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Getting Back to the Music
Right around New Years, I discovered and began to use LastFM pretty heavily. I was formerly a Pandora user, but lately, interrupt ads have been really annoying me, so I made the switch.

Now, the two web radio giants certainly each have their strengths, but one of the coolest things I’ve been enjoying on LastFM is the tour tracker. When a group/artist in your library is on tour, you can see where they’re going, which may actually lead to me seeing some live performances for a change.

The first instance of this was a show that I found when adding a song from Mike Doughty to my library. The on-tour tag showed up next to his name, and I thought, “huh, I wonder if he’s coming to NYC soon?” Turns out he’d be in the West Village in just 2 days at the City Winery. Huzzah! I decided I was going, and rounded up one of my more musically inclined friends to accompany me.

The City Winery
The city Winery is, to me, a very strange venue. The places is clearly meant to give the impression of a reasonably high-end wine bar, as evidenced by the drink prices and the seating arrangements, but there is something a little off about this cavernous locale. In any case, it turned out that the only tickets that were affordable at $20 were for barstools along the back of the room, and the drinks started somewhere around $10 bucks. So my friend and I took our seats, ordered nothing and chatted for a while before the show came on.

Mike Doughty and…a Cello!
After an opening act which I frankly didn’t pay that much attention to, Mike Doughty came on. But rather than have some kind of backup band, or playing solo, he chose to bring a cellist with him. It made for some very interesting takes on the old familiar music, especially “Circles” which was a big hit from Doughty’s days as the front man for Soul Coughing.

Doughty and his Cellist put on a good show, but they didn’t even go on until about 10:30, and this is NOT adrenaline pumping club music. Actually, it’s more akin to lullabies, and that combined with the relatively late hour and the drinking I’d done earlier meant that I was all but asleep by the end.

The Bottom Line
Skip the City Winery. I just plain didn’t like it. It was too crowded and open to be intimate, but too expensive and atmospheric to feel comfortably casual. And there are myriad beams and supports that block your view of the stage if you’re there for a show. The multiple plasmas they installed, clearly in an effort to compensate for the poor lines of site, just can’t make up for the fact that it’s hard to see that stage.

As for Doughty, it was just a bad combination of timing and location. Had he gone on 2 hours earlier, and in a venue that’s not quite so…well lame, I’m sure the evening would have rocked exponentially harder.

My experience with House music is admittedly limited, but this past Saturday I was convinced to go see the stylings of DJ Hernan Cattaneo. We bought tickets online for the show for $30 which felt a little steep, but I was willing to give it a shot, so at 10pm we got in a cab and headed out.

The Mansion is a club in the Meat Packing district that we almost walked right by at first owing to a general lack of signage that I’ve come to expect of trendy Meat Packing clubs, but once we got inside we quickly realized how huge the place was. After dropping coats off upstairs, we descended down to the bar area. Actually, the first bar area was more like a very large anteroom, with the main club area lying deeper in.

After crossing a hallway flanked by flaming beds of stones, we were in the heart of the club. A large bar and a VIP area in front made up the main room, with an upstairs lounge circling the back of the club. Early on, I realized the bar was too expensive for my blood at $10 for a shot and $16 for mixed drink, so I determined it would be a sober evening. I did try ordering a glass of water, but it was crowded, so I waited for about 10 minutes to get a bartenders attention, only to wait another 10 minutes to get it after I’d ordered it, which made my already sober experience just that much more unpleasant.

Upstairs was muuuch better. It was less crowded and had a better view of the DJ booth giving us a good place to settle in and dance, which we did for five hours straight! The house DJ opened, and for the most part was pretty awesome, though unfortunately I don’t know his name. Hernan Cattaneo was also good, and the club’s special effects kicked into high gear for his performance with strobes, giant jets of fog, and dancing girls in their underwear. He did nearly make my ears bleed with about 2 minutes worth of straight feedback noise, but otherwise the entire show was spot-on.

