about cool places in New York. I mean isn't that what the nightlife scene is here? What place is too cool at that time...
GB: We've played a bunch of shows at Santos Party House, a bunch of shows at Brooklyn Bowl, Pianos... We tend to have a good time wherever we play and that's really it for us.
Where do you like to hang out when you're in town?
PS: I really like Coco 66 and Lulu's. I just really like all the places in Greenpoint-- Blackout and Brooklyn Label too.
GB: Brouwerji Lane is awesome too, over on Greenpoint Avenue. Kombucha on tap, as well as a bunch of fine beers.
Was it a big deal for you guys to play a show with Iggy Pop tonight?
PS: It's cool because it's kind of surreal, you know-- movie stars and Iggy Pop. I guess it's a big deal but for us, I don't think he was really a part of our musical growth or what inspired us.
GB: I think his attitude is exciting.
PS: Yeah, totally. He's an awesome guy and he worked with people we like, like Bowie and Eno. I'm really into Brian Eno. We kinda dropped the ball. Ray Ban was kind of bummed that we didn't have better answers about how much Iggy Pop meant to us. We were kind of like, we know about him and we know he's a big deal and very important in music history but he doesn't necessarily inspire us.
It's funny because you guys aren't the first musicians that have said that tonight. Yes, Iggy Pop is really cool but no one has really sited him as an influence yet tonight. Why do you think that is?
PS: I think that's a really interesting point because there are musicians that are canon, you know, people who you're supposed to know about and that are important but that maybe aren't necessarily actually important to musicians. Like, they're really important in music publications, they're really great to write books about, they have really great stories but their music doesn't really inspire other work. That's really interesting, that there can be a different kind of music that reads better than it sounds.
GB: Well, he's a great part of Rock 'N Roll history and mythology. There's a trajectory that goes from Little Richard, Jerry Lee Louis, Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop, and then countless Punk and Rock bands that act wild. So I think his persona is very significant for what a Rock 'N Roll character is but the actual music isn't that groundbreaking.
PS: Like this song. [R.E.M.'s "End of the World" playing in the background] This is a pretty old song right? Not as old as some Iggy Pop songs, but you don't really hear his songs on the radio all the time. But R.E.M. is still on the radio, so what the fuck-- that's makes R.E.M. mean more to people. But Iggy reads better because R.E.M. are kinda nerdy.
GB: Like I said, it fits the mythology... And Rock 'N Roll mythology is not something to scoff at, it's a really important part of what we do but we wanna have a responsible relationship with it and not just fall down into worshiping the idea of what it means to be a rockstar. We wanna play the music we wanna play first, rather than worry about the persona.
So thirty years from now, do you feel like Free Energy will be a part of that history?
GB: Yes. [laughs]
PS: I don't think so. I don't think Free Energy will be cool like Iggy Pop, I think it will be more like Bob Seger or something like that...
Woah, careful... I love Bob Seger! I drove cross country with my mom once and he was the only thing we could agree on that entire week.
PS: That's crazy! No, I love Bob Seger too but Bob Seger isn't cool, right? He's not like Iggy Pop in the way that he's some hipster icon.
So you guys don't think you'll be remembered as a part of our generation's music scene?
GB: No, I think this band will be part of history, but I don't think it'll be tied to something like the Brooklyn scene or specifically the Williamsburg scene. if this band goes down I think it'll be because of strong song writing and strong performances. You know, that hopefully lasts longer than a trend or a hot moment in a geographic area.
Is there any music that you're listening to right now that you really love?
GB: Peter Gabriel.
PS: We just heard the new covers record and it's pretty good, it's pretty heavy.
GB: The cover of [Paul Simon's] "The Boy in The Bubble" is really intense.
PS: I've been listening to a lot of Delorean... they're just so good. That song "Seasun" I've just been listening to on repeat-- I mean, holy shit. Stuff like that, like Washed Out, stuff that's cool that you're supposed to listen to that is actually good, you know. I'm psyched on new stuff like that. Memory Tapes, obviously. The new Yeasayer is fucking awesome, at least half of it is awesome.
I think there were some Yeasayer guys in the crowd tonight. Was there anyone you were excited to see at the show, celebrity crushes maybe?
PS: I just saw Justin Long when we were done playing. That was cool, I think he's funny.
GB: I don't know who that is...
PS: Kate Bosworth was here, which is crazy.
She's a fan now.
PS: I don't think so. [laughs] I don't think so.
Ronnie James Dio, balls-out amazing metal vocalist, passed away after a battle with stomach cancer yesterday May 16th at 7:45am.
We here at FREEwilliamsburg are very saddened by the loss of such an awesome guy to such a terrible illness. So lift up your hand in devil horn salute to Dio, and enjoy this great video of him from 1983 singing Rainbow In The Dark.
Ronald James Padavona was born in 1942 in New Hampshire and raised in Cortland, NY. In an early act of metal bad-assery, he changed his surname to Dio after mobster Johnny Dio and began using it professionally in 1961. He was offered a scholorship to Julliard but passed on it to pursue his true calling: Rock.
While performing with his early band Elf, he caught the attention of Deep Purple's Richie Blackmore. Blackmore later joined forces with Dio and other members of Elf to form the band Rainbow. Medieval-themed hard rock awesomeness ensued.
After leaving Rainbow Dio famously replaced Ozzy Osbourne as the frontman for Black Sabbath. It was here that he popularized the Devil Horns hand gesture known to metalheads the world over. Dio claimed that the sign came from his old-world Italian grandmother, who often used the symbol to ward off the evil eye.
In 1982, after revitalizing Black Sabbath's career, Dio spontaneously left the band and formed his solo project, simply entitled Dio. In 1983 they relased their platinum-selling Holy Diver record, featuring one of Metal's most beautiful songs, Rainbow In the Dark.
Dio continued with his solo endeavors, also founding the heavy metal incarnation of Band Aid/U.S.A. for Africa, called Hear N' Aid, raising money for starvation in Africa. He briefly rejoined Sabbath for 1992's Dehumanizer record, but eventually returned to his solo work, which he continued with for the rest of his life.
He is survived by his wife Wendy, who posted the notice of his death on his official website.
We will miss you Dio!
