11/28/2007

New York Calling Reading in Queens Tonight

Nevermind the fact F.I.B is todays guest blogger on editor of New York Calling: From Blackout To Bloomberg's blog Who Walk in Brooklyn what's also important is that it's the last stop (for now) on the New York Calling: From Blackout to Bloomberg book tour. The gang is ending up in Queens.

They rep Queens!
Brian Berger (Rockaway Beach, WWIB), Joseph Anastasio (Astoria, LTV Squad) & Kevin Walsh (Flushing, Forgotten New York) are reading TONIGHT!

WHERE?
Barnes & Noble
176-60 Union Turnpike
Fresh Meadows, Killa' Queens
(The F to 169th Street is closest subway.)November 28 at 7:30 pm

Check Who Walk in Brooklyn for more details.

11/27/2007

Submit to F.I.B!

I know it's early but with the holidays looming February will be here before you know it, that being said; F.I.B is very excited to be putting together an Art Show at the fab Freddy's Backroom. The theme Found in Brooklyn is completely open to your creative interpretation soooo let's see what you got!!!!

P.S- Also looking for a couple lo-fi garage type bands

11/25/2007

Found under the Full Moon...

It's been an intense lead up to a full moon for F.I.B. My life is beginning to resemble a Screamin' Jay Hawkins song. It may be time for an exorcism. In the past week or so I've been having art with deathly images cross my path, met my doppleganger (which COULD be deadly!) and THEN got bit by a cat. Yeah well it isn't my first bout with Cat Scratch Fever and fang marks can look cool but really, wasn't Halloween LAST month? To top it all off I found this lying in the gutter tonight under the full moon, REALLY!

B.T.W - Love the font! So Sixties!

11/20/2007

Found on Bond Street

Today more skeletal art has crossed my path. Sort of Day of the Dead like isn't it?

11/19/2007

C.G Landmarking Meeting Tonight.

Just passing along this information from the people at C.O.R.D.....

Looks like Art Dog has been busy at the 360 Smith Street wall again....

By the way: What's new at 360 Smith Street?

WE AT CORD Blog (Carroll Gardens Organization to Respectfully Develop)STILL DO NOT KNOW!

Hint: Try asking Councilman DeBlasio for a "progress" report re:

1 "wide street" legislation???
2 subway plaza ruling???
3 our rezoning request???
4 whatever happened to the resolution on moratorium???

One thing we do know: at least there's a LANDMARKING meeting
tomorrow!!
Hurrah!!

Where and when:
November 19
6:30 - 8:30 PM PS 58 Auditorium
Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association (CGNA) is sponsoring a panel


Check out Katia's Pardon Me For Asking Blog for some visual explanations of what the neighb wants stopped.

11/18/2007

Salvation Army Solace

The music here was fab on Saturday, I didn't want to leave. 1970's funk and disco hits played at top volume on a scratchy stereo. Along with laundromats, the Salvation Army is another place that always seems to calm my nerves. Since nothing is the same on the racks of clothing, (although the Salvation Army ALWAYS organizes by color) it is sort of meditative to click through the racks. You concentrate yet you don't. I miss the Sal's on 5th Avenue and 13th Street in Brooklyn, now it's some sort of eco-luxury condo amidst the disappearing bargain stores. How long will this one on Atlantic Avenue be here? How long before it turns into Barney's Brooklyn? How boring would that be? Very.

11/17/2007

Worlds collide...Meet the other Lisanne!

Doppelgangers do exist. I know because I think I just met mine! First off, although I usually refer to myself as F.I.B my name is Lisanne. Lisanne is not a very popular name. All my years stomping the planet I've never met another. The origins of how I ended up being called Lisanne are not as exotic as most people think. No, I am not French nor am I named after a Czechoslovakian Princess.I'm an American mutt who's mother found the name in the newspaper This is in my baby album. Lisanne was a bathrobe manufacturer and my mother just liked the name, see, even my name is friggin' FOUND (and copyrighted)!

Otherwise I've been told that I would have been named "Angela" a name MUCH easier to pronounce. I've spent my entire life being called all sorts of variations of Lisanne. I'm used to it but please don't call me "Lisa Ann" because then I may have to kill you!

So back to the doppelganger, to put it bluntly there is ANOTHER CHICK IN BROOKLYN NAMED LISANNE WHO TAKES PICTURES OF GARBAGE! She even has a flickr group called "NY Has the Coolest Garbage". She found me and is equally stunned. Here is a bit about her flickr group in her words.....

