Five to try

New York is a pizza town, but it's also a burger town, which is great because I'm a burger guy; click here and here for more on my burger adventures. I'm also a list guy, so it was fun reading this list of Alan Richman's Five Favorite Burgers in New York City. They are, in no particular order, burgers from Shake Shack, Big Nick's, Blue Smoke, Burger Joint at Le Parker Meridien, and Peter Luger. I've had the Shack burger, which was almost as good as a burger from a true paragon of fast-food, California's In-N-Out, but not any of the others. (I did eat a steak dinner at Peter Luger many years ago, but I obviously have to return for the burger.)

Let's see how quickly I can go through Richman's list, shall we?

The loudest band in New York

I love free concerts. A free concert is like free food, except better, because when Ben & Jerry's gives away ice cream on Free Cone Day, you get a paltry, unsatisfying dollop of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that lasts about three minutes on a hot day. A free concert is like an ice cream that lasts all evening. And depending on who's playing the show, you might end up with a natural high and a headache at the end of it, just like an evening-long ice cream.

The South Street Seaport is but one place in the city that you can see bands perform for free on a weekly basis. I wrote about the final show of last year's Seaport Music Festival here. Compared to last year's lineup (which included The National and Battles and Menomena and Au Revoir Simone), this year's list seemed less than exciting, but one band jumped right out at me: A Place to Bury Strangers.

You may never have heard them, but you've heard of bands like them -- bands whose reputation precedes them. I still remember one spring night in 2004 when I first heard of a band named Mute Math from my buddy Won. "You gotta listen to these guys," he said, handing me a demo CD. "They're probably the best band I've ever seen." Listening to the demo was like taking a shower on a weekday afternoon: unexpected and invigorating and optimistic.

In the case of A Place to Bury Strangers (APTBS), I'd heard one thing about them that's supposed to tell you everything you need to know about them: The Loudest Band in New York. Virtually every review I've read contains this description, but who can say who originated the phrase. Maybe the band made it up themselves. Maybe it's not important. But if you know me, you'll know that it's impossible for me not to seek out a band that lays claim to being the loudest in a city full of loud bands.

I mean, come on! THE LOUDEST BAND IN NEW YORK!

Apparently, this is a band so loud that the cops once shut down one of their shows, but not until an NYPD officer declared, "This band is sick."

So three Fridays ago, I went to see them at the Seaport Music Festival. The first opening band was Black Acid, who were just finishing their set when I got there. It's hard to feel bad about missing a band called Black Acid, so I didn't. Then the most bizarre band in the world took the stage -- a second opening act called King Khan and the Shrines. (Do not visit their Myspace page unless you're sure you want to.) These guys are so obscure they don't even have their own Wikipedia entry. It was their first show in the United States, apparently, so nobody knew any of their songs, but that didn't stop them from rocking out. They played a hyperactive blend of ska, '50s rock-n-roll, and punk, if you can imagine that. Oh yeah, they had a whole brass section. And a go-go dancer who belly-danced and waved gold pompoms on stage during the entire set. And their drummer had more facial hair than ZZ Top. And -- get this -- the lead singer was a foul-mouthed Indian man who sounded like Screamin' Jay Hawkins and looked like he'd just walked off the set of a Bollywood blockbuster.

This band was a menace to the public, who, against their better judgment, began dancing in the middle of Pier 17 like the maniacs dancing on the stage. King Khan was inscrutable and indefatigable and hilarious; for forty-five minutes, he whipped the crowd into an awe-struck frenzy of laughter and herky-jerky hopping.

Now, this was interesting. These guys were supposed to open for APTBS, which struck me as a tad dissonant. This became evident when, at about 8:30 PM, APTBS took the stage to a long, metallic rumble from lead singer/guitarist Oliver Ackermann. In my mind, there are three things to understand about Ackermann:

1. He makes his own guitar pedals.
2. He is the only guitarist on the band, which means he has to make the most noise.
3. He does not interact with the crowd at live shows very much at all. He didn't even address us when the band started the set, which is not that weird once you realize that APTBS is just a shoegaze band that happens to play very loud music.

