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Sharon Jones' Daptone Studios burglarized

Brooklyn retro-funk revivalists Daptone Studios, home of the music crit approved Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings, got ganked:

"Friends and associates,

As you may have heard through the grapevine by now, Daptone was broken into last night. Unfortunately, there was a lot of equipment (mics, pre-amps, monitors, turntables, guitars, amps, computers, etc.) stolen and damaged. It is going to take us a while to go through everything and take full stock of what was stolen, and we are not supposed to touch anything until the cops come back to collect fingerprints so we can only guess what’s missing from some mic drawers and cabinets.
And, no, we did not have insurance. We had been shopping around with different companies earlier this month but had not signed a check, so nothing was insured. We are working on replacing the gate in front, installing an alarm system, and getting insurance, but it is President’s day so it’s not going as quickly as we would have liked.
Nydia’s computer was stolen (which wasn’t backed up) and the modems/ phone system was ripped out, so we’ll be relatively out of commission for a few days.

I would like to ask for everyone’s help first in keeping an eye out for all of our stuff showing up on ebay/craigslist/local music shops, and secondly (and more realistically) keeping an eye out for good deals on headphones, mics, pre-amps, etc. I could really use a heads up on any kind of studio package for sale or studio equipment to be possibly bought or borrowed as soon as possible. We have a session scheduled for Friday to lay down some music for (I know this sounds
surreal) Rod Stewart, and I’m going to have to get the studio running by then. I know I’m going to need to find headphones, cables, mics, and pre-amps by then. I’m not sure what else yet.

Upon first glance we are definitely missing:
Fender Super Guitar Amp in case
Fender Deluxe Guitar Amp
A whole bunch of headphones and wires
Nydia’s HP laptop computer
One Desktop MacIntosh Computer
One Purple Audio API style lunchbox with
four Purple Audio Biz mic pre-amps
2 Yamaha NS10 monitors
Vintage Harmony Rocket Guitar
One steel string acoustic guitar
Martin Tenor sax in a gig bag
Technics 1200 turntable
Ion USB turntable
Teac Receiver/stereo amp
Sony dual deck CD burner/player

If you come across the goods at a pawn shop, drop a line to Daptone Studios.

••• Brooklyn DIY @ MOMA, Feb. 25 •••

Marcin Ramocki's 75 minute doc Brooklyn DIY is pure blog fodder. It's packed to the shitbrim with underground street parties, tecknotrik zippies and post-Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test yupsters. (“I wanted to make a light, funny portrait of an art community, which is facing a rapid extinction, at least in its DIY version.” Ramocki told the Voice.)

Unveiled at MoMA Feb. 25, Brooklyn DIY's got the goods: interviews with electroclash godfather Larry Tee and zombiefied performance artist Jillian McDonald.

«Brooklyn DIY«

••• Anti-Valentine's Day Party @ The Surreal Estate •••

As the jizz-stained corporate boardrooms gobsmack hapless fratstitutes into equating cubic zirconia keepsakes with unfettered poon this "holiday" seez, the commune cretins of Surreal Estate are blessing us with the Anti-Valentine's Day + DIY Anti Fashion Week bash.

I know what you're thinking, dear reader: that's a buttload of anti rabblerousing for a mere sentence. And didn't I commit to Eve Ensler's vagina party this Feb. 14?

But then, the MySpace press release unloads this precious gem:

"There will be a free Tantric Yoga class at 11 p.m., where you can energize your sex kundalini and breathe your way into orgasm."

Sold.

••• Stop N' Swap @ The Shabazz Center •••

The Washington Heights Stop N' Swap will be percolatin' at The Shabazz Center this afternoon from 11am-4pm. In these dire times of certified corporate-class government titty-suckers, the Manhattanites will be out in full-force getting their ragamuffin on! Hole E. Shite, honeychild: The Stop N' Swap boasts musty feminist lit (hello Andrea Dworkin!), pop-n-fresh fedoras and top-notch vinyl.

••• Dan Deacon @ The 1896 •••

For only three bones, Williamsburg DIY don Todd Patrick's Brooklyn vs. Baltimore dance party last Friday at The 1896 was pure bang for your recessionista buck.