- Amanda Mottur
Yesterday we were lucky enough to experience all of our favorite Williamsburg and Greenpoint restaurants in one location at the Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint food benefit/festival. Over 34 eateries were in attendance including An Nhau & Banh Mi, Antek, Aurora Ristorante, Bakeri, Bedford Cheese Shop, Blackbird Parlour, DOC Wine Bar, Dressler & Dumont, Fabiane's Cafe & Pastry, Fatty 'Cue, Fornino, Juliette, Karczma, Le Barricou, Lodge, M Shanghai, Manhattan Inn, Mesa Coyoacan, Miranda, Nita Nita, Pies 'n' Thighs, Rabbithole, Rye, Sel De Mer, Sweetwater, Taco Chulo, Teddy's Bar & Grill, Traif, Van Leeuwen's Ice Cream, Walter Foods, Wine Cellar Sorbets, and Wombat. We were unclear about how much food would be given in the vaguely described “tastes” but quickly discovered that there was more than enough food to go around.
A variety of appetizers, salads, main entrees, and desserts were offered but the ingredient of the day was pork. BBQ pork from An Nhau & Banh Mu, Duroc Pork Ribs with homemade chipotle bbq sauce from Manhattan Inn, pulled pork sliders from Teddy’s Bar and Grill, and braised pork cheeks from Traif were some of the dishes served that used the magical, popular ingredient.
In addition to pork everywhere we loved all the desserts, especially the key lime pie + ginger molasses cookie from Pies N Thighs, and the tiramisu from Fornino Pizzeria. Fatty ‘Cue and Mesa Coyoacan sold out of food within the second hour, and the lines for ice cream at sorbet from Van Leeuwen’s and Wine Cellar Sorbets were by far some of the longest at the festival.
The downstairs area of The Counting Room was converted into a wine, cocktail, and spirit tasting area. It was crowded and slightly disorganized, and as a result we were served double our allotted amount of whiskey and wine, but we didn't complain. All proceeds from the event were donated to help build the Northside Town Hall, but we’d recommend hosting Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint as an annual event with proceeds donated to a different local project each year. It was fun to try signature dishes from all our favorite restaurants, and have the chance to be exposed to new places as well without the trek of walking across Brooklyn while donating to a worthy cause.
When we heard that the recently shuttered River Barrel Café had been reborn as a Korean restaurant named Mrs. Kim’s, we were excited to try out Greenpoint’s only Korean joint. We were slightly confused about the reason for the transformation until we heard the story of what transpired. The story goes something like this: Mrs. Kim was the owner of River Barrel Café. She lost her chef, and asked Brooklyn-Based chefs Jonathan Meyer (who formerly worked at t.b.d.) & Will Griffin to be the new chefs of River Barrel Café with the idea that they’d cook the same American food as before. Meyer and Griffin decided that rather than serve the food that wasn’t selling well before it would be a much better idea to start from scratch with cuisine inspired by Mrs. Kim’s Korean childhood. They decided not to change the interior decoration of the restaurant. Everything remains the same, including the beautiful massive glass chandelier that serves as the centerpiece of the room.
Read more after the jump.
We started with the Salt + Pepper Squid ($11) and Steamed Buns ($9). The Salt + Pepper Squid was some of the best we’ve ever had. It was served with sweet hopping’s bulgogi sauce. While $11 may seem pretty pricey for an appetizer, each serving is pretty generous.
The steamed buns, however, were not all we hoped they would be. The pork bun was served with a sweet sauce and two pickles and was pretty tasty. The tofu bun was a complete disaster. It was deep-fried, completely unseasoned, and was so hot I burned my mouth when taking a bite. It was as if they forgot to add the sauce to the bun, but remembered to include two pickles. Disappointing.
For our main dishes we ordered the Bibimbop ($13) and Korean Fried Chicken ($15). The Bibimbop was served with seasonal vegetables, which included carrots, bean sprouts, scallions, seaweed, mushrooms, cabbage kimchi, daikon radish, and a poached egg. But overall, it was pretty bland, even after heaping on tons of kochujang sauce. In contrast, the Korean Fried Chicken, served with house pickles, herbs, and rice, comes highly recommended. Extra crispy and covered in a sweet and sour glaze, it was everything you’d hope it would be. Like KFC’s awesome Korean cousin.
We ordered the fried banana served with homemade coconut ice cream and a miso caramel sauce ($7) for dessert. It was amazing and had a perfect balance of sweet and sour flavors.
Overall, although some dishes are much better than others at Mrs.Kim’s we enjoyed our meal. We’re glad to have Korean food in Greenpoint, it’s about time.
As you already know, FREEwilly loves you! That's why we're committed to making your weekend the best ever with a pair of tickets for the Dr. Dog show at Terminal 5 tomorrow night. They've sold out basically every show on their current US tour supporting their newest release, Shame, Shame, and will be playing with our other favorite folk love affair, Deer Tick.
So hurry and get over to our Facebook page to comment on the contest thread for your chance to win! We'll be announcing our winner in just 2 short hours!! Good luck!
ROA has a solo exhibition opening at Factory Fresh tonight. From Wooster Collective:
Tonight ROA comes to Brooklyn and the "inside becomes the outside" at Factory Fresh. After searching for scrap materials and painting furiously inside Factory Fresh for the last eight days and nights the doors to ROA's concrete jungle will open at 7pm (Friday, May 14)Factory Fresh is located at 1053 Flushing Avenue between Morgan and Knickerbocker, off the L train Morgan Stop
ROA will be on view through May 30th.
Ever sit in McCarren park and just wish the cup of coffee would come to you? Well starting this Saturday it will, thanks to the boys at Kickstand Coffee and their custom-made bicycle-powered mobile coffee stands.
For the past few weeks Kickstand founders Peter Castelein, Neal Olson and Aaron Davis (all veterans of Gimme Coffee), have been furiously building, welding and brewing. So far they’re serving coffee from Cafe Grumpy and Gimme, all with as little environmental impact as possible. They'll be officially launching their DIY transformer-like bike kiosks at
Artists & Fleas in McCarren park this Saturday (and every Saturday this summer), but you can also track their location on their website and twitter feed.
We got the chance to sit down with the boys pre-launch and geek out about bikes, welding and, well, coffee.
Neal, Aaron and Peter. Image Taylor Long All other images via Kickstand Coffee.
Free Williamsburg: So what, exactly, are you trying to do? And why bikes?
