What's yellow and shines like a star? It's Ledisi.

This past Sunday felt like the real first day of summer. The sun was shining and Nora, my friend Brian, and I headed to Central Park to watch Ledisi perform at Summerstage. She performed two new tracks from her upcoming album 'Turn Me Loose' and KILLED it! She even went into the crowd to make sure people were dancing.

Check out Nate Chinen's thoughts in this review.

Great minds think alike. Here's our rainbow of Chuck Taylors: Ledisi at top in yellow, Nora in pink, me in red and Brian in black.

An Early Fireworks Celebration: Marilyn's Birthday

Shore Fire President Marilyn Laverty's July 3 birthday neatly coincides with Independence Day celebrations, so this is always a festive time of the year for all of us at Shore Fire. This year, we partied with an ice cream and coffee spread -- along with fixings like sprinkles, chocolate sauce and whipped cream -- the perfect late afternoon snack combo. Happy Birthday MTL!!

No "Loss" But Good "Eaton" At Nick's Birthday Party

It's a June birthday for Nick Loss-Eaton, who celebrated at the office kitchen table yesterday with an exquisite offering from Teany Cafe -- a scrumptious vegan Vanilla Raspberry Buttercream cake...Happy Birthday Nick!

Shore Fire Proves It All Night at Pianos

You know what's really fun? Music trivia. And you know what's really REALLY fun? Winning. And that's exactly what team Prove It All Night did at Pianos' Monday trivia night.



A group of us from Shore Fire decided to test our music trivia chops at the LES bar and see how many free well drinks and shots we could win. Some of the questions were pretty obvious (who is James Osterberg?) but others (what city is the setting for Deep Purple's "Smoke on The Water") took some deliberating.



Team captain and Shore Fire president Marilyn Laverty performed the first victory dance of the evening:



Here's the winning ballot that brought in those well drinks coming....


Our esteemed colleague Andy Silva looks dapper after taking a shot of free whiskey




Later, (after Prove it all Night won round 2) Steve LaBate of Paste joined us for a game. Here he is talking with our very own Nick Loss-Eaton



It was definitely a great night and I hope to go back again soon. It's great to work with a bunch of bona fide music buffs. It makes getting free drinks at Pianos on Monday night that much easier.

'Hedwig' sing-along - I'm pulling the wig down from the shelf

One of my favorite parts of 'Hedwig and the Angry Inch' – Stephen Trask's brilliant gender-bending rock musical, starring/directed by John Cameron Mitchell – is the sing-along during "Wig In a Box": the words come up on screen, and you can't help but oblige Hedwig and belt out along with her, "I put on some makeup/turn up the eight-track/I'm pulling the wig down from the shelf."



I saw 'Hedwig' again on Saturday night at the 92Y Tribeca, where they hosted a sing-along screening of the film much to my delight. "The Origin of Love" and "Wicked Little Town" sound even better with a theater full of folks singing along with you, and the heartbreaking saga of Tommy Gnosis and Hedwig is all the more, well, heartbreaking (and heartwarming).

The screening was part of a series at 92Y Tribeca, which will host regular sing-alongs of your favorite movie musicals roughly once a month (sorry kids, 'Labyrinth' and 'Purple Rain' have already happened). Next up: 'The Little Mermaid' on July 18. Buy your tickets now and start learning the words to "Under The Sea." I'll see you there.

Costello, Lauderdale and gang Sweep the Floor at Letterman

Elvis Costello corralled a few of his musician friends for a jaunty performance of Sulphur to Sugarcane last week on the Late Show with David Letterman. It was all strings for the song from Elvis' new album Secret, Profane & Sugarcane (#13 on the Billboard 200 this week...WOW!). Besides Jim Lauderdale (seen here outside the dressing room), a great singer and writer in his on right, the rest of the band was string slinger extraordinaire Larry Campbell and go-to Nashville double bassist Dennis Crouch. Costello sat for an interview with Dave before his performance.

Elvis and the Sugarcanes (musicians from the new album) played a tour de force two and a half hour set last night at the Beacon Theater, only the second show of the tour...I already got a great email from a Costello-watcher saying "Please tell me that somebody captured last night's show for posterity, whether legally or, uh, otherwise. What an incredible band, and what an amazingly perfect choice of back-catalog material to showcase it." The point is: Don't miss this show when it comes your way.

