Live: The Brooklyn "Meatup" is tonight

(photo by Scott Nyerges)

Burgers, beer, a wet t-shirt contest for the boys (gender-standard role-reversal!!), Jell-O shots and a great opportunity for all the single bloggers in the borough, one of our favorite blogs/RSS feeds about our favorite place, Fucked In Park Slope is teaming up with two other BKLYN Web sites/brands, Brokelyn and Brooklyn Based to bring you the first official "BK Meatup". With DJ sets and a special appearance by comedian/writer Sara Schaefer (Best Week Ever, "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon" blog), drink specials, "interesting, totally optional" games with rad prizes, it's for sure going to be a great time to meet other like-minded bloggers, maybe hook up and otherwise just have a rad time on a Wednesday night. Tickets are only $10, so get on that already.

Details:

Wednesday, September 30
Bell House
149 7th Street (btwn. 2nd & 3rd Aves.)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
7-11pm

Also, if you do head out there (which you should), don't forget to follow @BKMeatup on Twitter and if you are tweeting from within, 100% make sure to include the #bkmeatup hashtag.

(mp3)    Santigold - Guns Of Brooklyn

Godspeed!

Photos: Bob Ross tribute party at Gallery Bar on April 2

It was a night of dancing, drinking, painting and wearing wigs on Thursday night last week (we know, we're really really really running behind on editing photos right now) at the Gallery Bar in the LES, as an official tribute party was held in reverie of one of the best blue shirt-wearing, happy little tree-painting, soothing-voiced public television talents ever, Bob Ross.  We had a blast watching the old videos, seeing a dance troupe of wigged kids in choreographed routines, hanging with all the kids that came out (a ton of them, apparently) and dancing to DJs Alex English and BabyBunny.

(mp3)    Danger Mouse feat. Murs - Paint By Numbers

Godspeed!

Join the culture of me this Saturday?

Godspeed!

NYC Transit sees the acid-etched writing on the walls

From The New York Times today:

In an unusually candid effort at self-examination for a habitually insular agency, New York City Transit yesterday presented what could be called an index of straphanger frustration. It made an analysis of each subway line that shows at a glance how often trains run late, how crowded they are and whether more trains could be added to ease the problems.

What is revealed is both predictable and eye-opening. Many subway lines are simply maxed out, meaning there is no room on the tracks they use to add trains that could carry the swelling numbers of riders. And that has implications that range from day-to-day decisions about how trains travel through the system to long-term planning on how to best move people around a growing city.

"From my point of view, this is scary," said Howard H. Roberts Jr., the president of New York City Transit, who presented the data to members of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's board. "This is scary in the sense that right now, on a lot of these lines, we're several years and a big capital construction project away from being able to provide what I consider adequate service. We're constrained."

Mr. Roberts said the data had particular significance in light of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's proposal for a congestion pricing system that would charge most drivers who enter Manhattan below 86th Street ‹ with the intent of moving people out of their cars and onto mass transit.

Mr. Roberts said that on many subway lines, especially the heavily used numbered lines, there is little or no room to accommodate more riders.

"It's bad news," Mr. Roberts said. "There's no room at the inn."

We find it interesting that it's only now coming into focus that there is too much overcrowding on the subways.  Seriously, though, we take the R train from the Slope and there's not a lot of crowding compared to the F trains we used to holler at every day for the last year or so.  But we'll take either of those over the 4/5 any day of the week.  Especially Monday to Friday.  Go here for more of this article.

Godspeed!

Photos: Pre-going away going away party for the lovely girlfriend

Godspeed!

Photo: worst thing we've ever seen in Park Slope. Ever.

Godspeed!

Photos: Coney Island field trip

 

The lovely girlfriend's good friend (and mine as well) Eve came over for a couple of hours of fun in the sun.  In south Brooklyn.  Very south Brooklyn.  Oh oh oh.  And the lovely girlfriend Karen rode the Cyclone after some heavy (and mildly unnecessary) coaxing from that dude jeff.

Godspeed!

Photos: thecultureofme barbecue '07

You know how we do it around here.  Got as much shit together as we could and the lovely and I headed out to Prospect Park for version 2.0 of thecultureofme picnic/barbecue series.  Sort of.  None of us is a grill master or anything, but we got it down pat.  Burnt burgers are still burgers Sarah.  Don't you forget it.  Jessica 1 was in Iowa visiting the fam this weekend, so she was missed for serious.  And aside from the minor "your grill isn't high enough off of the ground" matters, everything came off without a hitch.  Thanks kids.  Awesome x 4.

Godspeed!

Live: NYC Popfest starts today

THURSDAY MAY 24, 2007
OPENING NIGHT
$15 advance | $18 door
Doors 7pm | show 8pm
Ages 16+ with ID
Europa Night Club, 98-104 Meserole Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
BMX Bandits (Scotland), Pants Yell! (MA), Yellow Fever (TX), The Metric Mile (NYC), Lispector (France) + Surprise guests!

