Williamsburg is Dead

Rock Out to Benefit Brooklyn's Future Riot Grrrls

The Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls is pretty much the coolest non-profit ever. According to its website, it is a "music and mentoring program that empowers girls and women through music education and activities that foster self-respect, leadership skills, creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration." And now they need your help! They are holding four benefit shows featuring 20 bands, all in the name of teaching our young women how to rock.
 

Hullo, Cheer Up Please

TONIGHT! NORTH BROOKLYN STORY PROJECT BENEFIT CONCERT

It's 78 degrees! Celebrate by rocking out! Tonight at 8pm, come out to Union Pool (484 Union Ave) for the North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert. Suggested donation is only $5, all of which goes to funding the oral history project. Here's all the info on the bands:

The Blue Album Group play Weezer's Blue Album straight through, note for note, with all the vocal harmonies, ripping guitar solos, and cardigan sweaters intact (or should I say undone?).
For more information, go to: http://thebluealbumgroup.com

Rebecca Schiffman was born in 1982 in New York City. She studied cello and piano from a young age. In 2000, while attending The Cooper Union School of Art, Schiffman began to play bass guitar for the pop-punk band Pearl Harbor, which featured Walter Schreifels (Quicksand, Rival Schools) on drums, Ryan Stratton (Walking Concert) on guitar, and Masayoshi Nakamura on vocals. Schreifels began producing Schiffman's recordings and in 2003 her first album "Upside Down Lacrimosa" was released on Some Records. In 2008 she recorded her second album To Be Good for a Day with Mike Musmanno in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Vice recently dubbed that album their "Album of the Month."
For more information, go to: www.rebeccaschiffman.com

The Roulettes were born in an Oberlin, Ohio basement, where they practiced on borrowed equipment next to a leaky washer/dryer combo. They grew up playing basement and living room parties to crowds of adoring fans and a few aghast fools who didn’t get their jokes. After moving to Portland, the Roulettes met up with label Lucky Madison to create the first ever LM release, a self-titled EP recorded at Portland’s Jackpot! Studios with engineer Larry Crane (Sleater-Kinney, Stephen Malkmus, etc.). The Roulettes EP finds the band bouncing from the pressing issues of yesteryear (film students with dinosaur-sized egos on “Crabs”) to love as seen from a creaky Ferris wheel (“Motorcycles in the Mist”) to straight up hot shit dance tracks (“Hot Ticket”) faster than you can pour another bourbon.
For more information, go to http://luckymadison.com/pagetheroulet...

About The North Brooklyn Story Project

The North Brooklyn Story Project (NBSP) is a new initiative of Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG), a community organization that has been serving North Brooklyn since 1994. The project was developed to encourage residents to come together and help build a vibrant and friendly North Brooklyn community. NBSP is raising money for recording equipment that will be used to document, share and store the stories of Greenpoint and Williamsburg residents.

NBSP is looking for people with stories to share about the community and people who can listen to and record these stories. For more information, or to become involved with the project, email: Gregor ( g.nemitzziadie@gmail.com) or Rachel (rachtree@gmail. com).

About Neighbors Allied for Good Growth:

Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (formerly Neighbors Against Garbage) is a volunteer-based community planning and environmental justice organization that has been performing grassroots organizing, advocacy and outreach/education to the North Brooklyn waterfront community of Williamsburg/Greenpoint since 1994.
For more information, go to: www.nag-brooklyn.org.

NBSP Concert Watch Part Deux: The Rockening

Do you know what you'll miss out on if don't come to the North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert (only $5 suggested donation) on Tuesday, April 28th, 8pm at Union Pool? This:

Hey, did you hear? NAG is throwing a benefit concert for the North Brooklyn Story Project on April 28th at Union Pool. Oh happy days! But we didn't just get any old crappy band like that band your friend's roommate is in to play our show ("Um, we like, y'know, sound kind of like Pavement ..."), no we got real bands, with talent. Like Rebecca Schiffman, who was just featured in NY Magazine and is also an artist and a jewelry maker. So yeah, see the show. Tuesday, April 28th, 8pm, $5 suggested donation, also with The Blue Album Group and The Roulettes.

