Saved By The Bell House 7.24.10

Themed parties are almost always a good time if there's enough support and a good build (theme decor, good venue, willing participants). Even bad theme parties are kind of funny/depressing in their own way. The idea is that if you are willing to devote a night (or a weekend, or possibly weeks) to something you didn't create/nostalgia/embarrassment/letting loose, you should look out for more theme parties, especially among hipsters. Because they love a good, ironic time.

Yesterday was a Full House of activity, going to beach, getting burned, going to a great barbeque in Ozone Park, seeing a friend get harassed by two men on children's bikes, and wonton love of a show that for all intensive purposes was just cheesy (save a few moments) and had no sense of what high school was actually like: Saved By The Bell.

Don't get my wrong; I enjoy SBTB a lot. I liked it growing up, and I still enjoy watching it in the morning before work. I don't own the series like Pat Craig does, but that's ok.

The Bell House being an amazing venue was the perfect place for a Saved By The Bell dance, where 3 dollars for every ticket went to oil relief. By the time the main part of the dance was over and The Bayside Tigers wrapped up their set, there was a real dance party in the front lounge. Everything is just set up well.

I was wearing my Malibu Sands shirt thinking 8 other people would be wearing it but I was dead wrong. Half the people didn't dress up, the other half were a mix of 3 really dressed up people and 100 semi-dressed up people. Leotards, skinny suspenders, light jeans, I couldn't help but wonder if this was 1994, or people just thought it was an 80s party. Because there has to be a difference right? Reagan vs. Clinton? Shit I should have worn my chain wallet. And brought like a copy of Swingers. Or something. Empire Records by the way is one of the top 10 worst movies ever. I stand by that wholeheartedly.

Folks who bought a ticket received one free vodka lemonade drink ticket and a view of strobe lights and a huge Bayside logo where you could take your picture and feel like a has been actor. "Man in the Mirror" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and other tunes got the dance floor slightly going but everything was surprisingly pretty chill (the dance party in the front was way more solid, Union Pool-ish in a way). The Bayside Tigers played all 90s alt-rock hits; I called 3 of them (Blur, Harvey Danger, and Lit) and we sung most of them throughout. At least they played Bosstones and Blink 182 right?

There were some crazy ladies, some drunk ladies, and a wider age range than usual, probably 21 to 36. Everything was just a lot of fun, it didn't sell out, there was room to dance, I actually listened to suburban 90s alt-rock (except for godamn 3 doors down, god they suck, rembrandts, suck, gin blossoms, double suck for being catchy, eve 6, suck, all played by these bands), and you had just enough characters (yes you lady in the flower top just going batshit crazy, it's a band covering Oasis, not actually Oasis) to make the people watching interesting. When they started playing 3 Doors Down, I kid you not half the people went to go get a drink. People have spoken.

A young woman seemed to twist or land on her ankle the wrong way and I helped get her to the comfortable couch by the side of the stage. There was also a group who came up to me and asked for my picture because I looked EXACTLY (their word) like their friend from LA. I guess I'm not the only Asian with a normal haircut.

The bar moved quick, everyone was having fun, there were cupcakes out front from Robicelli's where you can find all over west Brooklyn and a couple of other locations including the new dessert shop Farmacy on Henry Street in Carroll Gardens.

All in all, a very fun experience and worth it. And btdubs, there are several other clubs in the area. And I still want to go to Canal Bar on 3rd Avenue. They are really trying to turn Gowanus into like a Brooklynized meatpacking aren't they?

Speaking of slightly cracked out neighborhoods:

Parked in Gowanus for Memorial Day - Ah the Smell

Ah summer. With the weather the way it has been the past week, I'm thinkin hey Monday day off!

Picnic in Prospect Park? Sure. Here's what's going though, Parked at Bklyn Yard will be on 100 percent Monday afternoon, some of the city's best food trucks will convene and foodgasm all over the stank of Gowanus. There's some Facebooking about it already saying that it's 12-7 but The Brooklyn Paper is all about 2-9. So join at like 4? I'll be there with crumbs on my FACE.

To kick off some summer lovin', here's Husker Du with "Celebrated Summer" from their amazing album New Day Rising.

