Friday September 4

Location: East Village, NYC
Event: Howl! Festival
Show time: See website for performance schedule
Venue: Tompkins Square Park
Food: Momofuku
Drink: The Village Pourhouse
Miscellaneous: Sundaes and Cones

Celebrating music, poetry, art, and dance on the Lower East Side, the Howl! Festival takes three stages and the whole weekend to showcase the talent that NYC has to offer. If you like ramen noodles and pork, then Momofuku is your spot for food. The Berkshire pork is the best I’ve had and it’s the only place I’ll eat pork period, which should tell you just how good Momofuku really is! What looks like a neighborhood bar to watch sports actually has three more rooms. The Village Pourhouse is where you can order food or find a quiet place to smooch! For dessert a little left of the dial, Sundaes and Cones offers eclectic flavors like wasabi and corn and many more flavors that are familiar.

Friday September 4

Location: Midtown West, NYC
Bands: Battles + !!! Get Tickets Here
Show time: 7 PM
Venue: Terminal 5
Food: Pig N’ Whistle
Drink: The Irish Rogue
Miscellaneous: Island Burgers & Shakes

Warp Records celebrates 20 years on this earth putting out some of the most innovative electronic music. Performing are some of the labels best in experimental rock outfit Battles and dance-punk band !!!. For great Irish food, one of my faves is Pig N’ Whistle in midtown. Serving traditional Irish fare like Steak and Kidney Pie as well as American. A great Irish pub in Hells Kitchen, The Irish Rogue has live music and sports playing on TVs, so you know this bar will be a party all day. If Irish food ain’t your thing, then head over to Island Burgers & Shakes as the menu is stacked two pages deep of some of the most intense burgers and chicken sandwiches on the island of Manhattan.

Saturday September 5

Location: East Harlem, NYC
Bands: Electric Zoo Festival
Show time: 11 AM; To buy tickets go to the website
Venue: Randall’s Island
Food Amy Ruth’s
Drink Harlem Lanes
Miscellaneous Stop 125

Celebrating electronic music’s best, the Electric Zoo Festival features the likes of Deadmau5, Armin van Buuren, David Guetta, Ferry Corsten, Francois K, Kaskade, Danny Tenaglia, Tiga, Richie Hawtin, and many more greats performing on four stages tonight and tomorrow. While you’re up in Harlem, head over to Amy Ruth’s for some of the best fried chicken around. A MUST TRY is the fried or smothered Chicken & Waffles named The Rev. Al Sharpton ($9.50). It’s out of this world! A complex housing 24 bowling lanes, mini arcade, and a gourmet café, Harlem Lanes also has a sports bar with 24 plasma screen TVs. At Stop 125 you’d think the outdoor Tiki Bar would be the main attraction, but it’s the food that many come for. Offering dinner entree’s as well as small tapas style appetizers like the much-loved Chorizo With Caramelized Figs sautéed in its own juices (sm $6.95, lg $12.95), Stop 125 takes American cuisine and spices it up with the international flair that NYC, and especially Harlem are known for.

Saturday September 5

Location: Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Bands: Phosphorescent Get Tickets Here
Show time: 9 PM
Venue: Music Hall of Williamsburg
Food: Bonita
Drink: Savalas
Miscellaneous: Fabiane’s Café & Pastry Shop

If you’ve never heard Phosphorescent, AKA Matthew Houk, think the perfect amount of country to the right amount of folk and you’ve got some beautiful little songs that echo a genre of legends including Willie Nelson, whom he thoroughly covers on his album To Willie. If you’re in the zone for Mexican, Bonita is a great place. Serving the standard fare, try the mouth-watering chicken burrito and Mexican corn on the cob, wrapped in cheese with a hint of spice for that extra kick. If you’re looking to dance afterwards, Savalas has both great DJs and drink specials on top of delivering on the fun factor. Fabiane’s Café & Pastry Shop is a great little cafe in the heart of Williamsburg that’s great for not too late night people watching. Try one of their fantastic desserts or sip coffee and stare at the passing hipsters.

