Rae Maxwell

Rabbi Darkside

Few underground hip-hop artists in New York have had the staying power of Rabbi Darkside. From an era where everyone had a vinyl single, through rap battling at the start of the mid-2000s rising next wave of battle leagues, to being a coach on "MTV's Made" and one of the centerpieces of the Hip-Hop Subway Series, if there's been a major hip-hop event in the city, chances are he's been a visible presence. In further evidence of how he's been able to change with the times, he's recently become one of the few hip-hop artists to successfully use Kickstarter to fund his new album Prospect Avenue, which he'll be unveiling at the release show on Friday at Brooklyn's Littlefield. We spoke to Rabbi Darkside on how he's always managed to remain a constant presence in such an ever-changing turbulent scene.

See also: Peter Rosenberg's What's Poppin' Vol. 1 Takes The New York Hip-Hop Scene's Pulse

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"It's almost like waiting for your birthday when you're a little kid--'Oh my gosh, I can't wait for my party! I hope people come! I hope I get a ... train!'"

Laughing, Molly Hamilton eases into a foldable chair in the middle of her practice space in Bushwick. After taking a swig from a half-gone Sierra Nevada, she brings me up to speed: Widowspeak, her band, has been practicing like mad over the course of the past few weeks because they'd recently added a member, bringing their touring outfit to five players. They've been feverishly counting down to today as it marks the release of Almanac, their sophomore album out on Captured Tracks, as well the beginning of a brief run of East Coast dates that kicks off at the Mercury Lounge this evening. Older Widowspeak material has been on the agenda for the rehearsals leading up to the show, though the songs of Almanac are what Hamilton is, understandably, especially keen on unveiling. "We'll probably still play a good chunk of them in rotation ... but we're just getting so, so excited about people hearing the record!"

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Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival
Various Venues
Friday, November 9 and Saturday, November 10

Better Than:The EDM debate

It's hard to believe the Brooklyn Electronic Music Festival started five years ago in what used to be BKLYN Yard, now known as Gowanus Grove, and to those in the know (a/k/a everyone) as where Mister Sunday's afternoon dance parties go down. The first and second iterations were so successful that MeanRed Productions masterminds Jen Lyon and Katie Longmyer expanded the third BEMF into multiple venues, taking over the spaces in and around Williamsburg's N. Sixth Avenue a la Austin's South by Southwest, whose artists cluster around the bars and concert halls lining that city's own Sixth Street. This year's edition was the biggest yet (as these things tend to go), with over 40 artists and six venues -- Glasslands, Cameo, Public Assembly, 285 Kent, Brooklyn Bowl, and Music Hall of Williamsburg -- involved. Despite the continued expansion, BEMF still fulfills Longmyer's original mission statement "to show off Brooklyn, because people don't even realize what's in it."

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Superchief

A long time ago in a Bushwick far, far away

Party Xpo, an uncommonly resilient DIY space nestled under the J/M/Z tracks, has magically withstood two years of logistical hassles. After opening in January 2010 with a typically cantankerous Japanther benefit show, local law enforcement took notice of the place, paid a few visits, and the space wisely went dry. Then the site's previous tenants--a party-supply store business whose still-lingering "Party Expo" signage inspired the spot's name--not only demanded the current occupants remove the marquee (above), but change the venue's name. The result was Party XPO.

Now, after enduring two tumultuous years of police raids, dry shows, and one especially memorable Wu-Tang video, the Bushwick storefront has evolved again--this time into a "beautiful and safe venue, bar, and practice studio" with actual bathrooms, a "smoking coffin" bar, and a (supposedly/hopefully) forthcoming liquor license. Plus, cats!

From an e-mail circulating sent by one of the space's longtime organizers, Jonny Aquadora:

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IFC

Portlandia: The Tour
Music Hall of Williamsburg
Friday, January 20

Better than: Watching television (but who has one anyway?).

In the middle of a nearly two-hour set of live sketches, improv riffing, and unseen clips, Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein, the stars of IFC's Portlandia, strapped on guitars and played the song that served as the show's much-emailed teaser. "Do you remember when people were content to be unambitious, sleep 'til 11 and hang out with their friends? And they had no occupations whatsoever?" Fred asks. "When people were singing about saving the planet, forming bands?... When they encouraged you to be weird?" That dream, the dream of '90s, he explains to Carrie, is alive in Portland.

