We’ve been meaning to try the new, very positively-named Park Slope café, Sun in Bloom, since it opened in January. A) It’s all vegan and sports a fresh, nearly raw menu that still manages to sound tasty, and, B) it’s literally like two blocks from our design studio. So, yes, long time coming. Today we ventured across turbulent 4th Avenue to see just how bloomy this sun was. The result: Very bloomy. Bloomy’s good, right?

The café opened in the recently-vacated shadow of Organic Heights, a very basic vegan café that focused on smoothies, juices, loose-leaf teas, and nice sandwiches and was very reasonable, price-wise. Maybe too reasonable, given last year’s closing. Regardless, Sun in Bloom is very much keeping the dream alive, remaining 100% vegan and showcasing healthy sandwiches, rotating macro plates, and a build your own miso bar. As crunchy as all of that sounds, our fare did a superb job of working comforting, savory tastes into health-minded, whole-foods-based meals. Katie had the macro plate (pictured below), which today featured cannellini beans, steamed collards, brown rice, a raw sauerkraut (no, no, it was totally good!), and a really tasty tahini to top things off that seemed to have some lemon and miso mixed in, perhaps, to give it a bit of an edge. I went straight for the reuben, honestly expecting a fairly dry, hey-this-is-good-but-now-I-want-some-fries kind of take on the classic sandwich. Happily, my rather jaded presupposition was way off. It was great. Truly one of the best vegan reubens I’ve had of late, and make no mistake—I consider the reuben to be a bit of a culinary bellwether for vegan joints, especially cafés. Kind of like the pad thai or drunken noodle of a thai restaurant. This one had a good, not too weighty tempeh and, like the macro plate, a decent portion of live sauerkraut. The kicker was the super-creamy russian dressing though. Truly delectable. And the red velvet cupcake with brandy icing that we brought back to the office made for a lovely transition back into the work day. Blogging’s considered working, right?

The Freelance Whales are destined to save humanity. I know, I know—we’ve been known to jump to conclusions in the past. Some might call us impetuous, some, easy-to-excite, but there’s no way anything short of world peace could come from music this enjoyable and feel-good-y. Take note, UN, take note. Seriously though, these guys (and gal) are filling the long-vacant space in our hearts once occupied by The Postal Service way back when—with their Gibbard-esque vocals and glitchy-catchy keyboards—but then twisting things just so with choppy rhythms, less predictable song structure, and consistently present harmonium and banjo (what, what!) They just played down at SXSW NINE TIMES (cut to that scene with the principal in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) and are continuing their westward trajectory on a pretty extensive tour before heading back home to New York for an April 13 show at Bowery Ballroom and some east coast openings for Shout Out Louds. Be sure to catch them before they re-write the UN theme song and get REALLY big. Album out April 13 on French Kiss/Mom + Pop. Pre-order it here. In the meantime, check out ‘Starring’, this week’s Song of the Week (the banjo breakdown in this RULES).

Holy shit. That’s all we had to say at the end of the night Friday. Shortly after hitting the opening of Round Robin in Greenpoint, the stars aligned above the stormy veil of the night and, moments later, we found ourselves at The National’s show at The Bellhouse, hands-down our favorite venue in Brooklyn (and Patrick’s from Oh My Rockness, as chance would have it). They announced Friday’s last-minute show and one on Thursday a mere three days before via various social networky outlets and—no joke—tickets were sold out in ten minutes. But, thanks to our extra-sleuthy friend, Nina, we scored two of the few remaining tickets day-of. The result: A whole lot of awesomeness. We assume they’re polishing up their live show in front of some friendly faces before heading out on the road next week. Judging from the new material they played, the band’s in no danger at all of hitting a slump after the massive success of The Boxer. The music and arrangements seem to have matured considerably and likely benefitted from the band members’ various side projects—like brothers Bryce and Aaron Dressner’s multi-media piece at Brooklyn Academy of Music and their Red Hot benefit, Dark was the Night—and singer Matt Berninger was as brooding, emotive, and commanding as ever. It made us supremely excited for the new album, High Violet, due out May 11. In the meantime though, we’ll have to tide ourselves over with the memories of a truly superb show. And for anyone who missed their performance last week on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, this week’s Song of the Week is their live performance from that show of the new track, “Terrible Love” (which Beringer dedicated to his wife at The Bellhouse Friday). Photos by Bao Nguyen. You can see more of them and check out the night’s set list over at Brooklyn Vegan.

