December 22, 2009: Vol. 32, No. 51

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December 22, 2009 / GO Brooklyn / Williamsburg / Brooklyn Nightlife / Campbell’s Soup

Bridge-and-tunnel crowd ruins our columnist’s night at Brooklyn Bowl

By Andy Campbell

The Brooklyn Paper

All I wanted was a real filthy, freaky, nasty Brooklyn dance party.

I went looking for it on Dec. 17 at Brooklyn Bowl’s sold-out Neon Indian show, but I was sorely disappointed. Why? Because the local scene wasn’t local at all. I spent two hours chatting up people before the opening act, and practically everyone in the packed house had taken a train from the city.

Worse, someone must have slipped Haterade into their Brooklyn Lager.

“Williamsburg wouldn’t even have a venue if it weren’t for Manhattan,” one West Village girl sniffed as she fumbled with her mom’s credit card at the ticket window. I had asked her whether she was from Brooklyn, and she turned on me like an undercover narc at Burning Man.

“I don’t understand why Brooklyn people have to represent so hard anyway.”

Here’s why: Because all those head-bobbing, Facebook-updating Manhattan cretins spent most of the night with their fists in their pockets, even during a killer set from the opening act, Tigercity.

I couldn’t find any of my borough brethren. Did Williamsburgers waste their pocket change at Neon Indian’s last two shows in Manhattan — or is the band just not Brooklyn enough?

I’m guessing, the latter. After all, this band is having a horrible identity crisis right now. Its Myspace page lists its home as “Brookyln/Austin, Texas” (yes, they spelled it wrong), and the band told Pitchfork that it aspires to move to the borough, oh, sometime around February.

I’ll believe it when I see the outrageously overpriced lease.

And even if no one wanted to fork over hard-earned Brooklyn bucks to see some faux Texans, why didn’t anyone “represent” for Tigercity, the only truly local (and most dance-party qualified) band at the show? At least the up-and-comers got a few people wiggling, which is better than the headliners could say.

But I digress. When I go out, I want a dance party, and I know it can be done with a little Brooklyn-based love. And when the house is full with our crowd, all those West Village scenesters will be jealous that they forgot to remind mom to buy them tickets.

Until that day comes, I’m stuck in Brooklyn with the bridge-and-tunnel crowd.

←Fort Greene: Painting a ‘Target’

→Shopping: Ring in the new year with Melissa’s gingerbread spice cake

Reader Feedback

J from Williamsburg says:

Yep, that's why I spent all of 5 minutes at BB. I was really looking forward to that place for shows. But alas, it's a slice of Hoboken (by way of the West Village, apparently) right here in the 'Burg. Yay.

Dec. 22, 2009, 4:08 pm

Guido from Bensonhurst says:

Yeah, and its too bad all these Williamsburg hipsters aren't even from Brooklyn, either.

They moved here and jacked up all the rent!

Well, at least you can still get good deals in Benshonhurst!

Bring back L'Amours!

Dec. 22, 2009, 9:14 pm

Local from NYC says:

You know whats really annoying? People who moved here from Wisconsin or Oregon last month and think they are better than people who got here week.

How about if you all got out of my city???? Well, maybe not all. I actually LIKE all the minority groups that come here from europe, asia, latin america. Its the wimpy fly-overs who treat this city like a playground that are most disturbing. you are ruining the city for everyone else.

Dec. 23, 2009, 9:25 am

Foxman says:

Where is Andy really from, my bet is not NYC, Brookly or any other borough!

Dec. 23, 2009, 10:46 am

Paul from Williamsburg says:

Maybe it was because Tigercity's set was way too long and wasn't very good?

Also, Local: Yours is the oldest, least inventive complaint in the book. People have been whining like this for hundreds of years. If you don't like what New York has become, why not just move to Wisconsin or Oregon? With all these new arrivals, surely some empty apartments have opened up there.

Dec. 23, 2009, 11:35 am

Auggie from Park Slope says:

To Paul from Williamsburg,

You know what pipsqueak? You may be on to something. We'll take Brooklyn to the Midwest and liven up those stiffs. God knows they need some culture in their lives.