Neal Olson: The concept is definitely to be as mobile as possible. We always dreamed of popping up on wall street or in midtown and all of the sudden we're there serving amazing coffee to these people that don't have access to it, or who are stuck to bodega coffee or Starbucks.
Aaron Davis: And it made sense, especially when we were trying to figure out how we could make it efficient and mobile and eco-friendly.
Peter Castelein: We have no interest in maintaining a truck.
Neal: Well and let's be honest. What's the fastest way to get around New York? It's on a bike.
FW: You've said the carts weight around 160 lbs. Are they going to be cumbersome at all?
Peter: We have these two amazing carts that Neal's roommate Ben Schleif put together that are really incredible.
Neal: He's amazing at conceptualizing that stuff.
Peter: We all collaborated and kicked a general idea to him, a really basic idea of how we wanted things to face, and he took it and ran with it. I had reservations if all of our shit was going to fit and flow well, and he just took it and went 100% nuts. The carts are only a little bit wider than our shoulders -- we can pull them straight through the door to our shop, which is just a normal hallway door width.
Neal: And it turns into a ten-foot stand.
Peter: It does a transformer move with wings and stuff, and we put the coffee bar between it. All the shelving is stacked low in the cart, and then you pull the stuff out and boom, boom, boom! There are shelves for containers of iced concentrate to sit on, and the water tank sitting over there, and everything's where we need it to be.
Aaron: And it has a built-in canopy.
FW: Tell me about the coffee. Where are you getting it from?
Peter: Well we're sticking with a lot of local coffee that's roasted here in Brooklyn. There's been a huge explosion in the last two years with some really great roasters in town. We have a ton of cafe grumpy right now: I think we're the first wholesale account with them, and they're doing a great job. They've only been going at it [roasting] since January, so it's really exciting to work with them.
Neal: I can't believe how quickly it's gotten good. Roasting is certainly a process you have to feel out.
Peter: The coffee that Stumptown is roasting in Redhook is also really top notch. We're looking to carry an option from them. It's an opportunity for us to just cherry pick the best coffees going on in town at the moment.
Neal: So many shops have wholesale accounts that are tied to Verve or to Intelligentsia or Counterculture or whatever it might be. In our case, we can just drink what we think is really good right now.
Peter: Like Bluebottle is roasting over on north 6th and we can just run around town and collect the best NY coffees going on, and serve the best three options. Like hey this is what *we* think about these coffees, not what you're hearing from the people at coffee companies
FW: Tell me more about the pour-over bar.
Peter: Each individual station is set up for brewing an individual cup of coffee, so you grind and brew it to order. And what we've done is create a custom pour-over bar with my brother (Matt Castelein, of Sub Rosa Fabrication), who runs a metal shop right below our shop in the same building. We all like the taste of Chemex brewed coffee the best.
Aaron: It's a method that was developed in 1941, so it's been around for a long time. What really makes it special is the bonded filters that they sell.
Peter: It's twice the thickness of a regular coffee filter, with a super tight mesh. That creates a more vibrant cup of coffee that pops right from the start. The best way to have a cup of coffee is to grind it on the spot, because as soon as you grind it all these essential oils start to dissipate. With this method we get the freshest possible cup of coffee immediately, and we can have like four different options and grind whichever one the person wants. It's also mostly a drinkable cup of coffee right off the bat too -- a lot of coffee is served too hot, but with a Chemex you don't even need a sleeve.
FW: Where is your headquarters?
Peter: It’s a shop space over on Lorimer. Our pour-over bar is 100% custom because we had to do a bit of glass-cutting. When the Chemex brewer comes it looks like a beaker from chemistry class: you brew coffee, it lands in the craft bottom and then you pour it out. We wanted to use their shape to hold the filters, but wanted the cups to go in and out underneath the four stations. So we chopped through the glass and then set it up on the frame my brother welded.
Neal: We're quickly amassing a coffee lab there too.
Aaron: We're always tasting coffee and testing different ways, like doing different types of grinds or water.
Peter: We have a lot to learn, so it's great to have a space where we can experiment with everything.
Neal: You definitely need to get a coffee honed in before you bring it to the public
FW: Tell me how you came up with this idea in the first place?
Aaron: It's Pete's brainchild.
Peter: In the farmer's market in San Francisco, Bluebottle has a kiosk with a super-serious setup. They have a ton of electric pads heating up kettles and they do the classic pour-over bar set up, and have an espresso machine. Seeing them on the market it was like oh, coffee in the market is fucking sweet.
Neal: And then we were like brainstorming -- we always wanted to do an espresso machine full on in the back of a cart, but it's just a logistical nightmare. They're so heavy and it takes so much power.
Aaron: I'm almost happier without.
FW: How long did it take to put this together?
Peter: We started brainstorming in December, but when we really started making shit real was like two and a half, three weeks ago. We didn't want to commit to anything until we knew we could be a part of a venue, because it's so hard to get a mobile food venders license. We knew we had the green light with artists and fleas three weeks ago so that’s when we moved into the shop space and started getting buck wild.
Neal: And when we started to make absurd purchases.
FW: So what next? Are you going out on the streets?
Aaron: we can't go on the streets until we get a real street vendor's license, so right now through the park we're getting a temporary special event license that's good for every day of the event through the summer. We definitely want to try and get into another farmer's market, or something on Sundays. Really long-term we really need to figure out how and what we're going to do with it through the winter.
Peter: The beauty of our setup is it takes us like fifteen minutes to put one of those carts out, so it's not impossible for us to do two events in one day.
Neal: Moving this sort of thing you have two options – you have cars or bikes. We just chose the one we love.
The director of Ke$ha's “Your Love Is My Drug” music video provided Flavorwire with some exclusive scene-by-scene commentary. It's fantastic! Like this, for starters:
“It was sweet the way Ke$ha bonded with the elephant, so we didn’t have the heart to break it to her that elephants and American Indians never co-existed.”
Ke$ha’s “Your Love Is My Drug” Video with Director’s Commentary
eMusic is interviewing The National this week on the heels of the release of their latest album, "High Violet," and they want you to submit your questions.
To submit, just tweet your question to @emusic w/ the hashtag #AskTheNational by 5pm today.
