The Bell House | Gowanus · Brooklyn · USA

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Curated by soul singer Eli "Paperboy" Reed, Tear it Up features DJ's from New York and around the East Coast playing the best Soul and R & B 45s you've ever heard!

Very Be Careful is a homegrown L.A. band that plays Colombian vallenato music, a traditional cumbia sound that centers around the accordion, backed with percussion and bass. Members include: Ricardo "Ricky G" Guzman on accordion and vocals, Arturo "Brickems" Guzman on bass, Craig "Peabody" Martin on guacharaca, Dante "The Rip" Ruiz on campana, and Richard "Mil Caras" Panta on caja vallenata. In 2006 Very Be Careful completed a European Tour.

The fab kids from Ommegang Brewery are going to pull out their best craft ales and are pairing them up with the perfect cheese. $10 gets you a four beer and cheese flight! Ommegang pints will be $3 all night!

Music trivia night for geeks hosted by Conrad of TAKKA TAKKA. Come join us for a hilarious evening of pretty damn hard music trivia and cocktails. And win awesome prizes!

GOWANUS MUSIC CLUB strives to give kids, ages 8 to 16, an opportunity outside of the classroom to play music together in a friendly, safe and productive environment. We instruct kids both individually and as a group on their chosen instruments. Our goal is to help students develop ear training, write songs, and rock out together as a band. Beyond that, GMC strives to foster the kind of confidence in kids that inspires them to make positive choices, build strong creative expression, and seek collaborative relationships.

Join us for our now semi-regular Ping Pong Tournament. It's five dollars to join the tournament with 1st place getting a cash prize. This will be a single elimination tournament on three tables. Please don't join if you're some crazy pro or way too serious about it. This is a FUN tournament and whiners will be paddled. Bud Light will also be raffling off a boat cruise around the city. This raffle is free and you to not have to play ping pong to participate.

Special Guest Chaperones SARA SCHAEFER and DAVE HILL!

Inspired by director John Hughes and the spirit of one of our favorite decades -- the 80s -- the Bell House is throwing a specially themed prom just for you...

Get footloose with our 80s DJs and live 80s cover band, THE ENGAGEMENTS (whose members have played with artists like Q-Tip, Mos Def, Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Steely Dan, Rod Stewart, Bernie Worrell, Dr. Lonnie Smith, the Duke Ellington Orchestra, French Kicks, Whitney Houston, and The Isley Brothers).

Capture the nostalgia with a professional photo in front of our totally radical giant 80s prom backdrop and prepare to dance the night away under our 50 foot balloon drop! Bathrooms stocked with Aqua Net for heavy primping...

Enter to win the title of Prom King or Queen - each winner will score an iPod shuffle loaded up with 80s music and a fancy new crown to go with your fancy new title!

** Free "Long Duk Dong" Specialty Cocktails From 8-9pm
** Free Snacks & Finger Foods while supplies last
** $3 Champagne All Night
** Andie, Blaine, Duckie, and Iona themed gourmet cupcakes will be sold by Robicelli's for $3 with all profits being donated to UNICEF in memory of Michael Jackson

WE HOPE YOU FEEL IT EVERYWHERE. SEE YOU THERE! WE'RE OFF LIKE A DIRTY SHIRT.

Come celebrate the new show on Comedy Central, "Michael & Michael Have Issues". M&M will perform comedy sets leading up to the live broadcast of the show on Comedy Central!

Rebel Angel Productions Presents: The 3rd Annual Psychobilly Luau featuring DEADBOLT in their exclusive East Coast performance!

PLUS: Memphis Morticians / Psychocharger / Tombstone Brawlers / The Arkhams / The Wanda Jackson 5 / The Designer Drugs / Soul Reapin' 3

Go-Go, BBQ, Art Exhibits and Vendors.
DJs Jukebox Jodi & Laura Rebel Angel.
All Hot-Rods parked on the Street receive a Free Psychobilly Luau Collectors edition Comic Book by Mort Todd and Laura Rebel Angel!

