More Squeezebox Cabaret

You can now get your fill of accordion-based variety acts on a monthly basis.

We just learned that Le Squeezebox Cabaret, David F. Slone, Esq.'s accordion-based show, will be a regular feature at Public Assembly after its successful run earlier this month.

Accordionists, dancers, strippers, singers, comedians and magicians will congregate the first Money of every Month, starting next month.

Public Assembly [70 N. 6th St. between Wythe and Kent Wythe avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 384-4586], first Monday of the month at 9:30 pm. Tickets $10. For info, visit www.lesqueezebox.com.

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Main squeeze! Squeezebox Cabaret tonight

By Meredith Deliso

It’s his birthday, and he’ll have accordions if he wants to.

For his 43rd, David F. Slone, Esq., a nightlife personality behind such acts as “The Love Show” and “Nutcracker: Rated R,” knew just what he wanted to hear.

“I’m a huge fan of accordions,” said the Williamsburg-based entertainer (sporting the top hat in the photo). “There’s just something about the way it bellows and lends dynamics to the sound that I enjoy very much.”

The accordion’s still a bit of a novelty act, but thanks to the popularity of Balkan brass acts like Gogol Bordello, and the occasional busker at the Bedford Avenue L stop, it’s had more of a presence in the music scene in recent years.

And, it’s not such a rarity that Slone couldn’t scrounge together a handful of accordionists to accompany him and his “Love Show” dancers at “Squeezebox Cabaret,” a night of accordion-based acts at Public Assembly tonight.

There’ll Corn Mo, the frontman of .357 Lover, Benjamin Ickies of This Ambitious Orchestra and Matt Dallow of Amour Obscure backing up dancers, magicians and singers, including Slone, who’ll be singing “A Boy Named Sue.”

At this variety show, anything goes for Slone’s crew — with the exception of one rule.

“As long as there’s an accordion involved, I’ll let them do whatever they want,” said Slone.

Squeezebox Cabaret at Public Assembly [70 N. Sixth St. between Wythe and Kent avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 384-4586], April 4 at 9:30 pm. Tickets $10. For info, visit www.lesqueezebox.com.


Photo by Stefano Giovannini

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CMJ Day 3

It's the back-to-back edition.

At the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn Vegan throws a showcase, headlined by fuzzed-out cuties The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, who just wrapped their second album, so expect some tunes from that. Also on the bill are The Blow, Screaming Females, Suuns and Young Man.

Right next door, Public Assembly is hosting New Shapes, a showcase thrown by Neon Gold and Chess Club. And there's a lot of music going on - 20 bands, to be exact.

In the front room, brought to you by Neon Gold, check out The Good Natured, Savoir Adore, Body Language, Samuel, Spark, Emil and Friends, Brahms, Fenech Soler, Sound of Arrows, Penguin Prison, and The Knocks.

In the back, the Chess Club Roomm,, Santah, Alex Winston, Keepaway, Ava Luna, Oberhofer, Devin Therriault, 1,2,3, Grouplove, and The Postelles.

So even while bands set up at one stage, you won't be without a live act somewhere on these three stages.


Music Hall of Williamsburg [66 N. Sixth St. between Kent and Wythe avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 486-5400]; Public Assembly [70 N. Sixth St. between Kent and Wythe avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 384-4586].

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Come together! New show units the Beatles and burlesque

Fans of the Beatles and burlesque — this is your ticket to ride.

Inspired by David Bowie glam rock tributes, a new show in Williamsburg is all about the Fab Four — and the teasing performance art known as burlesque.

The two, according to the show’s creator, Calamity Chang, are a natural fit.

“The Beatles were transgressors in a time of political unrest much like now,” said Chang, aka “Yoko Chang,” who hosts the monthly show at Public Assembly, next up on May 10. “Through burlesque, which is a transgressive art form in itself, it seemed like the perfect event that can reach more than just an insular community.”

John, Paul, Ringo and George are channeled by the tribute band Ticket to Ride, who back up the performers as they strip and sing along to songs pulled from the Beatles’ extensive canon, such as the raunchy “Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?”

A natural fit, indeed.

