Francis and the Lights at NYC Apliiq Launch

What looks to be a sweet launch party for startup brand Apliiq is happening on Friday, January 2nd, at Public Assembly in Brooklyn.

Event organizer Steve Pristin '06 (of I Smell Like Money) promises an evening of music, dancing, drinks, party, laughs and high fives all around, with apliiq and karmaloop goods on display and available as giveaways.

Francis and the Lights will be playing live along with Theophilus London, with DJing by Superdunny and Friends with Benefits.

So, kick off the first weekend of the year with Wes people in Williamsburg, see Wes band Francis and the Lights for free, maybe get some free gear, have good times.

Date: Friday, January 2
Time: 10pm - 4am
Place: Public Assembly in Brooklyn, free

Santogold with Jay-Z on B.I.G. Soundtrack

Santogold gets some street cred by collaborating on Jay-Z's new Kanye-produced track "Brooklyn (Go Hard)", which is Track 7 on the soundtrack of Notorious, the upcoming Biggie biopic. The hook samples Santi's "Shove It", and she adds a verse towards the end.

An interesting cross-pollination of traditionally hipsta- and gangsta-identified BK neighborhoods, though sadly it seems that nobody is available to rep Brooklyn in song south of Prospect Park.

Brooklyn-via-Wes Bands in Nylon

Ok here is more beating you over the head with this Wesleyan/Brooklyn thing- page 132 of this month's Nylon magazine features "Brooklyn Bands" as a reason to feel superior about being American: "In New York's most populous borough, you can't toss a PBR can without hitting a good musician."

Repping Wesleyan among said bands are Amazing Baby, Bear Hands, and Boy Crisis:

• amazing baby: Though less than a year old, Amazing Baby play psychedelia like they spent the lat '60s turning on and dropping out.
• bearhands: An upbeat, occasionally pop-y four-piece that sings a hell of a good reluctant love song.
• boy crisis: Boy Crisis is what Prince would sound like if he was actually five guys from Brooklyn. We really hope they tour with Girl Talk soon.

See if you can spot Ted Feldman '09 (Bear Hands), Lee Pender '07 (Boy Crisis), and Victor Vasquez '06 (Boy Crisis) in this Brooklyn scene summer camp photo from Nylon, below:

Wes Bands Headline Williamsburg

The sold-out Halloween show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn is almost entirely fronted by bands containing or composed of Wesleyan alums:

10/31 Music Hall of Williamsburg:
MGMT
Amazing Baby
Violens
Boy Crisis
Francis & the Lights

Links:
MGMT/ Amazing Baby/ Boy Crisis/ Francis & the Lights/ Violens

[via Sophista-funk]

A Night Out With Santogold

The NYTimes' Sunday Styles section features Santi White this week in its "A Night Out With..." feature, in which she lays down some rules to live by:

“I DON’T drink, I don’t do drugs, I don’t smoke and I don’t drink after someone drinks my drink.” These are just some of the commandments prescribed and followed by Santi White, better known as the genre-hopping singer Santogold.

...The other night, Ms. White, 32, was sitting on the patio of Castro’s, a Mexican restaurant on Myrtle Avenue near her home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn... Drinking papaya-mango juice out of a bucket-size cup, Ms. White leaned against an orange wall beneath a cobalt sky dotted with cotton-ball clouds.

...Ms. White’s ensemble was an ’80s salute: tight white pants, an oversize yellow shirt and black Reebok high-tops with rainbow stripes and a gold slash.

She poked at her fish with beans and rice without offering a bite to her companions. The two women reminisced about an impromptu lecture given by a drunken art teacher about how to push in your intestines, should they happen to fall out of your navel. They also recalled a harrowing escape: While working as a waitress, Ms. Roomet noticed a man entering the restaurant with a sawed-off shotgun; she summoned Ms. White, who was dining, and they escaped through the kitchen, taking the bewildered staff to safety.

Around 11 p.m. the gang headed across Brooklyn to the club Studio B in Ms. White’s black Escalade. (“I didn’t know what an S.U.V. was when I bought it,” she said.)

Ms. White had been put on the guest list by some D.J.’s who were performing, so they skipped to the front of a blocklong line. Once inside, Ms. White couldn’t find the guy with the wristbands that would get them into the V.I.P. room.

“I don’t go out much,” Ms. White said with a shrug, and wished she were home. The band playing showed no signs of ending (or improving). By 1 a.m., Ms. White could take no more; she would see the D.J.’s spin some other day.

In a few hours, Ms. White would begin a medically imposed vocal rest for at least a week. She had plans to carry a pad and pen to communicate, and possibly to scribble down a few more of her commandments.

NYTimes: Rules to Tour by: A Night Out With Santi White

Alum Author Gets Prolific in Middle Age

Wesleyan-graduated artists seem to have been especially prolific recently - Gabriel Cohen '82, currently residing in Brooklyn, has published three books in different genres in the past year: "Boombox", a literary novel about gentrification in Brooklyn's Boerum Hill; "The Graving Dock", a more commercial crime novel; and “Storms Can’t Hurt the Sky: A Buddhist Path Through Divorce”, a chronicle of his messy divorce.

Mr. Cohen was born in Austin, Tex., and lived in Afghanistan and Rio de Janeiro as a boy, while his father helped train elementary schoolteachers, before settling in Washington. After attending Wesleyan University in Connecticut and stints in a rock band and at a weekly newspaper, Mr. Cohen moved to New York, taking day jobs to get by. (He has in recent years written occasionally for the City section of The New York Times.)

He wound up in Boerum Hill on Wyckoff Street, where today about the biggest threat on the sidewalk is having your foot run over by a baby stroller. But back in 1989 the block was more dangerous. “I’d hear gunshots at night,” he said outside his old apartment. “I got mugged on this block.”

He was writing a novel there in 1991 when what he called a “writer’s nightmare” began: a teenage neighbor bought a club-size public-address system and began blasting gangsta rap in the courtyard. “I tried talking to him and his mother,” Mr. Cohen said. “She told me, ‘This isn’t Westchester.’ ”

Probably not the kind of rude awakening imminent Wes grads might hope for if/when moving to Brooklyn... but you can dream!