A short excerpt from my upcoming memoir, Boy About Town, this part about following Crystal Palace FC: The first year I started going to the Palace on my own, the team was relegated to the Second Division. The next year, they were relegated to the Third. The thought of switching allegiance to another, better team, never Continue reading
Read this post in its entirety here:The Catskill 45s ride again (and I get to DJ)
“All Tomorrow’s Parties,” Chapter 12 of my book All Hopped Up and Ready To Go: Music from The Streets Of New York 1927-77, deals with the music that emerged from the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the second half of the 1960s. I found this the most culturally exciting chapter of the book, which Continue reading
So I was on the phone to my mother, as I often am on a Saturday, and I told her I’d been out for a long run already, as I often am on a Saturday, and she said, and it didn’t sound entirely complementary… “I think running has taken over your life.” Now, it’s true that Continue reading
Back in the spring, I visited London’s Resonance FM headquarters in Southwark, where I was interviewed by Vincent Luttman for the art station’s Clear Spot show. I’d met Luttman the previous week when he came to the launch event for All Hopped Up and Ready To Go at the British Music Experience. He clearly had Continue reading
Rockin‘: Returning to the Paradise Rock Club 22 years since the last time. Shockin‘: It seemed so much bigger when I was younger. But then, didn’t everything? Rockin‘: Boston is, as always, full of college kids. Especially here on Commonwealth Ave, home to the vast Boston University. Shockin‘: Last time I came to a gig here, the college Continue reading
I don’t normally repeat/reprint old posts, but there’s too much frightening news going on in the world of fracking (hydraulic fracturing), especially in our part of the world. This process is disastrous. We should be moving away from fossil fuels, not seeking to destroy yet more of our planet – and risk contaminating New York Continue reading
The Trailer may or may not do it justice. Perhaps you have to see the whole thing, like we did. On Friday night, my 15-year old son Campbell and I went, on a whim, to see Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, and we haven’t so much fun since… well, not in a long long time. Continue reading
After completing this year’s Escarpment Run, a course I now know very well and, indeed, train on during the months leading up to the mid-summer race, I got talking to a first time finisher. He lives outside the area, and hadn’t had the opportunity to train on the course. More to the point, he’d had Continue reading
I’ve just uploaded two more interview segments from my three-part series discussing All Hopped Up and Ready To Go on WDST’s The Roundtable with Doug Gruenther. These were both from our May 2 interview, effectively rounding up our discussion on the book. You can listen to part 1 here, and part 2 here. And Continue reading
There was one more, very important reason we didn’t attend Burning Man this year. (See previous post.) For all that our three visits to the desert have provided a wonderful bonding experience for myself and Campbell, I felt the need this summer to have a family holiday, to involve Posie (my wife) and Noel (our Continue reading
It was with heavy heart that I decided not to attend Burning Man this year. Each of my three prior, consecutive visits to the Nevada Desert for the week-long event, along with my older son Campbell, has been the greatest week of our year; at least from my personal perspective, my first visit was an Continue reading
The first Hudson Valley Green Festival came to Staatsburg, just south of Rhinebeck, last Saturday, September 4. Set in the beautiful State Park grounds of a former stately home (hello Knebworth), the line-up was steered very much towards the audience that makes such a success of Hunter’s annual Mountain Jam, though with an additional focus Continue reading
So enamored have I been with the Vinho Verde we’ve been drinking this summer that when we hit the wine section of the Healthy Living Market in Burlington, VT, at the start of our camping trip, I picked up a bottle of rosé Vinho Verde more or less on instinct. Yes, it was a rosé: Continue reading
This time last year, I was bitching about the poor quality of a cheap Vinho Verde that seemed to be making regular appearances around our summer circuit. Not any more. At Boiceville Wines and Spirits, opposite Onteora Middle/High School, you can still get what I described last year as the “under-ripe, over-sweet and little bit Continue reading
Some of us have been banging on about this for years: Riesling is the King – or, if you prefer, the Queen – of white wines. And yet it’s madly maligned, like it’s some Marie Antoinette of noble grapes. Why? Perhaps because too many people grew up on too much cheap German crap, and they Continue reading
Finding a good rosé for summer drinking is not as easy as it sounds. The Provençal favorites typically push $15 and more these days, and to be honest, and much though I love the region, I sometimes find them overwhelming, especially without food; red grapes like Grenache and Mourvédre can pack a fair old punch Continue reading
DOMAINE DE LA PÉPIÈRE “LA PÉPIE” Cabernet Franc, VINS DE PAYS DU VAL DE LOIRE, 2009, $13.50 Marc Ollivier, he of the renowned Muscadets, steps into the rather overdone world of “animal” labels with his Vins de Pays “La Pépie.” (There’s a cartoon chicken, looking very drunk, on the front.) Still, unlike many of the conglomerates Continue reading
BOUKÉ, White Table Wine, North Fork of Long Island, 2008, $17 SHINN ESTATES, Coalescence, North Fork of Long Island, 2009, $14 I came across both these relatively new companies at a tasting of Long Island wines some sixteen months ago and vowed to pick up these particular bottles if ever I saw them; on a recent trip Continue reading
The inaugural Phoenicia Festival of the Voice took place in our local Catskills village this past weekend, August 13-15, and by all standards, was a runaway hit. Envisaged by local opera singers Kerry Henderson, Louis Otey and Maria Todaro after a successful fund-raiser last summer for children’s playground equipment in the Parish park, the Festival Continue reading
Coinciding with Phoenicia’s first Festival of the Voice, the Mystery Spot Antiques store on the village’s Main Street hosted its biggest (and best) porch series Sunday lunchtime show yet this past Sunday August 15. Mercury Rev’s Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper teamed up with Dean (Wareham) and Britta (Phillips) for a half-hour joint performance that was, Continue reading
Two years ago, Hudson Valley radio DJ Raissa St. Pierre traveled all the way to Timbuktu to experience its annual Festival Au-Desert. There she fell in love with the music of Mali’s own Khaira Arby. This past Thursday, August 12, the honor was returned when Arby and her 7-piece band played their first ever American Continue reading
On Sunday August 8, rising singer-songwriter Holly Miranda performed at Laura Levine’s Mystery Spot in Phoenicia as part of the store’s annual summer Music for Front Porch series. She decided NOT to play songs from her debut XL album The Magician’s Private Library but rather to use the unusual location – literally, a deck porch Continue reading
Tracy Bonham, who divides her time between Brooklyn (my old home) and Woodstock (my new one), launched her lovely new album Masts of Manhatta, with a concert at Woodstock’s Bearvsille Theater on Friday August 6. The show was all the better for cross-generational pollination with old-time Greenwich Village folkie and long-term Woodstock resident Happy Continue reading
On Wednesday August 4, the wife and I took a round trip to Manhattan to see Hot Chip at Central Park’s Summerstage. It’s one of our favorite venues, especially for dance acts: though it can be something of a sun trap before night fall, and while on hot, and especially, humid evenings like this one, Continue reading