Dec. 23, 2009, 12:25 pm

Auggie from Park Slope says:

Also,

Mr. Tomato Soup, you critique these young ladies with rich fathers when half of Brooklyn's once great north is filled with these punks who try too hard and carry silver spoons. Half of 'em won't know the Brooklyn accent if it hit them across their headbands.

Dec. 23, 2009, 12:30 pm

SAJH from SI says:

People complain too much, esp hipster 'freelance' writers. As far as the Manhattan Williamsburg thing (lets face it, WB is NOT Brooklyn): take a walk on a mid-day in Williamsburg around Bedford btwn S 2nd and N 11th and look at all the license plates. Yes, that's right, Wisconsin, PA, NJ, South Carolina, Texas. On some streets I have found not ONE NY plate. So yes, when going to a Williamsburg venue, dont expect actual Brooklynites, even if they live a block away or in another borough. B/c Williamsburg is no different that alot of Manhattan nabes. Both are full of people that 'just came here 2 years or less ago'. From my understanding, Hipsters are really rich ivy or just below ivy school graduates that are 'rebelling' against what their well-off parents want them to be and are pursuing their 'artsy' goals subsidized at least 33 to 50% by their parents. It may not be 100% of the truth but its a generalization that falls mostly true...

Dec. 23, 2009, 4:30 pm

Newsriffs from Yorkville says:

I regularly take the train, or walk the Williamsburg Bridge out to Brooklyn venues. Miss Favella, Botanica, Bell House, Barbes,and Spike Hill are regular destinations.

As a real New York native, (born on E. 17th Street) who has been performing in clubs, and going to clubs, for 35 years, I see the same thing over the years in an assortment of neighborhoods.

Young idiots from Ohio, or Utah, who move to New York and the "hip" part of town, and immediately become so "authentic" that they have nothing but scorn for the "new" folks who arrived two months after them.

Before you arrived in town from your state college, with your little lower-lip stash, Williamsburg and Park Slope,and most of Brooklyn were neighborhoods of working people, and they were not so happy to see you arrive and outbid them for their apartments.

You might also ask the artist and club owners if they mind a house full of Manhattan types filling the seats and cash registers. I'm sure they have no problem with our intrusion in your borough.

If you were as hip an insider as you imagine, you would have found the club that the outsiders haven't discovered yet.

You would know where the "real filthy, freaky, nasty Brooklyn dance party" was, and you'd know where to go next, when the "bridge and tunnel" crowd discovered it.

But, you just play a hipster in a newspaper. I'm sure you send the clippings home to Iowa, for your mom to stick up on the refrigerator, with magnets.

You're a bitter, crybaby, hipster, and a disgrace to your narrow brimmed hat.

Dec. 23, 2009, 10:09 pm

jess from bk says:

word.

Dec. 24, 2009, 9:24 am

Skinny Chick from West Village says:

Seriously, who cares? If people from brooklyn are too boring or too cheap to show up to a concert, is it really news?
You guys have no money and you like to stay in instead of having fun. It's who you are. And I say this as a girl who grew up in Brooklyn and chose to move to manhattan.

Dec. 28, 2009, 8:17 am

Chas from Old New Utrecht says:

Brooklyn, Kelso, Six Point. That must be what it's all about.

Dec. 28, 2009, 1:34 pm

Jenny Miller from Lower East Side says:

Whoa, who's slinging the Haterade? Just because a few stuck up rich people live in the West Village (sorry, they're in Brooklyn, too), doesn't mean all of Manhattan is "cretins." In using a dull show as an excuse to throw mud at Manhattanites, methinks the writer doth protest too much.

Jan. 2, 2010, 5:29 pm

Gtron from Bushwick says:

All U Haterz need to stop wit da intra-archipelago beefs U only need to know dat Tigercity da best band EVA also Paul I agree with Auggie you going down pipsqueak me n Auggie gon spank U hater

Jan. 5, 2010, 9:38 am

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