Earlier this week the New York Post wrote about a new trend among women in the city -- celibacy. One, Katie Jean Arnold, was said to have hooked-up with somebody on the L train platform. I wrote, "Sex on L Train Platform Leads to Celibacy Pledge," and everybody was all like, "Nahhh, not that kind of hook up." The Post's usage of the term "hook up" caused mass confusion among millions of people worldwide, as humanity struggled to understand whether or not an act of sexual proportions occurred on the L train itself, or if the hookuppery happened later at a private apartment.
Well, guess what. We reached out to the celibate musician, Katie Jean Arnold, who tells us that yes, indeed, a hook up DID occur right there on the L train. This was more than a simple meeting of the minds.
From the musician's mouth: "We kiss until the train comes. We kiss from the Lorimer stop until the Jefferson stop. He takes my hand, leads me to his room, plays me a lullaby and then we make sweet love..."
So here, in a breathtaking FREEwilliamsburg exclusive that's bigger than Gizmodo's iPhone scoop, let's get to know Katie and what happened that fateful day on the L train platform, how both Katie and her sister lost their underwear and her future as a sex advice columnist.
For reference: FW is me, Brian, and KJA is Katie Jean Arnold.
FW: So you are the singer/songwriter/comedian from the New York Post celibate story who "hooked up" with someone on the L train platform, yes? Give us the "real story." What is a "hook up" as in, was it a meeting in old people speak, or did you jolly rancher right there on the concrete?
KJA: I walk to the platform. I see an attractive man sitting all alone with his guitar. We make eye contact and I sit right next to him. He immediately starts kissing my neck...
[CONTINUED AFTER THE JUMP!]
...Out of nowhere an attractive man starts kissing my neck and I am amused so I kiss him back. He has long, wavy brown hair and deep brown eyes and I start giggling. This is funny. He asks if we can go back to my place. I tell him no and ask if we can go to his. We kiss until the train comes. We kiss from the Lorimar stop until the Jefferson stop. He takes my hand, leads me to his room, plays me a lullaby and then we make sweet love. PERFECT!
Cue the next morning. I wake up and look around. Where the hell am I? I see a guitar and a guy. It was fun. I have expected more in the past. I have expected love and relationship and for the guy to not be a complete fucking idiot but I am almost 30 now and I know how things work out. They dont..........so I kiss the man sleeping next to me and think about my next move. Do I leave him my number? Do I ask for his? Do I pull out my phone and add him on facebook do I ruin this night by asking for something more?
Hell no.
So I pull my clothes on, I kiss the stranger good morning and good bye. I jump out the front door when he comes up naked asking my name. I tell him “ Katie Jean Arnold before skipping home. “Fucker better look me up,” I think, and fucker didnt look me up until after the article was written. Guess he didnt remember my name until he saw it in print...whatever.
And that was that. Just for me, just for fun, never tell anyone until Mandy from the Post called. I was so enamored with my casual encounter that I had to share my story. Since sex came that easy for me I figured it was time to take a time out like I did back in 2003. Take a breather. Start drinking less, working out more and it was time to focus on why I moved here. To rock n' roll.
FW: In the story, you said, “Sex in New York for me had become like the 99-cent package of Ding Dongs on the corner.” What do you have against Ding Dongs? Are you an agent of Big Twinkie?
KJA: I prefer to eat organic.
FW: Where was this unnamed man's apartment, so we can sort of name him and shame him for not remembering your name?
KJA: He lives off Knickerbocker and Troutman in a 2 bedroom apartment. He is a singer/songwriter and from snooping I gather his roommate is a drummer.
FW: So your little sister is a Bushwick-based internet porn star? What's that like? Does she get recognized out on the street? Her real name, Crystal, goes by the stage name, Erin. Wouldn't that normally be reversed?
KJA: My sister Crystal makes guys crazy. Guys in the street are constantly saying "God Bless You" and I guess that means "shit, I think you are fucking hot" She is making plans to go work in China or San Diego soon. Playboy we are waiting for your call!!!!!
FW: Your single mentioned in the Post story, “Can I Get My Underwear Back?”, sounds like something our readers may enjoy. Where can we get a listen? What are the lyrics?
KJA: It is on youtube. The song is a one take conversation set to music. Comedic musical improv is what I like to do and this is an example of that. Just a stupid joke song about me making fun of the fact my sister and I both lost our underwear on the same night.
FW: How did the NY Post find you?
KJA: I asked the Universe the question “what is it going to take for me to become super famous." I am all about asking questions.
FW: How long do you plan on staying in the "no bang zone"?
KJA: No comment.
FW: You keep mentioning how good this week has been on your Facebook page. Could it get any better? Where do you go from here?
KJA: How does it get any better than this? Show me Universe....
FW: As one of our commenters noticed, you stated you'll be celibate until marraige, or until you get a record deal & put out a killer album. What's closer?
KJA: Am going to start a “Dear Katie” section on my website at katiejeanarnold.com. My subway hookup clearly qualifies me to give sex advice. Keep the questions coming! I already had a girl email me that my story was inspiring and gave me her story on how she is going to be more careful with her hookups! How cool is that?
FW: How would you describe your music?
KJA: like Jewel on crack. The earlier stuff I had written is sad “girl misses boy, girl loves boy” stuff. Now the music I have been writing is funnier like the song “can I get my underwear back” I am taking life less seriously and my writing shows that. I am moving towards musical comedy but still have some sad songs in my set. I am in the mood to collaborate with others.
FW: What is your dream venue to play here in the city, and if you could bring one special guest, who'd it be?
KJA: It would be me and Tina Fey singing about celibacy on SNL.
FW: What's your comedy like? From stalking your Facebook page, I see you just starting doing Improv.
KJA: I started doing musical comedy last year in Portland, Oregon. As long as I keep myself laughing and entertained the rest will work itself out.
FW: When's your next show?
KJA: I will be part of the PIT Intern show this Saturday May 15th at the People’s Improv Theater at 11pm. Show is $5.
Katie's website is katiejeanarnold.com.
Early on Saturday morning, near the corner of Roebling & N. 4th, a cyclist was struck by a black, 4-door Ford livery cab. According to the flyer (pdf), the driver is claiming Stefan, the cyclist, blew a red light. It's a charge Stefan can't dispute. He doesn't remember the event due to head trauma received from the crash.
Were you there? Did you see a cyclist get hit by a livery cab?