Beatles Burlesque at Public Assembly [70 N. Sixth St. between Wythe and Kent avenues in Williamsburg, (718) 384-4586], May 10 at 9 pm. Tickets $10. For info, visit www.beatlesburlesque.com.

Photo by Melody Mudd

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Gobble up good times with all the fixings

By Meredith Deliso

The night before Thanksgiving always seems to be an unofficial high school reunion in suburban towns across America.

Here in Brooklyn, it’s just another night to party.If you’re not leaving the city this holiday, skip the random drinking and celebrate Thanksgiving a day early on November 25 with some fun activities right here in the borough.

Through the Bell House, explore the depths of the neighborhood – Gowanus – as well as Park Slope and Carroll Gardens through the bar’s Great Gowanus Pilgrimage, a pre-Thanksgiving scavenger hunt for those of you feeling adventurous.

The bar promises a night you won’t soon forget, as they bring you outside hunting and gathering. By night’s end, bring your goods back to the Bell House for points towards prizes, including gift certificates from Brooklyn Tattoo, Biefkraft and others. Then stick around for the dance party.

It all kicks off with a happy hour and check-in from 5 p.m to 7 p.m. including free food. From 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., you’re out and about, then back for the party. The scavenger hunt costs $5 to participate per person, with two to four people per team. It’s free to hang out. Email to register. For more information, call 718-643-6510.

Over at Southpaw, the Park Slope venue hosts its annual pre-Turkey Day bash. In its seventh year running, this year’s features Brooklyn dance pop duo Jonka (pictured), hip hop outfit Epick and others to be announced. Admission is $5, with doors at 8 p.m. and the show at 9 p.m. For more information, go to or call 718-230-0236. Southpaw is located at 125 Fifth Ave.

Up in Williamsburg, Public Assembly presents a party named after the best part of Thanksgiving – “The Stuffing” – featuring Brooklyn new waver Gordon Voidwell, rap duo Das Racist (these guys seem to be everywhere lately), and DJs Ballantino (Soul Imperial), Hans Beck, and Louis VuiTron.The party kicks off at 9 p.m. Tickets are $8. Public Assembly is located at 70 N. 6th St. For more information, call 718-384-4586.

If sitting back and watching movies is more your speed, MonkeyTown is the place for you. The Williamsburg venue is hosting a Thanksgiving Film Week, with four nights of screenings ranging from documentaries to 70s psyche horror.

On November 22, it’s the documentary road trip “Last Thoughts,” in which the filmmaker retraces the travels of his grandfather, a rail-riding hobo (at 8 p.m., $5 admission, plus a $10 minimum). The next night features one short documentary film from each decade since the dawn of film, including a 1948 PSA by Carl Theodor Dreyer and pieces of vaudeville, experimental, propaganda, found footage and home movies (at 8 p.m., free, with $10 minimum).

On November 24, check in for the horror film “Simon King of Witches” (7:30 p.m., free with $10 minimum) and on November 25 and November 27, the venue screens “Wildwood, NJ,” a documentary about the New Jersey beach town circa 1994 (7:30 p.m., free, with $10 minimum both nights, and an additional 10:30 p.m. screening November 27).

We’re not sure what any of these films have to do with Thanksgiving, but it sounds like a good way to spend an evening any night of the week.

MonkeyTown is located at 58 N. 3rd St. For more information, call 718-384-1369.

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Shake, shimmy and shine: NY Burlesque Festival returns

By Meredith Deliso

At this year’s New York Burlesque Festival, from October 1-4, you may come for the scintillating entertainment, but leave ready to put on your own show.

Through hair and makeup stations, pasties for sale, and classes, you’ll have all the basics to get in the act yourself.

With dozens of burlesque pros strutting their stuff over the course of four nights, you can also learn by watching the pros themselves. And with half the festivities happening in Brooklyn, you won’t have to go very far.

On October 1, the festival throws a teaser party at Williamsburg’s Public Assembly (70 North 6th St.), hosted by The World Famous BOB from New York City, featuring music from the Two Man Gentleman Band, and performances from over a dozen ladies, including Miss Bonnie DUNN, The Incredible Edible Akynos, The Maine Attraction, and Miss Saturn, all of New York, as well as out-of-towners like Trixie Little (Baltimore) and Miss Cara Milk (Vancouver). The night will also feature Dr. Sketchys, where you can try your hand at drawing burlesque beauty Amber Ray.

