new york weekend: 4knots 2016

this past weekend, i made my annual sojourn to new york city for the 4knots music festival in order to see one of my favorite bands, guided by voices, live. i have to admit, last year's festival was better for various reasons, but it was still a great time.

random prince mural in brooklyn, because ... prince.

FOOD

- upon my arrival to the big apple, you best believe i made a b-line for the white castle on 8th ave -- duffel bag on one arm, ten-pound purse on the other -- and stuffed my sweaty little face with sliders. for those blissful 5 minutes, life was perfect.

- that night, we grabbed dinner at little dokebi, a cozy korean spot in greenpoint, where i had my first bibimbap experience (ahi tuna ftw). though i barely made a dent in my huge hot stone pot, the spicy/sweet sauce and the rice and the vegetables were the best. oh, and they brought us all pickled everything before the meal. yaaaasss.

- finally, my sunday brunch plans fell through, so i found this tiny gourmet oatmeal shop in greenwich village, cleverly called oatmeals. i snickered to myself as i ordered the "hot date" (dates, pecans, granola, peanut butter, and honey) from a cute-ass ponytailed dude who was probably way too young for me. oatmeal and iced coffee in hand, i strolled through washington square park and had myself a nice little manhattan sunday morning.

DRINK

- after dinner on friday, our first stop was a williamsburg speakeasy-style cocktail bar called the richardson. i ordered a "no rocking chair," which had bourbon, honey liqueur, lime juice, aaaand some other stuff i can't remember, including a cinnamon stick garnish. i sipped and gawked at a bar back with the most glorious, intentional mullet i've ever laid eyes on.

- we couldn't maintain that highbrow vibe for too long, so we strolled over to a dirty dive known as the callbox lounge. this place had everything: a broken jukebox, a broken arcade game, chips on sale at the bar for $1/bag, and a ghetto disco ball/accompanying mirrored ceiling that provided the perfect illumination for the disco dance party that ensued. we rocked down to electric avenue, indeed.

- on saturday night, we hit up one of my new york spirit bars, high dive. unfortunately, the jukebox here was ALSO broken, but i dug up an old photo to show you what we're dealing with here.

ya dig? anyways, high dive also offers free popcorn that's smothered in old bay seasoning, and it's the perfect place to have long, drunken conversations with your best friends. plus, it's unpretentious and dark and kind of dirty, but not TOO dirty, and man, i just love it.

MUSIC

since last year's 4knots had twin peaks and mikal cronin and stephen malkmus, it was a hard bill to beat. however, guided by voices has been at the top of my "bands to see live" list forever, so it was a no-brainer that i'd be attending before they broke up for the 20th time.

earlier in the afternoon, diane coffee blew me away with his self-described "psychedelic motown" sounds, incredible stage presence, and adorable costumes. i didn't know much about him going into the set, except that he was the drummer for foxygen, but i came away a fan for sure. just pure fun.

after refueling for the evening with some rose and seafood mac 'n cheese at vbar, it was time for GBV. yeah, we were incredibly far away, and most of us only knew about 3 or 4 songs of their 50ish-song set, but they sounded great! and the other audience members more than made up for our inability to see the actual band.

uncle bob from way far away

there was the solo dude who went nuts for every single song: jumping, clapping, singing, air-guitaring-and-drumming, bonding with the random guys next to him. there were the middle-aged hipster couples (one of which included a bearded ginger man in a loud, floral-print adidas jacket) smoking weed. there was the small child on his dad's shoulders who kept plugging his ears, only to have pops remove his hands every time. "you will learn to love guided by voices, dammit!" we imagined the father whispering. DAD OF THE YEAR.

when we was young, oh man did we have fun

it was another whirlwind weekend in new york, but i suppose i was due since it had been over eight months since my last visit!

stuff that happened:

on friday, i met up with one of my oldest friends and we enjoyed margaritas al fresco with some of his roommates before hoofing it over to a greek festival where we stuffed our faces. we pressed on to a dimly-lit dive bar before i decided that i needed dessert. my wish was granted in the form of nutella bread pudding at a neighboring restaurant.

saturday was governors ball with gleni and her boyfriend -- arguably the reason for my entire visit. all my pictures are here, but some highlights ...

-gleni had a harry styles water bottle that brought joy to everyone who saw it (or at least, me)

-FLOWER CROWNS ERRWHERE. we decided it was "the mark of the basic bitch." is that mean?

-we juuuust missed the awesomely named and just awesomely awesome diarrhea planet due to the dumb shuttle. but PAPA, the first band we did see, nearly made up for that with a song entitled "let's make you pregnant." and it's actually good!

