This past Saturday night, I had the opportunity to get to the third night of the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music while down in the city for work (not on assignment for buffaBLOG) and found myself vexed by a distressing turn of events. As a longtime TV On The Radio fan, I was very much looking forward to their closing set that was theoretically the climax of the three day festival curated by the National's Dessner brothers, and I was excited to see TVOTR again, this time in their native Brooklyn... until they started playing because their sound was deplorable. It was a sludgy, almost monotonous din that rendered Tunde Adibempe and Kyp Malone's vocal harmonies and everything else in their set unlistenable, including Tunde's on stage banter, which ended up sounding like he was an adult in a Peanuts cartoon.


The Brooklyn crowd seemed to eat it up, but I looked at the people I was at the show with for confirmation and I got it: they couldn't properly hear TVOTR either, and then I got kind of pissed off because there's no damn excuse. This wasn't the Rush show at the First Niagara (which also had deplorable sound), this was TV On The Radio, in Brooklyn, in an opera house within the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and their guitarist Dave Sitek is also their producer. Plus, Phosphorescent, the band that preceded them, sounded extraordinary. I was all smiles during their set; hell, I almost swooned Phosphorescent sounded so beautiful. The headliner TVOTR however sounded like rubbish, and it made me wonder: is their sound guy that big of an ass clown... or is Dave Sitek going deaf?

As you can tell, I was not amused by these events, and yeah, maybe I'm lashing out, but still, come on. The stage was set for something potentially wonderful, and instead we got something woeful, and I have to blame somebody. And for the record, I thoroughly enjoyed Sitek's impeccably produced Maximum Balloon side project... but somebody has to explain to me how a sonically ambitious and complex band like TV On The Radio can sound like Rush at the acoustically challenged FNC... in an opera house no less. It was a crime against art, technology, and my ears, and Dave Sitek's suspect hearing is taking the rap.

Behold, here's some Sitek... from happier times.

It's an average night out at the frequented bar where smoke streams from the cigarettes of those who usually scatter the sidewalk in front. Inside, the walls are decorated with artful images of half-naked women and a DJ mixes while people dance together in isolation. There is a group that sits together, unsmiling and with a somewhat sneer about their surroundings. "That motherfucker was like 6 iPhones ago." A stereotypical girl in bold-framed glasses is sandwiched between her skinny blonde boyfriend and a similarly styled brunette guy who's wearing a man-tank. After each guy orders a PBR, a battle commences. Not a battle of physical strength and stamina, but a comparison of who has the better iPhone, music library, who is the most followed on Facebook or Twitter, thus proving their worth.

Does this sound like your night out? Perhaps someone you know? Or maybe deep down (possibly not that far deep down) it's you that relates the most?

Buffalo native Bill Boulden, otherwise known as Spruke, released a cleverly animated video this week to go along with his song "Natural Order (Battle of the Hipsters)." A track from Factor Friction, his fifth EP release, the tune is mostly electro-pop with some mild dubstep undertones. The video was designed by Brooklyn-based artist Nathaniel Soria of Studio N8. 

After watching you may find yourself caught in the paradox of artistically portraying a hipster. It's irony of the ironic, which if you think about it too much turns into a vicious circle of irony.

"The portrayal was meant to be lovingly satirical," says Boulden, a self-titled hipster. "It's totally internalized; that's me I'm making fun of there. It's a self-satirizing look at all the times we've gotten in metaphorical fights at bars over who has better phones or musical taste, but portrayed literally."

A well composed song and a great execution of animation, this video tells a story and is a (sub)cultural exploration. Whether music, literature, film or television is your competitive pedestal, many are guilty of having that one-upping conversation to test each others breadth of knowledge.

But as the song ends, the world around the man in the man-tank burns slowly after the grandiose mass destruction, he sips his victory PBR alone at the (somehow still standing) bar.

Talk about visual metaphors.

Tonight Brooklyn powerfunk all stars Turkuaz bring their hard hitting funk stylings to Nietzsche's to tear the roof off the heart of Allentown. Disciples of the almighty Sly and the Family Stone, Turkuaz blends earnest funk, a New Wave aesthetic, and a case of Red Bull to stage a riotous and irresistible live show guaranteed to have asses shaking. Did I mention that they're from Brooklyn? That they're Brooklyn Bowl regulars, and that you really ought to follow Brooklyn Bowl's deeply edifying Twitter feed? It looks like MNM and ECE Presents did it again. Tickets are $10 and the doors at Nietzsche's open at 9.

Friday night (September 28) I larked off to New York City after work to stay and hang out with most excellent relatives and burn through some vacation time in Brooklyn. I was well watered and fed. Saturday night cousin Rebecca and I went to the David Byrne and St. Vincent show at Williamsburg Park (parking lot is more like it) after spending the afternoon in the Lower East Side hitting up a few galleries, The New Museum ($15, a bargain), and the best t-shirt store ever. As you may have noticed, I'm a Byrne fan and seeing him was a big thing (seeing him with Annie Clark and a horn section was an amazing bonus). 

The Denzels are a five-piece band from Brooklyn, NY. Their newest offering is the impressive Easy Tiger, which just so happens to be the inaugural release from Brooklyn upstart label Admirable Traits. Easy Tiger needs no drawn out introduction - it is a five-song EP full of jangly garage pop that is short, sweet and, perhaps most importantly, accessible.

Easy Tiger kicks off with the upbeat "Black Girls," a track that quickly set the feel for the rest of the album. Although nothing is quite as fast as "Black Girls," the rest of Easy Tiger is soaked in reverb and surprisingly easy to enjoy. Track 2, "Rae Rae," finds the band singing "I like you, I want to keep it that way." I can't help but say the same thing about The Denzels.

The Denzels have ultimately written an EP that blends a number of influences without digging themselves into the confines of any specific one. What we get is a band that could have come from either California or New York. West coast surf rock with a brooding, East Coast-transplant frontman... or even a bunch of Brooklyn-based musicians who decided to challenge the cold, precise indie rock their city is known for. "Shaking" and "Waterfront" are both telling examples of this theory - they owe just as much to Surfer Blood as they do to Turn on the Bright Lights-era Interpol, and perhaps even more to The Smiths. Either way, there is a bit of everything here, and nothing sounds phoned in.

"Cure," Easy Tiger's closing track, is an incredible build up to a fitting finale. Somewhere around 3:00, a mark where half of their other songs had already ended, the band coalesces into a wave of perfect, shimmering pop. Just as soon as it came, the wave is gone; this is a craft the Denzels have perfected. Nothing on Easy Tiger is ever more than it needs to be, and that is very refreshing.

With every song clocking in at around 3:00 (with the exception of, "Cure"), Easy Tiger comes and goes pretty quickly at under 20 minutes. This is very much a good thing - nothing here is overdone and everything is accessible and relevant. If nothing else, Easy Tiger is a very promising release from both the Denzels and Admirable Traits.