Archive for September 10th, 2005

I had always heard that Crash Mansion was the lamest place ever, so I was apprehensive about going to JellyNYC, in the basement of Crash Mansion, on Friday night. It’s billed as a late night rock party with free Jello shots on the hour and DJ’s spinning “kick ass rock n’ roll”. The club is divided into two parts, and for JellyNYC there was practically no line. The space was huge, with a bar area containing pinball machines stools and then a bigger dance/floor stage area with booths. I had no trouble at all finding a table near the stage, one of largest I’ve seen in a NY club in awhile. They were out of the $3 PBRs they had advertised, but their other drink prices were pretty reasonable, in the $5-10 dollar range. As promised, at 1am a round of jello-shots started circulating which were tasty, and actually pretty potent.
I went specifically to see Heather, one of last remaining badass rock bands. Within seconds of taking the stage they had groupies headbanging in the front row, and at 2am, when the jello shots came around again the lead singer got all the girls up on stage to dance.This is one of the few bands that can pull off stunts like these, or songs like “Girl, Sister, Woman” with lyrics: “Girl you’re my sister, but you’ll always be a woman when we’re makin love.” Brilliant. Heather will be playing at Arlene’s Grocery every Saturday night in October at 11pm, and if you wanna rock, you will be there.
As for Crash Mansion, JellyNYC is not a bad rock night. The DJ was good, the crowd was fun and I heard that later in the evening JellyNYC merged with the hip-hop party happening upstairs and at one point Lil Jon wandered down to say hello. Not too bad for $7.

Midnight Kalan is described on the website as a faux talk-show where anything can happen, including ninja attacks. This week the guest was Stephen Colbert of The Daily Show, so I was excited for some crazy antics. The show opened with the theme song of “Quantum Leap” then Elliot Kalan (the host) came out to do a pre-talk show monolog which mostly consisted on how excited he was about his new shirt. Kalan is an obviously very bright, associate segment producer for The Daily Show (hence the guest appearance by Colbert) who needs a couple of more years of practice to get into his groove. He had some moments of brilliance, but between them are many awkward silences. He converses with his R2D2 sidekick way past the point of amusement, goes into a strange Rambo tirade and regularly has to take direction from technical director Joe Guercio. On the other hand his interview with Colbert was very comfortable and friendly, like watching two friends chat across a dinner table. He also brought on a “sexpert” to teach us about butt plugs and handed out free pizza at intermission, so it wasn’t all bad. I hope Kalan sticks it out. I won’t be back to see him anytime soon, but I’m sure after a couple more years of practice he’s gonna be brilliant.
Midnight Kalan is every other Friday at Juvie Hall on Bond St. between 3rd Ave and Lafayette. The next show will be a special Saturday edition on Sept 24th at 8pm and the guests will be Ed Helms and Will Hines.