-lots of people wearing stuff with pineapple print. no idea

-singing along with the crowd during fitz and the tantrums' "out of my league" = music festival greatness

-eating a red velvet ice cream sandwich with cream cheese ice cream in the middle

-people carrying around huge cutouts of arnold schwarzenegger and jeff goldblum, presumably for fun

-talking about skrillex the entire day even though we didn't care about him or have any intention of seeing him

-tinder matching with a guy named bone

-THE STROKES, obviously. i had seen them back in '06, also in NYC, and it remains in my top 3 concert experiences. they haven't toured in some time, and their new album is terrrrrrible, but they totally delivered and it was incredible. they opened with my all-time favorite song of theirs, "barely legal." nick valensi was still rocking his beautiful jesus hair and is still all guitar god-esque. julian, who was wearing a hawaiian shirt and looked like a bloated dad, is apparently back on the sauce because nothing he said made any sense and it was fantastic. gems included "ATTACK!", "stay cooooool," and -- in a wasted-valley-girl voice -- "thankyouguyssomuuuuch" and "yoloooo." during "hard to explain," i giddily screamed "this is the sound of my youth!" to no one in particular. because it really is.

-witnessing a guy, who was standing next to us during spoon's set, pick up a deflated beach ball and PUT HIS MOUTH ON IT TO RE-INFLATE IT. i'm still grossed out for him.

-laying on a blanket far away from the stage and listening to jack white shred the night away

after gov ball, i got a miraculous second wind and there were more margaritas (and tacos) at some place in williamsburg, followed by another dive bar where we met up with some of gleni's friends and discussed a true catfish story for almost three hours. i have absolutely no idea how i made it 'til 3am, but it was all quite exciting.

on sunday, brunch with my friend jeff at the grey dog in chelsea was the perfect end to a great weekend. i swear to god this place must have been the inspiration for that central perk place from friends. loved it. and its french toast!

...speaking of catfish, the unlikely theme song of the whole weekend was from another band that i missed at gov ball, catfish and the bottlemen. terrible name, but i happened to hear this song last week and i've been hooked ever since. enjoy!

around town: artbeat somerville & outside the box festival

i'm relishing the chance to actually spend a weekend around here, since i was back in NH last weekend, going to cape cod next weekend, and then back to NH the weekend after that. where is this summer going, guys?! i don't like this one bit.

anyways, i've been trying to jam-pack all of the boston goodness into one weekend that i can. currently coming to you live from peet's coffee in lexington centre (yeah, that lexington, where the revolutionary war started?). it's a beautiful little town with lots of shopping, dining, people that probably eat organic, people that ride bikes, and ADORABLE DOGS. it's pretty sleepy for a twenty-something, however, so i feel like living 3 miles away in arlington is like the best of both worlds. 

so, yeah, lexington. i'm going to walk around later and maybe hit on a historical reenactor and who knows what else. but let's talk about saturday!

i'd made plans to meet a friend for lunch at dave's fresh pasta in davis square somerville, but didn't realize that the place had like, 2 seats, so we moseyed over to orleans just down the street. it was decent, but they were only serving brunch, and you know when you just REALLY want a sandwich? that's where i was at. but french toast always has the power to transcend my food mood, so it was fine.

we decided to go to the vintage store buffalo exchange afterwards, not realizing that some random festival was happening. but it was kind of cool! there were people dancing to gangnam style, a parade with tuba players and people on stilts, and other such whimsy. i realized shortly after that this was "artbeat," an annual festival in somerville. here's a few random pictures from that:

weird hippie tent

does anyone know if this cow has always been here? 'cause i've never noticed it.

parade!

AND THEN. i had some time to kill before the concert on boston common, so i decided to stroll in the 95-degree heat from park street station to the prudential center. i'm walking down boylston, minding my own beeswax, when i see like a hundred 13 year-old girls standing in front of the mandarin oriental hotel. "who are you waiting for?" i inquire. "BIEBER!!!" about 3 of them scream at me. i waited around for a bit in case sir biebs dangled a baby out of his suite window or something, but no such luck.

bitches waiting for bieber

maybe his tour bus? maybe not? the world may never know. or care.

on a serious note, it was incredibly moving to see that life is back to normal after the bombings, but that the memory is still fresh and thoughts and prayers still abound:

okay, so finally onto the good stuff. what i'd been waiting all day for. one of the highlights of my '90s-loving life. a FREE concert with buffalo tom and the lemonheads (oh, and the mighty mighty bosstones too, but...not a huge fan and didn't stay for them, sorry not sorry). this was all part of this awesome, free, weeklong music & arts festival called "outside the box". just walking around the common, i pretty much cried tears of joy because i'm so happy to be back. you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming away to get me to leave again, man. yeah, the winters are miserable, but when it's good -- like yesterday -- it's just so. friggin'. good.

buffalo tom was awesome! they played "soda jerk" and i danced, and then evan dando (lead singer of the lemonheads) came out and sang with them. somewhere, angela chase was smiling.

then the lemonheads played. can we talk about how evan dando is still totally dreamy at 40-whatever he is? and still totally on drugs, probably? and wearing long-sleeved shirts when it's almost 100 degrees out?

if i could put emojis in blog posts, the heart-eyes one would go here.

the radio station chick literally introduced them as "the ever-still-hot evan dando and the lemonheads." ouch! 

all in all, an EXCELLENT day.