Stefan, who has five broken ribs, a broken shoulder, a broken back, and a broken foot, needs witnesses to help fill in the blanks.
Contact Mike at 410-409-9787 if you saw anything.
Update: 7:00pm - From the tweets of a Twitter user identifying him or herself as a sibling of the victim, this was originally a hit-and-run. Just two days ago, he/she tweeted, "searching for witnesses of a hit + run bike accident in williamsburg ny. our brother was hit; he blacked out. if you have info, pls write us." Then, yesterday, he/she added "they have identified the driver(s), so that's a really great thing."
With the amount of new restaurants constantly popping up across Williamsburg/Greenpoint, the thought of trying them all can be overwhelming. Luckily, this weekends Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint should help you cross a few of them off your list (and maybe help you find a new favorite in the process).
Over 34 restaurants are participating, including An Nhau & Banh Mi, Antek, Aurora Ristorante, Bakeri, Bedford Cheese Shop, Blackbird Parlour, DOC Wine Bar, Dressler & Dumont, Fabiane's Cafe & Pastry, Fatty 'Cue, Fornino, Juliette, Karczma, Le Barricou, Lodge, M Shanghai, Manhattan Inn, Mesa Coyoacan, Miranda, Nita Nita, Pies 'n' Thighs, Rabbithole, Rye, Sel De Mer, Sweetwater, Taco Chulo, Teddy's Bar & Grill, Traif, Van Leeuwen's Ice Cream, Walter Foods, Wine Cellar Sorbets, Wombat and many more will be serving up their specialties alongside a pop-up version of the Greenpoint Food Market. And if you want to rid yourself of some of those calories, you can dance them away with the live music accompaniment on an outdoor stage.
All proceeds from the event will go to benefit the building of the Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center a joint project of two longtime North Brooklyn neighborhood non-profits, Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) and The People's Firehouse, Inc (PFI.) The redesigned building will provide a permanent home for the two founding non-profits to continue to serve, organize, and advocate for the community, a flexible cultural exhibition and community meeting space on the ground floor.
Tickets prices are:
$35 for 6 tastes - Advance* - $40 day of event
$55 for 10 tastes - Advance* - $60 day of event
$95 for 18 tastes - Advance*- $100 day of event
To purchase tickets, visit here.
From the same artist who brought us the semi-secret dumpster pools, there is now Glassphemy!.
From the Times:
The installation, set like the previous project in a private space along the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, is a 20-foot-by-30-foot clear box, with high walls made of steel and bulletproof glass. People stand on a high platform at one end of the box and a low platform on the other. Those on the higher platform take empty glass bottles and just chuck ’em into the box — aiming, perhaps, at their compatriots across the way, who are safely outside the onslaught zone. The bottles smash fantastically, artfully designed lights flash, and no one is harmed.
This just doesn't sound as refreshing as a dumpster pool. And in the same vein as the pools, you have to be a cool kid to get an invite, or send a fantastic recycling suggestion to macro-sea.com MAYBE get an invite.
Ale Paul, a designer, and his friend Jon Parker developed a new Brooklyn-inspired font called Brownstone. The full font files, which include alternates, small caps, uppercase ligatures, lowercase ligatures, frame characters, frames, and punctuation, is available via this link.
Here's how the designer describes it:
Brownstone, the face born from these explorations, is an original 21st-century design, yet one subtly infused with historical and cultural references - keen observers might spot influences from decorative typefaces of 19th-century foundries. And just as faces from that era were influenced by contemporary architecture, the frames included with Brownstone echo the ornate iron railings of Park Slope's row houses. (There's also a slight 1960s vibe to Brownstone, of novelty swash-sans photocompositing faces, that can be played up at your discretion.)Influences aside, Brownstone has broad appeal to modern audiences. A soft, monoline sans-serif, with elements of Swiss geometry (see the 'k' and 'x'), its marriage of highly legible, draftsman-like letterforms with decorative swashes and ornaments reflects the old-meets-new aesthetic of the DIY craft culture seen in Brooklyn and other urban centers. It's ornamental but unfussy, romantic but understated - a design theme well-suited to recession-era cynicism.
OK, Tim, so I may have misread that Post story about a local musician hooking up with a stranger on the L train. See to me, a Gen-Y-ish college graduate who went to school at a snotty upstate private University, the phrase "hooking up" implies sloppy, regretful sex where nobody wins yet somehow nobody loses.
To the Post, and I imagine my parents, hooking up means "getting together." So, in this case, our friendly, pre-celibate musician was "feeling it" (and in this case, no, Posties I don't mean literally feeling "it" ((and no, I don't mean "it" as in "penis"))) and decided to go to a guy's house whom she had met literally minutes before on the L train platform, where she then regretfully experienced The Sex.
Case in point: By saying a woman hooked up on a train platform with somebody before she actually hooked up in a bed and then swore off sex all together, you are inviting provoking headlines like "Sex on L Train Platform Leads to Celibacy Pledge."
That is all. Pure motherfucking magic.
Today in not quite street art: you may or may not notice a few hundred brightly colored wheel stickers slapped around Wburg and Greenpoint (and I guess the rest of the city too?). No they weren't put there by an aspiring graffiti artist (DicKikin?) but by the internet company Kikin, in the attempt to give you an iPad. Apparently you just tweet a photo of a sticker at the company, with a #kikin.com hashtag, and you've entered their contest.
Their first clue to where you can find a sticker? At a Greenpoint/Williamsburg bar that "doesn't have any matches...." GET IT?? So up and at 'em, kids. Go be successful, own an iPad.
Continuing with the trend of Southside expansion, a new gourmet patisserie café opened last weekend on Driggs near Fillmore Place. Margo Patisserie Café is owned by baker-couple Margaret and Kris Kozlowska. Currently Margo only sells pastries, cookies, and tarts, but there are plans to expand the menu to include soup and sandwiches in the future. The sunlit café is cozy and has tables with enough room to work (free WiFi is also available). The coffee is pretty tasty. According to Margaret it’s “an Ecuadorian blend from California”. We have our eye on the lemon tart ($5.50), as well as the black forest cake ($5.75). If we could, we’d eat it all!