The Round Robin Collective’s exhibition, ECSTATIC falls under the category of Things Our Very Talented Friends Do. RRC is a group of thirteen artists—because they don’t buy that triskaidekaphobia BS—working in Brooklyn to create and promote cooperative art outside commercial galleries. The exhibition is being held at the eerliy-classic-cool St. Cecilia’s Parish in Greenpoint from Saturday March 13 (no fear!) to April 4. But kicking things off is an opening party Friday night from 7-9PM, complete with opening party music by the also talented Donny Hue and the Colors and Irvin Morazan’s “Musical Chair Performance,” an homage to Saint Cecilia, who just happens to be the patron saint of musicians.

Kindness of Ravens (KoR): Thanks, first of all, for figuratively sitting down with us, internet-style. So, briefly, tell us how you got into the Web-based musical Czar business? You all are married, right? Were you just sitting around watching ER one night and all of a sudden like, “You know what WE should do…”?

Patrick of Oh My Rockness (OMR): Indeed, we are married. But we started the site when we were un-married (which is not a word). Boy, what were we thinking?

KoR: No, I think the church is alright these days with starting businesses out of wedlock. Oh My Rockness is in a couple other cities besides New York now, right?

OMR: Yep, in Chicago and Los Angeles. We also do a SXSW site every year, which is like it’s own city. More cities coming soon though. So far, the Bay Area is probably in the lead for most requested new city. Now that Barry Bonds is gone, we just might do it.

KoR: Man, I had no idea Barry Bonds held such strong anti-Rockness sentiments. So, other than asking yourself, “Would Bonds hates this,” how do you all go about figuring out your recommended shows or bands you like? Do the bands slip you a Lincoln? Is there some sort of democratic process between the two of you? I mean, Patrick, what if Claire showed up and was like, “You HAVE to check out this new Creed album! They use mad vocoder!”?

OMR:
Basically it’s just the personal preference of the two of us. We have very similar tastes so it’s been really easy to find bands we both like. It’s truly 100% what WE like though. If bands want us to profile them, they can ask, but we have to like them. If we don’t like them, we don’t say anything at all. You know, Thumper from Bambi style. We always like getting new submissions though.

KoR: Have you gotten monetary offers in the past to write a band profile or show review or anything?

OMR: Never. We’re pretty clear on our About Us page that offering us stuff to profile shows and bands is not cool with us. Bribery is just kind of gross.

KoR: It’s right after VD on our list of gross things. And the word ‘moist.’ So, we’ve always wondered how it works with buying tickets via your site. Obviously it routes to the venues page or Ticketmaster or what have you, but do you all get a cut of anything? Or does the dude who runs Bowery just give you the ‘Hey Thanks’ nod and buy you a beer when he sees you?

OMR: We are an affiliate of Ticketmaster/Ticketweb, so we do get a small percentage on each ticket sale. If we sell a dozen tickets, we might be able to buy a latte if we’re lucky. So that’s cool. The other ticket companies that we provide links for; we just do so as a service to our users.

KoR: Nice. Now, we’re personally growing lamer by the day, we realize. We’ll go out to a show and be giving each other high fives for the next two weeks if we manage to stay awake into the AM. Do you all find it a bit of a challenge to grow old gracefully and remain the music scene juggernauts of NYC that you are?

