Author: A Star-Revue Contributor

Music

 Red Hook Roxx, by Leo Liebeskind

  Three great bands for $5 in a beautiful, old-school venue in Brooklyn is almost unheard-of these days. However, that’s just what Jeannie Fry and the good folks of Red Hook Roxx offer every Friday night at Rocky Sullivan’s. Fry first set foot in Rocky’s about three years ago, when the bar was still at its old location, just a […]

downtown peekskill
Arts, Music

Musicians Form Upstate Brooklyn by Jack Grace

There was a time when Brooklyn was an artist’s bedroom community: many musicians only moved here to flee the oppressive Manhattan rents. In the ’80s and ’90s, you and your significant other would tell everyone you were moving out to Brooklyn to a great place with a huge backyard. Friends would come to your first party, agree how cool it […]

Music

COUNTRY MUSIC IS INVITED TO THE COOKOUT…AGAIN by Roderick Thomas

Hip-hop-country is a musical genre. That statement may seem unusual, but it should shock no one. Both country music and hip-hop have roots in folk music and blues – slaps, chants, rhyme, melody, and rhythm are all intrinsic qualities of both genres. It was only a matter of time before these distant cousins joined forces and skyrocketed to massive, worldwide […]

Arts, Pioneer Works

Sally Saul creates her own mythos at Pioneer Works

At Pioneer Works, the Germantown-based artist Sally Saul shares whimsical objects of clay and glaze that create a mythos around subjects that are by turns precious and nefarious. The name of the exhibit, “Blue Hills, Yellow Tree,” captures the sort of winding up and down these 34 works curate. It’s a pleasant ride, whose occasionally puzzling pieces remain amusing and […]

Arts

Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition their annual recycling show and juried exhibitions.

The Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition (BWAC – be cool and pronounce it Bee-Whack) opened its sprawling warehouses in the middle of May. Don’t miss your chance to absorb works from Brooklyn’s largest artist-run gallery. I recently strolled through and passed several gems: Unlike just about every gallery in Manhattan, the works here are reasonably priced. You’ll find spectacularly composed street […]

People eating many oysters at Oyster Kiosk
Editorials

Oyster Past is Prologue: Prehistoric Creatures May Save New York Harbor at Death’s Doorstep by Richard Dodd

“Lost World: UN Report Shows Nature on Death’s Door” was released at the May 2019 Biodiversity Summit in Paris. This 1800-page document carried the lede “Human activity is trashing the planet, pushing hundreds of thousands of species to the brink.” I’m an environmentalist and received coastal stewardship training and certification with Rutgers University. This led to my volunteer work with […]

Land Use, Real Estate

Seven Grand Old buildings, by Will Jackson and George Fiala

Currently, many Red Hookers are upset about the tearing down of the longstanding warehouse at 202 Coffey Street by UPS, which purchased the property over a year ago. This reaction is similar to the demolition of the unique Revere Sugar factory by Thor Equities back in 2006. In both cases, the buildings were sold without landmarking status, and thus the […]

At rehearsal for The Troubador
Arts

May Arts Calendar Picks

May 1 In Carroll Gardens, Cathouse Proper celebrates its fifth anniversary with “FUNeral in Cathouse Proper: Life to Art to Life” running through June 2. The name is appropriate as the gallery originated in 2013 in an East Williamsburg funeral parlor. Founding director David Dixon moved the gallery to its current locale in 2016.  The exhibition includes two massive plaster […]

Music

Notes From The Battlefield – 10 years of Baritone Army by Stefan Zeniuk

Notes From The Battlefield: 10 years of Baritone Army by Stefan Zeniuk 2008 seems like a lifetime ago. Eight years of the Bush administration were winding down, the economy was crashing, the country was embroiled in wars it didn’t know how to end, Obama was harnessing a lost sense of hope and idealism while the entire world was in the […]

Music

Cover Songs – The Agony & The Ecstasy by Antony Zito 

Cover Songs – The Agony & The Ecstasy by Antony Zito  You’re minding your own business one peaceful afternoon, silently arranging your sock drawer, and you make the fatal mistake of turning on the radio. Not the Pandora or the Spotify, but ye good olde-fashioned radio, with the waves and stuff. You’re just but a minute in, when you drop your […]