Mark your calendar for April 28th, when the North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert hits Union Pool (484 Union Ave). Who's playing?

The Blue Album Group: Like Weezer if they were frozen in time after their first (and maybe best, although Pinkerton has a lot of fans out there) album, this group of strapping young lads play "The Blue Album" all the way through for the ultimate nostalgia face-punch. They rock so hard your Rivers Cuomo glasses might explode.

Rebecca Schiffman: This month Vice dubbed her album "To Be Good for a Day" as their "Album of the Month." That's like an AAA indie cred rating from the ultimate cool police. But don't take their word for it, listen to her quirky-ass songs for yourself and feel your heart bounce out of your chest like in a Tex Avery cartoon.

The Roulettes: Rebecca Keith has been a friend of Williamsburg is Dead for awhile. She co-runs the Mixer Reading Series at Cakeshop, which is like the coolest reading in the universe, and she's also in a band called The New York Times. Her band The Roulettes have a definite Sleater Kinney vibe that will make you feel as happy as eating a bucket of fried chicken while listening to "All Hands on the Bad One" for the very first time. That's pretty goddamn happy.

And the kicker? You'll help raise money for the North Brooklyn Story Project, which I'm helping organize with NAG (Neighbors Allied for Good Growth). We need recording equipment so we can enlist volunteers to gather stories from Williamsburgers of all ages, ethnicities and levels of pants-tightness. We'll then share those stories with you, the Brooklyn community, and it'll also help us understand some of the concerns residents have so NAG can better address them. Also, future Brooklynites will get to look back at this particularly chaotic time in North Brooklyn's development. Hello future Brooklyn!

So yeah, show up and support the cause and have some fun in the process.

It's the weekend, the glorious, glorious weekend! Join me, o' brothers and sisters of Williamsburg, as we commence our cosmic journey of funmic energy!

Tonight at Nurture Art is the opening of Patterns of Growth, a group show described thusly:

Spanning three generations of female artists, Patterns Of Growth attempts to trace a path of influence that began with pioneering artists like Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Alma Thomas, and continues in the work of contemporary artists.

Oh now is the Wintour of our discontent! Yes, it's Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. Also, puns! But seriously, you don't have to be a Voguette to attend, you just need $8. Check out the new line from Mandate of Heaven and a joint show from Treehouse Brooklyn's Sirius* and Sodafine's Erin Weckerle. Plus bands like the Tall Firs and DJs will perform after the fashion shows. All the details on Friday and Saturday's shows here.

Finally, tonight you can venture to the almost-but-not-quite-closed Sound Fix Cafe to see The Forms play a free show at 8pm. 

Friend and blog blood brother Brooklyn Based has an interview with Brooklyn rock 'n' roll duo Matt & Kim. They live right here in Williamsburg and they love Planet Thai and Lost and Found and the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Read the whole interview here and give them a hug if you see them in the street, just in case some of their enthusiasm is contagious.

Oh you fresh-faced Williamsburg indie rockers, you keep me young, you really do. Surely you will be lining up at Sound Fix tonight for the free show by those poppy Brits from Los Campesinos! They are oh so catchy and fun and precocious and they talk all Britishy. And who the hell doesn't love that.

You! Me! Dancing! - Los Campesinos!

In high school I always professed a love for punk of the California variety (Dead Kennedys, Descendents, Op Ivy, etc.) but secretly I would go home and listen to Britpop and shoegazy psychedelia like Mazzy Star. If Beach House was around back then, I'm sure they would be one of the bands I secretly listened to. The Baltimore-based duo's languorous songs are all ghostly vocals, organ and slide guitar, which makes for an experience not unlike listening to a concert inside a haunted house. The band plays tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg with Tickley Feather.

North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert Watch

Hey, did you hear? NAG is throwing a benefit concert for the North Brooklyn Story Project on April 28th at Union Pool. Oh happy days! But we didn't just get any old crappy band like that band your friend's roommate is in to play our show ("Um, we like, y'know, sound kind of like Pavement ..."), no we got real bands, with talent. Like Rebecca Schiffman, who was just featured in NY Magazine and is also an artist and a jewelry maker. So yeah, see the show. Tuesday, April 28th, 8pm, $5 suggested donation, also with The Blue Album Group and The Roulettes.

