One new track we love of late but haven’t included in our monthly mixtapes (simply because it’s not on SoundCloud) is this one from English songstress Laura Marling.
“Short Movie” is the title track from Marling’s forthcoming fifth studio album of the same name, out March 23 on Virgin EMI and available for pre-order now via iTunes.
A shot of one of the best damn sandwiches in town, Mohawk Bend‘s barbecue sandwich, with chickpea cutlets, vegan bleu cheese, sriracha-stout BBQ sauce, onions, and arugula.
Can’t get enough of barbecue lately—this is a great one.
One of the things that pains us most about having left Brooklyn is the fact that the Gowanus restaurant, Pickle Shack, opened up just as we moved away.
Sure, sure—we miss our many close friends, the proximity to family, and the unmatched classic American gestalt of the city, but Pickle Shack is really really good.
From deep-fried hop pickles to an herbed cashew grilled cheese sandwich to vegan mac-and-cheese specials to the stellar hot smoked Carolina BBQ pulled oyster mushroom sandwich (honestly this BBQ-lover’s favorite take on that kind of sandwich yet), everything we’ve had at Pickle Shack has wildly impressed us and left us missing New York even more than we thought possible. Again, we miss you too, friends. But that BBQ sandwich. Shut up.
We were so impressed, we recently reached out to co-owner + chef, Neal Harden to chat about the origins of the restaurant, the inspiration behind the menu, and where he sees it going in the future.
“My partner is the founder and creator of Brooklyn Brine,” Harden told me on a call, “so he just always wanted to open a restaurant associated with it and I had been a working chef for years.”
Opened in late October of 2013 (a month before we set our sights westward) Pickle Shack is a partnership of longtime friends, Shamus Jones—founder of craft pickler Brooklyn Brine, whose factory is just around the corner—and Neal, the former chef at elder raw restaurant (and current NYC culinary controversy) Pure Food and Wine, and champions of all things IPA, Dogfish Head Brewery.
The restaurant’s menu is obviously pretty pickle- and craft beer-infused—both of which I’m all for—but, surprisingly, it’s also 100% vegetarian, leaning heavily towards vegan, featuring house-made nut-based vegan cheeses.
“Yeah, it’s pretty simple actually,” Harden told me, with regards to why the menu’s so vegan-/vegetarian-friendly. “Both me and Shamus, my partner, have been vegetarians since we were young punk rockers, so we just do what we do. We just want to make the food that we like. And I think that one of the unintended consequences that’s really interesting is that there’s a huge amount of people who really love drinking craft beer and eating vegetarian food because most of the choices you have at pubs and beer bar places, it’s all sausages…if you’re a vegetarian and love craft beer you can’t eat at those places. So I was totally amazed by the amount of people who have come in—I didn’t know that crowd was out there as much.”
When I told Harden how impressed we were that they didn’t just phone it in and bring in a packaged vegan cheese substitute, his response—”Well we wanted it to be good, you know? I mean, when we buy something like dairy or eggs, you know, it’s made by die-hards on the farm or whatnot so we want something that’s the same caliber; something special that’s made by hand, not just a throw-away.”
That dedication to quality hasn’t escaped attention. On every visit we’ve made, the place has been packed. And some major press outlets are taking notice too.
“I don’t know, I mean, I’ve been doing this vegetarian and vegan stuff all my life and I’m used to being ignored, especially by the main stream press,” Harden said with a laugh. “But pretty quickly on we got a review from The New Yorker magazine, which was a huge flattery, being just such a high-level magazine…we just got featured in the Michelin Guide. The response has been more than I ever expected,” he continued. “I always wanted us to feel welcome in the neighborhood, but I thought we’d be just sort of more of a quiet neighborhood joint, but yeah, it’s been great.”
And for the future? “Yeah, we have a lot of plans. It’s always been in the works to bottle the sauces we use. Because the pickle company, that’s not really what they do. They’re more focused on the pickles and they never really wanted to go into that. But now we have this new business and people have responded really well to our homemade ketchup and barbecue sauce and homemade mustard and stuff. And we want to figure out what the best things we make are and just have little smaller versions all over the place wherever the market deems it worthy.”
Neal also mentioned possible new locations and/or outlets that might carry some products down the road. As for the barbecue sauce that I so desperately fell in love with on my last visit, sadly, I could not procure that recipe, seeing as how they’ll hopefully be selling it bottled soon, but I did find out that its base was a house-made yellow mustard—”like our version of French’s”—adding cayenne, ancho chile, and “a lot of tomatoes”.
All the more reason to wait with drooling, bated breath the arrival of the Pickle Shack’s bottled sauces.
Pickle Shack is located at 256 4th Avenue in the Gowanus neighborhood of south Brooklyn and open from noon to 10PM every day except Friday + Saturday, when they close at 11PM.