One of the Flickr groups I run is called "NY Has the Coolest Garbage". It's a small group, only 14 members, but I thought that a group pool of NYC garbage should exist. After all, we do have the coolest garbage here in New York City. (especially in Brooklyn) I'm the most prolific poster there, which gives me pain. Seems that there are few people out there with the motivation to take a short walk twice a week to see what their neighbors think isn't worthy of a place in their homes anymore. I am always amazed to find something of interest every Tuesday and Friday Night. Since you are also dedicated to this pursuit and also lucky enough to be a Lisanne (there are so few of us, you know) I was hoping you might join this group. We might have the collective effect of motivating the other members.She even has a picture of a turntable!!! See! What are the odds? Is this bizarre or am I over reacting? Same rare name, same somewhat odd past time, same borough, same interests. This is like one of those 60's TV shows, a combination of "The Twilight Zone" and "Bewitched". I love it!

Lisanne hales from the Sheepshead Bay area formerly known as Homecrest. In addition to the garbage photography she is also very concerned with overdevelopment (as I!) of her neighborhood. Here's what my doppelganger has to say about that:

What is happening in Sheepshead Bay is an invasion of 3 story condo units, which take up three or four properties. I thought this trend had reached the saturation point recently, but unfortunately a new spurt has occurred. A lot of these buildings are wanting for buyers, a lot of those who bought have defaulted on their mortgages and yet the craziness continues. I involved myself with a coalition group which was supposedly influential enough to sway some politicians but the best they could achieve was a moratorium on building structures higher than three stories. Existing projects, of course, were allowed to continue.

Well, I think I just found my next guest blogger! Anyway F.I.B as always, is a latecomer to just what this flickr stuff is all about. Man there are sure alot of photos out there!!!! If anyone wants to join and I know there are more street garbage photographers out there, email me at lisannem@gmail.com and I'll send you an invite.

11/15/2007

"Meet Qute" Art Show with Brooklyn Babe, Nancy Drew, opens tonight!

One of my best Brooklyn friends, Nancy Drew, who makes gorgeous glittery paintings is in this group show which opens tonight. There are some excellent artists in this one! I command you to check it out whether you can make it to the opening or not!

MEET QUTE
NOVEMBER 15 - DECEMBER 15, 2007
CURATED BY ELIZABETH HESKIN & MARCY BRAFMAN
The Artists:
MICHAEL BEVILACQUA * MAHOMI KUNIKATA *MARCY BRAFMAN *CHANG-JIN LEE * IONA ROZEAL BROWN*
YOSHITOMO NARA * SANH-AH CHOI* LEAH OATES * PAUL CLAY* ASUKA OHSAWA *NANCY DREW * LEE QUINONES
INKA ESSENHIGH * GAE SAVANNAH * JEFF FELD* LISA STEFANELLI * JOEL GIBB * GINNA TRIPLETT


Heskin Contemporary
94 Prince Street
opening from 6 to 9
*The gallery is located above Franelli's Bar in Soho.

11/13/2007

Found on Sackett Street

I walked past this last night. It was lying on a stoop on Sackett Street between Hoyt and Smith Streets. Art project or left over Halloween decoration? Either way I took a pass on this one and left it for someone with a more goth sensibility than I. Years ago I would of been all over this!

11/12/2007

"New York Calling" Reading at L.E.S Tenement Museum on Wednesday!

F.I.B continues her Kafkaesque job search and allows Brian Berger co-editor of "New York Calling:From Blackout to Bloomberg" to guest blog again.
Found In Brooklyn? I’ll eat to that! Let’s start at 3rd Avenue & 9th St, where the lunch special has gone up to $4.50 & rather than replacing an otherwise good sign, somebody broke out the Krylon. What do ya’ll get for that extra 55 cents? It’s tough to say since, like most other things Spanish, Sonia’s Restaurant has been consistently ignored by the chroniclers of Gowanus & South Brooklyn. Perhaps if they hired an autentico publicist, they’d get more attention? Privately, WWIB food writer Zyczymy Smacznego tells me the “rostissieri” (as its charmingly misspelled on their awning) chicken is unmissable.Also unmissable, or so you’d think: New Bopper’s Luncheonette in Gravesend. Jazz diner? Warriors tribute? Reached for comment in hell, retired sewer worker & noted Brooklyn bowling enthusiast, Ed Norton said, “How the fuck should I know?!” While near by the ever-popular Culver Line, the internet again tells us nothing more.