The bottom line is that this club is way too expensive to go to unless you really love house music and a club scene with perhaps a touch of euro-flavor to it. The tickets weren’t cheap, the drinks were egregious, and the VIP area was bottle-service only with $1000 price tag attached. That being said, if you avoid the expenses and stick to the balcony area, you’ll be fine. I wouldn’t recommend this spot though, unless you have a very specific reason for going.

Yes, my parents were in town last weekend, and we actually managed to see and do quite a bit for just the couple of days they were here. Here’s a copy of the itinerary I put together for them:

Friday
The Focacceria (Italian)
The Comedy Cellar

Saturday
The Met
Carne-Vale (Brazilian)

Sunday
Brunch
Happy hour on the river

A pretty solid schedule with some wiggle room for doing other fun things like getting stuck in a cab in traffic. That’s New York for you though. Anyway, I’ll hit each point quickly so as not to completely overwhelm you

The Focacceria
Probably my favorite Italian restaraunt in the city, I highly recommend this place, and virtually anything on the menu. The Penne Vodka and Cannolis are particularly good. I love this place because the food is good, the place is never too crowded, and the service is always friendly and accomodating.

The Comedy Cellar
I saw Collin Quinn here! That makes him my first celeb sighting in the city actually, even if it was on stage. Unfortunately I have nothing flattering to say about him. He jokingly mentioned that his career must be downhill cause no one was laughing. Well, I think everyone realized that it wasn’t as much of a joke as he’d like us to believe, cause really, no one was laughing. Happily, the other comics were fantastic and my parents had a great time. It may also be worth noting that we followed this up with a random jazz place and got a little schnookered before turning in for the night. I’ll figure out the name of the place later.

The Met
After a night of strong drink, the Met was perhaps not as fun as it really should have been. This place is massively, enormously, stupendously humungous. Man is it big. Even if you were sober as a judge you wouldn’t be able to see this whole museum in a day and would be completely absurd to try, so we picked a few things that wouldn’t tax our addled brains too much: Roman sculpture, Dali, Modernism, and a healthy dose of fresh air on the roof, overlooking central park. A good time that could have been much, much better, but I suppose you just can’t have it all.

Carne-Vale
Carne-Vale is a Brazilian Churrascaria, which are typically very expensive restaraunts that serve obscene quantities of top quality meats. I’ve managed to find one that’s not quite so expensive, but still keeps the obscene quantities of good food. Maybe not the place you want to go on a first date, but it was perfect for a family of carnivores like mine. The one downside to this place is that the service can be a little hit-or-miss, but if you’re not too picky, it doesn’t exactly matter. Once you sit down, service is pretty much limited to red light, green light. Flip the card to green, and they bring more meat. Red, they don’t. Simple, effective, delicious, just the way meat should be.

Cafe des Artistes
Mother’s day brunch isn’t the time to be stingy, but we really pulled out all the stops on this one. My mother lived here in the city, once upon a time, on the upper west side, and used to dine at this restaraunt when it was presumably a little less high-brow than it is today. Thus, we decided to treat her to a prix fix brunch with champagne and a side of nostalgia. It was extravagant, delectable, but a little short in the fun department because we managed to get served by the one snooty jerk SOB on the staff. I should say that this seemed like an abberation, because his fellow waiters and hosts pretty much got us what we asked for when he consistently ignored us. Normally I wouldn’t outright complain about service, but for a restaraunt like this, with the prices being what they were, service really ought to be impeccable.

Sunset on the River
Last stop, the ferry. I decided to end the escapade with a nice riverboat tour of the city, so we hopped over to the South Street Seaport (which is an attraction in itself) and climbed aboard a New York Water Taxi. It didn’t have much in the way of frills, but we got to sit on the upper deck and look at the skyline from both the Hudson and the East River as the sun went down. They also served beer and wine for those inclined, but it wasn’t quite what i’d consider an uproarious expedition, so we kept it low key and enjoyed the view.

And that concludes 2007 parents’ weekend in NYC!

This past Friday I was feeling pretty down, not really in the mood to do anything at all, which is incidentally why I’ve been slow to update this blog lately. But of course I had to fulfill my requirement of at least one New York cultural event a week, and I was already downtown so I wanted to try and do something. I didn’t have much of a plan at that point, but I do have a short, unofficial list of things and places that I ultimately feel I need to visit in this city. Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction was one of these places. 

