Cheers! A Toast to a Vintage Brooklyn Music Year
Gustaf / photo by Ray Fontaine
2018 has been a banner year for Brooklyn artists and local music venues, and the borough continues to be a magnet for top-name visiting singers and bands. Here are just some of the many highlights.
Brooklyn Roads was on hand for several outstanding festivals, including:
- Northside Festival, which included such impressive local performers as Mistervacation and Gustaf, as well as visiting artists from as far away as Korea;
- Degraw Fest at Littlefield, featuring 10 stylistically diverse Brooklyn-based artists;
- Brooklyn Americana Music Festival, highlighted by a wealth of local talent — including Neha Jiwrajka, Annie Keating, Stella Branstool, Abby Hollander, Ali Dineen, Little Nora Brown, Tone Johansen and Bobtown’s Karen Dahlstrom — taking the Women’s Archway Stage;
- Afropunk, where Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu and Troi Irons were among the standout performers; and
- Celebrate Brooklyn!, where we caught the likes of Aimee Mann and Superchunk, with local favorite Jonathan Coulton opening; Ricky Skaggs, supported by musician Mamie Minch, owner of guitar repair shop Brooklyn Lutherie; Courtney Barnett; Brandi Carlile with Ruthie Foster; and blues sensation Gary Clark Jr. Other CB highlights included Common, Los Lobos, The Jayhawks, Branford Marsalis, The Decemberists and Spoon, as well as Brooklyn’s own Grizzly Bear, Antibalas, Hamilton Leithauser, Kaki King, and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead.
Aimee Mann and Jonathan Coulton /photo by Ray Fontaine
Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires/photo by Kyra Kverno
We were not disappointed when we caught such visiting acts as Death Cab for Cutie, Jason Isbell and The 400 Unit, and Ja Rule and Ashanti at Kings Theatre. Likewise we thoroughly enjoyed hip-hop sensation Latasha at Brooklyn Museum (a Target First Saturdays event) and folk duo The Kennedys at Jalopy. (And this month our borough affords opportunities to see Norah Jones, Marc Broussard, Allman Brothers Band’s Scott Sharrarad, the North Mississippi Allstars, Felice Brothers, rising Nashville stars Margot Price and Lilly Hiatt, and much more.)
Local acts Brooklyn Roads saw (and loved) in 2018 included Eli Paperboy Reed and High & Mighty Brass Band, together at Brooklyn Bazaar; Tiffany Wilson, supported by Ella Joy Meir and Mikhal at C’mon Everybody; and, at First Unitarian Church in Brooklyn Heights, José Joaquin Garcia, Pat Wictor, Carolann Solebello, Bev Grant and the Brooklyn Women’s Chorus, among others, performing “A Benefit for the People of Puerto Rico.”
We gladly crossed the East River, as well, to catch the phenomenal Dana Fuchs, eclectic rockers Giant Flying Turtles and Greenpoint’s rootsy American Nomads.
Ben Rice at DeGraw Fest/photo by Ray Fontaine
Brooklyn Roads also went behind the scenes for glimpses of some of the movers, shakers and creative forces behind Brooklyn’s vibrant music scene. Ben Rice, owner and operator of Degraw Sound, talked to us about his decision to base his facility in Gowanus; his work as a producer, mixer and engineer for a variety of local and outside artists; and the launching of Degraw Fest, which he created and also performed in. Alexandria Wood detailed her rise from an internship at a recording studio in Dumbo to becoming the first women ever hired to be sound engineer at New York’s City Winery.
We went behind the curtain at the Kings Theatre with Sarah Weiss, who has served as the venue’s director of marketing since November of 2016, and we sat in on a basement party at Bushwick Public House when Lex On Decks, a Brooklyn-based record label showcased a number of up-and-coming hip-hop artists. We even took a road trip to chat with concert promoter, musician and photographer Danny Clinch about his star-studded Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, NJ.
Stay tuned as Brooklyn Roads continues its news and feature coverage of the local music scene in 2019. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!