If you ain't seen Dan Deacon's faux rave in the flesh, tough titties. In prep for his upcoming Bromst tour (album out March 24 on Carpark), Deacon is abandoning his blinking neon-green skulls and stage-swamped theatrics.

But at the very least, you'll have the pixelated memento mori. Big ups to The Pirate Hat for the pix.

••• Apes & Androids @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, Jan. 30 •••

Dear PBR-chuggin', Future Date Rapists of Amerika: Happy Superbowl weekend!

While yer wipin' the orange dust from Cheetos fingers and relishing cutesy har-har sargasms from the latest Madison Avenue turdballs, I'll be recovering from my night out with Apes & Androids.

Conga-yacht rockers Vampire Weekend look like a malignant mole on Dom DeLuise's poop chute next to A&A's unironic Jermaine-worthy falsettos, fuzzed-out synth brews and Korean drum circles.

Their self-released debut album Blood Moon is a Ziggy Stardust post-modern clusterfuck.

mp3: APES & ANDROIDS CREEPY GIRLS [buy here]

from rcrdlbl.com:
“Creepy Girls” is more or less a break up song written a long time ago. We'd been performing it for a while and waiting for the right time to put it on tape. When it came time to record, the whole thing was done in two days. That's not usually how we work, but this time it just all came out on first takes and everyone recording just kept nodding and saying, ‘Yes yes!’ It was pretty awesome.

••• Ninjasonik @ Vanishing Point Studio, Jan. 29 •••

One gets the impression that crunktastic Medina trio Ninjasonik drowns in a Challis of hedonism. From the scrunched tiggle bitties on their Tight Pants EP to their predatory megablasts of homophobia, these nigs don't mess around.

But here's the thing: Ninjasonik is the first post-racial punk hip-hop hybrid. (That is, if you don't count the ball-less Warped Tour nerblets Gym Class Heroes.)

They crib equally from referencing points as varied as Beastie Boys, Dead Kennedys and Aphex Twin. A hyphy brew, no doubt.

¡NinjaSonik on MySpace!

Ninjasonik spits dubs at the Showpaper benefit on Jan. 29.

••• Franz Nicolay @ Vanishing Point Studio, Jan. 21 •••

Old news: mustachioed Hold Steady keyboardist Franz Nicolay's solo debut The Major General still delves into the Brooklyn band's hyper literate nuts-and-bolts rock, but his new songs are a smidge dirgeful than anything in The Hold Steady canon.

Opening track "Jeff Penalty" begins with spidery guitar riffs that gradually morph into an all-too-familiar stamping ground: surging, handclap-heavy alehouse anthems. The burning question: can Nicolay out-Finn Craig Finn?

The debate rages on:

mp3: FRANZ NICOLAY INFERNO VS. THE END OF THE EVENING [buy here]

(Are You) Happy Now?

The Manhattan Project is about as lifeless as a cracked out McDonalds pleeb and about as humorously vapid as a Night Court marathon.

What's been chafing my gonads lately? Well for starters, I don't have enough fiber in my diet. Ever since I dewedged myself from president-elect Barack Obama's asshole, I've been born anew with strains of libertarian socialism and Christian anarchism dancing 'round my head.

Last week, I scrounged around in the 86th Street Dunkin' Donuts garbage bin for the love of Freeganism—on CNN, nonetheless—and soothed my nerves with the discordant anarcho-punk of Reagan Youth.

The reason Reagan Youth donkeypunches Sid Vicious' hairless chodes? No. 1: Lead singer Dave Rubinstein (born 1964, died July 3, 1993) be all up in the Religious Right's biznass, tramping around with the subtlety of an opium-snorting pacaderm in Waterford's. (cough: See "Jesus Was a Communist" below.)

No. 2: Reagan Youth is chillaxin' with this anti-racist, womyn-lovin' ideology. (A rarity in the hyper-masculinzed circle jerk circles of punk rawk.)

And finally, their music is the perfect soundtrack to the Reagan-era: full of snotty sneers, brash guitar stabs and What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis? insolence.

The re-formed Reagan Youth plays ABC No Rio this Friday on the Lower East Side.

REAGAN YOUTH JESUS WAS A PACIFIST [buy here]