Cupcakes, Cupcakes Everywhere, With A Few To Spare

We all raised a cupcake in honor of Nora Lyon's birthday yesterday. Nora picked a selection from Sugar Sweet Sunshine, which regular Suite 16 readers might recognize as a staff favorite. As Lauretta Charlton observes elsewhere here on our blog, we all love quality baked goods!

Here we dig in:


Heer's Nora with a little bit of Elizabeth Lutz peeking in from the left, and a bit more of Diana D'Angelo on the right.

Why Do I Leave Shows Early??

I went with friends to see Doves last night at Terminal 5. The band was in top form, as usual (I have seen them 4 times now and have never been let down. Well, except for the first show at Irving Plaza on the Lost Souls tour when they were plagued by technical difficulties and had to stop the show for a LONG time). I have to say that it was the first time I've ever found it difficult to find a space to actually see the band. Like ever. Granted we got there as they were just about to go on. But still. Anyway, great great show. They started out with the mind melting "Jetstream" from their new album Kingdom of Rust (which is nothing short of genius by the way), got the room bouncing with Motown stomper "Black and White Town" from Some Cities, and almost ended with "Cedar Room" from Lost Souls. The reason I say almost ended with "Cedar Room" is because it was the first of the encore songs and the last entire song I heard.

I'd like to blame it on hunger, being slightly drunk (due to having not had time to eat dinner, hence the hunger, and drinking a healthy quantity of beer), and tired (up at 730am and worked out after work, before show), and I just wanted to get home and crawl into bed. But the reality is much more disturbing: I made a calculated decision that if I left at the time I did, I would beat the large crowd leaving the venue, and would have a much better chance of getting a cab.

How lame is that? Would I leave a movie before it was over? Of course not. I'd already paid for my ticket and mortgaged the house in order to buy popcorn and soda as well, and god dammit, I'm not going to miss the ending after having invested so much. So why would I do this at concerts? I asked myself this morning that if I had made it to one of the My Bloody Valentine reunion shows, would I have done the same thing? Answer: probably. I saw them on the Loveless tour anyway. Okay, not a good example. Would I have left early from The Who playing live at Leeds in 1970? Answer: I honestly don't know. And since The Who is my favorite band of all time -- in fact I am probably the biggest Who fanatic on the planet -- this is the kind of disturbing, gut wrenching, soul searching question I will spend the rest of my life trying to answer. Or at least, spend the rest of today trying to answer.

I Want My NPR!

It's no surprise that we at Shore Fire are big fans of NPR but their website is getting bigger and better every day too! You can get lost for hours surfing their site... I mean I don't, not at work at least. They just added this great new jazz blog A Blog Supreme and check out this cool video feature they did on the history of the boombox.



The corresponding radio piece is available here.

And if you have yet to discover Monitor Mix by Carrie Brownstein (yes Carrie Brownstein of Sleater-Kinney) it's a must.

Baked

Here at Shore Fire there are two things that make us all happy – great music and baked goods. But recently, I've taken my love for baked goods to a new, and perhaps alarming, level. Last week when Rebecca Shapiro brought her homemade brownies to the office for a trial run, I devoured the first one very quickly. They were AMAZING and I'm told they will eventually be on the menu here.

More symptoms....

Soon we will celebrate the venerable Nora Lyons’ birthday, and I don't think I've ever been so excited about icing and cake (she requested cupcakes from the Shore Fire favorite Sugar Sweet Sunshine to be sure) and over the weekend I baked an apple pie that I was so proud of I almost cried. Here she is:



I don’t think summer official begins until you eat homemade apple or rhubarb pie (and brownies for good measure), but that's my borderline obsession with baked goods talking. If baked goods are not for you, you can always check out some of the awesome shows happening in June which is terrific way to start a glorious summer as well.

Knew What He Was Doing When He Caught My Eye

The most recent chapter of the Phil Spector story is a tragedy that can't be undone. But I'll miss thinking about him as the guy who created this wall of sound for The Crystals:

The Manifestivus Mixtape

Are You Cooler Than A First Grader?

So, I chaperoned a field trip to the Brooklyn Aquarium with my daughter Emma's class yesterday. We had a blast. I read somewhere recently that the tween demographic starts at age 6 (yikes!), but I'm happy to report that the kids in Emma's class are still sweet and innocent and more concerned with what they're having for lunch than the vicissitudes of popular culture.