As it turns out, I picked a pretty good time to drop by, because when I got there I was pointed upstairs to a completely free show, “No Name and a Bag of Chips.” Of course, this in itself wasn’t enough to rouse me from my exceptionally sour mood, but I had nothing better to do so I figured I’d give it a shot.

I have to say that after realizing the comics in the room outnumbered the guests, I was a little put off, but it actually didn’t matter. These hearty souls put on one hell of a show, including magic, standup, and stories that not only put me more at ease but actually had me laughing and feeling pretty good by the end. Such is the power of comedy. 

I also learned for the first time what a powerful word “blog” can be. After the show I mentioned this project to one of the comics (who were amicably hanging out around the bar for a little while after the show) and was immediately taken to be introduced to pretty much all the rest of them. Now as most people who know me are probably aware, I don’t exactly like being the center of attention, but all the same it was kind of cool. I’d like to make a special mention of one particular comedian, Nancy Lombardo, who was engaging both on and off the stage and encouraged me to meet the rest of the cast.

The Bottom Line

Friday evening entertainment in this city is rarely cheap and almost never free. In that respect, this show was already a diamond in the rough, but the fact that it was actually entertaining enough to bring me out my sullen state scores some major extra points in my mind. There was a one item (food or drink) minimum, standard NYC bar pricing, but I doubt anyone would press you about it, and in any case it’s a small price to pay considering. The show was great, the people were friendly and the price was right, so the bottom line is, get your butt to Mo Pitkin’s for “No Name and a Bag of Chips” next time you’re looking for something to do on a Friday night!

I just want to open this post by saying: The wait was TOTALLY worth it!

As some of you may know, I’ve actually been looking forward to seeing Wayne Krantz at 55 Bar for several weeks, and was even forced to postpone it once. I could have simply gone to see a different musician at 55 Bar that may have been playing at a more convenient time for me, but after having heard Wayne Krantz’s music on his website, I opted to wait until his next performance. Finally, on Thursday I got to see the man play, and it was everything I’d hoped for! So lets break it down:

The Scene

Having been checking out cultural events and local attractions in New York for a little over a month now, I’ve begun to realize that most things worth doing in this city are going to have a line at the door, but I didn’t think that this particular bar would give me any trouble. Suffice it to say, I was wrong. Very wrong! Even arriving forty minutes before the show (scheduled to start at 10:00pm), I was a good twenty people back from the entrance to the bar, where a bouncer was holding people up.

I learned from the people in line that while Wayne Krantz is, in fact, a particular crowd pleaser at 55 Bar, lines and packed performances are more or less the norm when live music is scheduled there. Once I got inside I could immediately see why that was. The place is pretty small for even a very moderate bar crowd, let alone the numbers brought in by any kind of live performance. As I mentioned, I was about twenty people back from the front and I was one of the last lucky few that got a seat. I’m sure the place was filled to capacity, as a lot of people where standing for the show, and I’m equally sure that a good portion of the people lined up behind me didn’t even make it inside, so the moral of this story is, get there early!

Once you are inside though, 55 Bar is actually a pretty cool place. It’s a little loud, but the background music before the show fit just right with the atmosphere, the people around me were friendly, and there was a very attentive waitress who came around taking orders, which was good because i doubt anyone would have gotten up for drinks for fear of losing their seats. By the time Wayne started his set, I’d been sitting in the bar for about twenty minutes, drinking and chatting with some of the others at my table who were apparently big fans, and this wasn’t a bad thing.

The Music

Simply put, Wayne Krantz rocks! I’d specifically selected his show over many other possibilities, based solely on what I had heard on his website, and even considering the long wait in line and the crowded bar, I wasn’t disappointed with my decision. The recorded music on the website was good, but what I heard him play live blew that out of the water.