Sunday September 6

Richard Avedon
Veruschka, dress by Kimberly, New York, January 1967
© 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation














Location: Midtown West, NYC
Photo: Avedon Fashion, 1944–2000
Show time: 9 PM
Venue: International Center of Photography
Food: Zip Burger
Drink: Subway Inn
Miscellaneous: Kinokuniya Bookstore

Richard Avedon changed the way fashion photography was approached and done by injecting emotion and movement into an emotionless style up to that point. This exhibition, one of the largest to date of his work, looks at his long career, with vintage photos, contact sheets, magazine layouts, and more in Avedon Fashion, 1944–2000. At Zip Burger they offer farm-raised, organic, and grass-fed meat and poultry, letting you build your own burger with plenty of gourmet toppings. The first time I went to Subway Inn I thought it was completely strange that there was a dive bar off Lexington Avenue, especially in this neck of the woods, but somehow it works. Born in the 30s, this bar has somehow remained, and thank god, as it’s easily the cheapest place in the area for a drink. For fans of Japanese pop-culture, Kinokuniya Bookstore has a large selection of Japanese themed books, videos, CDs, magazines, comics, and stationary.

Following the dissolution of The Birthday Party in 1983, frontman Nick Cave took on the role of bandleader and formed the Bad Seeds with fellow former Birthday Party-er Mick Harvey. Although the lineup went through changes from record to record, the core vision of the Bad Seeds—channeling the frantic energy of Cave’s first band into a more directly blues-based, roots-influenced outfit—remained the same, particularly throughout the early years. In April 2009, Mute Records reissued the first four Bad Seeds albums—From Her to Eternity; The Firstborn is Dead; Kicking Against the Pricks; and Your Funeral, My Trial. These early efforts, revisited together, trace a compelling progression that doesn’t abandon the theatrics of The Birthday Party, but refines and adapts them to an ever-increasing array of moods and settings.

From Her to Eternity
(Mute Records)






The first Bad Seeds album drew on the chaos of The Birthday Party, expanding its musical palette to include pounding, dissonant piano and atmospheric touches like ominous guitar scrapes to effectively punctuate the cadences of Nick Cave’s narratives. Embracing the blues more openly than with his previous band, and adding a critical element of space between sonic elements, Cave assembled a collective with the ability to explore much more musical territory; opening with a dramatic, compelling interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s “Avalanche,” From Her to Eternity immediately hints at the adaptability of Cave and his co-conspirators to a much broader range of moods and textures than the work of The Birthday Party would suggest. After sublimating the Cohen gem into a curiously cinematic character study, the band lurches into the wild, stir-crazy “Cabin Fever!” before contorting the traditional sea shanty form into “Well of Misery,” evidence of the Bad Seeds’ skill at simultaneously emulating and owning the genres to which they nod.

The title track remains one of the band’s finest cuts, featuring Cave’s reliably manic vocal delivery underscored by pummeled ivories and frenzied, noisy guitar accents. The second half of the record delivers equally “challenging” material, like the seven-and-a-half-minute “Saint Huck,” a meandering tale incorporating references to Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey over a quick, persistent bass line, repetitive low-end piano, and guitar attacks. On later efforts, the Bad Seeds would become more focused and ambitious, but would arguably never quite match the dangerous energy of their debut.

The Firstborn is Dead
(Mute Records)






While it had always been a clear influence in Nick Cave’s work, sonically and lyrically, The Firstborn is Dead is the Bad Seeds album most steeped in American country blues. Each track on the album shares a thematic or musical parallel to early blues, from the epic opening song, “Tupelo,” which imagines the birth of Cave’s idol Elvis Presley as a stormy local legend, through the closing “Blind Lemon Jefferson,” named for a notable 1920’s singer-guitarist who died under mysterious circumstances at a tragically young age. Familiar blues themes of jail, crime, epic storms, death, trains, and self-mythology permeate the record, as well as traditional blues sounds like harmonica, call-and-response vocals, and percussive handclaps. “Train Long Suffering” features Cave mimicking the whistle of a locomotive, while the singer pays homage to prewar performers by incorporating the classic blues “moan” into the slow-stomping “Black Crow King.”