3rd Anniversary Show moved to the Bell House!

Every Sunday evening, Brooklyn's own Eugene Mirman hosts a pretty incredible comedy night in the tiny basement of Park Slope's Union Hall. Mirman is a celebrated local weirdo, famous for his rambling monologues about Scientology, grunge rock and smoking pot. (His apparel choices don't hurt his cause: in his videos, he's wearing nothing but angel wings). The guests he attracts, such as David Cross and Janeane Garofalo, are no slouches, either. Come early or you won't get in.

Tickets include a flight of four beers paired with with cheese. What it's like for American craft brewers in the land of Anheuser-Busch? That's the focus of Beer Wars, a documentary by Anat Baron, former General Manager of Mike's Hard Lemonade, who follows two small brewers, Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, the subject of a recent New Yorker profile, and Rhonda Kallman, one of the founders of Sam Adams, as they try to go head to head with the big guys. The film has its Brooklyn premiere at The Bell House during a very special edition of our monthly beer and cheese tasting sessions, Flight Club. After the film, sample four beers and Murray's cheeses paired by brewmasters like Garrett Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery, who is featured in the film and will speak from his own experience about the state of American brewing. Tickets, which include the beer and cheese pairing, are just $20.

Slim Cessna's Auto Club is a country music band formed in 1993 in Denver, Colorado. The constant in the band has been Slim Cessna, formerly a member of The Denver Gentlemen along with David Eugene Edwards and Jeffery-Paul of 16 Horsepower.

Their music includes elements of country blues, Southern gospel, and other forms loosely grouped as Americana or alternative country. The Auto Club is sometimes labeled "country gothic" due to the juxtaposition of apocalyptic religious imagery with stories of alcohol, violence, and relationships gone awry. Jay Munly (often credited as "Munly") is also a key member of the current lineup of the band. In addition to contributing songwriting, vocals, and banjo, he also serves as a sidekick to Cessna on stage.

The music of Morrissey, Johnny Marr & co. lives on with The Sons & Heirs, a NYC-based tribute band that brings the experience of seeing The Smiths live to the stage. Singer Ronnissey, guitarist Ravi Marr, bassist Jonny Rourke, and drummer Kevin Joyce recreate the songs & stage performance of The Smiths with stunning authenticity & attention to detail, right down to the last gladioli left on stage when the band is through!

Meeting in the Aisle have recently caught on by word of mouth after a string of successful private parties and are now taking their tribute into the clubs, headlining well known local venues such as Grape Street Philadelphia, The Northstar Bar, The Khyber, Puck and Silk City to name a few as well as playing various venues in New York, Maryland, New Jersey and other areas within Pennsylvania. Their goal is to continue putting on raw, in-your-face, aurally luminous shows while maintaining musical integrity and a meticulous ear for detail. After all, isn't that what a Radiohead show is all about?

Free Draft Beer & Crab Rangoon 8-9pm
Come join Dick Swizzle and Perry Comb-Over (and other special guests) for a night under the big lights and bright stars of game show debauchery. There will be song, dance and challenges to bring the crowd into a frenzy. Come early for the Beer and Crab Rangoon Happy Hour, stay late for insane drink specials that change hourly. First 40 to sign up play The Sudden Death game show for a jackpot of up to $250 dollars. Audience members will be chosen throughout the night to play prize challenges worth up $250.

As both a solo artist and the frontman for enduring cult favorites American Music Club, Mark Eitzel established himself among the truly powerful forces in contemporary music; a hauntingly evocative singer, he earned even greater notoriety for his brilliance as a composer, combining the energy of punk, the pastoral beauty of folk, and the melodrama of lounge music to build one of the most impressive and darkly poetic bodies of songs in the modern pop canon. Born in Walnut Creek, CA, Eitzel's military upbringing led him everywhere from Great Britain to Columbus, OH; His love/hate relationship with the bottle going on to fuel much of his subsquent work as a performer. Inspired by punk, he eventually formed his own group, the Naked Skinnies, and with them relocated to San Francisco in 1980; there the band quickly dissolved, and three years later he formed American Music Club.

