Omnivore just released the self-titled debut album from Brooklyn’s Bird Streets (a.k.a. John Brodeur). In addition to self-releasing records over the past two decades, Brodeur also worked as a music journalist (poor guy). For Bird Streets’ debut, Brodeur enlisted Jason Falkner (Beck, Air, Paul McCartney, Jellyfish, etc.) as co-writer, co-player and producer, while Miranda Lee Richards and Luther Russell contribute to a few tracks as well. Brodeur will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Check out the Bird Streets track we premiered in June.
Brodeur: In the heart of downtown Albany, N.Y., lies a massive government complex known as the Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller Empire State Plaza. Built in the ’60s and ’70s, it’s a massive, brutalist eyesore—a series of narrow office towers arranged upon more than 300 million cubic feet of concrete and white marble, with the Capitol at one end, the State Museum at the other, a massive underground pedestrian mall and, like, 12 parking garages beneath. It’s visible from across the Hudson River and probably also from outer space. An outsider might assume it’s meant to mark coordinates for the return of our alien overlords, and so far there has been no evidence to the contrary. Its very existence is worthy of a much heavier discussion—its construction evicted an entire neighborhood of more than 9,000 people, primarily immigrants, and basically walled off Albany’s South End from the rest of the city. Fuck Nelson Rockefeller.
But I digress.
Near the center of this chilly urban desert is a huge, oblong thing: a massive, cement clamshell on a two tiny pedestals. It looks like a punctuation mark. Or a football trophy if the football were half-deflated. Depending on your vantage point, it might resemble a the Starship Enterprise, the symbol for pi or a pig’s butt. But inside—you can go inside—are two lovely, intimate theater spaces. I’ve seen dozens of shows there (including the fellows in the video below), and I can’t say I ever had a bad time. The Egg is the saving grace of the Empire State Plaza and, maybe, downtown Albany itself. It may be a big old pile of what-the-fuck on top of an even bigger pile of what-the-fuck, but it’s the first thing I look for anytime I go back to my old city.