FRIDAY MAY 25, 2007
DAY SHOW
$5 at the door
4pm, all ages!
Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow Street, New York, NY
Note: Advance tickets will not be available for this event
Very special surprise guests! and The Specific Heats (NYC)

FRIDAY MAY 25, 2007
NIGHT SHOW
$15 advance | $18 door
Show 8pm
Ages 21+ with ID
The Delancey, 168 Delancey Street, New York, NY
Baskervilles (NYC), Mitch Easter (NC), The Secret History (NYC), The Smittens (VT), Affair d'Coeur (NYC), The Reverse (NY)

SATURDAY MAY 26, 2007
FREE, ALL-AGES DAY SHOW
Bands start at 1pm sharp! Park opens at noon
Astroland Stage, Coney Island Boardwalk, Brooklyn, NY
We advise fest-goers to allow one hour 15 minutes travel time to be on the safe side — and the F train is the fastest way out!
Bunnygrunt (MO), Cars Can Be Blue (GA), Best Fwends (TX), The Gritty Midi Gang (NYC) + Surprise guests!

SATURDAY MAY 26, 2007
NIGHT SHOW
$15 advance | $18 door
Doors 7pm show 8pm
All ages! Must be 21+ with ID to drink
The Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard Street, New York, NY
Casiotone for the Painfully Alone (CHI), The Ballet (NYC), Ballboy (Scotland), Harvey Williams (UK), My Teenage Stride (NYC), The Besties (NYC) + Brown Recluse Sings (PA)

SUNDAY MAY 27, 2007
EARLY EVENING SHOW
$15 advance | $18 door
Show starts at 5pm sharp!
Ages 21+ with ID
Luna Lounge, 361 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
Pipas (UK/NYC), caUSE co-MOTION! (NYC), Human Television (PA), Michael Leviton (NYC), Pelle Carlberg (Sweden), Dear Nora (CA) + The Pains of Being Pure at Heart (NYC)

SUNDAY MAY 27, 2007
INDIEPOP DANCE PARTY
Immediately following the show at Luna Lounge!
Doors at 10pm, indiepop DJs will start around 11pm
FREE, ages 21+ with ID
Supreme Trading, 213 North 8th Street, Brooklyn, NY
Shirley Beans (New York Noise) and more!

MONDAY MAY 28, 2007 MEMORIAL DAY BBQ
DAY SHOW
$10 advance and door, entrance to patio and BBQ is FREE!
1pm grill time + show time
Ages 21+ with ID
Union Pool, 484 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, NY
We advise you to buy tickets early for this show! Space is limited as this will be our smallest venue of the weekend!
The Orange Peels (CA), Finishing School, The Gazetteers (NY), The Lil' Hospital (PA), Surefire Broadcast (PA), Titans of Filth (GA) + Surprise guests!

For all tickets, go here.  Don't forget to stop by the festival's MySpace page to hear some samples of the p!o!p! sounds.

Godspeed! and we'll see you around this weekend for sure.

Live: The Arcade Fire/The National at Radio City Music Hall

It's very difficult for me to explain this.  I had originally been fighting with myself over the experience that I was going to have seeing the Arcade Fire again.  I had seen them for the first time with the lovely girlfriend at the Central Park Summerstage show way back when in 2005 for CMJ and they fucking killed it.  Openers for that show, Broken Social Scene, also killed it, but this post isn't about them.

Because Funeral and Neon Bible are so very different albums from one another, both in content, context and themes, we at the culture of me had no idea how the live show would materialize and whether the crowds at the two different shows (both having the same kind of "hype" driving sales) would take the new album.

But all was proven at the first glimpse of darkness before the Arcade Fire came out.  It's so cliche to say something like this, but it was fucking electric in Radio City Music Hall last night.  They tore through there 60-ish minute set with a kind-of Cliff's Notes to why we're all in love with them.  They always seem to play like it's their last time performing ever, which inherently makes every single show they play someone in the crowd's "favorite show ever".

The reckless abandon onstage was only exceeded by the recklessness of the crowd and security.  Come on guys.  Grow up.  Radio City Music Hall is not Bowery Ballroom.  You should've known that from the get-go.

Oh, and The National fucking destroyed.  I only wish that the crowd had been more than the 100 or so people who actually showed up for their full set.  I hate that shit.  You all paid at least $35 to see the WHOLE show, not just the headliners.  Jeez.

The National setlist:

Secret Meeting
Slow Show
Mistaken For Strangers
Abel
Start A War
Apartment Story
Squalor Victory
Fake Empire
Mr. November
About Today

Arcade Fire setlist:

Keep the Car Running
No Cars Go
Haiti
Black Mirror
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)
In The Backseat
My Body is a Cage
The Well And The Lighthouse
Ocean of Noise
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
(Antichrist Television Blues)
Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
Rebellion (Lies)

Encore(s):
Intervention
Wake Up

Godspeed!