LIKE HUMMUS, fresh-squeezed orange juice, or skydiving. You can easily live your life without a daily dose of live music, but as soon as you get some you wonder how you ever went so long without it. The last city you lived in/visited seemed to be teeming with it. Moreover, the longer you stayed the more it seemed to beckon your attendance. Friends invited, hosted, even played shows. It was exhilarating. Then you landed in Spain and expected to find little else apart from flamenco. You heard they play techno on Ibiza...
Then one night wander over to Alonso Martinez because you're tired of Tribunal and everything southward, and you're looking for something to keep you from your bed. Not much to be seen, especially amid the cluttered disarray of construction paraphernalia, but across the plaza a name awakens latent, primal desires. El Junco emits a low-frequency wavelength across the urban morass and you descend into the sidewalk and pull the heavy iron door.
Funk in your face and you don't know what to do. Reach for your wallet? No need brothers, the door opens freely. A veteran brooklynite blows on the trombone, backed by african, carribbean, and european musicians and periodically breaks to unleash his bawdy roar into the p.a. Musicians come and go from the audience and the funkbluesjazz music flows like maple syrup on the pancakes of your youth. But watch yourself and that thirst of yours, because you pay for the music with each drink. Maybe your friend is clever enough to suggest going to the bar around the corner each time you want another sip. Or maybe you had a few before you came in and you're ready to dance in front of the band, who's playing on the floor over in the corner by the entrance. Maybe you even had more than a few and you cut the rug so well they offer you the mic. But hopefully you had enough to realize the deadly situation you now face, and you politely decline and go get some air.
El Junco (metroAlonso Martinez) on the weekends, doors open at 11. Sunday is the best, when most have decided to be sleeping by midnight when it gets going. Otherwise get there early...
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