Hebrew School

“Time is an enormous, long river, and I’m standing in it, just as you’re standing in it.” –Utah Phillips

The Red State String Band (l to r: Ben Stowe, Laura Feddersen, Mike Mermin) got their name when band members realized they all hailed from Republican strongholds. Thankfully, they made it to New York.

A while back I alluded to a reemergence of folk music in the city, and speculated on what that might mean, in that particular case with regard to singer-songwriter Joanna Newsom. The truth is that this reemergence (or is it simply a persistence?) extends far beyond what might be termed “folk” and in fact back to its roots: traditional American song, African American spirituals, bluegrass, country and the like.

New York City doesn’t even have a full-schedule country radio station. Yet whether bar-hopping through the Lower East Side or staggering one’s way through the erstwhile hinterlands of Brooklyn, one would be hard-pressed to avoid a whoop and holler, the snap of a washboard, or the twang of– well, anything that goes twang. At small venues like Banjo Jim’s in Manhattan, the current schedule smacks of ragtime piano, copious use of words like “river” and “mountain,” and Odetta night. Crossing the East River, Buttermilk’s monthly Cashank hootenanny (featuring the music of Johnny and Williams, respectively) continues to bring out of the woodwork crowds of boot-stompers, weekend jamboree warriors, and innocent bystanders like myself looking for fun without the expense of certain pretensions.

But aside from reiterations of the “old-timey” (the worst of which may be superficially mechanical in execution), New York is indeed nurturing an emergent pocket of artists who use these canons as a means of further creative juicing. They’re writing new material with eyeballs on the various traditions, using song structure as an emotional container for music that is completely relevant and often profoundly personal. They’re recontextualizing forgotten early-radio classics and giving them urban sensibility. And some of the most convincing ones are slightly out of their minds.

If it seems too facile to draw a line between the current state of affairs in New York City and the folk scare of the ’60s which produced Dylan, Dave Van Ronk, Smokey and his Sister et al., I can only connect the following dots: big corporate music in its birth pangs, and the same industry some forty years later at its death knell. Both sets of circumstances meant artistic fertility for New York musicians, so much so that, particularly in the light of obscurity, one might confuse the products of one era for the other.

* * *

I honestly don’t think I’ve been to Sunny’s since I performed there with the Murrays in 2000. It’s a little less cobwebby, the atmosphere a little less rarefied. There’s now a large back room for bands to play, but it seems to have come at the expense of the availability of Rheingold beer in bottles. And it goes without saying that there was not a Fairway grocery store, nor a gargantuan Ikea opening in a month. Oh well.

But it also goes without saying that it’s still Sunny’s, packed like hell with honest-to-God humans on a cold and rainy Friday night, miles from a subway stop. The Red State String Band plows into an uptempo number, hushing the unhushable and quickly rendering mere seat-dancing unthinkable. Comprised of Mike Mermin on guitar and vocals, Laura Feddersen on fiddle, and Ben Stowe on banjo, they stand somehow in the midst of this old and new I’ve been trying to shed light on. Funnily, they do this in a venue which accomplishes the same in atmosphere, Sunny’s being an ostensible remnant of merchant marine hangouts of that pre-radio era of folk and country.

Red State held court for two sets, mixing traditional standards with originals written by Mike Mermin. The interplay of stylistic modes was sublime, and the musicians nothing less than serious professionals who have clearly honed their craft over a lifetime. They carried with them such a respect and devotion for their material, which varied in subject matter from drunken husbands, to ships at sea, to romantic love. The original tunes used these tropes of storytelling to underscore the timeless quality of these emotions.

Joined by Anna Leuchtenberger on accordion and vocals.

At the end of the night (and to my relief), Sunny’s is still Sunny’s.

Overheard at deli this morning:

“Oh, today’s Cinco de Mayo, isn’t it? Gotta get some Coronas.”
“Yup.”
“What’s it celebrate?”
“Independence.”
“When was that?”
“Eighteen something…”
“From who?”
“The Spanish.”

Well, not entirely, according to Hebrew School breaking news. Although Cinco de Mayo has broad-based appeal in the States as a day to celebrate Mexican culture– and by association its continued self-determination– the Mexican holiday is primarily observed in the state of Puebla as the day Mexicans began to rout French forces on May 5, 1862. Regardless, due to the popularity of the American holiday*, and perhaps the fact that a large number of the city’s Mexican-American residents have a Poblano heritage, throngs of happy and festive humanity abounded yesterday. (It also happened to be a ridiculously beautiful day.)

