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

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!

Tis the season for giving. “All I Want For Christmas” is playing all over the effin radio. And what do we want? YOU, at this special benefit for The Stiller Foundation (yep, founded by Ben Stiller) presented by two of my favorite funny ladies — Arden Myrin and Lisa deLarios aka THE PARTY MACHINE at the Bell House. The Stiller Foundation is a wonderful charity that promotes the education and well-being of children around the world. They helped build schools in Haiti after that terrible earthquake disaster (schools like the one pictured above). 

THE PARTY MACHINE HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR BENEFIT
Holiday Spectacular will Benefit The Stiller Foundation

Thursday, December 8
8pm Doors
$10 adv / $15 dos
Purchase tickets 

Hosted by
ARDEN MYRIN & LISA DELARIOS

Featuring:
MICHAEL SHOWALTER
BOBBY TISDALE
SETH HERZOG
ANA GASTEYER
COLIN QUINN
ADIRA AMRAM

PLUS
ELEANOR FRIEDBERGER (THE FIERY FURNACES)

AND
MORE SPECIAL GUESTS!

Last night’s edition of The Jukebox was the best yet. OMG so. much. fun. Regretfully I didn’t get pictures of everyone because it was jam packed! But here are the crappy ipod photos that I did manage to virtually snap. Giulia Rozzi totes sang one of my fave karaoke songs — the epic “Like a Prayer” — the gay man inside me will always love some Madonna. So fun that Ted Leo surprise dueted with Joe Randazzo on the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” Julie Klausner’s story and version of “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” by the Police made me laugh SO LOUD that some girl kept turning around and giving me a stare each time I guffawed. Sorry, my laughter is one thing that I cannot control. I learned something new about Kurt Braunohler and puppets and that he actually doesn’t sing all that bad, even when tackling “Anything Anything” by Dramarama. Jukebox co-founder Margaret Lyons’ story made me empathize so much, and just love her natural sense of humor and how she got the audience to sing that part in Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” that goes like “wo oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh ooh oh oh oh” (you know) throughout her story. Oh, and Mike Doughty doin’ it well with LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.” Good job, The Other Steve in hosting a great night! Made me forget to eat dinner, it was so delicious.