jinners.............................

Lots of shows this week… 

Matthew Hemerlein @ Mercury Lounge - Photo above by Kyle Dean Reinford

All other photos above are by my crappy iPod  ;p

Dive & Violens @ Bowery Ballroom 

Wintersleep @ Glasslands

One of the artists I’ve been working with for Liz at Miss Management is a wonderful multi-instrumentalist named Matthew Hemerlein from DC. He has this amazing and intricate solo-looping show that builds and seduces, captivating the Lower East Side audience. 

After his set, I bounced over to Bowery Ballroom for the sold-out Chairlift/Violens/Dive show. I ran into a friend who actually said, “Wait, is it 2003? Is Jinners out dancing at a show?” What is funny is that I was having the same nostalgic feeling building up inside of me as I stood inside, upfront on the floor. The space still holds a lot of magic. And memz. Ran into Matty Pickles and Stefan from Caveman, who sold out their Bowery Ballroom show last week. It has been a long time coming for those guys, and I couldn’t be happier for them! Saw Danny from The Big Sleep who told me their record release party is going to be on Feb 2 @ Knitting Factory Brooklyn. I also heard Violens is putting out an album in March on Slumberland! Congrats to those dudes! Met Zachary from Dive, who was the sweetest dude. I was LOVING his Seattle grunge style. Love them when they are getting rowdy on stage and flipping their pretty hair around.

Also saw Wintersleep at Glasslands. I haven’t seen a show there with the new stage setup (yeah it’s been a minute since I’ve really hung out a show in Williamsburg - I was stuck in a basement in Park Slope for a few years). It was actually pretty cool to see them in a punk rock setting, and the crowd was fun and dancing! Plus, I have a fondness for Canadians….

I don’t have any photos from it, but I finally went to see Sara Schaefer’s weekly comedy variety show at UCBeast called Hot Dang! that she co-hosts with Scott Moran. Had no clue UCBeast was in the old Two Boots Theater. Totally makes sense. The “Hot Chicks Room” aka the bar attached to the theater is cute with cute bartenders and comedians hanging around. Plus, supercheap. We got a couple beers for $6 total. They also sell flights of beers!

More upcoming shows at Union Hall… home stretch!

December 13: Cheap Date Comedy
Hosted by Tyler Fischer and Sharron Paul. Featuring Jordan Carlos (MTV, MTV2, VH1), Chris Gethard (The Other Guys), Joe Pera (Excellent dancer) and more special guests. Plus! Free snacks, sketches, amazing prizes, and much more!

December 15: Cuddle Magic + The Milkman’s Union + Lady Lamb the Beekeper
Cuddle Magic is a band and songwriting collective from Brooklyn and Philadelphia that performs lush, whimsical songs with wide-ranging instrumentation including strings, percussion, vibraphone, trumpet, clarinet, keyboards, guitars, and many voices. Cuddle Magic balances folk timbres with surprising atonal harmonies, pop song-craft with Steve Reich-inspired rhythmic complexity, and direct emotional lyrics with dense wordplay.

The Milkman’s Union is an enigmatic three-piece based in Portland, Maine. While their sound can most easily be characterized as indie-rock, idiosyncrasies abound. Drawing from classical, jazz, folk, electronic, and various non-western musics, the band infuses rock grooves with deft melodic hooks and rhythmic flourishes that combine for a unique sound. Gabe Birnbaum of Ampeater.com writes “the music conjures up its own cloud of mood the moment it comes on.” Seven Days writes that the band is “startlingly gifted” and “hyper-literate.” The Bangor Daily News writes, “If Radiohead was more influenced by country and folk music than by electronic and jazz, they’d probably sound like The Milkman’s Union.”

Lady Lamb the Beekeeper is the musical moniker of Aly Spaltro. Aly grew up primarily in the south west (Arizona, California & Nevada) where she spent most of her early childhood years, never more content than when she was making oldies mix tapes with a boom box and flashlight in her closet. Lady Lamb the Beekeeper writes sprawling lyric and melody-based songs about lost, true & unrequited love; nostalgia, nectarine meat & wolf maulings; plum crumb cake & mustard colors; death & Guatemala; airplane rides & airplane crashes; lusting & pining; aubergine & almond colored bed sheets; balance beams hidden in the woods; desert mountain ranges & european bluffs; dreams & nightmares, and fawns & fawning.

December 16: Dinosaur Feathers + Roadside Graves + Dolfish + Melaena Cadiz
“Brooklyn’s Dinosaur Feathers are plenty fun to listen to, but even more fun to watch. Between the mohawked drummer, left-handed bassist rocking a Hofner (just like Beatle Paul McCartney), and bespectacled Stewart Copeland look-alike on keyboards, they offer up a spectrum-ranging study in visual contrasts…. Their songs bounced back and forth between ambling groove and jittery sprint…” — Spin

“My Son’s Home is well-stocked with stirring narratives and sketches that just happen to be almost unremittingly obsessed with the crypt. Yet what’s really remarkable about the record is the band’s ability to treat death from so many different perspectives and with such a widely divergent range of moods and sympathies.There are moments of haunting, fragile stillness here…Perhaps most admirably of all, the Roadside Graves excel at the brave and difficult paradox of suffusing death with life, injecting vivacity and humor into their reflections on mortality.” -Pitchfork

Dolfish is the handle of Max Sollisch, a 22 year-old Cleveland-born country songwriter currently residing in Columbus, OH.

December 17: Wasabassco Burlesque Celebrates 5 Years @ Union Hall
Brooklyn’s best burlesque show, Wasabassco Burlesque, celebrates 5 titillating years at Union Hall! With Sapphire Jones, Evelyn Vinyl, Gal Friday, Nasty Canasta, Mala Morrigan, Doc Wasabassco, and more!

December 26: Bare: True Stories About Sex, Desire and Romance
This month’s theme is “Resolve.” Hosted and curated by Jefferson. Featuring storytellers Rachel Cole, Andy Christie, Mollena Williams and more special guests! Raffle prize courtesy of Babeland and your chance to tell a story!