Brian Berger, Marshall Berman, Philip Dray, Leonard Levitt & Robert Sietsema, all of New York Calling, will discuss New Bopper’s Luncheonette & other urban mysteries at The Lower East Side Tenement Museum
108 Orchard Street this Wednesday at 6:30 pm.
Admission is FREE!

Check the Who Walk in Brooklyn blog for more information.

If you want to know who "The Boppers" are click on this!

Photographs taken by Mr. Berger.

11/10/2007

Vive Le Weekend! Les Sans Cullottes!

Fun show at Freddy's Backroom last night. Felt like a house party with a live band, which means Les Sans Cullottes met the F.I.B standard of excellence!
A nice respite for F.I.B who is SICK OF LOOKING FOR A JOB and WORRYING ABOUT MONEY!!!!! F.I.B didn't have the coin to go Cavestomp last weekend so was very happy for some FAB, FREE Rock & Roll!

11/07/2007

The Fleshtones, New York still has soul left.

“Is New York losing its soul?” and similar utterances are the hot topics of the day it seems. All this talk triggers one to reminisce about New York “back in the day”. How can you not? New York pre-9/11 qualifies as “back in the day” at this point.

One thing or rather a band that has been on the scene in NYC for a loooong time and haven’t changed that much and still HAVE SOUL are The Fleshtones. I’ve just finished a great bio on the band called “Sweat” The story of the Fleshtones, America’s Garage Band” by Joe Bonomo. After reading this book I am honored to come from the same place that this band comes from. I had no idea that "Super Rock" band the Fleshtones originated out of the Flushing/Whitestone area in 1976. And HAVE NOT STOPPED since forming there. Not once. The Fleshtones have always been the live band to see and rarely disappoint. In the 30 years they’ve been around they have played over 2,000 shows (!) with, “no hits” and “no sleep”.

The first album I bought by the Fleshtones was “Roman Gods”, which happened to be their first one, a classic as all first albums by great bands usual are, since then they have released 20 subsequent albums, many singles and have been on countless compilations.

As for the book, it’s full of tales of the Max’s Kansas City/CBGB era and also what borough life was like in those days. Some of the arty CBGB crowd saw them as a “mindless twist band” which The Fleshtones, as Dick Manitoba is quoted as saying, “wore like a badge of honor”. Despite that, they were a twist band with an edge and they opened for Jayne/Wayne County & The Electric Chairs regularly and were respected by many such as Blondie, Teenage Jesus & the Jerks and The Dictators.
Fleshtones sounding a bit Velvet Undergroundish on their first video made in 1977.

The book chronologies in amazing detail the who, what’s and wheres of the band through the 80’s, 90.s until the present. The band has been touring seemingly non-stop throughout these last 30 years. It is still nothing to them to play Europe, fly to the West Coast, tour the mid west shoot back to NYC and then go off somewhere else with no turn around, and get this, they still drive their own van! That is doing it for the love of rock & roll. Some might call it stupidity but this is what “soul” is people! Doing it because they HAVE to because they don’t know what else they can do.

I can attest that their live shows are pure energy and consistently have the crowds dancing because what they play is dance music. There are certain things that usual happen during a typical Fleshtones show. They may all jump off the stage and continue to play their instruments while walking through the club into the street. They may do the whole show from the top of the bar, do a montage of Fleshtones songs, play each others instruments or do their famous "Fleshtones Power Stance". Any or all of the above and more might happen. I think one of the reasons the Fleshtones never got hugely famous is because their live shows usually surpass their recordings. The music has roots in 60’s rock and soul but their attitude is modern and Peter Zaremba’s heavy Queen’s accent is still adorable. One thing I learned about Zaremba that shocked me was that he was heavy into the 1970’s Studio 54 disco scene. He hung out with Warhol, Bianca and that whole crew, he said the energy was “pure rock & roll” as rock music at the time, was pretty dull.

This book is an exhausting yet exhilarating journey of 30 years with a REAL rock&roll band that had all the cliché rock & roll type problems but always managed to sweep them under the rug once they hit the stage. The Fleshtones still give 100% whether in front of thousands or a few. Read this book if you have ANY interest in the Fleshtones, the New York East VIllage area rock scene or even if you want a great story of a relentless "never say die" touring rock & roll band. Viva le Fleshtones!!!!

