For your Williamsburg family thanksgiving, I recommend keeping it simple. Even if you’re no culinary expert, these potatoes are easy, and truffle oil makes it fancy tasty. Open up a bottle of Wild Turkey to keep it festive, or make this. Put on a record, and whip up these bad boys. People will be all like, damn, them’s good taters.

2 lb. fingerling or Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
4 large cloves garlic, peeled and halved
2-3 Tbs. truffle oil
1 Tbs. finely chopped parsley

1. Bring potatoes, garlic, and enough water to cover all by 1 inch to a boil in medium saucepan or one of those aluminum things you get at the bodega. Reduce heat to medium, and simmer 20 minutes, or until potatoes are soft when pricked with fork or a chopstick or something. Drain, but hold on to 1 cup of that liquid potato gold.

2. Pour another drink.

3. Return potatoes and garlic to saucepan; mash with cooking water you held on to until smooth and mashed potatoey. Stir in truffle oil and parsley, and season with salt and pepper.

Careful with the truffle oil, less is more. I can’t say the same for the Wild Turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends.

On Nov. 15, Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum will join Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo, Fugazi’s Guy Picciotto, TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe and others for a “variety show and telethon” to benefit an OWS aligned group devoted to spreading the word about predatory debt practices, student loans, and eliminating debt.

Organizers are calling it “The People’s Bailout.”

Mangum showed his love for Occupy Wall Street last year with a surprise performance at Zuccotti Park, but this event at Le Poisson Rouge hopes to raise $50,000 for Strike Debt, which according to their website believe “debt is a global system of domination and exploitation of the 99% by the 1%.”

Join Strike Debt for an updated version of an old classic, the telethon, to launch The Rolling Jubilee, a campaign that buys debt for pennies on the dollar and does away with it. Instead of collecting the debt, we will abolish it and help free the debtors!”

Other guests include Janeane Garofalo ,  Lizz Winstead , Max Silvestri , Hari Kondabolu , David Rees , The Yes Men , John Cameron Mitchell , Climbing PoeTree , the Invisible Army of Defaulters , members of Healthcare for the 99% , Occupy Faith and many more

In case you can’t make it all the way into Manhattan for the show, the event will be streamed live, but tickets go on sale Friday, November 2, starting at $25 – enough to abolish an estimated $500 worth of debt

Editorial note: While personal debt plagues many Americans, and does in fact restrict social movement and personal liberty, prominent economists argue that greater government spending, thus national debt, is needed to get the nation out of the unemployment slump.

Maybe Williamsburg isn’t The Neighborhood of Make-Believe but it’s fun to pretend when you’re listening to the new Mister Rogers remix by Symphony of Science’s John D. Boswell, aka melodysheep for PBS Digital Studios.

From PBS:

Turns out that (John) is a huge Mister Rogers Neighborhood fan, and was thrilled at the chance to pay tribute to one of our heroes. Both PBS and the Fred Rogers Company hope you like John’s celebration of Fred Rogers’ message.”

According to PBS, this is but the first in a series of PBS icons remixed. I can’t wait for the Charlie Rose remix!

Support your local PBS station!

This is definitely a show worth going to.  Fire Talk Records brings you a killer show tonight at Shea Stadium.

Don’t miss it.

>ALAN WATTS

>WOODSMAN

>BABY BIRDS DON’T DRINK MILK

>COOL ANGELS

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Rest In Peace
August 5, 1964 – May 4, 2012

It is with great sadness that we confirm that musician, rapper, activist and director Adam “MCA” Yauch, founding member of Beastie Boys and also of the Milarepa Foundation that produced the Tibetan Freedom Concert benefits, and film production and distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories, passed away in his native New York City this morning after a near-three-year battle with cancer. He was 47 years old.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Yauch taught himself to play bass in high school, forming a band for his 17th birthday party that would later become known the world over as Beastie Boys.

With fellow members Michael “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Adrock” Horovitz, Beastie Boys would go on to sell over 40 million records, release four #1 albums–including the first hip hop album ever to top the Billboard 200, the band’s 1986 debut full length, Licensed To Ill–win three Grammys, and the MTV Video Vanguard Lifetime Achievement award. Last month Beastie Boys were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Diamond and Horovitz reading an acceptance speech on behalf of Yauch, who was unable to attend.
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I’m no huge fan of Lana Del Rey, but the backlash to her SNL performance was pretty astounding.

Since I’m pretty confident most of our readers only watched her performance after the show aired, (because really, who spends a Saturday night watching SNL?) here is a clip from last night’s episode, Kristen Wiig as Lana:

The music stage on ‘Saturday Night Live’ is hallowed ground, and I failed to reach the high bar set by past guests like Bubba Sparxxx, the Baha Men, and Shaggy.”

