NYC - March 3-6 - Trip Ideas?

[Jay Funk Dawg]

I'll have to post some pictures but here goes

Friday - I bombed around Columbia University, then took the A-Train to Greenwich Village. Checked out some record stores, then got suggested to check out Deadly Dragons Records http://www.deadlydragonsound.com. I've been collecting reggae & funk 45 rpm records and whenever I travel I'm scouting for rare records - I found some gems including Augusta Pablo, Bunny Wailer, Sugar Minot, Jackie Mitoo, The Skatlittles and a new fav label LionDub.

Wandered along Blecker Street and found some other music stores got some funk singles by William Bell, Booker T and Mungo Jerry.

I met back up with my fiancee back near Columbia University and found out that she was offered a job after her presentation. We decided to celebrate! But first we needed to go visit a friend of hers who was putting us up for the night in the Chelsea area of NYC. Turns out it's only a couple of doors down from The Chelsea Hotel - made famous by Leonard Cohen. We had a nice dinner at "Live Bait" restaurant - a fish specialty spot.

Earlier that day I got a message from Darren Shearer who noticed I was in NYC via facebook and asked me if I wanted to get guestlist for a show he was doing at the Gramarcy Theatre. He was sitting in on drums in Conspirator (featuring members of Disco Biscuits Marc Brownstein & Aaron Manger plus guitarist from RAQ)

So after dinner with our host, we walked over to the theatre, which was in very close proximity of where were staying. My impression was that Conspirator was a Disco Biscuit side project that was going for a DUBSTEP angle... My fiancee would not really like this, but she'd be ok to check it out for a short while. We showed up late, hopeing to check out the end of the show, but it hadn't even started... so we hung out in the downstairs bar and ran into a guy who I met at a Live Music Summit, and was a GM of a Hotel I had booked us into the following night. Apparently he hosts most of the bands who come thru and gave me a hell of a deal on a room ($99), which is right by The David Letterman Theatre. We had a beer together, and he told me about how good Bowlive was and that we should definitely check it. So once the show started we went into the theatre and found 800 fans freaking out. They sounded great - not dubstep at all, mostly a jammy vibe. The guitarist from RAQ was really playing these stacatto melodies in a electronica jammy way that combined with Darren's shear force and build-ups were the real highlights.

after an a hour or so of this we jumped in a cab to check out another club which I had guestlist called Cielo in the Meat Packing district, for a party called Turntables on the Hudson. It's a kind of soul/funk/afrobeat vibe mixed with house. When we got there DJ Nickodemus (whom I had booked in Toronto for the NuJazz Fest and who hooked me up) was playing some disco. He then played the song "Good Life" by Brassroots. http://www.brassrootsmusic.com/ Brassroots are on the DO Right Label and are from the UK, they are known for their horn arrangements of songs by Radiohead & David Bowie. Anyways I work for the record company who put that song out and it was a real coincidence that he played that tune - which he mixed into the original Good Life - house track. After that this House DJ named Karizma - who's considered a big deal, and who's played some big parties in Toronto. But after a couple minutes of that we were exhausted and took a cab back to Chelsea.

end of Day 1 NYC !

I'll finish this off tomorrow with pictures...

j

[phorbesie]

sounds like a really fun day & night! awesome