Thursday 6/14 @ Various locations
In 2009, the folks behind L Magazine pulled off the first Northside Festival, an ambitious multi-day cultural shindig centered in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. Four years and hundreds of concerts, screenings, and gallery shows later, Northside has grown into a formidable festival that spans eight days and showcases "what's next" in music, art, film, and now, business. Boasting upwards of 350 bands, 45 films, and 100 artists, this year's highlights include performances by Jens Lekman, Kool Keith, Dustin Wong, Of Montreal, Ceremony, VÅR, and Beach Fossils, and films starring Seth Rogan, Sarah Silverman, Lukas Haas, and James Franco, as well as a documentary about artist Ai Weiwei. Still committed to its upper-Brooklyn location, Northside's newest addition is Entrepreneurship, an arm which features panels and a trade show exploring innovation and the evolving business landscape. For the most up-to-date information, tune into the festival's website.
Coming Up
Today @ City Reliquary
Brooklyn's greatest little museum takes over Havemeyer Street between Hope and Grand for a day of BBQ, contests and tons of bikes.
Today @ The Mercury Lounge
If Virgins frontman Donald Cumming looks familiar, it may be because you've seen his bits 'n pieces gracing the walls of the Whitney, as part of friend/photographer Ryan McGinley's The Kids Are Alright series. Spawned from a meeting-of-the-models in the fantasyland of McGinley's photographs, the Virgins have been recording and performing together for just over a year, but in that time they've already opened for the likes of Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. Aside from the band's connectedness, its success can be attributed to undeniable talent, a gritty, catchy sound, and poetic lyrics inspired by the LES' streets, sex, and drugs.
Today @ Governors Island
Leave the potato salad packing to someone else this Memorial Day holiday and head out to Governors Island for a Sixpoint-beer-and-blues-infused picnic produced by Karma Food Projects. Sample goods from 20 different food stations representing restaurants across the boroughs, or witness chefs from Peels, Five Points, Vandaag, and Left Bank throw down, making staples such as wild game sausages, tacos, and grilled cheese sandwiches. A hot sauce tasting and a half-dozen blues bands are also part of the days' distractions. Admission to the 5 Boro PicNYC covers one beer ticket and unlimited sampling from 11:30am-2pm. Beyond that, it's pay as you go. This one could get crowded, so we suggest an early start.
Today @ Barrow Street Theater
Nina Raine continues the "kitchen sink" tradition of British theatre with her wrenching family drama, Tribes. Billy (Russell Harvard) is the deaf member of a rather pretentious, completely dysfunctional academic family that doesn't know how to listen or recognize that Billy's brother Daniel (Will Brill) is mentally ill. For better and worse, everything changes when Billy meets Sylvia (Gayle Rankin), an exceptional listener losing her hearing. Raine's domestic touches are fully realized thanks to David Cromer's direction. No stranger to family drama, Cromer is masterful at manuevering ordinary conversation with life-changing revlations. As he did with Our Town, Cromer again takes advantage of the Barrow Street Theatre's initmate space by putting the audience on the edge the action — and while that kitchen sink is offstage, Scott Pask's set is a homey flat-turned-prison....
