| reviews/press: |
| the brooklyn browngrass |
| music/live: |
stay tuned for concert dates |
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| e-mail the band directly~ brooklynbrowngrass@yahoo.com |
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| Brad Conroy and Phil Roebuck are currently playing in a bluegrass band called Brooklyn Browngrass. You can see them perform every Monday night at the Stinger in Brooklyn, NY located 241 Grand Street between Driggs & Roebling (718) 218-6662, showtime is 9:30 pm. |
| Time Out NY: Issue 319: November 8–15, 2001 Brooklyn Browngrass Stinger Club; Mon 12 and every Monday Go to the Stinger Club on a Monday and you'll see North Brooklyn hipsters in cowboy boots and fringed leather jackets arrive early to snag coveted seats near the stage, then lean forward expectantly and begin tapping their feet before the music even begins. Ten minutes into the set, audience members will be whooping and whirling with abandon. Why is this notoriously aloof demographic so drawn to bluegrass stylings? Because Brooklyn Browngrass' high-octane weekly gigs can dissolve even the stoniest facade of coolness. The sextet's repertoire is mostly traditional instrumental numbers and white-gospel classics, but the songs resonate even for kids who don't have a drop of mountain blood in them. When a barful of Williamsburgers starts singing in unison about meeting in the sweet by and by, you know a band has struck a nerve. The highlight of Browngrass' sets, though, is its rousing jam sessions. The band will be deftly exchanging solos when suddenly, the accented sixteenth-note patterns characteristic of bluegrass give way to a deep groove, and a hypnotic collective improvisation emerges. Flowing easily between old-time standards, snips of Hendrix and Aerosmith, and abstract soundscapes, the band members seem almost telepathically linked; the epic buildups invite occasional comparisons to Godspeed You Black Emperor! When the familiar bluegrass rhythm kicks back in, mandolin player David Tiller picks so fast his fingers are a blur, and Brad Conroy, wielding a pair of stiff brushes, keeps a steady stream of hits on his snare. Frontman Phil Roebuck, hunching over and hopping backward on one foot, resembles AC/DC's Angus Young more than a picker from the holler as he shreds exuberantly on his banjo. And the hipsters sing at the top of their lungs, "Oh, Liza Jane! Oh, Liza Jane," grinning at strangers for what might be the only time that week.—Sara Marcus |
| Village Voice: The Sound of the City Her Satanic Majesty's Request Devil went down to Georgia, my ass. The devil was buying rounds at a bar on Avenue C on August 24, and he'll continue to haunt any venue that hosts the fury of a band called Brooklyn Browngrass. The crowd at the C-Note was climbing all over the barstools and tables and each other, trying to glimpse the Browngrass players' merciless plucking and strumming and thwacking. By the end of the set it was a miracle the band hadn't lost pints of blood and Guinness through their stripped-raw fingertips. The crooning was hypnotic, the harmonies contagious, and just walking into the flooded bar was like stepping into a fevered midcentury tent revival. Concession: Hipsters playing purist trad music in the urban jungle still seem pretty alternative to alternative, and it's astounding how young city crowds will swallow whole anything so unexpected as live bluegrass and country. It's like a whoosh of cool oxygen in a vacuum of moldy indie rock and canned techno. When a band as passionate and energetic as the five-piece Brooklyn Browngrass takes root in this town—though it could hold its own anywhere from the hollers of Appalachia to the western cliffs of Ireland—well, New York is gonna stand on its hind legs and yelp. (They play every Monday at Stinger in Williamsburg.) Even the pierced and tattooed coeds sang along with Browngrass's ultra-folk, ultra-riled-up rendition of the old gospel "I Saw the Light" like preachers shouting an exorcism. All these religious-upbringing escapees who've avoided church like the plague ever since they fled the suburbs weren't immune to the musical hellfire. And the devil, perched on a high speaker, raised a toast and joined in the chorus. —Christina Rees |
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