The Michael Jackson Pub Crawl has started

Previously.

Reminder today in TSP

July 11, 2009 from 2-6 p.m.:
BLACKOUT SHOPPERS PRESENT

2 Iconicide
2:40 Skum City
3:20 Trauma Team
4 World War IX
4:40 Blackout Shoppers
5:20 Star Fucking Hipsters

More info. here. Thanks to the Shadow.

Oh, before and after the show, why not stop by Ray's?

Day 5

And oops. Somehow managed to miss Day 4. Previously.

Today is the first day that the New York Post hasn't had Michael Jackson on Page 1 since June 26

Because a $450 keg of Stella rolled over to your table is low-key and NOT over-the-top

The Times dips its toe into the Superdive pool today with a hefty piece on NYC's new, low-key nightlife mantra. The article begins at a new bar called Superdive. Shall we?

Superdive is pretty much nothing. And nothing is as hot as anything these days.

Superdive, which opened in late June, is a much blogged-about bar on Avenue A in the East Village that has deconstructed nearly every imaginable pillar of the over-the-top New York night life scene.

The bathrooms have plywood stalls, a scrawny doorman checks IDs but little else, and instead of bottle service, Superdive offers keg service — tableside.

“Since everything else is so chi-chi,” the manager, Keith Okada, said while pushing a plastic cup of beer toward a young woman at the bar last Monday night, “we thought, ‘Why not offer keg service?’ ”

At a table, a group of men in their 20s and 30s shared a 5-liter keg of EKU Pils beer to celebrate what they call “Manday,” a semiregular male-bonding night out.

Superdive suited them more than a noisy club with menacing velvet ropes and $400 bottles of vodka, said David Sitt, 32, a Manday regular and psychology professor at Baruch College.

“When you watch the Flintstones and they are at the Water Buffalo Lodge,” he said, referring to the homey clubhouse where Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble and pals partied, “they don’t have bottle service there.”

“We’re in a period where a snotty attitude is not helping people feel better about themselves,” he added.

Super fancy is out. Revenues are down 20 to 40 percent in the last year at those throbbing Manhattan nightclubs that flourished by catering to Wall Street guys who casually swiped their credit cards for four figures, club owners said. Many once-hopping clubs, like Lotus, Mansion and Room Service, have closed or are being remodeled.

At Marquee, the West Chelsea club and gossip-page fixture, revenues are down 22 percent so far this year compared with last, said Noah Tepperberg, one of the owners.

“Three or four years ago it seemed like every bar in New York had a rope and some imposing looking guy,” said David Rabin, an owner of Lotus and the president of the New York Nightlife Association.

Now, he said, haughtiness is as stylish as a balloon payment.

Club owners are searching for a new night-life formula, something that jibes with the culture’s low-key mood and yet shakes free whatever is left of the city’s disposable income.

Ideas differ, but the owners agree on one thing: the word “club” has about as much cultural relevance as the Macarena. And they go to lengths to avoid the word. Mr. Tepperberg, for instance, is calling Avenue, his newest endeavor that opened last month, a “gastro-lounge.”

Nothing really to do with anything — unless you're going to a birthday party

Tomorrow in Tompkins Square Park...

July 11, 2009 from 2-6 p.m.:
BLACKOUT SHOPPERS PRESENT

2 Iconicide
2:40 Skum City
3:20 Trauma Team
4 World War IX
4:40 Blackout Shoppers
5:20 Star Fucking Hipsters

More info. here. Thanks to the Shadow.

No drinks with your Supper — for a little while, anyway

A note from a reader about Supper at 156 E. Second St.:

Supper (of Lil Frankie and Frank empire) did not put in the application for renewal for their liquor license in time. Normally when that happens an establishment can request a waiver from the Community Board to serve alcohol in the interim when the new license is in effect. However, due to the massive complaints they have received from community members for noise and blocking the sidewalk with their patrons waiting for tables, CB3 did not grant the waiver. This means that Supper does NOT have a liquor license currently and I believe they will not until mid August. ... Last night the police were called to be informed that they were serving alcohol without a license and the bar and at least one table from the sidewalk cafe was shut down. I'm not sure when they actually can start serving alcohol again.

Revisiting Punk Art

Back in May, we did an interview with Marc H. Miller, the founder and director of Ephemera Press. He had launched 98 Bowery: 1969-1989 — View From the Top Floor.

Marc recently wrote to me about a new section on the 98 Bowery site: Punk Art. As he notes at 98 Bowery:

As Bettie Ringma and I watched various musicians at CBGB successfully launched under the rubric of Punk Rock, it occurred to us that we might do the same for the visual artists who were part of the extended scene. It was partly tongue-in-cheek, partly hype, but secretly we actually believed we were presenting something new and important. The year was 1978 and the show we mounted with Alice Denney at the Washington Project for the Arts in Washington DC has gone down in history as the world's first Punk Art exhibition ... We repeated the Punk Art show twice: first as a one night, multimedia event at the School of Visual Arts in New York (November 1978) and then in a small exhibition at Art Something in Amsterdam, Holland (June 1979).

Miller has posted the long out-of-print Punk Art catalogue, which features new pictures and video. He also rewrote the introductions, adding stories connected to the exhibition, and updates on the artists.

My favorite section is on Punk Magazine. Or maybe the section on Alan Suicide and Art-Rite magazine. Or...

Here are the covers to the first three issues of Punk...





...and an ad featuring Debbie Harry (photographed by Chris Stein)



Anyway, you can go here and see it all for yourself.

Today's sign of apocalypse: Michael Jackson East Village pub crawl

Ohhh! A warning shot by Village Pourhouse reminding Superdive that they are, in fact, the tackiest bar in the neighborhood.

Starting tomorrow at 11 a.m.:

King of Pop Pub Crawl:
Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough

Moonwalk your way up 2nd and 3rd Ave of NYC in memory of the legendary Michael Jackson. We begin at Village Pourhouse at 11am where your free white glove awaits and we will start living life OFF THE WALL. Let your style SCREAM by dressing up as Michael and look as BAD as you can. Each bar will celebrate musical genius by showcasing our favorite MJ albums in order of release date.

You will feel like a SMOOTH CRIMINAL with a full day of drink specials. Toast Mikey with $1 Bud Lite Drafts, $2 Well Drinks, and 2 for 1 BLACK OR WHITE cocktails (Black and Tans)

You will truly BEAT IT with our final stop at SideBAR at 5pm with 2 for 1 Margarita “King of Pop-sicles.” It is here that we will pay a final tribute with an organized THRILLER dance scene with every Michael in attendance.

If this is too tacky for you, then there's always the Michael Jackson wine pairing.

Noted

"East Village nightlife needed something like Superdive to come along." (L Magazine)

Another new "eating/drinking establishment" for Avenue B

Cafe de Nova closed up back in March. And now that space on Avenue B near 11th Street is under wraps...



According to the work permit on the door: NEW EATING AND DRINKING ESTABLISHMENT AT EXISTING COMMERCIAL SPACE.



Dunno if there's a need for another restaurant here. Um, there are already five restaurants on this side of the block between 11th Street and 12th Street alone.