I know how many of you have missed my musical interludes, and that a bit of Mozart hasn’t made up for those nu-folkie gig reviews you love.
I’d started a little post of some of the great music released since mid-March; if you’ve got Spotify (and if you haven’t your name is either Peter or Matthew) you can just press this link.
But here’s the new classic from Jeffrey Lewis, a song about the virus recorded and released by March 24, TWO DAYS after the New York Lockdown*.
“And we all know this will pass
And from Wuhan out to Texas
Information is infectious
And when this phase is behind us
We’ll catch a worldwide case of kindness”
I saw Jeffrey in Cambridge at the Portland Arms a few years back, a wonderfully eclectic sets with a show that drew on the video to “Subterranean Homesick Blues”.
We didn’t spend long in the East Village on our New York trip a year ago, but we did get great views from across the East river in crafty Williamsburg.
Williamsburg is where the young hipsters go for their vinyl.
Most of the bars looked like they’d been imported, London Bridge style, from Bermondsey, so I recommend a cross between a Stonegate and Port St Beer House.
It was recommended to me by a local as I stood forlornly at a closed Mugs.
“Are you looking for a pub or a hipster place ?”
“A hips”
This is it, the Kent Ale House.
$7 for the house ESB, which wasn’t Fullers but was at least local. The perfect accompaniment to Canada v Cuba on TV and what can only be described as a sloppy burger I didn’t really need but research demanded.
Anyway, keep it chill in Portland Bill, or Herne Hill, Bourneville, or wherever you are.
*Contrast that with Rick Wakeman, who took 440 YEARS to release “The Six Wives of Henry VIII”.
retiredmartin 
Williamsburg ending up being the nexus of the Covid spread in New York. Good thing you were early.
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Yes, I saw that. Everywhere I go, disaster follows. Bombs in Manchester in ’96, floods in Yorkshire this year…
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Don’t come to Tonbridge, then!
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Tunbridge Wells ? Sevenoaks ?
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Stafford last year and the bloke living next to the pub Martin used went to London to commit a terrorist atrocity.
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It’s always Stafford, isn’t it?
I blame the micropub.
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Which one ?
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You have TWO ?. That’s the real plague.
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There have been three but it’s looking now like just one.
The gun shop closed a couple of years ago as it was too cold in winter and the original Floodgate is widely rumoured to be not reopening after lockdown which just leaves Candid where success is assured with some cans at £8 to suggest a quality product.
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I go to New York often because of family. Have yet to check out the Kent Ale House, but will add it to the list as soon as it’s safe to travel there.
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I hope you can get back soon, Eddie. There’s plenty of modern craft beer but the Kent felt like a neighbourhood pub. Let us know if you visit.
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Any place in America that has a house ESB gets an A+ in my book, for effort anyway. When I go to a brewpub over here I always first look to see if they’ve got any attempt at an English style ale (they pretty much never do), then turn to the possibility of something Belgian. If they’ve got neither of those, I’ll go for a stout. The hoppy IPAs remain near the bottom of options for me, though everyone else over here adores them, clearly.
Don’t think I’ve ever been to Williamsburg. It does seem whenever I read that name in an article the word “hipster” is not very far behind!
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I thought the Kent had a good beer list, not too much, good range of styles; you’d like it.
Wiliamsburg is the bit of Brooklyn containing Brooklyn Brewery and feels very Shoreditch to me. I quite liked it, mainly for the views.
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