Archive

Archive for November, 2009

Digital Tastemakers

November 24th, 2009 No comments

Five voices that matter.

nymag.com

  • By Ryan Bradley
  • Published Nov 8, 2009

Illustration: Gluekit

It often seems as if there are, oh, 800,000 New Yorkers who blog, roughly 730,000 of whom have an opinion about music. We picked five who are (get ready to rumble, commenters) more important than the rest. Here’s why.

Dave, brooklynvegan.com
Omnivorous online granddaddy of the local live-music scene who covers bands from Brooklyn to London. Curates shows, too.
Why he’s important:
The exposure Dave (who really only ever goes by BrooklynVegan and is loath to have his last name revealed) gives artists, most of whom log on to see what’s being said about them. Or, as he puts it, “Someone gave me this self-released CD by Justin Vernon (a.k.a. Bon Iver) in the beginning of summer 2007. I blogged about it, invited Justin to come to play my CMJ showcase at the Bowery. I guess the rest is history.”
In the five-plus years since he started BrooklynVegan:
“A lot of venues have closed because of rising rents. But I think even more have opened in Brooklyn to take their place.”
Everyone should be listening to:
“Nathaniel Rateliff & the Wheel. I just hosted them at two CMJ shows.”

Robert Lanham, freewilliamsburg.com
The blog with the name (for better or worse) synonymous with Brooklyn music. Author of The Hipster Handbook.
Greatest claim to fame:
“We were the first blog I’m aware of to write about Grizzly Bear. I think it was Ed Droste who dropped off a demo years ago, with a note that said, ‘Hey, we’re neighbors, check this out.’?”
Criticized for:
“We are constantly accused of promoting only hipster bands.”
Everyone should be listening to:
“Real Estate. Are they too popular now?”

Nora Walker, irockiroll.blogspot.com
D.J., talent scout, party girl.
Areas of expertise:
Dance music, British imports, cheesy electro-pop.
The problem with Brooklyn is:
“There were eight to ten really big music blogs when I started. Now there are probably a hundred. Everything seems oversaturated and overwhelming.”
Everyone should be listening to: “The Depreciation Guild: dark, gorgeous, layered electro-rock.”

Tod Seelie, suckapants.com
Photographer.
Areas of expertise:
The DIY music scene, “warehouse and apartment shows, mainly.”
Why he matters:
“I’m friends with bands like Matt and Kim, CSS, Japanther, the Death Set, and Ninjasonik, so I covered them a lot early on.”
Everyone should be listening to:
Dark Dark Dark, Woods, These Are Powers, Hurray for the Riff Raff, Ninjasonik, Crystal Antlers, and Cerebral Ballzy.

Christopher R. Weingarten, @1000timesyes
The sometime rollingstone.com critic will have reviewed 1,000 albums from 2009 on his Twitter feed by year’s end.
Areas of expertise:
Hip-hop, art-metal, noise. “But damned if I don’t love the new Miranda Lambert and Green Day albums.”
Right now, Brooklyn is:
“Moving toward bands with basic ideas and lots of laptops, filtered through a wall of distorted mush to make them sound interesting. See: Real Estate.”
Everyone should be listening to:
“Dälek, from New Jersey. They are making some of the most important music in the world.”
Beef with other bloggers:
“Anyone that tells you they personally had a hand in ‘making’ a band is either aggrandizing their importance or has an inflated sense of self-worth.”

Read more: Brooklyn’s Sonic Boom – Five Voices That Matter in the Music Blogosphere– New York Magazine http://nymag.com/arts/popmusic/features/61881/#ixzz0Xptj1e7i

Categories: Music Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Meet the Man Who Lives on Zero Dollars

November 24th, 2009 No comments

In Utah, a modern-day caveman has lived for the better part of a decade on zero dollars a day. People used to think he was crazy

Daniel Suelo lives in a cave. Unlike the average American—wallowing in credit-card debt, clinging to a mortgage, terrified of the next downsizing at the office—he isn’t worried about the economic crisis. That’s because he figured out that the best way to stay solvent is to never be solvent in the first place. Nine years ago, in the autumn of 2000, Suelo decided to stop using money. He just quit it, like a bad drug habit.

His dwelling, hidden high in a canyon lined with waterfalls, is an hour by foot from the desert town of Moab, Utah, where people who know him are of two minds: He’s either a latter-day prophet or an irredeemable hobo. Suelo’s blog, which he maintains free at the Moab Public Library, suggests that he’s both. “When I lived with money, I was always lacking,” he writes. “Money represents lack. Money represents things in the past (debt) and things in the future (credit), but money never represents what is present.”