Prison ballad “Knocking on Joe,” an album highlight, is a slow-building gem constructed around a surprisingly melodic piano line and featuring wistful harmonica in the coda. The band’s cover of Johnny Cash’s “Wanted Man,” written by Bob Dylan for the country titan, is another definitive performance by a band superbly capable of reinterpreting the material of other artists; the successful demonstration of this ability foreshadows the Bad Seeds’ work on Kicking Against the Pricks. While not quite as manic and chaotic as its predecessor, The Firstborn is Dead is nonetheless an underappreciated classic in the Nick Cave oeuvre.

Kicking Against the Pricks
(Mute Records)






While it may seem odd or excessively ambitious for a band to choose to record entirely covers for their third album, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds had already demonstrated not only a strength for co-opting the songs of other noteworthy artists, but the power to bend genres to their own will. Kicking Against the Pricks solidifies these alchemistic abilities and even throws in some surprises; while cuts like a truly murderous take on John Lee Hooker’s “I’m Gonna Kill That Woman” and moody versions of country ballads “Long Black Veil” and “Muddy Waters” may be somewhat predictable choices, other selections on the album illuminate entirely new sides of the Seeds. “Sleeping Annaleah,” which retools Tom Jones’ “Weeping Annaleah,” and the nearly a capella gospel song “Jesus Met the Woman at the Well” sound downright playful, and more poppy ballads like “Something’s Gotten Hold of My Heart” and closing track “The Carnival is Over” showcase a croonier side of Cave.

Even tunes well-known to those versed in rock and roll history are successfully mutated into Bad Seeds songs, like a gasping, densely towering “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and a cold, atmospheric “Hey Joe” that climbs inside the twisted, detached mind of the narrator. On Kicking Against the Pricks, the Bad Seeds manage to continue to broaden their musical horizons and Nick Cave expands his range as a vocalist, all while maintaining the identifiable core that distinguishes the band as a singular outfit; that it is an album consisting exclusively of covers is not a detriment to this advancement, but a testament.

Your Funeral, My Trial
(Mute Records)






Your Funeral, My Trial is widely considered to be the masterpiece of the early Bad Seeds years, the inevitable melding of elements both explored and suggested on their previous efforts. The loose disorder of From Her to Eternity is tightened, the band seems more self-assured and versatile, and the songwriting fuses accessibility with the group’s identifiably brooding, dramatic atmospheres. Applying the progress they made with their inventive covers record to mostly original material (the lone cover is a plaintive take on Tim Rose’s murder ballad, “Long Time Man”), the Bad Seeds find themselves in peak form.

An ominous, breathtaking epic, “The Carney” plays like a subversively dark short film in sonic form, and songs like “She Fell Away” and “Jack’s Shadow” demonstrate the dynamic range of the band and the effectiveness of Blixa Bargeld’s ambient, textured guitar experimentations. Organ sounds introduced on a few Kicking Against the Pricks recordings return with a vengeance on tunes like the eerily touching title track, an undeniable Bad Seeds highlight, and the opening ballad “Sad Waters;” “She Fell Away” and “The Carney” also feature generous use of melodic percussion instruments like xylophone and glockenspiel.

Although the first CD release of the album ordered the songs differently than the original, double-45 vinyl edition, the reissue version preserves the initial track order; the gesture is appropriate for an album which exhibits the Bad Seeds at their most meticulous.

