Our original video series Stomping Grounds, presented by PUMA, is back with a look at another great band and how its rock-’n-rolling members spend their nights out. Our third episode introduces the Postelles, a group of NYC retro rockers who got their first break thanks to Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. Join drummer Billy Cadden and lead axeman David Dargahi as they hit some of their favorite New York City nightspots, including Lower East Side club Fontana’s and the always popular bar/restaurant Spitzer’s Corner. Along the way, they explain exactly what a Postelle is, reveal a band tradition that sounds surprisingly similar to a recent Foo Fighters revelation, and try to convince us they play cricket in the city streets at night. Watch the Postelles Stomping Grounds video now, then tell us who you’d like to hit the town with in the next one.
In the second installment of our original video series Stomping Grounds, presented by PUMA, we spend a night out with New York’s own musical merrymakers Freelance Whales. Tag along as drummer Jake Hyman and bassist Doris Cellar take us out to one of their favorite nightspots, East Village rock n’ roll hangout the HiFi Bar. While there, they school us in pool, get serious with CSI pinball, and pause just long enough to tell us about how they met and why their early shows weren’t that different from busking in the NYC subways. Click through to watch the video, and tell us who you’d like to spend a night on the town with next!
We discovered work of Poland-born, New York-based artist Alexandra Pacula over on Animal NY; looking at her blurry oil paintings — which are intended to recreate the “wonder and disorientation” of urban nightlife — is like riding around the city in a speeding cab after having a drink (or ten drinks) too many. “I concentrate on how the mind perceives and evaluates surroundings while under the influence of a social climate,” she explains. “I want the viewer’s eye to travel within my composition and experience a familiar exhilarating event of an actual nightly excursion.” Minus the hangover, naturally. Click through to check out a gallery of Pacula’s work.
It took months of planning and the efforts of artists and curators from across the globe, but it all proved worthwhile as 14 countries swapped culture on Saturday night. Smirnoff’s hugely ambitious Nightlife Exchange Project swept the planet on November 27, with nightfall bringing huge parties to cities everywhere from Buenos Aires to Beirut.
We tagged along to witness the planning in Bangkok and experience the event in Bangalore, but regardless of where you were, there was no way to be everywhere at once. That’s why we’re bringing you a photo roundup of what went down, spanning from South America to Australia. Check out how cultures combined, continents collided, and people partied around the world.
Nathan Kensinger is a photographer with a penchant for out-of-the-way places; his shots of abandoned urban landmarks – factories, sea captains’ quarters, garbage dumps – evoke nostalgia for a New York that most of us never witnessed. This week, just in time for an appearance at Open City Dialogue, Kensinger posted a roundup of images from secret parties around the city. Some you’ve heard of (the dumpster pool partymade the rounds earlier this summer) and a few are solidly under-the-radar. Click through for Kensinger’s shots of the so-called “urban pirate” ferryboat, shuttered observation decks, and the dome of the Williamsburgh Savings Bank, plus a Q&A with the party promoters behind ReSOLUTE, another of Gotham’s most clandestine shindigs.