The Gowanus-based venue The Bell House (149 7th St.) hosts the premiere party on October 2, hosted by Scotty the Blue Bunny and featuring local favorites Gigi La Femme, aerialist Harvest Moon, and, among many others, Little Brooklyn.

“It’s an homage to the infamous legend of Little Egypt, the scandalous ‘hoochie-coochie’ girl of the Nile, as well as an obvious nod to my beloved hometown,” says the performer of her stage name. The Homecrest resident recently earned the title “Queen of Comedy” at this year’s Burlesque Hall of Fame Pageant in Las Vegas for an act she’ll be performing at the New York City festival. “I start out as a typical cartoon of a tourist who might have stumbled onto the stage by accident – a turn of events transforms the voyeuristic sightseer into the item on display.”

Other acts promise to be equally entertaining, including Dirty Martini, Jo Boobs, The Glamazons (from TV’s “America’s Got Talent”), Julie Atlas Muz, Melody Sweets, and Gravity Plays Favorites, on stage at B.B. King (237 W. 42nd St.) in Manhattan in at The Saturday Spectacular on October 3.

“They do an acrobatic pole dancing number, which is always a crowd favorite,” says Jen Gapay, a Kensington resident and the founder of the festival, now in its seventh year running, of Gravity. “[The festival’s] all really a variety – from circus performers to classic strip tease.”

The festival closes with a bang on Sunday, October 4, with The Golden Pastie Awards at Le Poisson Rouge (158 Bleecker St.) in Manhattan, where the performers are awarded for attributes such as “Biggest Hair in Burlesque” and “Performed with a Positively Perfect Posterior.”

If feeling courageous, that night, as well as Saturday, Jo Boob’s School of Burlesque will be offering classes so you can hone your skills, and every night will feature vendors, from Twirly Girl tee-shirts and pasties, corsets from Dragon Corsets, and free hairstyles and makeovers from Tease Salon.

“You can take a class, draw, and get your hair done!” says Gapay.

The New York Burlesque Festival is October 1-4. For more information, including tickets cost and times, go to www.thenewyorkburlesquefestival.com.

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They rock today so that girls can rock tomorrow

Twenty bands will rock out at four different Brooklyn venues this month to help benefit a camp that helps make young girls own rock-star dreams come true.

From May 28 - 31, the 3rd Annual Willie Mae-Ra-Thon, a weekend of shows featuring all local bands at some of the borough’s best and newest venues, will invade Brooklyn.

Proceeds will go toward the Willie Mae Rock Camp for Girls, a summer camp that helps teach young women and girls songwriting skills and how to play instruments.

Williamsburg’s Union Pool (484 Union Ave.) kicks things off on that Thursday with Brooklyn-based noise rock band Parts & Labor. Sarah Lipstate, the guitarist for Parts & Labor, will also play that night in her solo project Noveller. Also performing that night are equally experimental bands Omega Jarden and Talk Normal.

The next night, Public Assembly (70 North 6th St.) plays host to the Mae-Ra-Thon, with experimental funk group Burnt Sugar, jazz group Sex Mob, with DJ Olive that night, hardcore band Secretary, coming all the way from California for the event, featuring Big Boss. DJ Scribe, DJ shErOck, Joro Boro, and eMMA Sound Sista will also be behind the turntables.

Brooklyn’s newest venue, Bruar Falls (245 Grand St.), will feature art punk upstarts Taigaa and Pterodactyl, Grass Widow and Querent on Saturday, May 30.

And The Bell House (149 7th St.) in the Gowanus will feature an indie lineup with Babe the Blue Ox, Antietam and The Last Town Chorus on Sunday, May 31.

Show times and costs vary. For more information on the Willie Mae-Ra-Thon, as well as the rock camp (which also has a camp for ladies for all you dying to get on stage yourselves), go to http://www.williemaerockcamp.org/ or call 212-777-1323.

