Chris Becker

Beach Fossils at Bruar Falls in 2010.

​The Williamsburg bar/club Bruar Falls, founded by the proprietors of Cake Shop and the Library Bar, will "cease to exist on November 1," according to a statement posted by the founders. Proprietors of the venue, which opened in the spring of 2009, sent out the announcement just as the weekend was beginning; reasons for the club's demise include the old standby "creative differences," as well as a "hard-to-honor midnight curfew," and financial difficulties that cropped up, the statement says, in part because there are just way too many places in Williamsburg where one can see live music. ("It was soon apparent to us, however, that people in Williamsburg have lots of other options to see bands," said the statement. "We love and are inspired by these places, but really, between loft/warehouse parties and D.I.Y. spots, where you can bring in your own cheap beer, smoke inside and hit on the same people...we totally understand why it's hard to spend money at your local legit small club. It is difficult not to be a bit jealous of their freedom, but we have always worked hard to be in for the long haul.") The full text below.

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Yesterday 60 Minutes curmudgeon Andy Rooney announced that he would be retiring from his weekly segment of wondering about the annoying things in life. Here is a clip from Beavis And Butt-Head where the two imminently returning couch potatoes do their best "Mickey" Rooney impersonations over "Funk Dat," the safe-for-TV Rooney tribute track by the Baltimore MC Sagat. It's funny! Certainly it's funnier than the comments Rooney made after the death of Kurt Cobain, which Rooney said attracted more than 10,000 letters from "young people" because they boiled down to "Cobain? Never heard of him. What an idiot." It's almost like his segment was a prototype for really lousy blogs!

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​Damon Dash—fallen hip-hop mogul, co-founder of Roc-A-Fella Records—had a club not so long ago in Tribeca called DD172. SOTC alum Zach Baron referred to it as "gallery-cum-illegal-performance-space-cum-goofy-artless-takeoff-on-Warhol's-Factory," and the Observer called Dash a "Wannabe Warhol": "Sometimes the four-story warehouse is a sprawling art gallery; at other times, it's a photo studio, or an indie band's rehearsal space." To Tribecans, it was "a front" for a suspected unlicensed club, a nuisance, a disturbance.

DD172 hasn't been operational since June, when the Tribeca Citizen observed stuff being moved out of the space at 172 Duane Street. Yesterday, the quiet block where the club was located—located in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York—rippled with interest as the city brought legal action against the building's owners.

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Maks Suski

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"This is totally normal," G. Lucas Crane says as he drags an amp and a box full of cassettes into his former kitchen. The experimental musician (and occasional tape manipulator for Woods) studies the giant plastic balls hanging from the ceiling, which change color as people talk, and pauses. "What's up with those orbs?" (They're by Peter Edwards.)

All of Silent Barn's sound equipment is long gone. What wasn't stolen in an ugly break-in following their mid-July shutdown by the Department of Buildings has been put into temporary storage. And the venue's one-time residents have spent the day giving away what hasn't been stored—which is a fair bit. Showpaper editor Joe Ahearn, wearing a policeman's cap, stops a girl as she walks away with a maybe-working amp. "We need to take a picture of you with that."

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​In 2005, the Village Voice's music editor, Chuck Eddy, its web editor, Nick Catucci, and their intern, Nick Sylvester, had the novel idea that the Voice's music section might become something more than a once a week proposition. The eventual result of this idea was something called Riff Raff, written by Sylvester, which updated at the revolutionary pace of one post per day. It was a free-for-all of bravado criticism, proto-SEO-baiting headlines ("Live: Gang Gang Dance Accept Blame for Cheney Shooting"), real interviews that read like they were fake (and vice versa), and instant reactions to sub-par Cam'ron dis tracks. Eventually, Nick and Chuck brought on a seven-foot tall Baltimore rap fan named Tom Breihan to write a second blog, which Tom called Status Ain't Hood. Status, in its long run at this paper, trafficked in a wide-eyed love for hip-hop, inexplicably definitive opinions ("Pitbull: Better Than Nas"), and posts that ran to thousands and thousands of words, even when they were about zombies.

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Photoshop assist courtesy of a very sad Jesus Diaz.

​Once, he infiltrated Michael Bolton's house, where he proceeded to photograph the innocent singer's Scrabble board and College Dropout platinum plaque. At least one regular reader was moved to write an entire song in tribute, the first line of which was: "WHAT? HARVILLA PROMOTED ANOTHER MILLIONAIRE?" He called his long-running print column "Down in Front" because he was indeed tall and difficult to see over at shows, and felt bad about that fact. Da Capo gave him both awards and honorable mentions; a not insignificant number of pieces he edited went on to win more of the same. His office couch was comfortable, his kindness legendary, and now, five years after showing up here from the hinterlands of California, he's headed back. We'll miss you Rob. And since your fame is sure to be more enduring than MIMS', let's all just pretend you drafted this nifty graphic with yourself in mind and remember it forever. From left to right, all together now:

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Via you-know-who

​So. Arcade Fire won the Grammy for Album of the Year. Maybe you heard about it. And maybe you are aware that this is a momentous occasion, an unprecedented generational coup, a Barbra Streisand-delivered clarion call that launched a thousand think pieces on the Death/Triumph of Indie. This is one of the first. But don't worry, it's real short.

Ahem:

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"Kneel, industry, kneel!"

​We'd graph it, but sadly, it's too simple for that. Your 2011 Billboard #1s, in chronological order: Taylor Swift, Speak Now, 52K; Cake, Showroom of Compassion, 44K; the Decemberists, The King Is Dead, 93.5K; Amos Lee, Mission Bell, 40K. That last number is the lowest total since Soundscan started counting; it breaks that record for the third time in four chances this year. Your 2011 debut sales champ so far? The motherfucking Decemberists. On the upside, this marks the second straight #1 record for the beleaguered imprint EMI...or should we say Citigroup, who recently bought the label for pocket change, bailing out some clowns who paid 8.4 billion for the label in 2007. That sound you hear is of thousands of men in suits, weeping.

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"Peace, suckers." Photo via MySpace.

​Bad news for anyone hoping to make a living off of selling recorded music ever again: after 2010 brought us such lovely milestones as the worst week for music sales in all of SoundScan history and the Kanye West record that wouldn't go platinum, 2011 has already brought us a new low. Congratulations, Taylor Swift, whose Speak Now is once again back in the #1 spot...after selling a mere 52,000 copies. That's a historical low and the worst top bow since they started counting in 1991. And it's probably going to get worse, reports Billboard:

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