Wayne played with a lot of intensity and you could definitely tell that the crowd in the bar was digging it, even the ones who weren’t specifically Wayne Krantz fans, such as myself. As I watched, I found myself thinking that he actually seemed excited to be playing for us, the maybe fifty or sixty people who were lucky enough to make it inside to see him. Knowing that he does this every Thursday night, I would have thought that it might seem a little more run-of-the-mill to him, but he rocked out like it was his last show on earth (so it seemed to me) and I was totally absorbed in the music.

I’m not exactly a music guru, so I won’t try and actually classify or describe his sound. you’ll just have to visit his website and check it out yourself, which I highly recommend if you think you may want to see one of his fantastic live performances. My one regret was that I didn’t take more time to familiarize myself with the music before going to see him play, but the show was great nonetheless.

The Bottom Line

This show cost me $15 at the door, but considering that the ticket covers the cost of some great musical entertainment and doubles as two free drink vouchers, I’d even go so far as to say it was a bargain at that price! The only downside to the experience was the crowd, and incidentally the necessity of arriving early to get in and get a seat.

All told, this event took about two and a half hours, including the wait at the door, and cost me a little over $20 bucks for the ticket, an additional drink and a tip for the waitress. There was going to be a second show, but I think the bar staff would have ushered most of us out so that the next long line of people could get in to see it, had I not decided to leave at that point. In any case, the show was great and well worth the cost. I would definitely do this again, though maybe on a night when the place isn’t so crowded.

Coming Up

My next event is going to be First Saturday at the Brooklyn Museum next weekend, so keep an eye out for updates and I’ll let you know if it’s worth the hype!

Overview

Okay, to be perfectly honest, visiting the Brooklyn Brewery was not exactly an earthshaking experience. I took a long ride on the subway expecting an interesting and entertaining tour followed by at least a short period or beer-filled enjoyment, but alas, this was not to be.

The Trek

I jumped on the subway around 3:00pm and after braving the enormously unreliable L Line, I arrived in Williamsburg a bare 10 minutes before the last tour was scheduled to start. Speeding past the lackadaisical hipsters that clogged the streets near the Bedford station stop, I made my way into a slightly shadier part of town reaching the brewery doors just in time to catch the tour.

The Tour

Unfortunately, as it turns out, the “tour” is really not much more than a view of the brewery’s single brewing room and a difficult to hear history lesson with some beer brewing basics mixed in. I’ll save you the trouble of making the trek over to Williamsburg and just give you the distilled version: A couple of guys decided to quit their day jobs to make beer. Despite naming their company the Brooklyn Brewery, they started out brewing and bottling their beer in upstate New York where they still have most of their operation. They ultimately bought and refurbished the old factory building in Williamsburg that we were then standing in, where they now make about a third of their beer.

The Beer

Now as I had mentioned, I expected to get some beer out of this trip, but after getting out of the lackluster tour, I didn’t have the heart to wait in the gargantuan line that spanned almost the entire length of the building, just to get one or two cold ones before the place closed down at 6:00. The brewery itself is apparently a popular spot, as the bar area was quite crowded even before the tour let out, but I wasn’t going to lose another hour of my life on line to find out why. Incidentally, I did manage to get a free beer due to a case of mistaken identity (someone thought I was part of a private party) and the beer was, as I had expected quite excellent. Just not two-hours-in-the-subway -and-one-hour-in-line excellent. Oh, and incase you were wondering, they make their beer with 100% unfiltered New York City tap water. Well, whatever it is that they do to their beer, it’s working.

The Bottom Line

The tour didn’t cost me anything aside from the time it took to get there, but it also wasn’t really worth that trip in the first place, and the bar was the same story. I’d have to say that unless you’re a diehard fan of the Brooklyn Brewery’s collection of delicious beverages and desperately need to make the pilgrimage to justify your beer worshipping existence, you’re probably better off sitting this one out. If you really want to learn more about the brewery and its fruits, save yourself the trip, buy a couple of six packs of your favorite variety (there are eight, all quite good) and read everything you ever wanted to know about them on the official website.

My next event will be the postponed but not forgotten Wayne Krantz, playing live at 55 Bar this Thursday. I think this is gonna be a pretty good one, so keep watching for new updates and I’ll keep you posted.