I'm probably the least qualified person in this lineup

Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s Birthday Party: The Greatest 3-Minute Record Reviews Ever

Vol. 1 Brooklyn Presents

The Greatest 3-Minute Record Reviews Ever

With special musical guests: Xray Eyeballs

Aaron Lefkove (LiveFastDie/Creator: Summer of Megadeath)
Adam Wilson (The Faster Times)
Andrea Bartz (Stuff Hipsters Hate)
Ben Greenman (The New Yorker, new book called What He’s Poised to Do)
Bill Pearis (Sound Bites NYC/Brooklyn Vegan)
Brenna Ehrlich (Mashable/Stuff Hipsters Hate)
Brandon Stosuy (Stereogum/The Believer) Canceled/had a baby/mazel tov!
Claire Shefchik (The Faster Times)
Emma Straub (Author)
Jared Bloom (The Full Ginsburg)
Jason Diamond (Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
Jason Orlovich (Brooklyn the Borough)
James Yeh (Gigantic Mag)
Jed Smith (My Teenage Stride)
Jens Carstensen (Limewire/The Giraffes)
Jeremy Krinsley (Impose)
Jesse Hlebo (Swill Children)
Maggie Serota (New York Press)
Maris Kreizman (Slaughterhouse 90210)
Marisa Meltzer (Author of Girl Power: 90′s Revolution in Music)
Marty Beckerman (Online features editor at Esquire/author)
Maura Johnston (The Awl)
Rob Tannenbaum (Playboy Magazine/Rolling Stone)
Sara Jaffe (Writer/musician)
Scott Lindenbaum (Electric Literature)
Tobias Carroll (The Scowl/Vol. 1 Brooklyn)
Zachary Lipez (Freshkills/Author of “Please Take Me off the Guest List”)

At: Bar Matchless – 557 Manhattan Ave. Greenpoint, Brooklyn

7 PM, no cover

Take the plunge

Friday night, possibly for the only time in history, you'll be able to experience me, Ben Greenman, David Hollander, shipwrecks, burlesque theater pieces, the 19th century maritime painter Thomas Chambers, and the mournful gothic-roots music of Richard McGraw (whose album Burying the Dead is out now on Non-Utopian Records, and whose single "Hurting Heart" is stream-able below), all in one place. Plus more, all in celebration of the wacky and vaguely disturbing, in some cases, objects lurking beneath the waterways of New York.

It's a reading-theatre-music-art blowout at the American Folk Art Museum, and it starts at 5:30. The museum is located at 45 W. 53rd St, between 5th and 6th Avenues. Did I mention that it's free? More information can be found at the official UNY site.

Stream - Richard McGraw - Hurting Heart

Ian Hunter and Graham Parker tell us how it's done (The New Yorker Festival 2009)

Assembled with an assortment of wannabe glam rockers and aging punks inside (Le) Poisson Rouge Saturday night, listening to '70s British rock legends Ian Hunter (of Mott the Hoople) and former "Angry Young Man" Graham Parker (of Graham Parker and The Rumour) talk to The New Yorker's Ben Greenman (also a fellow contributer of mine to Underwater New York), I couldn't help but think of Spinal Tap a couple times. Actually, imagine Spinal Tap if they'd actually been successful.

"What were you like as a child?" Greenman asks Hunter.

"We didn't have personalities in those days," Hunter (imagine heavy deadpan British accent) replies.

Both, in their days, were compared and collaborated with legends like Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and pioneered the glam and proto-punk scenes, and both continue to take influence from them as they've continued their careers in the new milennium. They're both currently churning out excellent solo work, which I'm not sure how many people are listening to these days (I admittedly wasn't aware of it, although I was also the youngest person in the crowd, so who knows?)

Both played all-acoustic sets, with Hunter's "I Wish I Was Your Mother," from the 1973 album Mott one of those songs that come along and introduces you to an emotion or desire you know you've felt somehow all along but never realized it until someone else articulates it so perfectly: only so you could have known that aspect of them, and seen them from those eyes. Incredibly moving. Both of these guys, as aging punks/glam rockers, could so easily devolve into cynicism, but neither have, as far as I can tell, even though their interview answers might indicate different sometimes.

Hunter reunited with Mott this year for two shows in England, but if you're hoping for long, drawn-out reunion tour, you might be out of luck. They had a couple of decent hits (the Bowie-penned glam anthem "All the Young Dudes" being one). Parker claims he couldn't retire even if he wanted to. But at least he doesn't have to open for Styx to shouts of "go home English faggots" anymore. So really it all worked out.

Below is Hunter performing "Man Overboard," from last year's album of the same name, his 13th solo release:

Fiction + music + New Yorker personnel = simmering resentment (and a party!)

If I could be said to have a "thing," music fiction is it. Virtually everything I write ends up coming around to it, somehow. Since I spend a fair amount of time writing about real-world music, it seems like a natural fit. Also music moves me. Most people write about stuff that moves them. In that respect I'm no different.

There are so few good examples of it out there. (Daniel Klein's Elvis-as-a-private-detective books, awesome as they are, don't count). It's difficult to write about characters who are musicians, serious musicians, without coming off like a sanctimonious tool. I suppose that's why I continue to try to do it -- it's a challenge. New Yorker fiction gatekeeper Ben Greenman's Please Step Back, from what I've read, hits all ther requisite milestones, what with drugs and the horrible, soul-sucking toll fame takes. I wish him, and his book, well.

The release party is on May 12 at Galapagos, with after-party music by DJ Doc Delay. Greenman will be joined on stage by none other than (who else?) Sasha Frere-Jones, pop-music critic for the New Yorker, who will be engaging him in a spirited conversation about how great it is to work for the New Yorker.

It's free, but the drinks aren't, although the first 72 people to arrrive in costume will receive a free cocktail and book, so:



Yeah. This is what we've come to.