On a warm day in early spring, I clamber along a set of red-rock cliffs to the mouth of his cave, where I find a note signed with a smiley face: CHRIS, FEEL FREE TO USE ANYTHING, EAT ANYTHING (NOTHING HERE IS MINE). From the outside, the place looks like a hollowed teardrop, about the size of an Amtrak bathroom, with enough space for a few pots that hang from the ceiling, a stove under a stone eave, big buckets full of beans and rice, a bed of blankets in the dirt, and not much else. Suelo’s been here for three years, and it smells like it.

Night falls, the stars wink, and after an hour, Suelo tramps up the cliff, mimicking a raven’s call—his salutation—a guttural, high-pitched caw. He’s lanky and tan; yesterday he rebuilt the entrance to his cave, hauling huge rocks to make a staircase. His hands are black with dirt, and his hair, which is going gray, looks like a bird’s nest, full of dust and twigs from scrambling in the underbrush on the canyon floor. Grinning, he presents the booty from one of his weekly rituals, scavenging on the streets of Moab: a wool hat and gloves, a winter jacket, and a white nylon belt, still wrapped in plastic, along with Carhartt pants and sandals, which he’s wearing. He’s also scrounged cans of tuna and turkey Spam and a honeycomb candle. All in all, a nice haul from the waste product of America. “You made it,” he says. I hand him a bag of apples and a block of cheese I bought at the supermarket, but the gift suddenly seems meager.

Suelo lights the candle and stokes a fire in the stove, which is an old blackened tin, the kind that Christmas cookies might come in. It’s hooked to a chain of soup cans segmented like a caterpillar and fitted to a hole in the rock. Soon smoke billows into the night and the cave is warm. I think of how John the Baptist survived on honey and locusts in the desert. Suelo, who keeps a copy of the Bible for bedtime reading, is satisfied with a few grasshoppers fried in his skillet.

He wasn’t always this way. Suelo graduated from the University of Colorado with a degree in anthropology, he thought about becoming a doctor, he held jobs, he had cash and a bank account. In 1987, after several years as an assistant lab technician in Colorado hospitals, he joined the Peace Corps and was posted to an Ecuadoran village high in the Andes. He was charged with monitoring the health of tribespeople in the area, teaching first aid and nutrition, and handing out medicine where needed; his proudest achievement was delivering three babies. The tribe had been getting richer for a decade, and during the two years he was there he watched as the villagers began to adopt the economics of modernity. They sold the food from their fields—quinoa, potatoes, corn, lentils—for cash, which they used to purchase things they didn’t need, as Suelo describes it. They bought soda and white flour and refined sugar and noodles and big bags of MSG to flavor the starchy meals. They bought TVs. The more they spent, says Suelo, the more their health declined. He could measure the deterioration on his charts. “It looked,” he says, “like money was impoverishing them.”

The experience was transformative, but Suelo needed another decade to fashion his response. He moved to Moab and worked at a women’s shelter for five years. He wanted to help people, but getting paid for it seemed dishonest—how real was help that demanded recompense? The answer lay, in part, in the Christianity of his childhood. In Suelo’s nascent philosophy, following Jesus meant adopting the hard life prescribed in the Sermon on the Mount. “Giving up possessions, living beyond credit and debt,” Suelo explains on his blog, “freely giving and freely taking, forgiving all debts, owing nobody a thing, living and walking without guilt . . . grudge [or] judgment.” If grace was the goal, Suelo told himself, then it had to be grace in the classical sense, from the Latin gratia, meaning favor—and also, free.

By 1999, he was living in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand—he had saved just enough money for the flight. From there, he made his way to India, where he found himself in good company among the sadhus, the revered ascetics who go penniless for their gods. Numbering as many as 5 million, the sadhus can be found wandering roads and forests across the subcontinent, seeking enlightenment in self-abnegation. “I wanted to be a sadhu,” Suelo says. “But what good would it do for me to be a sadhu in India? A true test of faith would be to return to one of the most materialistic, money-worshipping nations on earth and be a sadhu there. To be a vagabond in America, a bum, and make an art of it—the idea enchanted me.”

There isn’t enough space in Suelo’s cave for two, so I sleep in the open, at the edge of a hundred-foot cliff. No worries about animals, he says. Though mountain lions drink from the stream, and bobcats hunt rabbits under the cottonwoods, the worst he’s experienced was a skunk that sprayed him in the face. Mice scurry over his body in the cave, and kissing bugs sometimes suck the blood from under his fingernails while he sleeps. He shrugs off these indignities. “After all, it’s their cave too,” he says. I hunker down near a nest of scorpions, which crawl up the canyon walls, ignoring me.

