In this world, everybody wants something for nothing, and I am no exception.

New York may be one of the most expensive cities in the world to live in but you’d be surprised at how easy it is to have fun here for free. And I don’t mean a walk in Central Park.

Take myopenbar.com, a website dedicated to letting us broke bums know how to booze it up for beans. Sign up for their mailing list and get a weekly heads up of every gallery opening, drinks special, happy hour and open bar in the city. Nice one.

Last night I ventured as far as Avenue B for some after-work drinks in Poco, a cute little bar in the East Village running a fun promotion called Thirsty Twitter Thursdays. All you’ve got to do is follow @poconyc and you can get free red/white sangria, well drinks* and house beer between 7pm and 8pm when you give the bartender the password that’s tweeted at midnight on Wednesday. Ah-mazing.

Of course you still have to tip (because every time you don’t, Baby Jesus cries) but it’s a damn sweet deal.

*and they’re proper drinks. The bartender doesn’t slyly miss you a glass of water and tell you it’s vodka. Instead she gives you whisky and pretends there’s coke in it.

have the same exact haircut. For that I am happy. Also, for a kick ass spin class tonight, getting paid time and a half for overtime and for being asked where Avenue B was while I was walking down Houston blaring Papa Don’t Preach on my headphones 30 minutes ago.

To read Winona’s Blackbook interview click here.

Houston St @ Avenue B, Weekday AM (BlackBerry Camera)

They were there….

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Avenue B between 3rd and 4th, Lower East Side (Pentax Optio 60)

“By virtue of this, I tell you, her sins, many though they are, are forgiven,

because she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Luke 7:47

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It wasn’t windy out at all. That’s what we noticed first, that it was so still, and the streets were empty enough for Avenue B to not look quite right. The garbage lining the street seemed off. It didn’t smell, for one thing. And a young woman sat on a stoop with her cellphone pressed into her neck, crying. We walked by her and it grew too quiet. It all felt negative, like what New York would feel like if the weather was turned off, or if some sad movie producer tried to reenact Manhattan on an LA sound stage.

losing one piece before the shot…

measuring the distance…

piling up to…

tossing simplicity…

This 1918 photo, from a postcard available at the South Street Seaport Museum, gives a nice snapshot of life at one ordinary Manhattan street corner.

There’s a street lamp with humpback-style street signs, a tenement building that would have been about 20 years old at the time, an ad for a long-gone cigarette brand, a fire box, and a newspaper box extolling pedestrians to “read the New York Herald.”

A corner bar advertises “pure lager beer ales & porter.”

The best details are the people. A little girl snacking, a woman in a doorway with something wrapped around her head, and a figure leaning out the second-story window, a blanket draped out the windowsill. 

Photo by B. Merlis.

When an artist travels to a new city, he or she may travel there to look for what the city has to offer . They look for new opportunities their current location can not offer. As I find myself in this position, more and more, I dance around the idea of… ‘what if I’m taking from a city, that is not receiving anything from it artists it so happily invites’. Maybe instead of occupying this new neighborhood and taking what all the other nomads come here to borrow…maybe I can offer something to the city first and then my artistic vision will be released.

I just read an interesting article in the June/July issue of Interview. The article, “The New New York Art Scene”, comprised itself of 24 interviews of young artists in the New York area. As inspiring as it was to read about the excitement, the energy and the talent these ‘young’ artists posses, it was disappointing to find out that a small handful of them are actually doing work for the city they are so easily draining resources from. Has our generation, so gracefully been described as  iGeneration and Generation Me, been just that…consumed with ‘I’? I think it has.

Is this meta enough, Noam?

Reading this writing in Louis 649, over scotch, over my leg,
over the fact that we’re twins or something like it?

And even my legs smell like scotch.

Even that rose I pulled from the corner of Avenue B and somewhere near your closed Vietnamese sandwich shop sounds like a cymbal flick, or a cowbell. Remember, the beginning?

I will tell you the beginning, the secret, the way in which I obscure everything I write anyway.

