Every Goodbye Is a New Start

New York City is a magnet for people, but – unfortunately – we have seen many friends move away. The latest in line is Ema Barnes, NYC music lover extraordinaire, who said goodbye to her NYC friends last Sunday. According to BandsDoBk, she has seen 771 shows in the previous seven years. That accounts to, give or take, nine shows per month. She had the wits to keep a spreadsheet from the beginning, while Elke and I probably needed to spend a long winter evening piecing everything together from photos, calendar entries and also gasp some spreadsheets. However, we won’t be anywhere close to that high number in only seven years.

Whatever our count is, we added two more shows to it last week: on Wednesday, we saw Marina Allen and Jana Horn, and on Monday, Lily Hain. This February, the latter released one of my favorite albums of the year, Fatal Flaws. She is a gifted songwriter and a charismatic performer, although more introverted than I guessed from her online persona (which should have been obvious, listening to her songs). After a break from the stage, this marked a one-off show at Arlene’s, but one can imagine she’ll play for bigger crowds soon once she gets into the groove.

All this made us feel better connected again to the local music scene, a feeling we lost after the end of our showcase series and the start of the pandemic. We’d like to find a way to incorporate this into the glamglare site and newsletter.

I enjoy listening to the new Ableton Doing Music podcast lately. Ableton is the maker of popular electronic music software and hardware, has realized that it is an excellent business model to feed its customers’ creativity for a long time. Doing Music is hosted by Craig Schuftan, who talks with various artists about their creative process. For starters, I recommend listening to the episode with Sofia Kourtesis, the utterly charming Berlin-based Peruvian electronic musician who released her fantastic debut Madres on Ninja Tune in the fall of last year.

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EPs Out Tomorrow

We have two short but excellent listens for you to look forward to. The Bay Area duo Double Wish does “dark sunshine pop,” and that describes their music well. Their new EP is called Universe Sometimes.

Sarah Grace White from Los Angeles releases her second EP Sinkhole. “Each of these songs were written from subconscious morning reflections of the night before - sitting in my sunlit kitchen, visited by flashes of touch, smells of must and alcohol, conversations misconstrued, mistakes, precious wins,” she says.

Nine Photos of Rainbow Colors

With June coming to a close, also all pride celebrations and commemorations are coming to a close but, of course, not LGBT Pride itself. This week’s nine photos show a fraction of what could be found in New York City. Enjoy!
(1) Inside the Occulus.
(2) Bank of America on 23rd Street.
(3) The entrance to the Marsha P Johnson State Park in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as seen from the inside. When you’re in NYC, go to this gem of a park. The view of Manhattan down at the waterfront is gorgeous at all times. In addition, you’ll find a lot of history and LBGTQ+ movement explained throughout the park.
(4) Rainbow colors, always on a Halal food cart.
(5) Ad for a hair product as seen on Delancey while in the J train.
(7) Irish pub: not only showing the Eurocup but also colors.
(8) An apartment on Fulton Street that hosted a big party last weekend. We weren’t part of it, but we could see and hear it from the distance. Sounded joyful!
(9) Pier 17 showing colors.