Pull up the Builders and the Butchers' MySpace page, and you'll see that the Portland, Ore.-based outfit describes its sound as, "singing and shouting with guitar, bass, mandolin, banjo, accordion, drums, xylophone, bells and washboard." Over on CD Baby, the band's self-titled 2007 debut is summarized as "Tom Waits gospel songs about despair and redemption." Put it all together, and you've got a pretty decent handle on what the Builders and the Butchers do, though it takes actually seeing and/or hearing the band in action to fully appreciate the Southern Gothic/Mad Hatter genius of it all. The band started as a country/gospel/blues side project for Ryan Sollee, of the Alaskan rock n roll band the Born Losers. But there's nothing about the Builders' second album, this April's Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, that sounds like a casual artistic tangent: Sure, it feels freewheelin', but rest assured, it takes serious focus to build music this deceptively ramshackle, even when all the songs are born off the cuff, be it onstage or in rehearsal.

The MEKONS will be performing semi-acoustic.

After touring on the back of their twisted non-retrospective Punk Rock in 2004, the Mekons picked up their instruments and lost themselves far beyond the beaten path, out in the wilds of the English countryside. They drank whiskey all night, listened to the rocks and the Stones and tuned into strange old frequencies. They recited lines from Darwin and Thoreau and renewed their vows in a remote stone circle high up on the blasted heath where birds and branches sing beneath the roar of jet fighters as they swoop over the sharp crags and dark water, rehearsing for Armageddon.

Natural is the Mekons' first CD of new material since 2002's critically acclaimed OOOH! The Mekons formed in Leeds, Yorkshire, England in 1977, so by any bugger's reckoning this must be their 30th anniversary! Essentially the same band that recorded Mekons classics like Fear & Whiskey, Edge Of The World & Mekons Rock'n'Roll way back in the '80s, this battle hardened line-up featuring Rico Bell, Sarah Corina, Lu Edmonds, Steve Goulding, Tom Greenhalgh, Susie Honeyman, Jon Langford & Sally Timms will tour the States.

Nicole Atkins is an American singer-songwriter best known for her work with the band Nicole Atkins & the Sea. Her sound is known for its mix of traditional vocal styles and introspective lyrics. She has been compared to Roy Orbison and singers from the Brill Building era, as well as more contemporary artists like Jenny Lewis. Atkins has called her work "pop-noir."

Harvey Danger is a rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington in 1992, and rose to prominence in 1998 with the single "Flagpole Sitta."

On May 28, 2009, the band announced, "After 15 years, three albums, hundreds of shows, and far more twists and turns than we ever imagined possible, we've decided to put Harvey Danger to rest. The decision is totally mutual and utterly amicable." The band plans to play four farewell shows in August, the last of them on August 29th at The Crocodile in Seattle.

AND ONE MORE IN BROOKLYN!!

Dungen's fourth studio album extends the acclaimed Swedish outfit's sound past psychedelia into something far more rare. Moving beyond mere stylistic concerns, 4 finds Gustav Ejstes' focus on the extremes of Dungen's sound separating into two entities. Blazing, raw guitar workouts have their own time and place, but now, so do stirringly orchestrated, jazz-cooled compositions with cinematic undertones.