Let’s walk backward through the map of our New York history.
Uptown and downtown are destinations, not places.

Marriage and engagement are queens, not aces.

Before wine bars, bank branches, and sushi restaurants took over the East Village, there were hole-in-the-wall clubs like 8BC, a gallery and performance space on Eighth Street between Avenues B and C. Opened in 1983, the place was over by the end of 1985.

The club is long-gone, but the tenement building still stands today. Of course, the art and graffiti has all been cleaned off and the facade spruced up and bricked over. And instead of empty lots, it’s flanked on both sides by gardens.

I think it might be the best lamb shawarma I’ve had. I realize this three bites in and look closer at the man behind the counter.

Mohamed carefully shaves off the meat, bundles up my pita, and chats about how the neighborhood has changed. He slices me off a hunk of chicken, just to taste, and talks about the way it used to me.

And I decide to listen.

I sit on the stoop with him, maybe a little drunk, maybe waiting for my friend to call me back, and let him talk about the East Village. I indulge in my kebab, the juice running down my hand, the sauce on my chin, lettuce clinging to my scarf. Mohamed laughs and goes on, and I think about how Tompkins Square Park used to be littered with heroin addicts, and here I am, a veritable middle class kid, drinking overpriced imported beer and maybe planning on smoking a joint later.

It is easily the best lamb I’ve had all year. And so I extend a hand to Mohamed and carry on my way up Avenue B, letting all the greasy napkins and memories trail behind me.

J’ai eu la chance d’assister jeudi dernier (26 mars) à la conférence de presse d’Iggy Pop qui se déroulait à Paris dans un hôtel prestigieux situé non loin du Louvre. Alors que la conférence n’avait pas encore commencé et que j’attendais, avec les autres journalistes présents, l’arrivée de la star du jour, quelle ne fut pas ma surprise de sentir une main tapoter mon épaule et d’entendre l’accent américain très reconnaissable de l’Iguane me dire “Hey man, hi, how are you?”. Je me retourne et effectivement c’était bien lui, Iggy Pop en personne, qui arrivait, très cool, dans la salle de conférence de l’hôtel. Sympa pour une première impression (oui, je dois l’avouer, je suis un peu fan…)

C’est mon collègue Gilles Verlant (de l’émission 80’s sur Classic 21) qui animait la présentation de ce nouvel album. Alors, me direz-vous, de quoi est consitué ce disque “Préliminaires”?

Pour résumer les choses, “Préliminaires” n’est pas un album rock d’Iggy Pop, on est ici très loin des sonorités survoltées des Stooges ou du dernier album en date en solo (“Skull Ring”). C’est le jazz et la chanson française qui ont influencé Iggy sur ce nouveau LP.

une des photos d'Iggy Pop que j'avais prises lors du TW Classic 2008

Le point de départ de cette nouvelle aventure, que l’on peut considérer d’une certaine façon comme un “concept-album” (oui, oui, Iggy l’a presque avoué! Pas mal pour un type que l’on considère parfois comme l’un des parrains du punk), c’est le bouquin de Houellebecq “La possibilité d’une île”. Iggy est tombé littéralement amoureux de ce livre et s’est lancé, tout seul, dans la réalisation de nouvelles chansons basées de près ou de loin sur cette histoire.

Oui, tout seul comme un grand, simplement ‘armé’ de sa guitare acoustique. Puis, le projet a évolué tranquillement. A une moment, il a été question d’habiller ces morceaux et pour ce faire, il a eu besoin de musiciens. Mais l’Iguane n’avait pas trop envie de se rendre en studio, de rencontrer des musiciens et donc … il ne l’a pas fait! Des musiciens ont enregistré leurs parties musicales dans leur coin et le tout a été envoyé, mixé et rajouté aux enregistrements initiaux. Pour la production de la galette, Iggy a recontacté son ami et ancien bassiste (des 90’s) Hal Cragin.