When APTBS really got going, things started getting dangerous and weird. Dangerous because the band really is, quite possibly, the loudest band in this city. Weird because a band that straddles the two genres of shoegaze and noise rock is bound to attract different kinds of people who may not necessarily get along with one another. This became clear when three young people who looked like they'd just stepped off a plane from the Glastonbury Festival began moshing in the front, bumping violently into people in the process. Two guys standing directly behind them decided that this was rude behavior and weren't afraid to say so, at which point the wild trio stopped just long enough to shrug their shoulders and went right back at it. This was weird because I'm not usually conflicted about what constitutes proper behavior at any given rock concert. I mean, when you're at a rock show, you rock out. But when you're at a shoegaze rock show, and the stage lights remain dim for most of the set, are you only supposed to gaze at the musicians gazing at their shoes?

At one point, the music was so loud that even the press photographers (who were standing behind the speakers, not in front of them) had to cover their ears. I have never covered my ears at a rock show before; to me, that's like closing your eyes if the view at a tropical beach becomes too beautiful. I looked around at the people standing next to me and 75% of them had their fingers in their ears. The other 25% looked back at me in a funny way, as if to say, "Our ears won't be okay in the morning, will they?"

APTBS played a blistering 40-minute set, during which Ackermann destroyed his red Fender Jaguar and then hurled it over his head by its strings. Then, with a muffled "thank you" and a rapid brightening of the stage lights, it was unceremoniously over. The crowd dispersed quickly, dazed and slightly disoriented.

I couldn't hear much for the next 24 hours.

Duck and hen

Tonight, I did two things I've never done before, and both were done at the Marshall Stack, a beer-and-wine bar in the Lower East Side. Hang on a minute, I asked incredulously the first time I heard of the place. There's an actual bar called "The Marshall Stack"? We must go there immediately! I mean, seriously: I can hardly think of a better name for a bar.

The first thing: I ordered a duck sandwich. I didn't do this blindly, in case you were wondering. Marshall Stack's duck club sandwich has been talked up by Gothamist as one of New York's standout sandwiches. It was delicious indeed -- a greasy assemblage of sliced duck breast, crispy bacon and Romaine lettuce drenched in horseradish sauce. I ate it standing at the bar. Price: $11.00.

The second thing I did tonight: I had an Old Speckled Hen. Not another sandwich, but an English ale. The Stack has an appropriately extensive and eclectic beer list -- even Sapporo is available -- but you just don't pass up the opportunity to try something called Old Speckled Hen. It turned to be a beautiful golden ale, with a caramel texture, if perhaps a tad too much sweetness. Delicious, nonetheless.

If it wasn't already obvious, the moral of today's blog post is: I'm a sucker for a good name.

Short notes: Fourth of July Edition

Some notes about this past weekend:

• I attended no barbecues, witnessed no fireworks and barely saw any sunshine, but it still felt like a pretty decent Independence Day weekend. Usually, staying at home would hardly be an appropriate prescription for the long weekend, but I needed the rest, and the weather was terrible anyway. One thing helped: I bought a pack of hot dogs (not the nitrite-free kind that they sell at Whole Foods, but the ones made from floor sweepings -- you know, the really good kind) and had my own hot dog eating contest, in which I competed against myself. Okay, perhaps it wasn't as extreme as this one, but you have to understand that I don't eat many hot dogs any more, so this was a special thing for me.
• Lesson learned the hard way: If you want the most satisfying hot dog-eating experience, never buy whole-wheat buns.
  
• Summer time would seem incomplete without seeing a Will Smith film, so to honor the tradition, the wife and I saw Hancock. It was aight.
• That reminds me of an idea I had for a blog called One Word Film Reviews. For example, the review for Wall-E would be: Heartbeeps.
• On Thursday night, we went out with some friends to Corner Bistro, where I was out-eaten by a 98-lb film actress and out-guzzled by a Maori guy who named his dog after a New Zealand pale ale. Details will definitely not be forthcoming.
• The weekend ended on a good note. By "good note" I mean that the Yankees beat the Red Sox 5-4 in extra innings tonight. Yes, I have officially become a Yankees fan.
• And finally, a shout-out to my buddy over at Wonkitime who, along with his lovely wife and kids, took us to a Thai restaurant in the Upper West Side for lunch today. I ordered pineapple fried rice (with chicken) and spent the better part of two hours trying to figure out what made it taste so good. It didn't hit me until I was on the 2-train heading downtown, still licking my lips. We never used much of this in our kitchen growing up, but lots of Malaysians did: Maggi Seasoning Sauce.

Three New Yorks

Excerpted from "Here is New York" by E.B. White, written in 1948 but so true that it could have been written yesterday:

There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born there, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size, its turbulence as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter--the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something. Of these trembling cities the greatest is the last--the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high strung disposition, its poetical deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements. Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference: each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh yes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company. ...