Margo Patisserie Café, 667 Driggs Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-384-0651
Katie Jean Arnold (pic right), a singer/songwriter/comedian, hooked up with some stranger on the L train platform so now she's telling the New York Post, "Never again!", as in, she's ratcheting up the celibacy belt for a few weeks.
Two weeks ago, Katie Jean Arnold had her celibacy wake-up call. After hooking up with a stranger on the L train platform and going back to his place, she woke up at his apartment and decided to leave. On her way out the door, he came up to her, naked, and said the words she’ll never forget: “What’s your name?”It was then that she made her Big Decision.
No. More. Sex.
Before you starting thinking, "Damn, why hasn't that happened to me?", realize it's this guy who turned this woman off of having sex for a few weeks. Maybe it was his style. Maybe it was the fact he couldn't remember her damn name. But dude, whatever sex position your iPhone recommended you try did not work.
[pic via]
We can't get enough of this guy:
TORO Y MOI "YOU HID" from Yours Truly on Vimeo.
"Don't Feed The Hipsters" - Trustocorp's newest, spotted in McCarren Park.
Don't miss the spring show put on by the graduating class of ITP at NYU tonight from 5pm - 9pm.
With the explosion of South American restaurants popping up in Williamsburg, it can be hard to truly stand out. But the recently opened Uruguayan eatery Tabaré on the South Side will have no problem gaining attention.
Read more after the jump.
The interior of Tabaré is intimate and cozy, with concrete floors and soft lighting. The walls are covered in wood planks of various sizes, which the owners found and collected via Craigslist. The shelving above the tables in the restaurant is filled with vintage wine bottles and tea kettles. The tables are concrete, which is a nice contrast to the colorful handmade knitted banquettes. For the warmer months, there is a cute, small outdoor patio filled with tropical plants and tea lights.
Tabaré’s menu is varied with Mediterranean and Italian influences, with pasta dishes aplenty-I’m told it’s a staple of the Uruguayan diet. The owners said they wanted to serve what would be offered at a typical restaurant in Uruguay.
Tabaré uses as many organic and locally farmed foods as possible. The chef buys all the vegetables used in the food from the Union Square Farmers Market. The chicken is organic, and the beef is grass fed from Upstate NY.
Upon being seated, a small baguette from nearby Bakeri Brooklyn was served with a homemade olive oil and olive tapenade. For an appetizer, we ordered the homemade Empanadas Caseras ($7). We had one of each of the two choices offered: the first was filled with caramelized onions, gruyere & fontina cheese, while the second offered Spanish tuna & black olives. Both were amazing, and were small enough to not spoil your dinner. The empanadas were served with two sauces, a traditional chimmichurri and a spicier olive oil based sauce with peppers. Although we didn’t try it, the Ensalada Fresca with romaine, string beans, parsley, chives, & grapefruit salad ($9) sounded amazing.
There were many daily specials to choose from; including handmade potato gnocchi of the day ($14), and Raviolis Caseros (handmade ravioli with chicken and Roquefort cheese). We tried the Pescado Al Papel (fish of the day), tilapia baked in parchment paper served with string beans, carrots in a citrus herb sauce, grapefruit & baked potatoes; along with the Chivito Completo (traditional Uruguayan filet mignon steak sandwich) with bacon, mozzarella, onions, green olives, tomato, lettuce & a fried egg. The tilapia was extremely flavorful and tasty. There were more than enough vegetables, a nice change from the for sad carrots typically offered with fish at most places. The Chivito Completo was served with home fried potatoes, which tasted like homemade French fries. It offered an amazing array of flavors, complimented by the sweet brioche it was served on.
The desserts offer a nice compliment to the dinner. We had the Torta De Chocolate Negro (flourless dark chocolate cake) served with whipped cream and fresh fruit. It was so rich we couldn’t finish the whole piece, but is a great item to share. We also ordered the Manjar Del Cielo (dulce de leche flan). In contrast to most flan I’ve had in the past, this was thicker and less custard like. I actually preferred it.
Tabaré also serves brunch on the weekends. Many of the items offered are the same as during dinner, with the addition of several Brunch specific dishes such as Torreja (Uruguayan “French” toast) served with fruits and organic maple syrup ($7), Huevos horneados (baked eggs) with wild mushrooms ($10), and Revuelto gramajo (scrambled eggs) green peas, julienne fries & Serrano ham ($11).
Like visiting South America, Tabaré is a bit further south than most would venture out in Williamsburg, but it’s well worth the trip. Trust me.
Tabaré, 221 South 1st Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 917-862-5014
I've got a new piece over at The Awl about Girls lead singer Christopher Owens and the Children of God cult. It's pretty disturbing, but hopefully worth a read for fans of the band and/or people obsessed with bizarre cults.
Given the passion expressed for girl music on this site, I suppose it’s not too much an affront to my masculinity to confess my obsession with the admittedly unmanly band Girls. Their debut record "Album" is forty minutes of melancholy bliss, late night break-up songs that will make you feel like a teenager suffering from a his first encounter with heartbreak. My introduction to the band’s back-story came through Pitchfork (shut up!) whose review featured a little biographical information on the band’s leader, Christopher Owens: “Christopher Owens grew up in the Children of God. His older brother died as a baby because the cult didn't believe in medical attention. His dad left. He and his mother lived around the world, and the cult sometimes forced his mother to prostitute herself.”Read it all at The Awl (It's kinda NSFW).
I think visors are on the cusp of becoming the new hot shit. Therefore, I will spend the next two hours highlighting examples of cool vizors (visor fans: it's OK to switch out the "z" with the "s") on my twitter account. Think you've got a good "visor eye"? Join in w/ hashtag #visorfeed. The future is here. Am I serious? I don't know. Not even I can tell if I'm joking or not anymore... Anyways, Friday right?!
This is perhaps one of the more bizarre pairings we've ever heard of, but blast-from-the-past band Primus will be performing with Gogol Bordello on July 30th at the Williamsburg Waterfront. Presale begins at noon.
Also, Weezer is slotted to play July 16. Tickets go on sale for that show tomorrow at 10:00 AM.
Gogol Bordello- "Start Wearing Purple" - March 09, 2010 @ The Fillmore / Irving Plaza, New York
Wait, so how exactly can one fit 24 rooms into a 344 square foot apartment? Oh, by being an absolute genius.
It's about time someone designed a place where the rooms come to me instead the other way around. Just think about how many more residents the Domino Sugar developers could squeeze in if they utilized this kind of design!
