Words by Jason Lee
HAPPY FREAKIN’ BIRTHDAY TO THE DEEEEE-LIIIIIIIII… 🎶🎵🎼🎶 HAPPY 20TH DELI-VERSARY TOOOOO USSSSSS…
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We hope you’ll pardon the vainglorious caterwauling but hey it’s our FREAKIN’ BIRTHDAY HERE as in the Deli’s very first print issue came out in December 2004 which means we’re almost legal drinking age now, wowzers…
…which is why we’re holding a celebratory soireé this upcoming Saturday the 14th (12/14) at @arlenesgrocery to celebrate (TICKET LINK HERE which go for a mere ten clams which is a freakin’ steal) and needless to say you’re invited just don’t feel obligated to hire a grade A certified beefcake exotic dancer with immaculately feathered hair wearing little more than a zebra-stripped banana-sling thong paid to dance provocatively and then blow out the birthday boy’s candles cuz we don’t wanna cause a scene like that or anything…
…at a slow featuring four of our current fave indie bands (among many others, natch) from the local scene who will very much be causing a scene at Arlenes namely Opera, Tits Dick Ass, the Dutch Kills and last (actually first!) but not lastly DIgamY…
…with the bands’ music collectively spanning from Shangri Las meets–Switchblade-Sisters-garage-punk to genre-bending-speaker-shredding-No-Wave-inspired noisepop and from hooky grungified power-pop with attitude (PPWA) to tech-savvy-updatings-of-vintage-indie-sleazerock and that’s all just the first band haha just kidding (jk)…
…and where better to hold such a par-tay than at long-time Lower East Side mainstay @arlenesgrocery (your humble scribe actually appears in the video above back from my liveband rock’n’roll karaoke addiction phase) an institution nearly a decade the Deli’s senior…
…which is like having that cool older sibling who used to hang out w/Debbie Harry and Fab 5 Freddy drinking egg creams at St. Mark’s Gem Spa or something and to further mark the occasion we’ve embedded the entirety of our 10th anniversary print issue from back in 2014 directly below to lend a little historical perspective plus it’s good readin’…
…cuz yeah we got a legacy like that from back in the day, back when we wuz gettin’ full-page ad buys from the likes of ASCAP (!) but lookit we’ve hung on through the “death of print” and “the birth of having no budget to work with” and emerged even stronger out the other end like a phoenix from the ashes cuz we’re scrappy like that…
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…all with a team-of-two just like back in the Deli’s early days (those two contributors being the mysterious “Jason Lee” & the maybe more forthright but still no less mysterious @novembergirl___) with plenty o’ help from our valued friends and colleagues and from you dear readers just for caring enough to read our meandering posts and follow our social media feed which is where most of the act-shun goes down these days…
…and who knows what the future holds heck you may even be able to pitch in and help with that future but we’ll get to all that later cuz for now as long as the 5 boroughs remain the foremost musical incubator of the world we’re here for it…so in the meantime go dig out those Capri pants/skinny jeans/fuzzy-lined pair of Uggs and/or vintage Von Dutch truckers’ hat cuz we’re about to party like it’s 2004 yo…
…and guess what else (?!?) there’s gonna be a mystery raffle too that for the mere price of admission alone will put you in the running but you’ll be able to buy extra raffle tickets or something too (we’re still ironing out the finer points!) which’d increase your chances of winning singificantly and trust us yr gonna dig this prize even more than the Ross Sisters below dig “solid” potato salad…
…which how long ago was liquified potato salad still a menu option (?!?) we’re confused but that’s ok if you win the raffle you’ll have everything you need to achieve clarity and then to get confused again with just enough left over to find not-so-silent lucidity in breaking through to an even higher state of higher consciousness than before but nevermind the raffle prize cuz the music and the musicians alone are gonna take you higher and then some…