Toney Palumbo

Black Panther, 1969
Offset lithograph
22 7/8 x 15 in (58.4 x 38.1 cm)
Collection Alden and Mary Kimbrough
© 2009 Emory Douglas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York



Location: East Village, NYC
Art: Emory Douglas: Black Panther Show time: Wed, Sat & Sun: Noon-6 PM, Thurs & Fri: Noon-9 PM; Through October 18
Venue: New Museum
Food: Minca
Drink: Common Ground
Miscellaneous: Beard Papa Sweets Cafe

The artist behind the revolution, Emory Douglas created the artwork for the covers of Black Panther, the party’s weekly newspaper during its heyday of the 60’s and 70’s. This exhibition features 165 posters, newspapers, and prints from 1967-1976 and is curated by LA artist Sam Durant, who worked on a book with Douglas focusing on his artwork. If you’ve never been to Minca for dinner, go right now! This small noodle bar makes some amazing ramen noodles from scratch. Try the Minca Ramen, a mild broth with pork, chicken & dried seafood ($8.50). One of the newer bars in the East Village, Common Ground has a dark wood interior, a relaxed atmosphere, and excellent cocktails like the Blueberry Pie. If you like pastries filled with cream, check out Beard Papa Sweets Café. They offer cream fillings like earl grey, green tea, coffee, and the standard vanilla, chocolate, strawberry among others.

Krantz Carlock Lefebvre
Krantz Carlock Lefebvre
(Abstract Logix)







Guitar 'maverick' Wayne Krantz with super-duper players Tim Lefebvre (Bass); Keith Carlock (Drums) have released Krantz Carlock Lefebvre.

A first in 15 years for Krantz who has played with Steely Dan, Michael Brecker and Billy Cobham, he's teemed up with Carlock-whose credits include Sting and James Taylor-and Lefebvre who has kept the low end for Chris Botti as well as others.

At times I felt they were in Living Colour territory, like with opener "Holy Joe" when Krantz gets kinda heavy noisy. I liked the lazy snare from Carlock on "It's No Fun Not To Like Pop." "Left It On The Playground" starts with fun noises, burps and farts but although Carlock is kinetically fine, I'm not sure this long one goes anywhere. "Mosey" and "Rugged Individual" though are great; the first featuring a good solid rock lead melody with the latter offering a sweet melody and the first use of a clean guitar sound (into a wha-wha later).

The 2nd half of the CD really does pick up. There's "War-torn Johnny" with the band finally playing like the tight 3-piece they are; this is another favorite of mine with great pull-off's, a slight detuned sound and almost chunky country fed groove. "Wine Is The Thread" is a fantastic ending, a real sly commercial tune with a lyric that actually works.

Disjointed maybe in the beginning, but by middle of Krantz Carlock Lefebvre these three supremely talented players bring it together for a very entertaining jazz-like CD.

Ralph Greco, Jr.


These United States
Everything Touches Everything
(United Interests)







Immediately likable, Everything Touches Everything, the third full-length album by These United States intertwines poignant lyrics with a folky rock sound. The Washington D.C. based band produced a lively and interesting mix with vocals crawling over rapid drum beats and sprinting guitar chords.

The words in this compilation are truly worth giving a listen. Vivid imagery is laced throughout, like in the charitable line, “Don’t you send me my red shirt; sew that onto your thin wings” in “I Want You to Keep Everything.” This song and maybe a couple of others sound like they could pass for twanged-up Matchbox Twenty tracks. Later in the album lyrics reach existential levels in “The End” with the line “Brilliant as the moments we live for, few and far as the deaths which we drift towards.”

The more upbeat numbers really outshine the slower songs. One being “Conquest & Consequence,” a catchy standout with its sing-songy verses and perky percussion. The comforting vocals of singer Jesse Elliott make this collection, but the well-arranged instruments are never boring and enhance the alt-rock sound of the band. These United States did well to create an overall smooth experience with this one.