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At last year's Brooklyn Book Festival, Joshua Clover and Ta-Nehisi Coates argued the relative merits of Roxette's "Listen to Your Heart" and Public Enemy's "Fight the Power." The year before, Ian MacKaye (on a panel with Thurston Moore and Lupe Fiasco) decried the overuse of the phrase "Google it," and Mary Gaitskill rapped along to Das Racist's early meme/hit "Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell." Below you'll find the handful of music-related panels and events at this year's installment, which takes place on Sunday at Borough Plaza. Bonus: Only one overlaps with the must-see Phantom Tollbooth 50th-anniversary conversation at noon.

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photo by Nate "Igor" Smith

The Gregory Brothers at the Village Voice Web Awards in December 2010

Among the rusty Web 2.0 jokes, Anne Hathaway's cornball hooting, and all the precious air Oprah breathed, there were a few redeeming aspects to last night's Oscars. Coincidentally (or not?), they tended to have local ties. Staten Island's PS22 Chorus, "the only remotely competent performers at the Oscars." Pom-pom-headed Luke Matheny, who gave a resolutely human acceptance speech and shouted out NYU. And "The Year's Unintentional Musicals," a minute-and-a-half digital montage of AutoTuned scenes from Harry Potter, Toy Story 3, The Social Network, and Twilight--the latter, a deeply amusing riff on Taylor Lautner's perpetual toplessness called "He Doesn't Own a Shirt." Behind this spot were Brooklyn's very own Auto-Tune the News Guys, the Gregory Brothers (Andrew, Michael, Evan, and Sarah), who all watched the show last night at home, drinking champagne, and snapping pictures of the TV screen with their phones--you would too.

We caught up with three of them this afternoon, amid the telephonic chaos of moving offices, to talk about working with the Oscar producers, Ron Weasley as a booty-jam balladeer, and what should have won Best Picture of the Year.

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Yesterday, a manager at the beleaguered Greenpoint club Coco66 promised us that despite a police raid on Friday that momentarily closed the venue, they were reopening at regular capacity this week--"we didn't have to close at all," they told us. But this morning, we noticed that every show booked this week at the space seemed to be cancelled or, more accurately, and in the words the club itself, "moved to a different venue." Huh? We reached out for clarification and later received this message from Josh, the club's manager:

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That's Coco66's address alright. Photo via

Update: Says the club's manager: "We're reopening at 4 p.m. today." See more below.

Lost in a weekend's worth of CMJ-related chaos was the fact that on Friday night, the NYPD raided the Greenpoint venue Coco66, halting the Tamaryn/Frankie Rose & the Outs show that was underway and reportedly shutting down the venue indefinitely. The above photo, just posted to Tamaryn's Facebook page--the show was ended during her set, after she'd only played three songs--would seem to bear that theory out. (The venue's address is indeed 66 Greenpoint Avenue.) We've reached out to both the venue and its manager, but have yet to hear back. In the meantime, the man who put on the show, promoter Seva Granik, says Coco66 is in dire trouble. According to him, the "NYPD apparently has been showing up for weeks, warning the venue about various things that the owner was supposed to go take care of." We asked what went down on Friday, specifically:

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Would you use this bathroom? Photo via Viceland Today

After CBGB's unspeakably vile bathroom went the way of the rest of the erstwhile punk venue, the truly immortally foul New York rock bathrooms mostly moved east, across the river, taking up unfortunate new residence in Williamsburg's myriad concert/communal living spaces. Perhaps not surprisingly, the most trafficked ones have tended to be the most vile: Glasslands, the Market Hotel, and perhaps worst of all, the Silent Barn. Luckily (for us, that is), some desperate videographer so desperately needed a place to shoot a music video last week that he agreed to clean the Silent Barn's ancient, flypaper-riddled bathroom in exchange for being able to shoot there. "Years of being shipped against my will to cut-rate sleepaway camps where my quiet and chubby nature had relegated me to the position of 'latrine swabber' had prepared me well for this moment," writes Matthew Caron. Then he posted the video:

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