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As NYC music aficionados know, the Knitting Factory is not a historical landmark dating back from the Industrial Revolution, but is a Williamsburg music venue featuring alt-rock greats old and new.
This weekend, playing at the Metropolitan Ave locale is the pop-up shop of Williamsburg bar/boutique Kingdom, featuring indie fashion from designers based in and out of the greater North Brooklyn area.
Manhattan Ave by day is a busy hustle bustle of business activity. But by dark, watch out, this road hands itself over to the Brooklyn vibe I have grown to love. Scattered along its streets are restaurants and bars that come to life.
Along the road you will find Blackout. The exterior predicts a speak-easy, but upon entering you discover a decadently decorated bar, (think Marie-Antoinette goes to Brooklyn, circa now) with cheap drinks and even better music from the in-house DJ. Wednesday is Weds-Gay at Blackout. As well as always out-going, bubbly characters behind the bar, on Weds-Gay there is a go-go dancer on the bar! A projector which sometimes displays gay porn on the wall, and the bar has a soundtrack that you will only find on a fag-hag’s iTunes: Gaga, Kelis and Madonna oh my! As the night progressed so do the attendees: the outfits are fabulous and the drinks fabulous-er. Try the Manhattan Ave Cocktail, a naughty concoction made with Rye, Lillet, Lustau Sherry and Bitters.
Caesar Pink’s novel “The Murder of the Holy King” evokes an explosion of emotions and feelings. It is the philosophical mutterings of an artistic soul. It describes the journey across America of a man, who sets off with the hopes of finding himself, but in which he ends up losing himself, in his own creative dynamism. This non-linear memoir makes you reminiscent of times not experienced.
“To be an artist is to be cursed,” sums up Pink’s mantra. His life experiences are poetic, insane and utterly New York; however, like many that call themselves artists, he basks in the creative and zealous down times, and focuses very little on his successes. Saying this, those down times where Pink found himself homeless, living in an old car did bring on new bouts of life. They gave him justification, almost, that what he was doing was meant to be. Mixed in with his biographical writing are spouts of ancient mythological musings, spiritual awakenings and facts about Eastern religions brought to the book in a Chuck Palahniuk way (author “Fight Club”) that those with susceptible eyes and minds should weary away from. Even though he states in the novel he does not want to thrust his ideas onto his readers, there’s an underlying insecurity to these words that make you believe he is looking for like-minded individuals to jump on his band wagon. Pink’s novel is also very Jack Kerouac-esque; an “On the Road” for our contemporary and confused times.
Another Housing Fight in Brooklyn [DailyNews]
Like all good dive bars, the Commodore keeps it simple [NYT]
St. Anthony’s Church strikes ten, and in the back room of Coco 66 in Greenpoint, heavy formica bar tables and flimsy matchbook chairs are the only audience members for three jazz musicians, a standup bassist, a trumpeter, and a sturdy white-haired flugelhorn player. These guys are playing it cool, but there’s something strange going on tonight, something unexpectedly cathartic—the bass player is rubbing his forehead against his fretboard while playing barely audible eighth notes. The flugelhorn has a mute in it and is incessantly repeating ascending notes, like wind blowing over musical grass.
By 11pm, there are a couple of cross-legged chaps nodding with affirmation, their foreheads still holding beads of sweat from the swampy weather outside. A drunk from the sidewalk has just wandered in, into the middle of the musicians and announces, “These guys have so much talent!” He disrupts the spell, and they stop playing, but they smile when they realize he’s just an admirer.