Amy Hamblen


Actors & Actresses
Arrows
(The Mylene Sheath)





Arrows, is the latest from Kansas City’s Actors & Actresses. Labeled as shoe-gaze, this down-tempo release has a way of making songs that lull the listener into each world crafted by the mere 9 tracks on the album that seem to last and last. Almost like ambient rock, shadowy drums press against the elegantly poetic vocals of Scott Bennett who also plays bass. The bleak strains of guitarist Andrew Schiller are often heard intensely twisting against a rigid yet fully capable drum kit masterfully executed and made entrancing by Dave Sumner. The hopeful tow of “Quiet” suffocates under spiraling guitars and a palpitating metal beat. The beauty of Bennett’s vocals gives the song an intoxicatingly emotive edge of yearning. The stiff groove of “Hello Tornado” moves like an unapologetic affront. The song demands its likeability because the rich layered animosity of the instrumentation that sprawls out nicely. Huge leaps of artistic sonic undulation make Arrows as multidirectional as its title. The other side of this musically poignant release is that the songs come alive by a sort of rare instrumentation and care in handling that proves itself righteous over and over.

Chanda Jones


The Changes
First of May EP & Today is Tonight LP
(Drama Club Records)





Formed in 2002, this Chicago based band has a ‘rock and roll meets new wave’ sound. Four members in the band; two guitar/vocalists, bass, drums, and three of them doing double duty on the keyboards, give a good range of sound to the band, though their EP is very different from the LP.

First of May is a strong offering, with insistent jangly drums, subtle pulsing bass, reverb free guitars, and rich vocals. Each track has unique composition and exhibits commendable rock n’ roll themes. Stand out tracks are the over six minute long and very infectious “Her, You and I” ; the interesting instrumental “1984” ; and the heart wrenching, though empowering, “Such a Scene.”

Today is Tonight has higher production values than the group’s EP, as well as more keys, bells, and tinging sounds. Here The Changes bring a large new wave influence to their songs and the first two tracks exhibit this new influence. While some of the tracks retain the strictly rock n’ roll sensibility that worked so well for the EP, the tracks are otherwise pretty run of the mill.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of the 80s again and again by the album, especially with the inclusion of such song titles as ‘Modern Love.” There wasn’t anything about this new wave influence that jumped out as new or innovative and the majority of the album sounded the same. Still there are a few tracks that struck me; such as “Sisters” with it’s slower synthy sound, reminiscent of “Stars,” as well as “Machine” which has an interesting lyrical message and the best guitar licks of the album. Over all, the LP’s tracks seemed overproduced and didn’t have the successful sound of the EP.

Kenneth Joachim


The Crystal Method
Divided by Night
(Tiny e)





Long after the birth of the electronica craze and it's subsequent pop-culture death, The Crystal Method continue to create music that is innovative, pioneering and most importantly - a damn good listen. On their latest release, Divided by Night, they have created a definitively dark, moody, and adventurous work that is sexy and ambitious. This is an album best listened to after midnight - in those long night hours electronica was meant to inhabit.

Using their deep musical style and taste for sounds from every different genre, they create a mix of songs that are each exciting and unique. The album features collaborations with Matisyahu, Justin Warfield and several other great artists who extend the depth of this album with their differing contributions and vocals. Far from being your average techno album made for clubs, The Crystal Method have once again taken this genre to new and unexpected heights. And as soon as I find my old glowstick from college, I think I will turn down the lights and dance around my room a little while it plays.

