Lobster Roll Rumble

When I think about the food I enjoyed 20 years ago, I feel sorry for myself; I didn't know what I was missing out on because it didn't exist yet. Modern Food Culture was in its infancy, before Top Chef and Michael Pollans, where good food was a classic dish done well. Variety was Chinese or Indian. As awareness grew, old traditions evolved and new food was born in a burst of communal creativity. Today, I enjoy a vastly greater selection of high quality food everywhere from the market to restaurant. I still love burgers and wings but nothing is…

Here Lies Love

I am pretty sure my wife is the greatest stage manager in the history of stage management. Every show she works on is amazing and everyone she works with loves working with her. I am always impressed by her dedication to the process and I always enjoy the product. Her latest, Here Lies Love, is probably her best work yet! An Imelda Marcos-inspired dance party with music by David Byrne and Fatboy Slim and directed by Alex Timbers stretches the boundaries of theater; the audience stands while platforms shift and spin around, with actors dancing tight choreography and singing beautiful…

Hurricane Sandy

An epic storm blew through the Northeast US yesterday and while I am always skeptical of weather hype, this one seems to have lived up to the billing. Satellite images revealed a hurricane core far bigger than most (making last year's Irene look puny) barreling down on the Eastern seaboard, and the wind began accelerating 24 hours before landfall. Schools were shut down days in advance (and remain closed today and tomorrow) and subways and buses remain out of service, effectively shutting down the entire city. It appears that many subway tunnels were flooded with salt water, which could destroy…

Reality: 14th Street

I made my meander on 14th St. from Avenue C to the Hudson, then got back to Union Square before the battery drained completely. Rolling the audiovisual party cart across town while projecting videos of 14th Street onto the sidewalk, buildings and people, it felt good to share my music with the surprised public, who were appreciative of the brief encounter. I'm not quite sure why I felt compelled to join the Art in Odd Places Festival or manifest the project in this way, but I dreamed it up and made it happen. For both artist and audience, it is…

Supergood Reality: 14th Street @AiOP 2012

Raquel de Anda makes art happen! When Alaina's college roomie moved to Brooklyn a few months ago, she was immediately integrated in numerous projects and coordinating art of all varieties. One of these is Art in Odd Places, an annual community art festival taking place all along 14th Street in Manhattan for 10 days, so I decided I would perform a sidewalk version of Supergood Reality. Since then, I have been visualizing what it would look like and considering infinite possibilities. Last night, it came alive! My Studio has been untethered! Into a "granny-cart" frame, I loaded a 12V battery,…

World Music NYC

I love to travel around the world, but sometimes I don't even need to leave New York City to get my fill of exotic culture. In the past two days, I have seen three amazing bands hailing from three distinctly different pockets of our planet. Dengue Fever is based in L.A. but features a Cambodian singer and rocks a sonic tribute to the Cambodian pop sound of the 1960's. It is deliciously funky and her voice is transcendent; the Cambodian lyrics are indecipherable but her ethereal voice adds a perfect alien element to the grooves. Sharing the same bill at…

The Great Googa Mooga

The Nethermead in Prospect Park is one of the most beautiful and amazing areas of this city and a perfect spot for a music festival. The 9th St. Bandshell is a wonderful music venue, of course, but The Nethermead is completely natural and out of sight to cars or buildings.  I had seen a Carribean festival there about 10 years ago, but nothing since, so when The Great Googa Mooga, a craft food, beer and wine music festival, was announced there, I was amped! I dutifully claimed my free tickets the moment they went on sale (80,000 sold out in…

Kraftwerk

I'm pretty sure I laughed when I first heard "The Robots" for the first time in 9th grade. It was... ridiculous. I had never heard anything like it before and it truly seemed like a parody, yet there was something ingenious about it that I couldn't quite comprehend. When I finally came around and really started listening to electronic music ten years later, it dawned on me that Kraftwerk were true pioneers and far ahead of their time. I saw them perform seven years ago and they absolutely blew my mind with a triptych of video projections at Hammerstein Ballroom,…

Annik

Last night was a delightful romp in room 3 of Radio Stars Karaoke in celebration of Annie and Erik's engagement. They met through mutual friends and made out for the first time in the dark corner of a karaoke room so it was appropriate that we would congregate in a similar studio and sing our faces off all night long. Singing together makes bonding stronger and we are lucky to have friends who appreciate this and love to let it out from time to time. I get to sing in my classes everyday, but singing karaoke brings out the real…

Buster Keaton and Guitars

Buster Keaton films are the very definition of classic; they are time machines to an era of simplicity and authenticity, and I am always struck by how real it all seems, despite the obvious ridiculousness of the plots and slapstick. This was filmmaking in its purest magic, before special effects became the attraction. It is the characters and the core of their actions, be they brutal physical comedy or tender facial expressions, that hold our attention and connect with an audience a century later. Thia week I attended two evenings of the New York Guitar Festival featuring seven Buster Keaton…