A freelancer writer who we'll call "SS" had hoped her second article for a New York City print publication would be running next week. Last night, she optimistically tweeted, "2nd article will be running next week in the [paper name redacted so she can keep trying!]." However, much to her dismay, the Williamsburg resident was rejected this morning because she's "not Bushwick enough."
She updated her followers, "wait, just kidding, got rejected because i'm "NOT BUSHWICK ENOUGH." what, i live in williamsburg, can't write about bushwick? whatevs."
Whatevs indeed! So what does she write about? Well, I don't know. But a word cloud of her most recent LiveJournal blog post might give you a clue:
What is it to "Be Bushwick"? I mean, it's different than to "Be Williamsburg"? Is the great media magnification glass that's been hovering over Williamsburg for the last few years shifting slowly to Bushwick? Regardless, this particular paper seems to be going hyper-local by declaring all writers who write about a neighborhood must indeed call that neighborhood home. It's like politics! Notice to all freelance hopefuls, start the Great Media Land Grab now.
The above photo was taken in 1940 and is currently on display at a Canadian museum. In it, the viewer can see scores of 1940-era gents and ladies, in their sassy fedora hats, classy suits and ties, and then, right there about three people deep, that dude.
What's his deal? Is that a digital SLR he's got just below his screen-printed tee? That face. His emotions are way to "meh" here compared to the others in the photograph. To the analysis!
A week or so late because I was busy time traveling, h/t Boing Boing, Gizmodo
Nicholas Gonzales, an accused rapist in Sydney, Australia, has been acquitted of raping a 24-year old woman because his lawyer argued her jeans were too tight to be removed by Nicholas alone, making the sex consensual.
He successfully argued “it's difficult for skinny jeans to be taken off by someone else unless the wearer's assisting, collaborating, consenting.”
This is bad news. Notice to skinny jeans-wearing citizens of the 11211: your size 0 slim fits are now recognized as an Australian voice of consent.
Oh, and a big F.U. to the morons who are supporting Arizona's backwards immigration law. (NSFW)
Original Video- More videos at TinyPic
Prospect Park will once again be home to live music this summer, as Celebrate Brooklyn is back with a line-up that includes both free and ticketed benefit shows.
Full schedule is listed below the jump, via Brooklyn Vegan.
Celebrate Brooklyn 2010 Schedule
June 9
Opening Night Gala
Norah Jones
8:00PM/gates 6:30PM
NEA Influencers
June 12
Allen Toussaint
Davell Crawford
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
Time Warner Cable Series
June 17
Eugene Mirman & Pretty Good Friends
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
June 18
JG Thirwell's Steroid Maximus
Dr. Lonnie Smith
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
Celebrate Brooklyn! & CareFusion Jazz Festival present
June 19
Bitches Brew Revisited with Graham Haynes, James Blood Ulmer, DJ Logic and more!
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
American Express Roots Music Series
June 24
Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club®
featuring Omara Portuondo / Nelida Tirado
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
June 25
Kid Koala: Short Attention Span Theater vs. The Slew / Hess Is More
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
American Express Roots Music Series
June 26
Texas Tornados
Red Clay Ramblers
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
July 1
Zoom: Zvidance
Son Lux with Lottdance
8:00PM/gates 7:00PM
July 2
Fab 5
Uzalo
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
July 8
Itutu: Armitage Gone! Dance featuring Burkina Electric
8:00PM/gates 7:00PM
Bud Light Latin Music Series
Celebrate Brooklyn! & LAMC present
July 9
Ozomatli
Fidel Nadal / Toy Selectah
8:00PM/gates 6:30PM
July 11
OkayAfrica with The Roots, Talib Kweli and more!
4:00PM/gates 3:00PM
Celebrate Brooklyn! & Museum for African Art present
July 17
African Festival
with Konono No. 1, Omar Pene, Super Diamono and more!
2-9:00PM/gates 1:00PM
Music & Movies
NEA American Masterpieces
Celebrate Brooklyn! & Brooklyn Philharmonic
July 22
The Chaplin Mutuals: Carl Davis / The Two Man Gentlemen Band
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
Bud Light Latin Music Series
July 23
Bomba Estereo
La Secta Allstar / Rita Indiana
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
NEA Influencers
July 24
Field of Dreams (Un Mundo Nuevo): Andres Levin & The Bruce High Quality Foundation
4:00PM/gates 3:00PM
Music & Movies
July 29
MI21: Mother India 21st Century Remix with DJ Tigerstyle / Falu
8:00PM/gates 7:00PM
Bud Light Music Series
July 30
The Swell Season
The Low Anthem
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
Celebrate Brooklyn! and Limewire present
July 31
Sonic Youth
Grass Widow / Talk Normal
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
Time Warner Cable Series
August 5
Metric
Joan as Police Woman / Holly Miranda
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
Music & Movies
August 6
House of Usher: Marco Benevento
White Magic
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
American Express Roots Music Series
August 7
Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, Budos Band and more!
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
Ezra Jack Keats Family Concert
Time Warner Cable Series
August 8
Brady Rymer
Elizabeth Mitchell
4:00PM/gates 3:00PM
Celebrate Brooklyn 2010 Benefit Shows
June 29
Passion Pit (sold out)
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
July 20
Rufus Wainwright
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
July 27
The National (sold out)
7:30PM/gates 6:30PM
August 3
The Dead Weather
7:00PM/gates 6:00PM
We're gonna go with The Knife:
More videos and the back-story on Buzzfeed.
Got the sniffles? Instead of waiting for the Obama plan to kick in, did you know you can trade your art (or music, film, acting, dance, or anything really) for medical care at the Bushwick-based Woodhull Hospital?
As the blog Brokelyn reports, the plan is called Artist Access and allows folks to volunteer their skills, time and/or services to the hospital in exchange for credits (1 hour = about $40 worth of care). And it's not just emergency room visits either -- you can trade for dental work or even prescription drugs.
All participants must be NYC residents, making a living through art (of any kind), and will need to first enroll in HHC Options, one of New York City's low-to medium-income health care plans.
So quit googling your symptoms (those results can be scary y'all) or hitting your friends up for their expired prescriptions and go to the damn doctor already.