Above, their deep-fried hop pickles; below, the restaurant’s pickle barreled facade, the pickled vegetable plate, some excellent-looking beers, and a mediocre shot I got of the pulled oyster mushroom BBQ sandwich. All non-mediocre photos by Johannes Kroemer.
Mock ground beef + pickle tacos from Malo; or, as a friend lovingly describes them—grease pockets.
Malo’s got two locations—one in Silver Lake + one in an old jewelry store in historic downtown LA (that one’s called Mas Malo)—and, for modern Mexican-inspired cuisine, they’ve got a decent number of vegan options, chief among them, these deep-fried tacos, filled (when ordered without dairy) with just soy-based, well-spiced mock ground beef and dill pickle slices. Good when you’re looking for that kinda thing. Which is most times for this writer.
The restaurant also offers a vegan soup and a number of other vegan-izeable options. And free chips + salsa at the table!
Came across this ripped out page the other day from an old, droll book of cartoon cat puns that we used to have in the Brooklyn studio. If memory serves, the exterior and spine of the book was beginning to deteriorate, but I couldn’t help keeping some of my favorite pages.
So, you’re welcome.
We’re continuing the tradition we began just last month, sharing a monthly SoundCloud mixtape of new music that’s either been sent our way, we sought out, or that just caught our ear one way or the other.
This month, we’ve got a brand new one from indie stalwart Juliana Hatfield, a soulful track from St. Lenox (who we interviewed just last week), a lo-fi slow-burn pop gem from the near un-Googleable Los Angeles Police Department, a track from the weirdly appealing Brooklyn band, Invisible Familiars, and we start off with an oddly catchy number from the wordy Father John Misty (PS—click that link to check out FJM’s spot-on satirical site). Hardcore fans—skip straight to the end of the mix for some impressive modern day noisegrind supergroup Head Wound City.
Listen below and on our SoundCloud page and be sure to check through—a couple songs included are available for download for free.
A little over a week ago, one of the music PR people who regularly sends us music to review sent over the debut album of an artist we’d never heard of, New York-based Andrew Choi, recording under the moniker St. Lenox. As you may have noticed if you saw our resulting piece last week, we were pretty impressed. Really impressed, actually. And in that very excited because it was something weird that we’d never heard but really really liked kinda way. We got in touch with Andrew shortly thereafter and he graciously agreed to give us a little bit of his time so we could find out more about the mysterious, crooning bird that s St. Lenox. As you can tell, we talked right before the reportedly catastrophic blizzard was about to hit in NYC.
raven + crow: First thing’s first—are you prepared for the coming massive, historic, city-breaking blizzard?
Andrew Choi: Yes. I have at least a year’s worth of food supply and necessities to deal with most worst-case scenarios.
Smart man. I’m actually really jealous. It’s kind of overcast here in Los Angeles, which is pretty traumatic for most of the population, so we’re with you in spirit. So, can you tell me a little bit about how St. Lenox started?
Really, I’m just a karaoke singer. I studied karaoke the same way that I approached classical music. Classical musicians spend a lot of time paying attention to details and phrasing. They study the classics, listen to a variety of interpretations, and think about how to interpret existing songs and make them their own. Of course, since you’re dealing with the classics, you also learn a lot about song composition. As I moved over from karaoke to jazz, and then open-mic, I took a lot of that experience studying American Pop and the Great American Songbook into my own writing. I was familiar with the idea of singing to tracks from karaoke, and I guess that’s why I started writing in the way that I did. I basically write the karaoke tracks and lyric sheets to my own music.
Wow. Honestly, these songs do have that voice overtop of more buried karaoke feel. Cool approach. This is the first album you’ve released, right?
Yes. I mean I released a sort of preview EP that contains 4 of the songs on this album about a year and a half ago. About a year ago I also released an EP of covers, just to work on some of my orchestration and sampling skills.
Well the album’s really really really fucking good. Like I originally wrote when it was sent over to us, there’s something just beautifully off-kilter about the whole thing—the lo-fi production paired with your powerfully unique voice. It’s one of those records that just blew me away. And I feel like the melodies have this eerily memorable quality to them, like they’ve been in my subconscious forever. Can you talk a little bit about your writing process and what inspires your melodies?
It really just depends. Sometimes I’ll start out with chords. Sometimes I’ll start out with a melody. Two things about melody writing: I think too many songwriters are unwilling to write certain melodies, because the melodies evoke certain emotions that they’re uncomfortable—it feels too cheesy or awkward, and it makes them pull back. It’s like when you’re a teenager and your parents hug you when your friends are around. There’s an awkwardness there and you pull away. But really, it’s a missed opportunity. You have to go for it full bore.