The morning ritual is simple and slow: a cup of sharp tea brewed from the needles of piñon and juniper trees, a swim in the cold emerald water where the creek pools in the red rock. Then, two naked cavemen lounging under the Utah sun. Around noon, we forage along the banks and under the cliffs, looking for the stuff of a stir-fry dinner. We find mustard plants among the rocks, the raw leaves as satisfying as cauliflower, and down in the cool of the creek—where Suelo gets his water and takes his baths (no soap for him) —we cull watercress in heads as big as supermarket lettuce, and on the bank we spot a lode of wild onions, with bulbs that pop clean from the soil. In leaner times, Suelo’s gatherings include ants, grubs, termites, lizards, and roadkill. He recently found a deer, freshly run over, and carved it up and boiled it. “The best venison of my life,” he says.

I tell him that living without money seems difficult. What about starvation? He’s never gone without a meal (friends in Moab sometimes feed him). What about getting deadly ill? It happened once, after eating a cactus he misidentified—he vomited, fell into a delirium, thought he was dying, even wrote a note for those who would find his corpse. But he got better. That it’s hard is exactly the point, he says. “Hardship is a good thing. We need the challenge. Our bodies need it. Our immune systems need it. My hardships are simple, right at hand—they’re manageable.” When I tell him about my rent back in New York—$2,400 a month—he shakes his head. What’s left unsaid is that I’m here writing about him to make money, for a magazine that depends for its survival on the advertising revenue of conspicuous consumption. As he prepares a cooking fire, Suelo tells me that years ago he had a neighbor in the canyon, an alcoholic who lived in a cave bigger than his. The old man would pan for gold in the stream and net enough cash each month to buy the beer that kept him drunk. Suelo considers the riches of our own forage. “What if we saw gold for what it is?” he says meditatively. “Gold is pretty but virtually useless. Somebody decided it has worth, and everybody accepted this decision. The natives in the Americas thought Europeans were insane because of their lust for such a useless yellow substance.”

He sautés the watercress, mustard leaves, and wild onions, mixing in fresh almonds he picked from a friend’s orchard and ghee made from Dumpster-dived butter, and we eat out of his soot-caked pans. From the perch on the cliff, the life of the sadhu seems reasonable. But I don’t want to live in a cave. I like indoor plumbing (Suelo squats). I like electricity. Still, there’s an obvious beauty in the simplicity of subsistence. It’s an un-American notion these days. We don’t revere our ascetics, and we dismiss the idea that money could be some kind of consensual delusion. For most of us, it’s as real as the next house payment. Suelo doesn’t take public assistance or use food stamps, but he does survive in part on our reality, the discarded surfeit of the money system that he denounces—a system, as it happens, that recently looked like it was headed for the cliff.

Suelo is 48, and he doesn’t exactly have a 401(k). “I’ll do what creatures have been doing for millions of years for retirement,” he says. “Why is it sad that I die in the canyon and not in the geriatric ward well-insured? I have great faith in the power of natural selection. And one day, I will be selected out.” Until then, think of him like the raven, cleaning up the carcasses the rest of us leave behind.

Categories: lifestyle, Spots Tags: , , , , , ,

YOUR NEW FAVORITE BAR—SIX NOTABLE NIGHTLIFE OPENINGS

November 13th, 2009 No comments

nymag.com

Blackout
916 Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn; 718-383-0254
Only in Greenpoint could you find the fashionista scene located next to the Polish meat store. As for the interior, it lives up to the name—black mirrored tables, black leather banquettes, pretty-boy bartenders in black tees, and a tin roof painted … yeah, you get it. The bar is long enough to avoid drunken encounters with struggling Goth models, and a sizable back garden offers an escape from the deep chasm of blackness within.

Doghouse Saloon
152 Orchard St., nr. Rivington St.; 646-429-8780
Deceased music venue the Annex has been reborn as the Doghouse Saloon, a balls-to-the-wall frat bar with multiple flat-screen TVs, Skee-Ball, pool, beer pong, free hot dogs, half-off margs during Monday Night Football, karaoke, and a live eighties band on Saturday night.

The Sackett
661 Sackett St., Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-622-0437
The owners of the Sackett placed their bar on a side street for a reason: They’re aiming to keep things quiet, in line with their relaxed Park Slope location. Inside, the space is simple but warm—brick walls, knickknacks tucked away on the shelves, and tiny café tables. There’s a juke box by the door stocked with indie tunes, and a sloppy blues-rock is played on the house speakers. There’ll be an outdoor area opening in 2010, and a menu of appetizers and artisanal, oven-cooked sandwiches before then.

