Big Weekend Ahead

A couple of exceptional events are coming to Lafayette Avenue this weekend:

• First, on Saturday, Takeover BAM comes to the lovely performance venue on Lafayette.  We’ve already covered it here, but to recap, it’s an all-night lock-in type event featuring great bands, great films, and other entertaining antics.
• Then on Sunday morning, the annual New York Marathon whizzes through Fort Greene.  The runners will be in their 9th mile as they navigate Lafayette Avenue before heading up to Williamsburg.  The atmosphere and camraderie on the street are unbelievable — the event brings out the best in people.  Expect to see the frontrunners at around 10:30am.

Elliot Smith in O’Connor’s

According to this post by Brooklyn Skeptic, Elliot Smith wrote most of his XO album at O’Connor’s, just a stone’s throw from Fort Greene, on Fifth Avenue, between Dean and Bergen.

On the Horizon: Take Over BAM

On Saturday, November 3rd, BAM will be hosting an unusual (for them) event, called Take Over BAM.  It seems like sort of a lock-in for grownups, with music, film, and more music — different things in different rooms the whole night through.  I’m excited about the musical lineup and many of the films.  Not so much about the film “retrospective:”

Take Over BAM
Saturday, November 3
9pm-4am
$15 advance, $20 at the door

Bands (playing in the beautiful BAM Opera House):
Heartless Bastards
Dirty on Purpose
Be Your Own Pet
The Exit
AntiBalas

Films (All Four Cinemas Running All Night):
Lindsay Lohan Mid-Career Retrospective
When Animals Hug! — Short Films Starring Animals
Burning Down the House — Punk Rock Films
The Pusher Trilogy

DJs Spinning All Night in what seems to be Bam Cafe

In the Greene: Wednesday Night

Music
Medicine Women Roots Ensemble at Smooch, 8pm, FREE.
Kronos Quartet, at BAM, 7:30pm, $20-$45.

Wine
Wine Tasting at Gnarly Vines, 6-8pm, FREE.

Know of an event in the neighborhood that you’d like to see listed here?  Let us know at easybeinggreene@gmail.com.

Wine Bar in old Mo-Bay Space

I think this is a few days old, but it seems that a wine bar will be settling into the old Mo-Bay space on Dekalb. 

Which is nice and all, but more than a wine bar, I personally think the ‘hood could use a good dive bar with good (not too loud) music — like Rope, but closer to my end of the nabe.  A wine bar will have trouble competing with the excellent and popular Stonehome, whereas a plain old bar — darkish, scruffy, cheap, and dare I say, hipster oriented — would instantly attract the indie-rock contingent (yes, it does exist in Fort Greene).  Moe’s is great, but always loud and never playing my favorite music.