The other thing is that with American Idol and its ilk, people have gotten really self-conscious about their voices. They feel like they can’t put their voices out there and present themselves as singers unless they sound like Beyonce or Evanescence. But you don’t have to sound like them to be a singer. My voice is super weird sounding, I think. You know, there’s this R.E.M. song, from their horrendous album Around the Sun called “The Ascent of Man”. It’s not a great song, but you see Michael Stipe just belting like a soul singer. It’s awkward, but it’s pretty awesome. People should embrace that they can be singers (as opposed to just lyricists who hit some pitches) and go for it, even if they don’t release a pristine laser beam of destruction every time they open their mouths, like Amy Lee does.
Great point and, yeah, that really shows in your songs. It’s such a unique sound + pairing—was that a deliberate move or just…natural for you playing music?
I mean, the production is lo-fi because I was actually not rich living off of a graduate student salary for so many years, and I didn’t have lots of money to put into recording. I paid about $600 to make the album, including the cost of instruments, hardware, software and mastering. I think people try a little too hard for things to be lo-fi sometimes. Lo-fi is an opportunity to concentrate on songcraft and dispense with the process of ornamentation—it’s a similar aesthetic to acoustic performance. It means a lot more than just recording on a 4-track, or putting an album through a lo-fi tape filter. I don’t understand trying to imitate a lo-fi sound—that’s concentrating on production in a tedious way that only appears casual. Like intentional bad-hair day. I don’t know whats up with that.
I missed that holiday. I did read somewhere that you were some sort of childhood violin genius, but I hear zero violin on these songs; it’s mainly somewhat downplayed electronics + keys underneath your belting. Do you think there’s a common language in your mind though as far as writing music and having that early foundation in playing it?
I was the 1st prize winner of the American String Teacher’s Association (ASTA) National Solo Competition, for the violin, at their 50th Biennial competition. I defeated a girl that was lent a very expensive Stradivarius.
There is zero use of solo violin on the album. Some general synthy-sounding strings on “The Greyhound Bus Song” and “Pop Song 2012”. I personally think that writers have not figured out a good way to incorporate it. The violin is an enormously expressive instrument, but people these days just use it to play Americana period pieces, or obnoxious “orchestral” backgrounds for Pomplamoose videos. It isn’t given the respect it deserves, and as of now I haven’t figured out how to incorporate it in such a way that gives it that respect, and I probably won’t until I figure that out.
I once heard that the violin’s so beloved by so many people because it’s the closest in tone + range to the human voice. So I could see that battling sonically with singing. Back to your existing style though, I feel like both your lyrics and singing are so blunt and direct, in a really awe-inspiring, gripping way. Who are some musicians who either inspire your work or who you just dig?
I’ve always been a big fan of R.E.M.—they always knew how to write songs, using the fundamentals. Of course, later on they would incorporate different instruments and whatnot. They were very good at setting scenes and telling stories, and writing characters. I’ve enjoyed listening to the Mountain Goats too—actually I feel embarrassed about this, but I never listened to them much until about a year ago. My law school roommate is a big fan of theirs and played some of their stuff for me back then. There’s an experimentation with how lyrics go onto the page that I admire.
Really though, I don’t listen to that much music anymore. I think the market has been crushed with what I’ll call “nominal songwriting” that I don’t really have the time to navigate through. I spent some time listening to modern indie darlings, and it was kind of a big letdown. I’d rather go to karaoke and see someone do something awkward and live. Or listen to stuff that my friends do. There are some great songwriters in NYC and Columbus that you can find just by going local and doing a bit of exploring. Niall Connolly and Ray Brown in NYC, and Joe Peppercorn (of The Whiles) come to mind. Two of them are or have been open-mic hosts. You want to find good stuff, go to the host of a popular open-mic and they can steer you to some good listens.
How are you liking it there in New York, by the way?
It’s great! It’s a great big lonely city. Hmm.
Whereabouts are you?
I live in Clinton Hill. Probably the fastest gentrifying area of NYC. I’ve got a few songs in me, yet to be written, about that.
Ah, yeah. We were in Park Slope + Carroll Gardens for ten years. Brooklyn’s changed a lot in that time. Favorite thing about the city?
If you’re willing to put the time in to find it, you can find it.
And you’re working on your doctorate in philosophy there, right?
Ah, no. I finished my PhD about three years ago. This past year I finished getting my law degree from NYU. I’m now working at a big law firm in midtown Manhattan. I’m officially getting my license in about a week.
Ah, see, I was going to get all dickish parent and ask you what you plan to do with your philosophy degree, but philosophical lawyer sounds winning!
Philosophy allows insight into the logical structure of the universe. That can be useful.
So, St. Lenox—is this something you just plan to do on the side or a one-off album or none of the above?