F.I.B review of Fleshtones at Magnetic Field last March, here.

Top photo by Ann Streng taken from the Fleshtones "Hall of Fame" website.

11/06/2007

11/05/2007

rev. 99 at Freddy's Bar.


Two live drummers accompany rev. 99 at Freddy's Backroom last Saturday night. It was pretty intense!

11/04/2007

Gowanus/Bond Street Area News.....

I received a "courtesy call" from the dry cleaning facility (a wholesaler that also had a walk in business for locals) located on the corner of Bond and 2nd Streets yesterday. They said that "I should come and get my clothes today or tomorrow because they are relocating." So I take a walk across the street to pick them up and the place is completely barren except for about 3 racks of clothes and one lone woman sitting behind the desk take caring of these last transactions. It seemed to be a pretty hasty exit as the place seemed to running as normal the last time I went in about two weeks ago. The woman said the other business on the block "Fiberwave" is moving out as well.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I heard that the businesses on that block were operating on 6 month leases because they are located where Toll Brothers are to build condos. I keep hearing that the zoning will not be changed (from industrial to residential) for another two years, if that is so, why are the businesses out now?

Also, I heard that there was a meeting held by Toll Brothers last week that was not open to the public, unveiling their their building plans for the banks of the Gowanus between Carroll and 1rst Streets. It is disturbing to me that things are moving so quickly while the canal still will not be cleaned for another couple years and the shores most likely toxic and NONE of this is deterring HOUSING developments along the canal. It seems a shoe- in that the zoning willl be changed as planned despite lack of a clean up before they start breaking ground.

Meanwhile almost every building on Bond Street between 2nd & 3rd Streets is for sale. I don't know what my point is here but I just had to say something. It seems although the time table is slow as far as rezoning (supposively 2 years as told to me by Bill DeBlasio himself) and cleanup (3 years up the line MAYBE) all this other stuff is happening far in advance. How come?

11/01/2007

Rev.99 & "The Museum of Drunken Art" at Freddy's Bar this Saturday Night!

Ever go to Freddy's Bar and get hypnotized by the video mashups of all matter of B-Movies, disaster snippets,music videos, commercials etc else that play on the T.V's hanging above the bar? They sort of make you feel like there is another substance besides just beer in your glass, if you know what I mean! Well. those are manager/bartender at Freddy's, Donald O'Finn's masterpieces and he is a part of rev. 99 who are performing from 9 to 10 pm this Saturday night. Read on for the full description!

>rev.99 returns to the mother ship Freddy¹s Bar, to mix and mash media live. Big screen projection and audio
performance of live improvised television. A troop of artists, musicians,tech-heads and DJ's, engage accident a composition via Multiple digital and analog sources of audio & video, a live camera feed, a TeVo box, effects mixers and monitors and big screen projection. Mixed live into a contemplative and stunning performance.Featuring Freddy¹s manager and bartender Donald O¹Finn¹s maniacal video montages (voted ³Best Art Video in a Bar² by the Village Voice,[also the curator of the much publicized Salon des Refusés de las Bibliothèque de Brooklyn Last Feb]) 99 Hooker's abstractions and TV shrapnel, Kathy Coogan's live camera work, Jim Pletcher¹s live audio re-mixes, and Brother Russell Scholl¹s vast library of video oddities.


Rev.99 has been featured in America's home for avant-garde cinema Anthology Film Archive, as well as the world renowned Hershhorn Museum of Art in Washington D.C., and Lincoln Center in N.Y.City.

ALSO!

7:00-9:00
The Museum of Drunken Art opening: A vast collection of stunning drunken scribbles, brilliant dirty jokes and monstrous master pieces drawn on Napkins, scraps of bar paper, and straws, will be on display from the museum of Drunken Art.

Peter Teraberry, Director of MODA says:
This museum is an ideological vomitorium. As Director of The Museum of Drunken Art it is my job to sift through this vomit in order to find the most potent strains that the sickest members have produced. Let us hope the cream has risen to the top.

Make sure to get to Freddy's on time so you don't miss Rev. 99! They are performing from 9pm to 10pm!!!

Freddy's Backroom & Bar is located at:
485 Dean Street Brooklyn, (That's the corner of Dean Street and 6th Avenue)
phone: 718.622.7035