As part of our continuing effort to turn Synthesis weekly Managing Editor Ryan Prado’s tiny apartment into a legendary music venue, we recently invited Brooklyn-based ultra-spocks The Big Sleep to come up and rock some tunes, and they obliged. Check out the band rocking “Pinkies” above, then check out our YouTube channel for an interview with the band, and clips of all the other badass bands that have played at Ryan’s lately, including Armor for Sleep, Portugal. The Man, The Color Fred, and a shit ton more.

I’ll admit, things in America suck right now, compared to the salad days of the late-nineties. But from the daily headlines regarding the current financial downturn, you’d think Hoovervilles are already springing up outside every major American city. As I’ve pointed out in previous posts, the hyperbole surrounding these events is laughable once you get into the meat of the stories. Like the story a few weeks back about the “ruined lives” of Bear Stearns employees, in which one executive stock options were worth a mere $28 million dollars, and lesser employees were forced to put their “weekend homes” up for sale, or another story about the California housing market in which the shrinking pool of mortgage related credit had forced one homeowner to “cut back on travel” and find other means by which to pay for his “investment properties.” Today, I found yet another golden quote, in a story with the dire headline “Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years,” which definitely sounds scary. Should we expect food riots in the streets of New York? Soviet-style bread lines at bakeries nationwide? OMG WHAT DO WE HAVE TO BE AFRAID OF NOW???! How about $20 key lime pies that now cost $25?

Steve Tarpin can bake a graham cracker crust in his sleep, but explaining why the price for his Key lime pies went from $20 to $25 required mastering a thornier topic: global economics. The owner of Steve’s Authentic Key Lime Pies in Brooklyn said he didn’t want customers thinking he was “jacking up prices because I have a unique product.”

“I have to justify it,” he said.

I somehow doubt that anyone who could afford a $20 key lime pie is somehow going to starve now that they have to pay $5 more. But then the story got even better:

“I was talking to people who make $9 an hour, talking about how they might save $5 a week,” said Kathleen DiChiara, president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey. “They really felt they couldn’t. That was before. Now, they have to.”

For some, that means adding an extra cup of water to their soup, watering down their milk, or giving their children soda because it’s cheaper than milk, DiChiara said

Umm…have they ever heard of WATER?? It’s this thing that runs out of the faucet. And guess how much it costs?? $0.0000000!!11 But I guess if you’re poor you’re not really interested in giving your kids something healthy to drink, especially not something totally free.

Here’s the latest from this years Brooklyn Hip Hop Festival:

Brooklyn Bodega, the producers of the 4th Annual Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival and The Lyricist Lounge announced today that the two premier Hip- Hop event producers will be joining forces for this year’s Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival. The two companies will be co-presenters of the main date on July 12th at Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park as well as a new date - June 28th at Prospect Park.

The Lyricist Lounge will be joining the Festival’s SUPPORT CELEBRATE REPRESENT network of cultural programming partners. This group of like minded promoters, DJ’s, artists, writers, and activists are working together to produce top notch events around Brooklyn, New York City and beyond.
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Rumaging around www.etsy.com, I found an artist named Pinkytoast. She loves all things sweet, sour, and pouty. Check her out:

You can find more here. And here’s her MySpace.

Liars is kinda hit or miss for me, but I really dug that Brocken Witch album. However, I’ve heard their live shows are something of a spectacle. The group recently wrapped up an arena tour in support of Interpol and Liars frontman Angus Andrew described the experience as follows:

“When we last toured the States it was quite royally. Interpol laid out a magic carpet ride that took us from one historic venue to another. The whole experience was a mind-blowing orgy of music and memories.”

Memories, dude. The New York Times was similarly stoked on the experience.

“[Liars] worked the Garden stage like rock stars… with Andrew strutting and gesticulating in a white suit and a big, relentless beat, Liars sounded at home as arena-rock.”

For the Liars US tour, they’ll be cramming that big arena energy into smaller venues, thereby throwing it all up in your face. The group will stop at Slim’s in San Francisco, The Casbah in San Diego (great venue, by the way), Metro in Chicago and Warsaw in Brooklyn on their jaunt across the US. Los Angeles band No Age will be in support. Dates after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Sharon Jones would’ve sounded really good flowing out of the speakers of my 1978 Cutlass Supreme, driving through Brooklyn on a muggy summer day. Unfortunately, that car’s long gone, and I’m stuck listening to her raw, soulful voice buzzing through my computer headphones, in an office. Still, it’s enough to send me on a mental vacation at the very least.

Daptones Records will release the new album from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, 100 Days, 100 Nights, on Oct. 2nd, but you can listen to “It Hurts to Be Alone” (not available on the record)here. If that whets your appetite, you can listen to a stream of 100 Days, 100 Nights at AOL’s Spinner.com.