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Hebrew School is now in session

As a member of the klezmer rock band Golem, and the leader of Hebrew School, a indie rock band that pulls from hymns you might have sung preparing for your Bar or Bat Mitzvah, David Griffin is busy. He still has find to blog about the music goings-on in Brooklyn, though, and document his newest project.

"There lots of talk about what it's like to live in Sunset Park, the goings on and culture in Boroklyn, too," says Griffin, who's preparing for a CD release this April 14 at Public Assembly (see article after the jump).

Recent posts talk about Passover and friends Las Rubias del Norte, and, of course, his album release party.

Hebrew School calls this rockin' class to order

By Meredith Deliso

(Published in the 4.16.09 issue of 24/Seven)

As a freelance musician, jumping from the klezmer punk band Golem to The Murrays, as well as having played in the faux French pop band Nous Non Plus, David Griffin hasn’t had a project to call his own, until now.

Last year, a grant from the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists enabled the musician to create Hebrew School, an indie rock band that takes inspiration from the sings Griffin grew up learning in, you guessed it, Hebrew school.

“I was always the guy who was in the band who would be told to show up at this time,” says Griffin. “My goal in getting the fellowship was to get my solo career off the ground.”

A partnership of Avoda Arts, JDub Records, and the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the two-year grant enabled Griffin to get what was an idea – a mix of low-fi multi-instrumental indie rock, experimental music with contemporary and traditional Jewish covers – to a reality, putting a band together (comprised of Griffin on guitar, keyboard, vocals, trumpet, Taylor Bergren-Chrisman on bass, Timothy Monaghan on drums, Giancarlo Vulcano on guitar, and Julia Barry on vocals), do research and going into a studio to record an album.

Ironically, growing up in Malden, Mass, Hebrew School was the last place Griffin wanted to be.

“I would always call my mom and tell her I suddenly got sick at 3 o’clock,” says Griffin. “It actually worked out that I appreciate it later in life.”

As a musician, Griffin works out most of his music by ear, and the Hebrew songs he learned as a pre-teen have remained ingrained in his subconscious decades after needing to recite them, reincarnated today for the nostalgia factor rather than the religious.

“The band is definitely secular,” says Griffin. “I think that what we try to do is bring in these religious elements as fodder for creative containers for this kind of music.”

Pulling from popular Hebrew hymns, other musical influences coming of age in the early 90s, including Air Miami and Uncle Wiggly, and current sources of indie inspiration, such as Animal Collective and Camera Obscura, Griffin has created a ‘60s psych-esque album that, when listened closely, will reveal its sources to other Hebrew school graduates. The Shabbat hymn “Hinei Ma Tov” becomes a leisurely, loungey tune, while another popular hymn, “Adir Hu,” is reincarnated as the melancholy, subdued “Ancillary Devices (Adir Hu),” which hardly makes a peep compared to more robust performances of the hymn until the horns come in midway.

When the 10-track album drops April 14, Hebrew School celebrate with a release party at Public Assembly. After a “coming out” party at Park Slope’s Union Hall earlier this year, near Griffin’s Sunset Park neighborhood, the band wanted to branch out into another Brooklyn area, choosing the Williamsburg venue for the show.

“My goal here is to expand my reach into other parts of the city,” says Griffin, who will be joined on the bill by Will Daily, Mappa Mundi and the solo project of Hebrew School vocalist Julia Barry.

Buoyed by the opportunities the fellowship has granted, Griffin looks to use it as a springboard for his solo career, involving Jewish themes or otherwise.

“I see Hebrew School doing more for sure,” says Griffin. “I need some other sort of song project that’s separate from Hebrew School but shares some of the musical elements.”

With enough material for a second Hebrew School album, that may be in the music scene’s near future, when Griffin’s not bouncing around from one band to the next.

“I took some nice things from the other music projects I work on,” says Griffin. “I think Golem is a good example of that – we’re taking material that is thought of as serious and making it into something where hipsters go to rock club and let themselves go and dance, and maybe even smile.”

Hebrew School celebrate the release of their CD April 14 at Public Assembly (70 North 6th St.) at 9 p.m. Joining them on the bill are Julia Barry, Will Dailey and Mappa Mundi.

