Arts & Seizures

This week on Arts & Seizures, host Mike Edison and guest co-host Bob Bert welcome Erin Norris to the show. Notably, Bob is a past member of Sonic Youth and currently plays with Lydia Lunch, while Erin is the owner of the Red Hook restaurant Grindhaus. Telling Mike of the journey to open the restaurant (it was set to open just before Hurricane Sandy hit), she also shares that prior to her restaurant opening she worked in a very different type of service industry. A former dominatrix with a SoHo dungeon, she shares that hung up her S&M gear more than a decade. She goes on to give the guys the details on what to expect from Grindhaus plus a lot more! This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

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This week on Arts & Seizures, host Mike Edison and guest co-host Kimberly Wetherell of Spirited, a dessert speakeasy in NYC are talking New York City history by means of booze! Welcoming Bridget Firtle of Owney’s NYC Rum and Kevin Fitzpatrick of The Dorothy Parker Society. Distilled in small batches by hand from all-natural, non-GMO, high test molasses in an old factory warehouse in NYC, Bridget gives Mike and Kimberly some information about rum’s history in the country and how it was implemented in some historic recipes. Kevin is also the author of “The Lost Algonquin Round Table: Humor, Fiction, Journalism, Criticism and Poetry From America’s Most Famous Literary Circle,” that speaks on the celebrated group of New York City writers, critics, actors and wits that met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until roughly 1929. Prompting a fun talk among the group, Kevin shares that at these luncheons they engaged in wisecracks, wordplay and witticisms that, through the newspaper columns of Round Table members, were disseminated across the country. Tune in for a boozy show and learn about some NYC history in the process! This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

“Rum was actually America’s first spirit, the first spirit we distilled in this country – so important throughout the history of the US and drinking.” [6:13]

—Bridget Firtle on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, host Mike Edison is joined again by guest co-host Peter Zaremba talking cocktails with Rosie Schaap. Rosie has been a bartender, a fortuneteller, a librarian at a paranormal society, an English teacher, an editor, a preacher, a community organizer, and a manager of homeless shelters. A contributor to This American Life and npr.org, she writes the monthly “Drink” column for The New York Times Magazine and her memoir, “Drinking With Men,” is available where fine books are sold. Talking about great spirits and drinks, Peter takes it upon himself to create a new cocktail live on air. Musician and friend Andy Shernoff joins as well playing a few tunes while producer Jim Diamond joins the group as a special walk in guest. This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

—Rosie Schaap on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, host Mike Edison is kicking off 2015 with co-host Peter Zaremba of The Fleshtones welcoming guests, post punk superstars Ivan Julian and Bob Bert. Opening the show with the guys catching up with one another, Mike checks in with the projects that each are working on at the moment before getting into a discussion on the state of the music business today and how it’s a hard place to crack with the influx of home recording technology. Ivan and Bert perform a few acoustic sets in studio and share where listeners can catch them playing around the city. After the break, Mike gets the inside scoop on playing CBGBs from Ivan and his past recording experiences and closes out the show with Peter promising more shenanigans in store for next week. This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

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On this last last Arts & Seizures of 2014, Mike Edison is joined by a plethora of friends to say goodbye to dear Judy McGuire who is ending her co-hosting tenure after years of dedicated and hilarious on-air service to the Heritage Radio Network. Kicking off the show with an exchanging of gifts and some heart-felt live music, the group actively discusses the idea of a Judy cardboard cutout or a hologram to keep Mike company on air before moving through a trip down memory lane. Complete with surprise call ins and pizza, Judy receives a warm send off that is sure to live in internet radio infamy. This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