OMR: We both pride ourselves in listening to/seeing a LOT of new bands. It’s something we really put a premium on. So while we’re definitely growing old (and by the looks of saggy skin, not gracefully), I hope we’re still relevant within the scene. Those late nights have gotten rougher though. Luckily, we bring plenty of pop tarts.

KoR: Maybe you could hire a monkey with a video camera to catch some of the shows. They work for cheap.

OMR: Our kid is really into Goodnight, Gorilla. So we’re preferential to gorillas. Are they cheap too?

KoR: Eh, they’re union, so it’s a whole other mess. I’d really recommend going monkey and paying under the table. So, we know a lot of this must come from living in the middle of it, but we really feel like there have been SO many great bands coming out of New York in the past year or two. Sure, it’s a super-populated center of creativity, but it seems like lately, especially, some great, great stuff has been happening, don’t you think?

OMR: Absolutely. That’s the best thing about living in New York. Just when you think a scene is fading and/or dead, another new scene sprouts up to start the whole creative process all over again. It’s like the coming of spring every year. There were birds….in the air…but I never heard….them ringing….

KoR: Wait, the birds were… Right, so who new are you liking ‘round these parts lately?

OMR: These questions are always tough. Generally, we’re not too good at being specific. But if we HAD to say: Small Black, Oberhofer, Javelin, Lemonade, The Depreciation Guild, Twin Sister, and Philip Seymour Hoffman we’ve been liking a lot lately.

KoR: Yeah, that Philip Seymour Hoffman band really threw us for a loop for a while. I still just picture the actor up on stage giving overly-dramatic, depressing diatribes on the futility of living before launching into a Dylan cover or something. Well, being such intense scrutinizers of bands and their music on the indie level, any advice for bands in New York or elsewhere on how to get some notice? No corny, “Believe in yourself and ANYTHING’S possible” answers allowed.

OMR: I guess just play a lot of shows and don’t suck. If you do those two things, you’ll probably get noticed by someone. Definitely don’t graffiti your band name on subway walls and sidewalks and stuff though.

KoR: Unless we’re off on our reading, at least one of you seems to have a musical fondness rooted in some old-school ‘90s mid-west style emo. Like, the good stuff, before it became mall emo. True? No?

OMR: You are good, friend. You are good! Yeah that time period and genre has a very soft, warm place in our high school/college heart. We were just listening to Braid this morning. Is that lame? If so, well, guilty then.

KoR:
Are you kidding? “First Day Back,” “A Dozen Roses”, and “Urbana’s Too Dark” have all been in heavy rotation for us for going on twelve years now. Yeah, we saw that you all flew over for that January Cap’n Jazz reunion in Chicago. What the hell was that like? Was it totally unannounced? Was it totally amazing? That seems akin to unearthing the ancient Egyptians to see how they built the pyramids. Wait, is that a good analogy…?

OMR: Ha. That was AWESOME! We had a last-minute tip they were going to play 5 songs, so we bought a last-minute plane ticket and went for it. We were shorted a song, they only played 4, but it was absolutely 100% worth it. If for nostalgic purposes alone…

KoR: Switching subjects out of jealousy, what are your all’s thoughts on music conferences or giant, 50-band rock shows, in general? Efficient use of our limited free time or just overload—like watching Lost, seasons 1-5, in a single sitting?

OMR: We’re into it. We like being able to see a bunch of bands play a bunch of really short sets in a short amount of time. Short sets are underrated! And if there’s a band we like a lot, we’ll see their full set when they do a proper tour.

KoR: Do you have a favorite music festival-conference-thing?

OMR: SXSW. But mostly because of the BBQ and Shiner and a robo-tronic LBJ at the Lyndon B. Johnson museum.

KoR: What the hell?! Our friends in Austin are officially in trouble for never taking us to that. So you all are going to South by Southwest this year, right? Any bands you’re particularly excited about that are playing?

OMR: We are. Definitely want to see Active Child and Male Bonding. Because we listened to them both today. And they rule.

KoR: Do you ever get totally sick of music? Maybe want to start a celebrity spotting site or an angry political blog or something?