Brave Combo. Rarely, if ever, has a band name been more apropos, not only at the group's inception, but even more so more than 29 years after the fact. At first glance, back in 1979, the Denton, Texas, based outfit was, in shorthand, pegged as a New Wave polka band, a courageous if not almost oxymoronic endeavor during that particular rebirth of the cool. Yet it clicked and launched a stunning run that has now catapulted it into the new century. Over the last 30 years, Brave Combo has collected a dizzying array of descriptive musical pegs, boldly going where few bands have gone before, and even fewer could (or would) dare to venture. Succeeding in its first mission, Brave Combo is America's premier contemporary polka band, and a Grammy winning one at that. In the same breath, to name some but hardly all of the colors found on Brave Combo's musical palette, one can describe them as a groundbreaking world music act, a hot jazz quintet, a rollicking rock'n'roll bar band, a Tex-Mex conjunto, a sizzling blues band, a saucy cocktail combo, a deadly serious novelty act, a Latin orchestra, and one of America's dance bands par excellence. It's all in a night's music for Brave Combo, often in a synergistic fashion that includes everything from klezmer surf rock to rocking cha cha to what The Washington Post calls "mosh pit polka," as well as to the hokey pokey and the chicken dance. And zydeco, acid rock, Muzak, bubblegum, cumbia, classical, and the twist, to still not exhaust the list. This plethoric multitude of musical styles and flavors is frequently mixed, matched, and melded, into delicious, new concoctions by an imaginative team of musical gourmet master chefs.

Self proclaimed "rock n roll cheerleaders for DEVO", Chezza Zoeller and Ezza Silberstein starting whipping up DEVO for the masses in October 2004. Together, they choreograph dance moves and special effects in DEVO inspired clone costumes, keeping the performance fresh with a new costume theme each performance. After a Spinal Tap experience of rotating musicians, DEVA has at last [de]evolved as a chick fronted DEVO cover band with the sole purpose of alluring wandering Spuds, Spudettes, Mutants and Spud newbies to the message of Devolution. Chezza and Ezza are joined by special effects extraordinaire Rob "Moogie" Bose on Keys, Matt "Goon" Wright on guitar, Claude "N-oog" Bauschinger on bass and Japa on drums.

In "Didn't It Feel Kinder," Amy Ray's third solo recording and most ambitious independent effort to date, the singer-songwriter's style and lyricism reflects her many musical influences, breaking new ground for avid Indigo Girls followers and her solo career fans alike. New listeners will follow Ray far through a rich musical landscape that is both intimate and grand, like sneaking in on sound check at the Knitting Factory.

Surprise Me Mr. Davis is an electro-folk band consisting of singer-songwriter Nathan Moore (of ThaMuseMeant) and the members of avant-rock band The Slip. They formed in 2003 in Boston while Moore was visiting The Slip at their apartment and the Blizzard of 2003 hit. When they were snowed in, Moore and The Slip spent the time playing with home recording equipment, the result eventually becoming their self-titled album.

The Soul Queen of the Gulf Coast The Baron Of Birmingham, Alabama The Georgia Grinder himself!

All artists backed by THE TRUE LOVES, fresh off their world tour with ELI "PAPERBOY" REED, performing songs from his forthcoming album on Virgin Records.

In association with the Subway Soul Club.

A two day FESTIVAL PASS is available HERE.

The Crown Prince of Chicago Soul The Lovely Lady of New York Uptown Soul NYC's Old School Soul Sensation

All backed by The Sweet Divines and the Divine Soul Rhythm Band.

In association with The Subway Soul Club.

A two day FESTIVAL PASS is available HERE.

This year's festival will take place at the Bell House from September 17 through the 20th. Stay tuned for special announcements and ticket links!

Mono was founded in January 2000 by guitarist Takaakira Goto. Working by himself, Goto completed most of Mono's demo tracks, partly influenced by guitarist Loren Connors. By late 1999 Goto began the search for band members; the first to join was fellow guitarist and long time friend Yoda. Soon afterwards the two guitarists linked up with bassist Tamaki and drummer Yasunori Takada. The group soon released a 4 track EP entitled Hey, You on the small independent label Forty-4.

The Premiere Party hosted by Scotty the Blue Bunny!

VIP 3-day Passes available at http;//www.thenewyorkburlesquefestival.com

Ralph's World is a children's music group created by Ralph Covert. Covert, previously of Chicago-based indie-rock group The Bad Examples, uses high rock and roll energy with kid-friendly lyrics.

Ralph's World's "Green Gorilla, Monster and Me!" was nominated for Best Musical Album for Children, at the 48th Grammy Awards.

A collection of lyrics and artwork titled Ralph's World Rocks will be release in August, 2008 from Henry Holt Books for Young Readers.