H/T Brokelyn
Because nobody can do a better recap than the Brooklyn Paper's Aaron Short, I'll just point you to his story on opening day: Kickball — the sport of Kings — is back!
“Our goal was to look good and have fun, so it doesn’t matter if we won or lost,” said captain Paul Cougar Mellencamp. “We lost our first game last year and then won 20 in a row before winning the championship.”
Brooklyn Paper / Photo by Julie Rosenberg
Disclosure: Of course I'm on a team.
Unlike a New Year's midnight that ends with you turning to your fugly friend and with a settling shrug and desperate, "I mean... Should we...?" eyes, May 4th's midnight brought the release of Minus the Bear's hotly anticipated album OMNI. To properly celebrate, Minus the Bear hosted a secret show at Bowery Electric along with tourmates Everest.
The Seattle based band thrilled their fans by playing a mix of their old and new tracks. Considering the crowd of die-hards immediately surrounding the band, lead singer Jake Snider kept his banter to a minimal but joked about the band's pre-determined set list.
Openers Everest toned down their usual lineup with a dusty acoustic version of their set. It's surprising to learn Everest heralds from Los Angeles as the band's presence and expansive sound feels like rich country. Although their sound is folk influenced, the pop sensibilities of Everest created an interesting build up for each of their songs which felt instantly familiar but not stale. Everest's album On Approach will be available May 11th.
Minus the Bear will continue on their OMNI North American tour, for more dates click here and check out more photos after the jump!
Minus the Bear
Everest
Photos by Andrew Katzowitz and Janice Chou
We can judge the sender of this message all we want, but I will admit... I have had thoughts like this before. I dated a guy once who admittedly said that he had never read a book-- so let's take that into consideration in the comments as we bash the 'hipster scumbag' responsible for this kind of insensitivity.
But still, a text message!? Ouch.
[Thanks to @VoiceStreet]
This is pretty fucking rad. Via Stereogum:
Georgia's Twin Tigers are in town and ready to share their haze-infused indie rock with the lovely folks of Williamsburg tonight at Cameo Gallery in the back of N. 6th's Lovin' Cup. Of course, FREEwilly has a pair of tickets for one super lucky reader!
All you've gotta do is post a comment over on the Facebook contest thread and you can ask out that hot barista you've had an eye on ever since Spring, well, sprung. Who knows, maybe kisses in the rain are in your near future. Right-click to download Twin Tigers' newest track, "Everyday", here to set the mood for the memories of your next ex-gf/bf.
If tonight's your weekly sit-on-the-couch-with-your-hand-down-your-pants night, then head out to Pianos tomorrow night for Twin Tigers encore NYC presentation. And be sure to check out the video for "Red Fox Run" after the jump...
The black-skirted feminists who stormed down North 6th Street and Bedford a few weeks ago leaving a trail of shattered windows in their wake sent out a second manifesto. In it, they note their excitement over your "utter horror," call for more crazy bitches, and warn they're gonna "negate the shit out of you.”
Behold! A Modest Proposal from some Crazy Bitches:
In the past weeks, crazy bitches have chosen to show gross yuppie neighborhoods and scummy pesudo[sic]-anarchist rapists their power in some pretty sick and sadistic ways. While rape apologists and generally fucked-up dudes have act horrified and evoked anachronistic concepts of “community” to repudiate this, we, as fellow crazy bitches out to tear this shit to pieces say, “we want more!” The fact of the matter is, when bitches get attacked for making war on their fucked-up conditions, other crazy bitches will be there to turn up the heat even further. We’re excited at the utter horror of “anarcho”-dudes everywhere; this means that someone’s done something right. Our simple proposal: crews of crazy bitches form everywhere, in every city in this country and beyond. Kick the shit out of your rapists, write the insurrectionary feminist theory that we need so bad, become an autonomous force that will destroy everything in its wake. And rape apologists, patriarchs, and “anarcho”-dudes be warned, you will not be safe from our fury. When you fuck with a crazy bitch, you have fucked with all of us. And we’re not so demure and dainty these days.“Dude, I’m gonna negate the shit out of you.”
-one of many future autonomous cells of crazy bitches
Their first comment, a running reactionary theme: "Personally, I feel that the reciprocal action has muted my voice and that the violent reaction to violence is hypocritical at best."
The Color of Pomegranates by Sergei Parajanov is considered one of the best films of all time by some of the most influential film makers including Fellini, Godard and Antonioni-- so what better way to celebrate rooftop weather by getting all sorts of cultural with this visual masterpiece!?
Drinks and popcorn start at 6:30, Film starts at 8:30
If you're not there, we'll know you hate life.
Konono No. 1, the “Congotronic” rhythm combo with the killer likembé sound, is returning to New York City for two nights in July, Free Williamsburg has learned. The African octet will be celebrating the release of "Assume Crash Position," the group's much-anticipated second studio album set for release June 8.
The new full-length finds Konono No. 1 refining its epic thumb-strummed dance-pop—a modern take on traditional bazombo trance music—while maintaining its signature propulsive vigor.
The band touches down at Prospect Park on Saturday, July 17, to perform as part of Celebrate Brooklyn. The Konono crew crosses over into Manhattan the next night, Sunday, July 18, to play Le Poisson Rouge.
Vinyl junkies looking to catch up with Konono No. 1's recorded output and the Congotronic sound of Kinshasa generally might want to consider investing in the colossal, limited edition six-LP "Congotronics Vinyl Box Set" out now on Konono No. 1's label Crammed Discs.
We couldn't be more excited about this show. Tickets are on sale now.
M.I.A. SKREAM BENGA THEOPHILUS LONDON SLEIGH BELLS DESTRUCTO BORGORE 12TH PLANET NINJASONIK NGUZUNGUZU + MUCH MORE TICKET PRICE INCLUDES WATER TAXI FEE… Tickets are available now
Age: All Ages
Doors Open: 5:00PM EST
Get your mind out of the gutter, silly! This will be good wholesome fun!
Live music, BBQ, and enough attractive and belligerent folks to get right back in the gutter with. It's also the perfect opportunity to play my favorite game, Spot Your Favorite Music Editor and Buy Her a Beer.
Of course, all proceeds go to supporting the Brooklyn Grange. So come celebrate the summer and take a sneak peek at all the farming the Roberta's crew has been up to! 2pm-8pm
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