After The Jump Fest returns to Brooklyn August 28th-August 30th

Just in time for the tail end of summer is After The Jump Fest starting the night of August 28th and lasting through that weekend. Having personally met some of the organizers, they rock hard. And it's all to benefit the teaching of music to the young'uns. From their press kit:

"After the Jump is the joint effort of 22 New York City music bloggers, writers, djs and
photographers- a coalition whose websites attract over 1.5 million viewers per week and
have won such awards as VH1 Honors, Billboard and NME Best Music Blog. Founded in
2007 with the goal of helping new artists gain exposure while raising money for struggling
school music programs, After the Jump has hosted over 50,000 attendees with media
coverage in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Village Voice, The Guardian
(UK), Spin Magazine, New York Magazine, and many others. The group has planned
and staged concerts in association with the massive South by Southwest Music Festival in
Austin, TX and the CMJ Music Marathon in NYC as well organizing the huge, multi level New
Year's Eve events for The Knitting Factory in 07' and 08'. In addition to these amazing
satellite events, After the Jump's yearly New York Summer music festival completed it's
second year this past June with 36 bands playing on 4 stages in a massive block party that
drew a crowd of over 2,000."

"After the Jump productions is proud to support two New York City based music charities, Education through Music and DonorsChoose.org. • Education through Music was founded to promote the integration of music into the curricula of disadvantaged schools in order to enhance students’ academic performance and general development. Many schools, especially those serving children in low-income communities, provide no music instruction or rely solely on short-term programs that do not serve every student. ETM created a comprehensive program that incorporates music into the education of every child, including those with special needs. ETM forms long-term partnerships with inner-city elementary schools that lack the resources to develop schoolwide music programs. (www.etmonline.org) • DonorsChoose.org connects students in need with the resources that our public schools often lack. On the website, teachers submit project proposals for materials or an experience their students need to learn. These ideas become classroom reality when concerned individuals (known as Citizen Philanthropists at DonorsChoose.org) choose projects to fund. Any individual can search such proposals by areas of interest, learn about classroom needs, and choose to fund the project they find most compelling. In completing a project, donors receive student thank-you notes, classroom photos, and a Teacher Impact Letter. (www.donorschoose.org)"

Talk about grassroots! They need your donations and sponsorship if you're interested in you know, the well being and health of children. If not that's cool, you can still check out a serious amount of performances throughout the weekend. There will be enough non-prescription horn-rimmed glasses for you to either geek out with or smash "accidentally."

Considering it's not Labor Day weekend but I mistakenly took it for Labor Day weekend up until last month, you schedule should be free.

You can check out Littlefield in Gowanus on Yelp here.

Do it for the kids.

Not Doing Anything This Weekend? Free Hip Hop Docs (and happy hour drink prices) from The Kings County Cinema Society

This Sunday July 19th, the friends at the Kings County Cinema Society are blasting serious beats this weekend in Gowanus at the newish performance space Littlefield located on 622 Degraw Street. The double bill includes the Beastie Boys concert documentary at 6pm , Awesome: I Fuckin' Shot That! and at 8:30pm Rock The Bells, which chronicles the reunion of the Wu-Tang Clan for the Rock The Bells concert back in 2004. All Eastern times folks.

In between there will be BBQ for you foodies, as well as happy hour (aka recession era) drink prices, very cheap, very awesome, Gooooooowanus! And, to get you in the groove between, before, and after the par-tay, is DJ empanadamn. Yes that's a combo of two words if you want to think of it as such.


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The Kings County Cinema Society is doing Brooklyn right, check out their site and look for more events every week!

Gowanus: The Last Vestige for Ar-teests?

If you're looking for something other than the Brooklyn Flea to go to this weekend, Gowanus is having their annual more-artists-than-you-can-shake-a-paintbrush-at tour where you can observe artists of all sorts in their natural habitats. It's called A.G.A.S.T., Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour, and it's this weekend on Saturday and Sunday from 1pm to 6pm, absolutely free.

Gowanus itself has always had an interesting desolation on many of its blocks that is unique to Brooklyn considering the neighborhoods they border. It's like a slightly less fun version of walking around parts of southern Soho/northwest Tribeca, where past industrial activity no longer seems prevalent but there's still the remainders, a lone truck, littered coffee cups, etc.

I can imagine that some cool art is going to be hanging around, I think there are particular inspirations and impressions that many of the artists probably draw from. You can preview all of the participating artists, join yourself, or sign up to volunteer at the official site below. The tour is set up by the Brooklyn Arts Council.

Official site: A.G.A.S.T.