SPiN
48 East 23rd St., nr. Park Ave. South; 212-982-8802
This swanky homage to Ping-Pong and cocktails is a cross between a members-only club and an eighties high-school gymnasium. The Susan Sarandon–backed club houses 13,000 square feet of table-tennis space, flanked by a full bar, mini-bleachers, and a VIP room with a D.J. booth and a Rirkrit Tiravanija–designed Ping-Pong table made entirely of mirrors, worth $60,000.

Uncle Charlie’s
87 Ludlow St., nr. Delancey St.; 212-677-1100
Nightlife fixture Michael Ng is hoping that the same recipe of success—off-the-strip locale, live showtunes, buff bartenders—that worked at the Midtown East Uncle Charlie’s piano bar will attract a younger crowd at this LES location. This time out, there’s also flat-screens, beer pong, and room for 200.

The Woods
48 S. 4th St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn; no phone
To succeed in Williamsburg, a bar needs three things: a cavernous space, a “we don’t try too hard” attitude, and constant supply of plentiful and cheap booze. The Woods, owned by the same guys who run its popular neighbor, Savalas, has safely nailed all three. If you’re daunted by the bordello-red chandeliers or immaculate wood finishes, fear not—the bartender is shoveling out $2 Miller Lite, in plastic cups no less.

Categories: Art, Fashion, Ladies, lifestyle, Metro, Music, Spots Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

THIS WEEKEND’S BEST BETS

November 13th, 2009 No comments

jerseycityindependent.com

By Jon Whiten • Nov 13th, 2009 • Category: Arts, Blog

TODAY

The opening reception for the Agitators Collective’s new can’t-miss show at the 58 Gallery, “Who Will Save Beauty?,” is at 7 pm; at 8 pm you have choices: Dave Greek hosts the Stockinette Cafe’s comedy night; doo-wop and classic cars come to the Loew’s; and the Attic Ensemble kicks off its latest production, Rabbit Hole (performances also scheduled for Saturday night and Sunday afternoon).

SATURDAY

Saturday morning at 11 am, the Hudson County Genealogical Society will host a slide presentation/lecture from Tom Bernardin on Ellis Island; at noon crafters will unite for a Stitch-In at the Jersey City Museum — and animal lovers will hop onto the bar crawl fundraiser for Liberty Humane Society. At 1 pm, Dr. Frank Gallagher and Dr. Claus Holzapfel will lead a nature walk into Liberty State Park’s interior 240-acre natural area, which isn’t normally open to the public. Saturday night brings the champagne gala reception for the Cathedral Arts Festival and a rare Saturday night show at Lucky 7’s featuring Kiwi The Child and Copasetic.

SUNDAY

At the Loew’s at 3 pm, there is a special screening of The Diary of Anne Frank, celebrating the 80th anniversary of Anne Frank’s Birth and the 50th anniversary of the film.

Jon Whiten is the founding editor of the Jersey City Independent. He is also the editor of AltWeeklies.com and the managing editor of NEW magazine.

Categories: Art, Metro, Movies, Music, Spots Tags: , , , , , , ,

THE FUTURE IS NOW…

November 3rd, 2009 1 comment

Future, the soulful versifier, originating from Palm Beach, FL, has ambitions not common among other 20-year-old rappers. “I want to inspire with my music, and encourage people to focus on their opportunities, instead of their insecurities.” Dubbing his sound “deep at the core, but something with life,” Future stimulates thought with each verse and movement with every bass line.

With his younger upbringing in Florida, Future made the first step in the direction of his imminent talent by auditioning at a performing arts school. The maturing, goal-driven artist relocated to New York City in 2003, where he developed his creativity, talent, and love for hip-hop. His rap debut began on a gospel note when he performed a spiritual cover of Snoop Dogg’s hit “Drop It Like It’s Hot” for his Brooklyn church. His ability to carve precise, heartfelt lyrics, no matter the topic at hand, allows Future to be absorbed by a variety of audiences. Captivated by the ardor and dynamic resonance of the north east, Future ignites his dream by beginning to first produce, then write, engulfing his life with music. “Music is my food.”

and the FUTURE was born…

Since his days performing in the church, Future presents himself as a steady contender among the new faces of young hip hop today. His appearance on RockMeTV’s Round Table, hosted by Lenny S, Maya the B, and Big Lite in November 2008, landed Future the opportunity to disclose his first mixtape “Focus on the Future, Forget about the Past.” He partnered with Theophilus London, a major figure in the indie-rap game, on the single “Weakas,” as well as on projects at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. The sultry track “Shooting Stars” uncovers Future‘s charismatic side, possessing the ladies with his lyrical flow and heavy mantra. Circulating on mixtape sites, the release has brought Future to the attention of popular blogs such as The Hip Hop Chronicle, Iblog126, Ill Vibes, and many more.