Adam J. Rodriguez

Location: Chelsea, NYC
Book Launch: CocoRosie
Show time: 9 PM
Venue: Highline Ballroom
Food GoGo Curry
Drink Stitch
Miscellaneous Leisure Time Bowl

French duo CocoRosie are working on a new album with plans to release it sometime in 2009 and it should be just as interesting as their previous output which blends elements of hip hop, freak-folk, and toy/electronic and percussive instruments. The owner of GoGo Curry is obsessed with the Yankees Hideki Matsui and his Jersey (55). The menu’s theme is baseball and katsu, a fried meat, chicken, or shrimp cutlet served in a curry sauce is the specialty here. Portion sizes are Walk (small), Single (Med.), Double (L), and Triple (XL) and are inexpensive. The mascot, a gorilla for some reason, is plastered everywhere, making this place even quirkier. In the heart of the garment district, Stitch, a cozy after-work bar/lounge, stocks a cocktail menu with a design theme. If you still have energy and are in the mood to bowl, check out Leisure Time Bowl. Located in the Port Authority, this place is stylish and fun.

Jupiter One is a band from New York, whose unique sound is derived from mixing vintage musical elements with modern techniques, bringing back to the forefront that old, forgotten element of song-writing…Melody. Members Zac Colwell (lead guitar), Pat Dougherty (bass). Dave Heilman (drums). and K Ishibashi (vocals) demonstrate this sound perfectly within their second album Sunshower, due out mid-September. Working with greats like Jac Holzman and Chris Ribando, and having their songs already featured in commercials and video games, you may have already heard these folk-funk-pop sensations, but I guarantee you’ll be seeing more of them after this sophomore effort. Here, I speak with lead guitarist Zac Colwell about Jupiter One’s new album, a possible new tour and what happens when foxes get married.

For your fans, how would you say Sunshower is different from your debut album? Did you do anything different with the recording process itself?

We were able to book a studio, plan it out, test all the songs on the road and write it more as a group almost. I think it’s a big difference from the first one. Still the same guys playing, but it’s a little bit more of a concentrated effort.

Sunshower definitely hints at some classic influences like The Beatles, Pink Floyd and The Police, yet you guys managed to create a sound all your own (which is difficult to do in a business where everything has been done, or rather heard, before.) When Jupiter One decided to become a band full-time, did you set out to sound like a specific genre, or did you guys simply merge your musical influences together?

Melody has kind of become an antiquated element in young people’s music. People can do it, but they just don’t seem to like it… but we love melody. K and I each write the lyrics and the melodies for the most part, so we have each other to bounce off of. I guess what the band set out to do was just make cool songs.

Can you describe what instruments and formats were used to create Sunshower?

Dave, our drummer, is a 5’10” hurricane, and our bass player Pat is made of steel, so there’s that element (laughs.) Mocha plays organ…We have a bunch of awesome 70s synthesizers, which everyone seems to associate with the 80s, but we always considered synthesizers to be a 70s element. I play woodwind, as well as synthesizers and guitar…

I did hear the flute on a couple tracks…you don’t hear that instrument every day.

Well the flute and clarinet, as well as Mocha’s violin, we keep layering to create our own little orchestra. So even though it was nice to have the resources to make a better album this time, we still wouldn’t be able to afford a real orchestra, so we just decided to do it ourselves (laughs.) I guess the main thing is, some people record an album the way they would do it live; we just thought it would be a little more fun to treat each song with equal amount of effort and give each piece its own personality.

For those unfamiliar with the fable, can you explain the influence of the Japanese short film Dreams on the album’s title and concept?

Well the album title wasn’t taken directly from that. Most of the songs on Sunshower are either bittersweet, or they seem sweet and they’re bitter, and vice versa. So as far as the imagery, like the foxes we have on the cover, that’s really where the short film comes in. It has to do with a little boy who wants to play outside, and he wanders to a forest where he’s not supposed to go, and he sees these foxes getting married in a wedding procession, in Kabuki theater style….more or less, it has to do with foxes being mythical creatures and playing the role of troublemaker in almost every culture. So anyway, sunshower is when foxes get married (laughs,) but also about nostalgia. When a sunshower happens, I really think of my childhood, which I’m sure everyone does as it’s something really poignant, you know.

Definitely. Now were there any favorite tracks off of the new album for you guys, whether it was your favorite to record or perform live?