Alors, après écoute, ça ressemble à quoi? Et bien, et il ne l’a pas caché, l’atmosphère est assez semblable à celle d’”Avenue B”, l’album le plus introspectif et le plus personnel de la carrière du chanteur. C’est donc Iggy le crooner que l’on retrouve ici, l’Iggy “destroy” a semble-t-il pris quelques jours de congés. Cependant, ça reste un disque d’Iggy Pop et non pas de James Osterberg (il nous l’a précisé).

Perso, l’Iggy crooner me plait autant que l’Iggy “Raw Power”, donc c’est du très bon cru.

Iggy & Me après la conférence à Paris

Dernière chose, on y retrouve une reprise des “Feuilles Mortes”, classique de la chanson française qui avait été  interprété à l’époque par Yves Montand. Iggy se la joue francophile, et ça fonctionne! Il nous a avoué être un grand amateur de chansons françaises. A la maison, loin de la scène, l’Iguane se délecte en écoutant Brel, Gainsbourg, Ferré et même Piaf (mais bon, pas tous les jours, comme il l’a précisé non sans humour).

“Préliminaires” sortira le 18 mai prochain.

Ecoutez Iggy nous parler de ce nouvel album (chez lui, tranquilou, à la maison):

Before the 9,000-apartment, red-brick housing development across Fourteenth Street opened in 1947, a small walk-up tenement at 219 Avenue B had the Stuyvesant name on its far more humble facade.

“Stuyvesant Apartments” is serious faded and covered in grime, but it was constructed in 1910, predating Stuy Town by 37 years.

There’s a lot of Stuyvesant in the vicinity: Stuyvesant Street near St. Mark’s Church, the old Stuyvesant High School building on East 15th Street, and Stuyvesant Square off Second Avenue in the teens.

No wonder: Petrus Stuyvesant, the Dutch-born director-general of New Netherland, had his farm—or bouwerie—here in the 1600s.

Som alla läsare av den här bloggen vet är jag en usel TV-tittare. Ser bara (en massa) fotboll och en del Letterman-avsnitt (som vi sporadiskt spelar in på hårddisk-dvd:n). Men i går kväll satte jag mig ner. Vännen Anders hade tipsat på sms. Nina Persson på SVT1 ikväll! Och han visste ju att det ville jag inte missa.

Jag gillar den där programserien, Dom Kallar Oss Artister. Det handlar verkligen om Artisten och om Musiken. Idén att slänga in några videosnuttar med låtar som artisten just nu har i hörlurarna är lika enkel som lysande. Nu vet jag plötsligt vilka Cold War Kids och The Dirty Projectors är.

Råkade faktiskt se ett avsnitt med Maia Hirasawa förra veckan – och tänker absolut inte missa avsnittet med Jill Johnson nästa vecka – inspelat i Nasvhille.

Men nu var det Nina. Nina Elisabeth Persson, född 1974. Som hon själv sa i programmet tycks hon, som den “djävulsdyrkare” hon ser sig som, dras till kyrkotäta miljöer. Född i Örebro, uppväxt i bibelbältet i Småland och nu, som vi kunde se i gårdagens program, lever hon med sin man, musikern Nathan Larson, i en lägenhet i Harlem i New York.

Det var förresten lite lustigt igår. För jag vet ju att jag, och fler med mig, uttalar henes soloprojekt A Camp som Ejj Kämp. Med betoning på första ordet. Om nu inte Nina Persson drev med oss alla igår, så är detta i alla fall fel. Bandet heter A Camp och A:et uttalas just som den engelska obestämda artikeln “a”. Och betoningen ligger snarare på andra ordet. Man sväljer alltså nästan “A” och trycker till på Camp. Om ni nu förstår. Annars finns säkert programmet att se på SVT Play.