Although one buddy of Emma's did tell me he plays guitar, is saving up for a Gibson double neck SG, and that his favorite guitarists are Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, and Slash. Whoah!

Here's a pic from yesterday. That's Emma in the ladybug raincoat. I swear she had a better time than she appears to be having in this photo.

Breakfast Spread for Brendan's Birthday

We stuck a candle on a danish and called it a birthday last week, celebrating Brendan Gilmartin's big day with a big and welcome breakfast spread. Hot coffee, cold fruit...a great way to start the day and a big congrats to Brendan.

If You Don't Know, Now You Know

My neighbors are going to kill me if they ever read this.

Vinegar Hill, the little gem of a neighborhood nestled between the Navy Yard and Dumbo, is one of Brooklyn’s best-kept secrets. It’s quiet, it’s cobblestoned, it’s full of artists and musicians, professors, writers, welders, bakers, deli owners, cat ladies and an old mansion that bike-riding European tourists come and gawk at every weekend and now we have a fine new restaurant to boot. And, most importantly, it’s the place I call home.



I moved in a few years ago and every year, in spite of the crazy goings on in Dumbo, Vinegar Hill has remained a humble little piece of paradise where vinegar was never actually produced. I have heard, however, that many of the storefront buildings that some lucky residents now live in have two basements: the second one was needed to hide all of the illegal alcohol that was being sold during prohibition.

Vinegar Hill is truly an amazing piece of Brooklyn history. It’s also very small. If you are considering checking it out, I would also recommend walking along Admiral’s Row down Flushing Ave. The monster mansions you see there are completely ruined but have somehow managed to maintain their former glory.

Come visit. It’s a great place.

Where Are The Musicians?

Pretty interesting, if flawed, article online from The Atlantic on where musicians live. Richard Florida contends that more and more musicians live in Nashville than ever before. He postulates that Nashville "turned into the Silicon Valley of the music business, combining the best institutions, the best infrastructure, and the best talent."

(click here for a larger version of the image above)

Not surprisingly, the number of musicians in Nashville takes the cake, with others concentrated in NY, LA, and San Francisco. Not many musicians in the midwest and a surprisingly large number in Florida. What Richard Florida (er, the writer, not the state) fails to break down is the genre concentration. How many non-country musicians live in Nashville? What about non-Latin musicians in Florida? Nonetheless, this is pretty interesting and worth a quick scan.

You Tube Friday: I'm leaving now!

I love Black Sabbath just as much as the next guy... well maybe not as much as this guy.




P.S.: This is how Carrie Tolles was feeling inside as she snapped photos with My Morning Jacket members at the Morrison Hotel Gallery exhibit opening yesterday.

The Soul of John Black Lets Loose in NYC

The Soul of John Black brought the funk last night in an eclectic set at NYC's Sullivan Hall. He ranged from R&B jams to hard electric blues and from what he calls "country funk" to rock, varying things up and crossing genre boundaries at will. It was a fantastic set and I was able to snap a few photos:

Kendel Carson Stirs it Up At The Living Room

Mark Satlof, Nick Baily and I went out to the Living Room last night to see our new client Kendel Carson for the first time, and I think I speak for all of us when I say she blew us away.

Her magnetic stage presence and beautiful voice were incredible to see live, and her inventive fiddling was truly something else.

She mostly played tracks off her new album 'Alright Dynamite,' out June 23, but she ended dueting with co-conspirator Chip Taylor on covers of his famous songs "Angel of the Morning" and a raucous "Wild Thing." Taylor also produced and wrote most of the songs for Kendel's record.

Here's a shot of all of us at dinner after the show, it was truly beauty and the beasts...



Left to right: Chip Taylor, Nick Baily, Me, Mark Satlof and Kendel Carson

My Gift From TD Bank

So I recently exchanged my coins in the coin arcade machine thing-y at TD Bank. First of all, I have to say that this is the most useful invention since the 311 system (which came in handy when figuring out how to properly dispose of various pieces of furniture during my recent move).

Before throwing all your change into the machine (make sure you sift out all those dust bunnies first!), you can guess the dollar amount of cash you have saved. Usually I bypass this step but for some reason I was feeling lucky this time. And get this: I guessed within $.41, which is shockingly awesome. And my prize? A plastic puke green change holder. I was absolutely gutted. I haven't felt this cheated since the final Sex Pistols show.