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'Begin Again' with Sarah Lentz at Public Assembly

By Meredith Deliso

(Published in the 3.26.09 issue of 24/Seven)


By Meredith Deliso

Last spring, Sarah Lentz thought she would be celebrating the release of her long-awaited fourth album, six years in the making. After some setbacks, from financing the album to engineering it, she finally gets to do so this month, with a release party at Williamsburg’s Public Assembly on March 28.

“Begin Again” is a work the musician more than once refers to as a miracle album. For without the help of fans and friends, it may not have seen the light of day.

Putting three of her previous albums out on her own label, Lentz has been trying to get her latest out, full of material written since 2002. When a deal with a label fell through for her fourth album, Lentz thought that might be the end, until she reached out to her fans for some help. Asking them to purchase the as-yet unfinished album in advance, and then from generous donations in addition to that, she was able to secure enough funds to continue.

“Right when I was ready to give up, they came through,” says Lentz. “I had tears in my eyes for days. I felt so encouraged and inspired by these people that believed in me so much.”

Then, determined to continue to do everything herself, Lentz was stalled in the recording studio, where she didn’t have much training in.

“I had some friends from music school that I kept calling for help – how do I work this machine?
Where do I plug in this thing?” remembers Lentz. “They took me out for a drink one night and said, Sarah, it’s time that we helped you with this record.”

And so, with the help of her friends, Lentz was able to finish the album itself.

“It was an amazing gift,” says Lentz. “It’s my little miracle record.”

Coincidentally enough, while recording the album, Lentz realized there was another miracle of sorts at work – she was pregnant with her first child.

“It was kind of cool to record while I was pregnant – he was getting to hear my voice,” says Lentz, who gave birth last spring. “When I play it for him now, it seems like he really recognizes the songs.”

Lentz wanted to release the album before her son was born, but the timing didn’t quite work out, and now feels ready to release it.

For all those reasons, Lentz found it fitting to call the album “Begin Again,” taken from the name of a song on the album.

“I felt my music’s beginning again in a whole new way with all these people behind me who supported me for 10 years,” says Lentz, who pulled the name from a track on the album. “That song became clear it should be the title track. It symbolizes so much.”

Though that track, a bare, piano-based anthem, became the album title, the one that means the most to Lentz is “Jericho,” written after a trip to New Orleans a year after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city.

“I wrote that song to honor them [the people of the city],” says Lentz. “That’s the one song I hope most that people will hear and remember that that’s still going on and they will need help.”

Lentz also thinks it came out the “coolest,” too, with its mimicking of a New Orleans-style funeral march, with instruments slowing joining in with a solo clarinet in the “procession,” until culminating with all the voices and instruments playing together.

“I want it to lift up and remind people of the joy that was in the city for so long,” says Lentz.

The rest of the album showcases the musician’s steady piano work, pounding out songs influenced by folk, pop and soul, under her mature voice, in the tradition of female songstresses like Tori Amos and Tracy Chapman, but without any excess.

Lentz’s CD release show on March 28, the day the album’s officially out, came to be at Public Assembly rather by accident. Arriving at 70 N. 6th St., the Greenpoint-based musician was looking for Galapagos Art Space. In its place, having claimed into the space after Galapagos moved to DUMBO was the new venue.

“I kept thinking, wouldn’t it be so nice to play somewhere in my neighborhood because this is where I love to be anyways,” says Lentz. “I wanted somewhere that had a good happy vibe.”
In addition to Lentz on piano, she will be joined by her band, comprised of drums, bass, electric guitar and accordian, as well as some brass for songs like “Jericho.”

Between piano lessons, working as a musical director at a church on Manhattan’s Lower east Side and her 8-month old-son, that hasn’t left Lentz much time to devote to writing new music, though she looks to be able to sit down at her piano more.

“I’m hoping that not another seven years goes by before the next record,” says Lentz. “I have at least one more in me that I’d like to get out.”

Sarah Lentz celebrates the release of her new album, “Begin Again,” on March 28 at Public Assembly (70 N. 6th St.) at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10. Kelley McRae Band is also on the bill. For more information, go to www.publicassemblynyc.com or call 718-384-4586. For more on the artist, go to www.sarahlentz.com.

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