Future’s August 2008 collaboration with electro hip hop artist Mickey Factz on the track “Rollin’ Stone” earned him the “Heater of the Day” feature on AllHipHop.com. In April 2008, Future graced the stage of HOT 97’s Who’s Next Contest, hosted by Peter Rosenberg, taking home the winning title. Future’s laid-back facade and syncopated stream was also demonstrated at the notable SOBs, in New York City, alongside 9th Wonder and Buckshot. His emergence among the metro-area is paramount and reveals his enthusiasm for the art, while staying true to his Palm Beach pedigree.

Future lives the motto of his mixtape – “Focus on the future, forget about the past,” whether it pertains to his life, music, or the reality of the everyday world. The doting humanitarian wears the colors of commercial appeal, but carries his rhymes with the sweltering force of an underground approach. Future’s espionage, “James Bond of rap” manner surpasses the ability to tag his sound as one, allowing listeners to call the music as they feel it.

ALL PRODUCERS SEND TRACKS TO:  therealfuture@gmail.com

For Booking Information: therealfuture@gmail.com

Categories: Music Tags: , , , , , , ,

PRISONER OF WASTED—M.T.A.

November 3rd, 2009 2 comments

A friend of mine died tonite.

He was actually a neighbor of another friend, but who’s reputation preceeded him far before the day we had met. He was described to me as the kind of person that I would love to be around, predominantly due to his guitar playing abilities.

He was a 33 year old guy, originally raised in Kearny, New Jersey and was fed on heavy metal and King Cobra beer. This, to me, was God-like in itself. We spent the 8 months that I’ve known him in the guise of a drunken stupor, along with the hopes of obtaining some type of “higher” ground from the plethora of drugs that we both had spent our days abusing. I think that ultimately, it was caused from a lack of  love we both felt for ourselves.

I can still hear him calling my name, whether he heard the opening of the front door followed by my voice cursing the gods for my misfortunes, or the creaking of the stairs when I was on my way down to his apartment to beg for one of the Phillie’s cigarettes that he so lovingly smoked.

“Uncle chris!! AAwww, yyeeeaaahhh!!!” was what he would yell from his couch, while enjoying a Yankee game or “jamming out” on his Schechter Diamond Series guitar that he played the “King Cobra” theme on. An offer of a 40 oz. of the malt liquor would be presented, as he gulped down full glasses of it while smoking those stinky cigarillos.

Usually a story would ensue about his ex-girlfriend, “Whoreen” or his disappointment in a friend of his who’d been, supposedly, playing what he called “white-boy games” with him. These tales would be repeated countless times until a new dilemma would arise, but each time with passion, as if he just HAD TO let me know the scope of his heartache.

Though, I’m not sure if I laughed quite as often, since I’d met this dude. His comical genius was one of which was so disguised in the “I’m so smooth and cool” model, that it seemed as if he had been brought up in the same school of sarcasm in which I had been; so far removed from the numerous I had met before. He called his style “Ultra Sexy”.

“You got another beer, bro?” is what I would asked upon arrival. His response was simply, “What da ya think this is amateur hour? Daddy’s home!!!!!” Refrigerator then opened to show the beauty of 6-8 “cobras”.  As twisted as it was, it always made me feel good.

I miss my friend.

It’s only been a few hours, but the building seems so quiet without you. I wish that I could have a cigarette with you, or see your bruises from riding a big wheel (TUFF ONE) down the driveway at 4 in the morning while you were piss-drunk with your boys. I remember that time you “wrestled a bear once”. I did too, but the bear played dead.

I miss you, MTA.

Thank You so much for telling me that I was one of the coolest guys you ever met, even though I laughed at you and told you to shut the fuck up. You were definitely one of the realist dudes I’ve ever met in mine.

I hope you’re finally chillin with your homeboy you lost, that you never got to speak to cause you were fuckin “Babyface”. I hope you’re kickin it with Les Paul, telling him about the ’58 you got in your livingroom. Telling Dime I said “what’s up” while you’re showing him your theme song for KING COBRA.

We only hung for about 8 months, but I feel fortunate to have met you. Thank you for giving me a perspective on life that I might not have had if I never met you. Thanx for reminding me what great music is about. And thank you, ultimately, for being my boy.

I hope you’re happy now…

P.O.W./M.T.A.

Time 2 Shyne

Categories: lifestyle, ME, Music, Spots Tags: , , , , , , ,