Oh yeah, you can add Bon Iver to that list. He played on the show last night.

That time of year has come and gone.

Michael Neff's Flickr

The gifts are given and received, the parties attended, and we’re all finally tired of holiday music.

By now, you’ve no doubt noticed the disregarded, bygone Christmas trees littering the streets of Williamsburg, and the truth is, there are many different ways to get rid of them. You can leave them for curbside collection, mulch them, or even feed them to rhinos, but local artist Michael Neff has his own plan.

Neff and a friend collected the fallen and forgotten firs around the neighborhood, and hung them in all their dry and dying glory under the BQE. There they swing and sway as the wind blows, and cars pass overhead.

According to Neff’s Flickr,

A proposal to install at a Brooklyn gallery this year was well received but they wanted more time to publicize the installation and asked me to install it for them next year. I wanted to do something immediately so I identified potential venues for installation and settled on this location under the BQE because of its visibility, ease of access, and the amount of traffic it gets.

The installation is located where Metropolitan Avenue crosses North 6th Street.

I have been intending to do an installation piece using the discarded Christmas trees for a number of years now. They begin to crowd the sidewalks of New York City as soon as the day after Christmas and have always felt a bit sad to me.

So you think Christmas cheer is for squares? Wrong.

Greenpoint’s McGolrick Trees is not only your one stop shop for a fresh Carolina Fraser or the perfect holiday wreath, but now they’re providing the soundtrack to your Christmas Party too.

Started last year by Charlie Poekell, the McGolrick tree stand is open 24 hours for late night carolers, and is manned by a steady staff of neighborhood friends and fellow artists.

“We sell Christmas trees and accessories to locals, by locals,” says the slogan on their Tumblr.

I imagine hanging out all night slinging trees gets cold and maybe a little boring, so with a group of stand workers like Woodsman‘s Trevor Peterson, Edwin white of Tonstartssbandht, Ari Stern of Underwater Peoples Records, Family Portrait‘s Evan Brody, Nate Grace of Pure X, and Jamie Granato of Group Tightener, it was only a matter of time before a compilation of previously unreleased Christmas tree mood music was born.

The comp features holiday tunes from Dent May, Woodsman, Eola, Ava Luna, Family Portrait, Dead Gaze, Flower Orgy, Low Praises, and Samurai Buck.

Oh come all ye faithful, and get a free limited edition recording  at the tree stand starting this weekend. Pick yourself up a copy, get one as a gift, or check it out here

To get you in the spirit, here’s a new take on a classic:

Family Portrait – All I Want For Christmas Is You by firetalk

Now, go buy a tree.

Nous

The Brooklyn-based “psych folk” threesome, SoftSpot is playing tonight at Big Snow Buffalo Lodge, a newer venue in Bushwick.

Softspot was off touring most of September, after the release of Nous, a Cassette release limited to 100 copies, which dropped September 3.

Since they’ve been back they’ve played Glasslands, DBA, and a few other clubs, filling the usual spots with their ethereal, evocative  melodies.

Sarah Kinlaw’s  haunting, airy vocals seem to float over the music as it steadily builds, driving forward with help from her longtime collaborator and multi-instrumentalist, Bryan Keller. Along with Andrew Spaulding (aka Ca$h Bundles) the trio the produces a dreamy, yet passionate and high-energy sound that truly captivates.

SoftSpot will be joined tonight by Rifle Recoil, Pigeons, and Gray Pages. Follow the links to their bandcamp sites, and don’t miss tonight’s show. Check here for more info.

If you can’t make it tonight, Sarah and Bryan will perform at the 3rd annual LENNON concert to benefit Arts Education International tomorrow at Knitting Factory. The Full band plays again Sunday at Shea Stadium with Phonetag, Small Reactions, and Caged Animals, and again Dec. 29th at Glasslands when Popgun Booking presents SoftSpot, Julian Lynch, and Amy Klein (of Titus Andronicus) and the Blue Star Band

Slack Tide by SoftSpot

Someone close to me once said, “Don’t end sentences with prepositions and be thankful for your friends.” Make this Thanksgiving cocktail for a friend and think about all you can be thankful for.

Burnt Turkey
1 oz Wild Turkey Bourbon
1 oz cinnamon schnapps
3-4 fresh mint leaves

Fill a chilled glass with crushed ice and 3-4 fresh mint leaves. Combine the bourbon and cinnamon schnapps in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake, then strain over ice into a rocks glass, mason jar, or coffee cup . Listen to Big Star on the fire escape with your friends.