I have at least 5 albums of material already written. The next album will be better recorded, though I’m not going to go for high polished production. I’m just going to try and make it a bit less harsh in terms of the sound. By the time I’m done with those, I’ll probably have another 3 albums written by then.
Oh, awesome. I was afraid this was a one-time thing. It sounds like John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats has been singing the praises of your album since he came across it. Have you had a chance to reach out to him at all? Seems like a lot of the people who have heard it have heard it directly or indirectly through him.
We had a cool conversation in private. It was really an honor to talk to him. For me, it was nice because I think people tend to focus on my voice, when I want people to recognize me more as a songwriter instead. Also, I think I have lots of classmates from school that didn’t really respect what I was doing. So, it felt good to have some kind of validation out there like that. Not that I needed it for myself. But you know, I had friends that just initially assumed I was terrible, or classmates that would try to give me “pointers” on songwriting. It was awkward and created a distance to be in that situation.
In any case, I’ll probably try and contact him again in the future, just for advice. Like a lyricist uncle or something.
That’s awesome. So, you’ve got a really distinct visual treatment on the few press photos and promo materials I’ve seen to date, kinda deliberately pixelated or like they’re being viewed through an old TV—what’s the idea behind that?
I didn’t have a lot of disposable cash, even in law school. I had to take the pictures myself, and that was the best that I could do. I think most of it is an HDR filter of some sort? I really don’t know what I’m doing. I just press buttons. Beep borp boop.
I mean, I think it kinda follows through with the sound. And the album cover—am I correct in thinking it got changed up at some point from a dark landscape to an 80s style rocket lift-off?
The original cover was a dark landscape of a silo in Iowa. It turns out the picture was so low-res that the printers wouldn’t use it. Which was super embarrassing on my part. Because I have no idea what I’m doing. I mean i’m a musician fer chrissakes. What do I know about that stuff. And it pushed back the release date, which is sort of how the digital/physical release dates got mixed up. It was all my fault, but it’s because I have no idea what I’m doing. I like writing songs and making music. I don’t know how to do this other stuff. I’m learning though.
The new cover, it was one of a few pictures from NASA that was high-res enough to use as an album cover. It also happens to be the shuttle that my elementary school class named, in a big national competition to name the successor shuttle to the Challenger.
Oh, that’s kind of awesome. But seriously, man, next time you need a hand on the graphics end of things, let me know. That stuff, I know.
So are you planning to play out to support the record at all?
I will be playing some shows, with backup. It’s sort of a combined tracks + live instruments + voice affair. We’re working out the kinks. I’ll probably be following the “Live Rehearsal” tradition of R.E.M. (circa Accelerate). I have a college show that I might be working on soon, and try some visits to Boston, Philly and D.C. over the next few months.
Well let us know if you make it out here to LA. Finally, spirit animal?
It turns out, I am my own spirit animal.
Best response to that question yet. Thanks, man!
The cherimoya, also confusingly spelled chirimoya, ranks among our favorite fruits in the surprisingly long list of fruits we had no idea existed before moving to California.
The name’s evidently derived from the native South American word, chirimuya, which means “cold seeds,” because the plant grows and seeds germinate at high altitudes.
The skin of cherimoyas is a bright to deep green, developing darker, blackish areas as they ripen. Split open, the fruit contains a soft, creamy fruit flesh and sizable, pebble-like dark brown seeds which, evidently, are poisonous if crushed and ingested (they’ve actually been used as an ingredient in insecticides).
The flesh, though, make for a really great, all natural ice cream alternative. Just cut the fruit open, carefully remove all the seeds, and freeze overnight in heavy plastic bag or other container. Then, set out for a few minutes to allow it to thaw away from the container sides and mix briefly in a blender until creamy. Plate and eat as is or, as we’ve done, add some fresh berries or a quick warmed jam.
Cherimoya season proper just started in southern California and runs roughly for the next two months, so get thee to your farmers’ market!
Some of us spend the days we’re homebound with a pending blizzard and 102°F fever, I don’t know, curled up on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Gilmore Girls.
Others write an awesome song in that time. Like Danielle “Danz” Johnson, AKA Computer Magic, who just released “Dreams of Better Days (Don’t Pass Me By)”, available for streaming and free download.
Danielle’s releasing her debut studio full-length later this year. You can read an interview we did with her last February. I guess we used to embed videos in the sidebar? Cray. Cray.
Photo by hand crafted by martin.
This quote, from the truly excellent movie Dear White People, so very succinctly explains this basic concept that seems to elude most of us Americans.
Next time someone spouts some bullshit about King Obama or reverse racism, just repeat this calmly and clearly.
And seriously, this movie is awesome. If you haven’t already seen it, please do watch it at your earliest convenience. It is that beautiful, rare mix of entertaining and important.