North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert

Mark your calendar for April 28th, when the North Brooklyn Story Project Benefit Concert hits Union Pool (484 Union Ave). Who's playing?

The Blue Album Group: Like Weezer if they were frozen in time after their first (and maybe best, although Pinkerton has a lot of fans out there) album, this group of strapping young lads play "The Blue Album" all the way through for the ultimate nostalgia face-punch. They rock so hard your Rivers Cuomo glasses might explode.

Rebecca Schiffman: This month Vice dubbed her album "To Be Good for a Day" as their "Album of the Month." That's like an AAA indie cred rating from the ultimate cool police. But don't take their word for it, listen to her quirky-ass songs for yourself and feel your heart bounce out of your chest like in a Tex Avery cartoon.

The Roulettes: Rebecca Keith has been a friend of Williamsburg is Dead for awhile. She co-runs the Mixer Reading Series at Cakeshop, which is like the coolest reading in the universe, and she's also in a band called The New York Times. Her band The Roulettes have a definite Sleater Kinney vibe that will make you feel as happy as eating a bucket of fried chicken while listening to "All Hands on the Bad One" for the very first time. That's pretty goddamn happy.

And the kicker? You'll help raise money for the North Brooklyn Story Project, which I'm helping organize with NAG (Neighbors Allied for Good Growth). We need recording equipment so we can enlist volunteers to gather stories from Williamsburgers of all ages, ethnicities and levels of pants-tightness. We'll then share those stories with you, the Brooklyn community, and it'll also help us understand some of the concerns residents have so NAG can better address them. Also, future Brooklynites will get to look back at this particularly chaotic time in North Brooklyn's development. Hello future Brooklyn!

So yeah, show up and support the cause and have some fun in the process.

Williamsburg Weekender

It's the weekend, the glorious, glorious weekend! Join me, o' brothers and sisters of Williamsburg, as we commence our cosmic journey of funmic energy!

Tonight at Nurture Art is the opening of Patterns of Growth, a group show described thusly:

Spanning three generations of female artists, Patterns Of Growth attempts to trace a path of influence that began with pioneering artists like Lee Krasner, Joan Mitchell, and Alma Thomas, and continues in the work of contemporary artists.

Oh now is the Wintour of our discontent! Yes, it's Williamsburg Fashion Weekend. Also, puns! But seriously, you don't have to be a Voguette to attend, you just need $8. Check out the new line from Mandate of Heaven and a joint show from Treehouse Brooklyn's Sirius* and Sodafine's Erin Weckerle. Plus bands like the Tall Firs and DJs will perform after the fashion shows. All the details on Friday and Saturday's shows here.

Finally, tonight you can venture to the almost-but-not-quite-closed Sound Fix Cafe to see The Forms play a free show at 8pm. 

Matt & Kim Love the 'Burg, Officially Break Adorableness Barrier

Friend and blog blood brother Brooklyn Based has an interview with Brooklyn rock 'n' roll duo Matt & Kim. They live right here in Williamsburg and they love Planet Thai and Lost and Found and the Music Hall of Williamsburg. Read the whole interview here and give them a hug if you see them in the street, just in case some of their enthusiasm is contagious.

Free Los Campesinos! Show Tonight

Oh you fresh-faced Williamsburg indie rockers, you keep me young, you really do. Surely you will be lining up at Sound Fix tonight for the free show by those poppy Brits from Los Campesinos! They are oh so catchy and fun and precocious and they talk all Britishy. And who the hell doesn't love that.

You! Me! Dancing! - Los Campesinos!

Beach House Tonight at Music Hall o' Williamsburg

In high school I always professed a love for punk of the California variety (Dead Kennedys, Descendents, Op Ivy, etc.) but secretly I would go home and listen to Britpop and shoegazy psychedelia like Mazzy Star. If Beach House was around back then, I'm sure they would be one of the bands I secretly listened to. The Baltimore-based duo's languorous songs are all ghostly vocals, organ and slide guitar, which makes for an experience not unlike listening to a concert inside a haunted house. The band plays tonight at the Music Hall of Williamsburg with Tickley Feather.