Weekend Music: We Sold the Farm to Pay the Band (7/1 – 7/3)

Thanksgiving has the biggest club night of the year.

Christmas week, Regina Spektor and El Vez put on legendary holiday shows.

But 4th of July, it’s like a blizzard hit here. Greenpoint empties out. Major venues don’t even bother to put on a Saturday show.

Fortunately, Union Pool, Shea Stadium and Knitting Factory still feature noteworthy acts this weekend. There’s punk, Latin boogaloo, and a Disco Biscuits tribute available to light your holiday firecracker.

It’s the start of a lazy summer weekend so if you do punk tonight, you probably want to lay off the heavy stuff, you know, the bands with the politics or drama. Shea Stadium’s lineup tonight (7/1) is your breezy punk alternative. Here‘s a playlist preview.

Daytime tomorrow (7/2) sees the continuation of the Summer Thunder series at Union Pool, starting at 2 PM. It is in an ideal location, right by where the buses leave for the Rockaway and Fire Island beaches, under the BQE overpass. It’s the perfect Plan B.

Specifically I’m thinking of the routine where you walk up to the beach bus, and immediately realize that you are not going to get on the bus. Either it is full, or you spot that embarrassing hook-up from two weeks ago.

Instead of shame-walking home, you can soak up the sun on Union Pool’s patio while listening to some live chill grooves and mitigating last night’s hangover with on-site Mexican food.

Joe Bataan, the Latin boogaloo specialist, headlines this Saturday afternoon. In case you are not familiar with boogaloo, or Bataan, here’s a primer.

Finally, the only thing better than tribute bands for terrible hair metal acts from the ’80s, are tributes to terrible jam bands.

If your band covers the Grateful Dead or Phish, then sure, you are entitled to self-identify as a slacker. But once you start covering B-list riff monsters, you have achieved an entire Jedi knight level beyond.

Which is a long way of announcing that Tractorbear plays a midnight show at the Knitting Factory this Saturday, in tribute to the Disco Biscuits.

I’ll see y’all on the back end of your sunburn next week.