Mattison Delivers Soulful Pop Sounds to Littlefield
Sometimes the best discoveries are by happy accident. That was the case last year when I went to The Rock Shop in Park Slope to see a solo show by the New Pornographers’ Kathryn Calder. Although I didn’t have a chance to see Calder (because I had to be somewhere else later that night) I did get to see the opening band perform. Mattison was a complete unknown–I had never heard of them and I didn’t know anything about their sound.
As I watched then perform, I was caught up by Mattison’s music, which was quite different to what I was accustomed to hearing in downtown clubs. The music by this trio –singer/keyboardist Kate Mattison, bassist Jay Steinhauer and drummer Angel Ortiz–could be best described as a mix of retro pop and ‘70s R&B.
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Pittsburgh, Japan and Ash Wednesday
Yup, that's a Starbucks in Tokyo.
Here’s what I gleaned from Twitter this morning–now-and-then photos of Pittburgh, Japanese insanitude an, oh yeah, Lent.
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What’d You Do This Weekend, Lea Muses?
Name: Lea Muses
Age: “Twentysomething…”
Occupation: Artist
Neighborhood: Bed-Stuy
Relationship Status: Single
You might recognize Lea Muses’ dance moves and mound of curly hair as one of the silhouetted dancers in those ubiquitous Apple iTunes commercials, or her backside on the cover of Culo by Mazzucco, Raphael Mazzucco’s art-book ode to the female derriere. We met Lea many moons ago at a coffice we have in common where she was building a website as a freelancer. (She’s a graphic designer on the side.) As a once-upon-a-time accessories designer and model, who has now segued into music–we took this photo at an art fair in Gowanus where she was performing—it seems there’s always more to Ms. Muses than meets the eye, which is why, when we got the chance, we had to ask her: What’d You Do This Weekend?
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Sharon Van Etten Has Arrived
Indie artist Sharon Van Etten has come a long way in the three years since her debut album Because I Was in Love. That stark and spare-sounding record was a solo acoustic folk affair from a then-relatively unknown singer. Afterward, Van Etten steadily built her career with the appropriately-titled Epic (2010), her electrified follow-up. She has shared stages with performers like Damon and Naomi, The National, Great Lake Swimmers and Rain Machine, and has made appearances at SXSW and the Pitchfork Festival. Read More »
Soda for Sodaholics
A friend of mine works in advertising, and one of her clients is a big soda maker who is flailing, because people just don’t drink soda like they used to. First we started to drift to iced tea, then water (remember Evian?), then “healthy” water (Vitamin, Smart, Coconut), and now some of us, the ones who don’t really like water no matter what you add to it, seem to be going full circle to soda. “Healthy” soda.
I personally have been hooked on San Pellegrino Arincatas since the fall, when my son was born. I still wasn’t drinking like I used to, but I needed something more special than water because raising kids can make you batty, and you need to indulge in something. So I turned to Italian orange soda. It was sweet, AND it had 16% juice! But it became too sweet. Like it was hard to finish a can. Around then, I got an email from a woman promoting a new soda, Spindrift, that purported to be an “all-natural fresh squeezed ‘soda.’ ” Free, healthy soda? Of course I wanted some.
A case of Spindrift is now in the prize pool of our subscriber drive (open to current subscribers too), where you can win one of 20+ awesome dinners, brunches, bar tabs, and cooking classes around Brooklyn. Sign up to win, and we’ll let you know if you were lucky at the Kitchen Swap on Thursday.