—Judy McGuire on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, hosts Mike Edison and Judy McGuire are talking booze and bars with guests Sean Manning, author of “Come Here Often?: 53 Writers Raise a Glass to Their Favorite Bar” and Zak Davis of Shmaltz Brewing Company. Kicking off the show, the group tastes a few highlighted beers from the Shmaltz Brewing Company line while chatting with Sean about how a neighborhood bar can become as comfortable as a second home or a memory best avoided—a wild evening half remembered and better forgotten. But what makes a particular bar special, better than the one just down the street? The answers vary considerably as the group welcomes Executive Director of Heritage Radio Network, Erin Fairbanks, and phone guest author Mike McPadden to the show for their thoughts. After the break, the hosts taste some more beer while talking about their personal favorite bars throughout the city. Tune in for a frothy show! This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

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This week on Arts & Seizures, hosts Mike Edison and Judy McGuire are having a punk rock day! Welcoming Tony Rettman, author of “New York Hardcore 1980-1990,” to the show, the trio throws back to this genre’s glory days in the big apple. Known for its glamorous 1970s punk rock scene, New York City matched the grim urban reality of the 1980s with a rawer musical uprising: New York hardcore. Bands of misfits from across the region gravitated to the forgotten frontier of Manhattan’s Lower East Side. With a a backdrop of despair, bands like Agnostic Front, Cro-Mags, Murphy’s Law, and Youth of Today confronted their reality with relentlessly energetic gigs at CBGB, A7, and the numerous squats in the area. Tony’s oral history captures ten years of struggling, including the scene’s regional rivalries with D.C. and Boston, the birth of moshing, the clash and coming to terms of hardcore and heavy metal, the straightedge movement, and the unlikely influence of Krishna consciousness. Tune in to get your mosh on! This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza

—Tony Rettman on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, solo host Mike Edison is welcoming a few friends to the studio for a wine tasting, compliments of guest Sommelier Jean-Luc Le Du of Le Du’s Wines. Peter Zaremba and Keith Streng of The Fleshtones also join in the fun as they all kick off the show tasting some delicious cider, proving that cider is not only seasonal but can be enjoyed at any time of the year before moving on to more traditional wines. After the break, the group shares their Thanksgiving happenings, with Mike divulging his plan to cook a heritage turkey supplied by Heritage Foods USA. This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

“The thing about Zinfandel is that people lost interest in it about a century ago.” [12:00]

—Jean-Luc Le Du on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, hosts Mike Edison and Judy McGuire are joined by John Strausbaugh and in the second half of the show, Jeremiah Moss. John is the author of “The Village: 400 Years of Beats and Bohemians, Radicals and Rogues, a History of Greenwich Village” and host of the New York Times video podcast series “Weekend Explorer.” Talking to Mike and Judy about his research on one of NYC’s most infamous neighborhoods, he and Mike reminisce about the yesteryear of the big apple and discuss what Taylor Swift has brought to the city as well. Jeremiah Moss joins in the second half of the show and is a blogger in the process of trying to save New York City’s notables and heads up Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York, a bitterly nostalgic look at a city in the process of going extinct. He goes on to point out how it’s not just nostalgia, rather a way of maintaining what New York is really about, to stand up against new developments and chain stores moving into the neighborhoods of the city. Tune in to hear a stimulating debate on the evolution of New York. This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

—John Strasbaugh on Arts & Seizures

“Before 9/11 New York wasn’t America, it was some other place, and after 9/11 we saw all this ‘we are all New Yorkers’ and people came flooding in.” [17:15]

—Jeremiah Moss on Arts & Seizures

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This week on Arts & Seizures, solo host Mike Edison welcomes Steven Heller and Douglas Riccardi to the show to speak on the stratosphere of design. Steven is an art director and author of scads of books while Douglas is a graphic artist that particularly works on menu design for top restaurants. Looking at menu design as a way of giving customers the personality of the restaurant, for instance, the group engages in a conversation about some of their projects and their respective workflows, as well as their opinions on the infamous Comic Sans type. Another big discussion revolves around design occurring on a computer rather than being drawn up by hand. Tune in for some expert opinions on menu design, the evolution of type throughout the years, and, of course, some crazy stories! This program was brought to you by Roberta’s Pizza.

—Steven Heller on Arts & Seizures

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