I’m not proud. I suppose it’s hard starting fresh in any new city, but moving to NYC last fall has been challenging for me as a freelance designer. I recently had to pick up a few bar-back shifts for supplemental income where my cousin Julio tends here in Brooklyn. Rest assured, several of my friendly and down to earth coworkers (Julio is a closet pop genius) are also pursuing artistic goals in the Big Apple, but at my age I still feel like I’m back-pedaling a bit. For what it’s worth, I do enjoy the quick cash and the atmosphere at this place. A great new music venue/lounge in the warehouse district of Gowanus, The Bell House is neither snooty nor grimy. The lounge is a classy spot, cozy and clean with couches and cocktail tables, and employee ipods on rotation to set the mood to whatever the night calls for. The recession/working-class can here is “The Champagne of Beers” rather than peebers, and an impressive beer-tap lineup that includes my faves Brooklyn Lager and Newcastle get my nod of approval. The performance space is huge, with wood rafters and 2 big chandeliers that enhance the intimate feel of the room.

While on a ‘smoke’ break Sunday night, I had a brief and casual conversation with a 40-something gentleman out back whom I assumed was a roadie, stage-hand, or someone involved in the show that night.  We were chatting it up about the old-school way of graphic design, and how these ‘kids’ today play on Photoshop and think that they’re designers. He told me that his father designed and laid-out event posters and he taught his son typography and the like. My friend and I laughed about ‘graffiti’ fonts and how the letter ‘a’ in a word is the exact same ‘a’ as the others. I told him that I had to get back in, and that was the end of our chat. I never did catch his name.

About a half-hour later I saw the actual line-up for the evening which read “Death Vessel/ Grant Hart (ex-Hüsker Dü) / Kevin Barker. Coincidentally I was reminded of a musically-geeky conversation with my friend Rob a few nights prior about the wonders of the mighty Hüsker Dü. How the brilliant ‘Zen Arcade’ is American Hardcore’s ‘White Album’ and how the birth of Emocore actually began in Minneapolis with this album. I immediately called Rob to tell him the news, and he said he’d be down in an hour.

Bar-backing both the lounge and the performance space doesn’t allow me very much of an experience of the live performances, but imagine my surprise when I realized that the guy that I was chatting with earlier was actually the second act of the evening!  I quickly noticed that the drummer and vocalist for Hüsker Dü, Grant Hart, had no accompanying band, and his performance would be the man and his acoustic-electric guitar. From what i did get to hear of Hart’s performance, it was pretty raw. But shining through the weather was that light, pop-driven songwriting that he’s known for. Rob told me that he did play a couple of his old Hüsker Dü songs as well.

I suppose the anonymity of our exchange saved me from the possible humiliation of showering him with compliments like some pathetic fanatic.