Gosh! Good things come from Brooklyn

Dirty Projectors. Photo by Sarah Cass

By Meredith Deliso

New York’s cultural institutions are hip to Brooklyn.

First, the Guggenheim started its monthly music-reading series, “It Came From Brooklyn,” featuring a cabaret of bands, authors and comic emcees, representative of the borough and its cultural renaissance.

Now, the New Yorker is getting in on the Brooklyn bandwagon with the inspired “Brooklyn Playlist,” a night of music from, of course, Brooklyn, curated by the magazine’s staff writers Sasha Frere-Jones and Kelefa Sanneh.

As part of The New Yorker Festival, the playlist will feature indie darlings Dirty Projectors, dark-crunk collective House of Ladosha, DJ Jubilee, and metal band Liturgy, with the show at Gowanus venue The Bell House October 16, a favorite of Frere-Jones’, who was approached by festival director about a Brooklyn-based concert.

“I think he and I were a little bit wary of the idea because it seemed like, how can you pull something like that off and not seem cheesy,” says Frere-Jones, a Brooklyn native who lives in hometown neighborhood Fort Greene. With the line-up set, he says, “Now I’m totally stoked.”

Together, Frere-Jones and Sanneh brainstormed and came up with a night of music that, despite where your tastes lie, you could stay from beginning to end. The only thing missing was a rapper.

“We wanted to get a rapper but I don’t think financially that was going to be possible,” says Frere-Jones. “I don’t think Fabulous would show up for the New Yorker Festival, or for that matter Jay-Z. But it would be weird to have a Brooklyn show without a rapper.”

With the Brooklyn concert, one of the first of its kind for the festival, at the ready, what’s next – Queens? Staten Island?

“It’s would be nice to go around all the boroughs,” says Frere-Jones laughing. “You could even get super hyper specific – have a Gramercy Park gig, a Cobble Hill night. You could spend all year making shows.”

Don’t miss “Brooklyn Playlist: A Special Concert Featuring Bands from the County of Kings,” October 16 at 7 p.m. at the Bell House (149 7th St.) Tickets are $25. For more information, call 718-643-6510.