Vi fick fler provsmak från kommande albumet Colonia, och Chinatown, som Nina, Nathan och tredje bandmedlemmen Niclas Frisk satt och spelade akustiskt i lägenheten i Harlem, var en lika skimrande pärla som första singeln Stronger Than Jesus. Niclas, som har ett förflutet i klassiska band som Perssons Pack och Atomic Swing, är för övrigt en mycket trevlig man som jag, tillsammans med Per Bjurman, druckit öl med i New York en gång för ganska exakt 15 år sedan. Vi hängde bland annat vid jukeboxen på sköna B Bar, på Avenue B.

Kort sagt en av de mest njutbara halvtimmarna på svensk TV på bra länge och min (lite löjliga, det ska erkännas) känsla efter slutackordet var att jag kände mig förbannat stolt över att vara svensk. Stolt över att komma från samma land som någon som Nina Persson, en artist och sångerska som bara övertygar mer och mer på mig. Rösten, låtskrivandet, integriteten. När hon sitter där och ler så mystiskt i lägenheten i New York, bara 34 år gammal, får man dessutom nästan för sig att, som det heter, The Best Is Yet To Come.

Men för att stanna i nuet så släpps alltså Colonia den 28 januari, och vissa av oss har dessutom biljetter på fjärde bänk till konserten på Malmö Konserthus den 4 april.

I’m overwhelmed with books and my eyes hurt. I’m broke. I go out not planning to spend money and I find myself tucked away in the back-back of a used bookstore on Avenue B. And my back pains and disjointed commute have prevented me from carrying books on the subway like I used to, so now I take the New Yorker, Wired, and my own mag.

It’s just as well. Now I have a good 45 minutes of bathtub reading.

But the stack of books keeps growing. It’s also taking me forever to get through A Room with a View. Then I have The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, The Magic Mountain, and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. You know, those are just the ones stacked up closest to me.

Don’t even get me started on the movies. I restarted Netflix and haven’t watched the dvd in the red sleeve on my desk for a month. Sorry, Manhattan Murder Mystery, I might just send you back from whence you came for more Fellini. I am hungry to watch 8½. And I can’t do that in the bathtub.

I don’t even know what that previous post means, or who it was intended for. Please don’t ask. My mind seems to wander when I’m drunk. Especially that drunk.

And I’ve gathered I love writing to anonymous ex-lovers. I think it is some sort of collective “you” I’ve got going on. Let me point ten thousand drunken fingers all at once!

In other news, I think a bone in my foot is broken. I really should not have walked from the rooftop on Thomspon and Spring all the way to my place off Avenue B.

“3 Teens Kill 4″ is a great name for a band, isn’t it? The weather was probably hot as hell on July 11, 1982—the afternoon they played at Tompkins Square Park, according to this ad from the East Village Eye.

This unremarkable tenement building at 169 Avenue B hides a gruesome secret. In October 1967, rich-girl-turned-runaway Linda Fitzpatrick was found bludgeoned to death in a sleeping bag in the basement with her drug-dealing boyfriend, James “Groovy” Hutchinson. 

The murders triggered much hand-wringing by parents and authorities on why “good” kids like Linda were turning to drugs and the East Village hippie lifestyle. Read her story in the terrific Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times article by J. Anthony Lukas. (Unfortunately, you have to pay for it in the NYT archive.)

Despite the name, and its jaunty Parisian sign, there’s nothing particularly French about Rue B. Indeed, the brilliant collection of black-and-white photographs which clutter the walls is a open-hearted celebration of mid-20th century American cultural or sporting greatness. The effect is quite comforting: these photographs attract your gaze, to the extent that each photo becomes so familiar, each time I return Rue B feels more and more like a second home.

The bathroom is devoted solely to Ol’ Blue Eyes himself. But Rue B, one of a string of establishments on Alphabet City’s Avenue B whose name references the address (B-Cup, B-Side, Bee Liquors), is something rare and special, somehow managing to be a bar, restaurant and jazz lounge. When lights are low a tight three-piece combo swings in the corner, under the watchful gaze of an aging Chet Baker. Last Tuesday I had an excellent cocktail, but I also love the brunch: how could anyone resist something called “Eggs Corleone”?