OMR: We get totally sick of some types of music, sure. But never music in general. We don’t think we could ever get sick of listening to electro-pop or jazz or metal or folk or whatever Sandy Bull is while eating dinner. Music rules.

KoR: It seems like everyone operating in the Web world is always trying to figure out the next big step or merger or transformation for their particular Web thing. For instance, we’re planning on adding an auto-reader that starts as soon as you visit our blog and announces it’s entire contents in the voice of a sped-up, high-pitched Gilbert Gottfried. Do you all have any big plans—besides the snazzied-up new e-newsletters—that you can talk about?

OMR: We’re doing a WAY overdue site redesign very soon. And we’re going to incorporate more social components into Rockness. And we’re going to have more jokes about vacuum cleaners in our weekly email introductions. Because after all, what’s funnier than vacuum cleaners?

KoR: It’s true. Beater bar? Package yield? Turbine nozzles? All comedy gold. Alright then, lightening round time, sir. Favorite music venue in New York?

OMR: The Bell House.

KoR: Central large stage on the long dimension wall and Sixpoint Righteous Rye. Nice. Least favorite?

OMR: Any place where the stage is in the basement and there’s only one door to get in/out. Fire hazards SUCK.

KoR: Right? Any time we catch a show at Cake Shop, I can’t even concentrate on the band for fear of imminent, fiery death. Weird pet peeve?

OMR: When people insist on bringing their refrigerators to shows. It’s like, can’t you make it one night without bringing your refrigerator? No one likes your refrigerator and we all talk trash about it behind your back.

KoR: Asshats. Favorite TV show?

OMR: All-time? The Wire. Right now? Mad Men.

KoR: Oh, excellent answers, my friend. Best non-TV, band playing show you’ve been to in the last year?

OMR: See Cap’n Jazz question. No doubt.

KoR: Damn you! Most representative mythical beast?

OMR: Big Foot. Not the yeti, the monster truck. No way a truck with tires that big could exist. No way.

KoR: Fair enough. Best theme song from childhood?

OMR: Silver Spoons. And now we’re terrified of being run over by a train in our living room.

KoR: Best theoretical tattoo?

OMR: Michael Jordan. And it’s not theoretical.

KoR: Okay, this may seem like we’re asking a lot, but we feel that everyone should have this figured out for themselves: Favorite song of all time?

Curious Cookbooks

Then that beardy red-haired dude who’s always cooking on TV, Mario Batali, has a new cookbook—Molto Gusto—that focuses on easy-to-make traditional italian dishes that, get this, are largely vegetarian. Partly by chance, we assume, but we did catch Mario on WNYC yesterday talking about how he’s eating less meat lately and thinks that, as a civilized society, we’ll need to rely on meat less in our collective menus. Then again, his food photographer is named Quentin Bacon, so…

We’re trying to think more holistically about things like days and time and schedules and such. Throwing our watches to the sea! Burning our calendars! Totally deleting that iCal icon! In that vein, we give you your usual Monday music today…ON TUESDAY. I know, right. Mind? Blown? Exactly.

New to the list of ‘Music I Can’t Get Out of My Head But Strangely Reminds Me of Billy Ocean in a Way (don’t worry, it’s a short list) is Yeasayer‘s O.N.E., off their sophomore album, Odd Blood. I’ve liked the Brooklyn band since they started making waves in the music scene in 2007, but they were one of those groups who wrote songs I could never really find a foothold with—they were nice and, at times, catchy, but a little too amorphous. But, judging by the few songs I’ve heard off their latest release, it sounds like there’s a lot more grounding in traditional pop song structure…in a really good way. They still have the chilled out, feel good feel, but now it’s easier to follow and DAMN catchy. Case in point: O.N.E., this week’s Song of the Week. If you like that one, get their album here or head over to their label, Secretly Canadian, to listen to Ambling Alp, another top-shelf winning winner. Secret Canada Week continues! Photo by Guy Aroch.