I may not be the first Greenpointer to trek south to Muchmore’s, one of north Brooklyn’s latest coffee shop / bar / venue spaces, but I certainly won’t be the last if they keep up what they had going this past Sunday night. I was spending my evening entertaining a friend from New Orleans and we had just concluded a fact-finding mission to Crif Dogs (seriously.) Given that Northside was still going strong, I would have felt seriously remiss sending him off without his ears ringing, so we trekked over to newly-opened Muchmore’s, located on a (formerly) quiet corner of North 9th street.
Sadly, we had just missed Railbird, showing up in the middle of Zula’s set. Zula’s clean, layered sound was a great thing to have filling the front lounge area as we wandered in, taking in the artwork. Working our way to the back, our first thought was that the acoustics were surprisingly good in the unpolished, comfortable space, where little separates the musicians from the crowd and listeners find nearly equal space to either stand and bop or spread out on one of the many couches. Next up were the decidedly noisier Dreebs, about which I feel mostly unqualified to comment except to say that their songs seemed to my deafened ears to be carefully constructed, skillfully building and releasing tension. Rounding out the night was Ava Luna, who frankly surprised us – we walked out of Muchmore’s talking excitedly about the deceptively mature, harmonized vocals coming from the young band.
Thanks for the great write-up! We’re really glad that people seem to be appreciating what we’re trying to do, essentially creating the feel and function of a Brooklyn DIY venue within the context of a licensed space. It was sad seeing all the DIY venues starting to leave Williamsburg (Monster Island, Secret Project Robot, etc.), and sadder still to see some of the Bushwick DIY spots getting shut down by the City (Silent Barn, Market Hotel), but we’re hoping to build something that will last while still having the same grit.