Well we just figured out how to play “Flaming Arrow” live, because we hadn’t been playing it on the road, and that’s the first single. But we like to rearrange stuff sometimes so we can emphasize certain elements. “Simple Stones” is the funky one; I really like playing that one live, and “High Plains Drifter” is another really fun one.

Before you became a band, (and still to this day) it seems all four of you had day-jobs that were anything but ordinary. Do you think this collective creativity played a role in allowing each of your individual styles to mesh so well together?

Yeah, sure. I think New York is a big even-outer, as far as making people compatible with each other. Every time I meet a genius musician in NY, (or take my friends in the band for example,) it’s easy to get along with them because everyone’s doing the same thing…scrapping, starving and pretending like you’re not.

So what do you anticipate for the future of Jupiter One?

Well, we just made four videos which are going to be really exciting. One is by our friends Trevor Bittinger and Brandon LaGanke, and they are psychedelic geniuses. They worked on the first track, “Volcano,” which is a really fun, psychedelic visual experience that features a street performance artist who is known for wearing a giant plushy dolphin suit. Robertas Nevecka is a Lithuanian-based visual artist and animator, who is directing the video for our first single, "Flaming Arrow.” It's an animated version of the story told in the song with cartoon versions of Jupiter One… And we just did videos for “Made in a Day” and “Simple Stones.” So I’m looking forward to those videos coming out and touring.

Awesome, I’ll have to check them out. I heard you guys are known for playing over 100 dates in one year alone. Do you plan on doing an extensive US tour for the new album?

Oh yeah, we’d do 365 if we could. We’re going on the road again soon in September.

Be sure to check out Sunshower when it’s released September 15th.

Lucy Tonic

Location: Chelsea, NYC
Bands: Pet Shop Boys Get Tickets Here
Show time: 8 PM
Venue: Hammerstein Ballroom
Food: Supermac
Drink: Stout
Miscellaneous: Jack’s 99 Cent Store

Dancehall icons Pet Shop Boys return with a new album Yes, which pretty much says it all. But if you want more, the boys from the UK will have some dynamic stage design and choreography, and yes, play plenty of their hits. Though small, Supermac packs a hearty punch with it’s gourmet mac & cheese’s like the Mac Cheesesteak with shaved steak, caramelized onions, roasted peppers, cremini/shitake, provolone, and white American ($8.25 mini; $10.95 mega). A great place in NYC to get a full-bodied dark beer is at Stout. With a very detailed beer list with descriptions, I’ve never had a bad pint at this bar and restaurant, plus the food menu is American and quite good. Probably the biggest 99-cent store in NYC, Jack’s 99 Cent Store is three floors of some of the finest values you can find, especially in an overpriced area like Herald Square.


Location: East Village, NYC
Book Launch: Into The Briar
Show time: 6:30 PM to 8 PM
Venue: St. Mark’s in the Bowery, Parish Hall
Food Minca
Drink Ace Bar
Miscellaneous Le Gamin Café

In celebration of New York-based thriller writer Rhodi Hawk’s first installment of her Southern gothic series, she releases A Twisted Ladder, at this event Into The Briar featuring New Orleans inspired cocktails, a banjo performance with songs written by Hawk, and Supernatural author Gary Frank performing on guitar. Close by is the ramen noodle bar called Minca. After recently trying this place, I’d highly recommend it. The ramen noodles are made fresh and way better than those you’d buy and boil. What makes the soups here great is the broth. Take the Minca Ramen, a mild broth with pork, chicken and dried seafood ($8.50), it has impeccable flavor that hits the spot. Plus it’s way less expensive than other ramen specialty restaurants and just as good. Right across the street from Minca is the Ace Bar. Sort of divey, it’s also where you’ll find people playing skeeball and shooting pool, while drinking some decent beers on tap. For dessert and coffee, Le Gamin Café is the place for crepes.