Traditional masked dancing occurs at the base of Sunset Park’s slope.

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* Analogously, the process by which American culture subsumes and reshapes traditional holidays brought from other countries seems to hold true with Jewish holidays such as Chanukah and Passover. Interestingly, these are also holidays where we celebrate the victory over enemies, the stamping out of oppresion.

This past Saturday was sunny and mild. We went for a walk in Brooklyn’s Chinatown in Sunset Park. Centered along Eighth Avenue, roughly between 40th and 60th streets, it’s home to a bustling community that had its start in the ’80s, becoming New York’s “third Chinatown” along with lower Manhattan and Flushing, Queens. According to what I read, Chinese-Americans may have been attracted to 8th Avenue in Brooklyn because the number eight is similar to a word in Chinese for prosperity (發, fā), making it an auspicious number in Chinese culture. Or, it could have been that it’s a direct ride from the city on the N train, providing an express link to Manhattan’s Chinatown (much as the D train links Boro Park with the Diamond District, but that’s the subject of another post).

Me, I’ve always found it interesting that there are several Chinese neighborhoods around the world with sunny names: There’s the Sunset District in San Francisco (which seems to have followed a similar pattern in its formation as an alternate Chinatown), and Sunnybank, Brisbane in Australia, yet another offshoot to a larger Chinatown community.

Live frogs are $3.99 a pound at this seafood shop.

Lox!

Hornpout

More Sunset Park:   donuts  *  pork  *  beer

This past weekend in the freezing cold I walked up 3rd Avenue in Park Slope towards a friend’s party. It was late and everything seemed, as Huck Finn might narrate, all sad and lonesome.

At 3rd St., I came upon this huge empty lot, with only an old and beautiful building at its corner, with a demolition company’s sign on it. It was bittersweet.

The sunset earlier that night.

Smolen is my new favorite bar. It’s on 5th Ave. and 22nd St. in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. I have often glanced at it curiously while taking the B63 bus to some destination further along the line; it was simply one of those places that I had vowed to check out for years without ever having actually gone.

Fortunately, Shabbos dinner brought us to Taqueria D.F. across the street. Sunset Park is known for its vibrant Mexican community and cuisine, and while reviews of this place have been lukewarm, I feel they simply miss the mark due to plain ignorance. Despite what the linked Village Voice review above claims, you can get tacos at Taqueria D.F.– but you actually have to make an effort to talk to the people there and ask. So, no, this is not a place for would-be hipsters looking for some cool, marginally-out-of-the-way “spot” to count Frida Kahlo paintings. One of our dining companions, a transplanted long-time resident of San Francisco, feels that the burritos here are the closest he’s ever had to those in the Mission. Now he’s practically a regular. Having lived for a while in the Bay Area myself, that speaks volumes to me.

Once we were done with the burritos and tacos (and really excellent piña coladas and margaritas, etc.), after a sincere but misplaced moment of telltale hesitation, we headed across the street to Smolen. We were greeted by Pat, who instantly became (and I think I speak for everyone) one of our favorite proprietor/bartenders in the known universe. We learned from the warm and friendly Pat that Smolen has been in her family at this location for 50 years. This part of Sunset Park (which realtors and crafty landlords refer to as the “South Slope”) still has strong ties to the neighborhood’s Polish history. Okocim (pronounced “oh-KO-chim,” not “oh-koh-SEEM,” Pat assured us) is on tap, along with the German beer Spaten (its first syllable pronounced here like the word for a brief argument or quarrel, or the antiquated unit of astronomical distance.) The beers were frothy and delicious– and more than reasonably priced (a plus when they are easily drinkable and yummy!).

Though the “grill” indicated in Smolen’s signage no longer exists, there’s a seriously nice Polish deli called Mazury a block away and you can bring your food back to the bar. (This photo was taken the following morning, because we were full of Mexican food but had to go back and eat the delicious potato and cheese pierogies.) This is no Eagle Provisions (an upscale Polish grocery a couple more blocks up at 18th St.), but it’s Hebrew School provisions for sure.

We played pool.

They have Quick Draw.

As we were leaving, Pat told us to bring our friends. Dear reader, be forewarned.

More Sunset Park love here and here.

A really cool page about the now and then of 5th Avenue.

Another Brooklynite walks south.