Famous Class – Brofile by F. Albert Herter
Famous Class is based in a converted fire station/tree house in West Williamsburg designed by the same 17 year old Swiss architects who did LeBron James’ signature Air Jordan-shaped puffy mansion in the suburbs of Cleveland. It’s been nothing but big decisions for the Famous Class family ever since taking occupancy in early 2010. “First of all, we realized that dogs can’t climb rope ladders, nor can they really use fire poles” says Cyrus Lubin, who lives with a team of Aleutian sled dogs and travels about the city on a customized rollerblade sled. “What a mess that was,” he chuckles as he cranks up the pancake machine.
Just in time for our visit, the entire team has assembled for their weekly pancake prayer-meeting breakfast served up as always by chefs Willie Meismer and Paul St. Vincent X. “We got this idea from a Seinfeld episode,” explains Chef Paul. “You know, the one where Kramer gets his balls stuck in Cameron Diaz’s zipper and George invents a new recipe for pancakes. We figured we could try the same thing and it’s really been beautiful.”
After a brief yet uncomfortably violent tussle for first dibs, Jamie Ayers cedes pride of place to Mark D. Jack who piles on a short stack of Mickey Mutant Mouse-shaped flapjacks. The much buzzed-about breakfast bacchanal is strictly by invitation only and features a sparkling guest-list. Only last week, rocker and TV personality Charlie Rose made a surprise appearance as special guest Leaky Lou. Today however, the Famous Class team somberly absorbs the news that Sandra Bullock, moments away from stepping into a starring role as Oozy Suzy, has abruptly left the treehouse complex following a dispute over her honorarium.
In response, the members of Darlings, Boogie Boarder, Tony Castles, Snakes Say Hisss, Tough Knuckles, Huxtables,and the California Chorus Revels Chorus share a moment of psionic bonding and channel a psychic spy satellite image of Tom Cruise to lead the assembled team members in a prayer to the Prime Sentinels. Merlyn, Soul Skinner, Troll Associates, and Ms. Bullock, all arch-enemies of the Famous Class crew, are cursed in turn before the feast begins. Bon Apetile!
ATTN FAMOUS CLASS
16-20 Manhattan Ave #1A
Brooklyn NY 11206
cyrus @ famous class com
16-20 Manhattan Ave #1A
Brooklyn NY 11206
cyrus @ famous class com
Sept 17th RECORD RELEASE @ Union Pool- Brooklyn NY
Sept 6th @Urban Lounge w/Jamie Lidell- Salt Lake City, UT
Sept 7th @ Bluebird Theatre w/Jamie Lidell- Denver,CO
Sept 8th @ Bourbon Theatre w/Jamie Lidell- Lincoln NE
Sept 9th @ Old Rockhouse w/Jamie Lidell- St. Louis, MO
Sept 10th @ Grog Shop w/Jamie Lidell- Cleveland, OH
Sept 11th @ Royale w/Jamie Lidell- Boston, MA
Sept 23th @ Rock and Roll Hotel w/ Tom Tom Club- Washington DC
Sept 24th @ Grog Shop w/ Tom Tom Club- Cleveland Heights OH
Sept 25th @ Midpoint Music Festivalw/ Tom Tom Club – Cincinnati, OH
Sept 26th @ Exit In w/ Tom Tom Club- Nashville TN
Sept 27th @ The Old Rock House w/ Tom Tom Club- St. Louis MO
Sept 28th @ Metro w/ Tom Tom Club- Chicago IL
Sept 29th @ Mickey Finn’s Pub w/ Tom Tom Club- Toledo OH
Sept 30th @ Phoenix Theater w/ Tom Tom Club- Toronto ON
Oct 1st @ Cabaret Mile End w/ Tom Tom Club- Montreal PQ
Oct 2nd @ HG Showcase Lounge w/ Tom Tom Club- South Burlington VT
Oct 3rd @ Paradise w/ Tom Tom Club- Boston MA
Jun 21st @ Brooklyn Bowl- BlueRoc Party w/Curren$y, Rugz D. Bewler, Snakes Say Hisss -Brooklyn, NY
Jun 25th @ Death By Audio-Northside Fest w/ Grooms, Sisters, Darlings, Tough Knuckles, Snakes Say Hisss -Brooklyn, NY
soon
Jun 19th @ Crest Hardware- Crest Fest w/ Sundelles, Oberhofer -Brooklyn, NY
Jun 25th @ Death By Audio-Northside Fest w/ Grooms, Sisters, Snakes Say Hisss, Tough Knuckles, Mr A*OK -Brooklyn, NY
Jun 25th @ Public Assembly-Northside Fest w/ Dom, Sundelles -Brooklyn, NY
Jun 27th @ Public Assembly- Northside Fest w/The Wave Pictures -Brooklyn, NY
Jul 23rd @ Whitney Museum- w/ Bear Hands -Manhattan, NY
Sept 11th @ The Rockyard- Brooklyn, NY
Sept 24th @ Los Hermanos Tortilla Factory- Brooklyn, NY
Sept 1st @ Union Pool w/ Heavy Cream- Brooklyn NY
March 35, 2023 @ The Jordan’s Furniture MegaBlimp – Huxtables in Space… IN 9D IMAXXX M.O.M.
April 02 , 2023 @ Foxwoods, Brooklyn Submarine Yards – Huxtables opening for disembodied brains of Tony Castles at the giant underwater condo highrise super-spa-casino where Brooklyn used to be
July 2, 2010
Get ready for the new Tony Castles EP “No Service” out this September on Famous Class!
June 20, 2010
We’re teaming up with our buddies at Less Artists More Condos and throwing a party for the Northside Fest. shit should be nuts
June 17, 2010
holy shit this thing was fun, we’ll be posting more picture and some video later this week
June 16, 2010
The -FAMOUS CLASS ACTION- MIXTAPE VOL. 1 is coming your way this weekend compliments of Mr. A*OK. ft. Huxtables, Tony Castles, Wacka Flocka, Project Pat, Snakes Say Hisss and many more!
May 3, 2010
Snakes Say Hiss shot a video last week with our friend Tony Bliz from Creative Control. you can check out some of the photos over at the snakes say hiss artist page. we’ll have the video ready to go by the end of May
May 3, 2010
our buddy Daniel Carbone made a rad tour video from our St Louis trip for creative control.
Check it out!
April 22, 2010
its been a while since we’ve had a the whole family together but the time has come! Mark your calender now for May 28th and come see Tony Castles + Darlings + Snakes Say Hiss + Boogie Boarder + Tough Knuckles + DJ Mr. A*OK @ DBA. We’re gonna have some new jamz from all the bands plus a new wave of shirts.
Get Ready!
April 18, 2010
We couldn’t be happier here at the Famous Class camp! We have the first vinyl over at the webstore now and are sending the boys to record the follow up at the end of May. Expect big things!
April 1, 2010
Patrick from Titus did that guest list thing on pitchfork yesterday and gave a little love.
Favorite New Band
“Boogie Boarder are kind of a spaz band from Brooklyn. They have lots of bad-ass riffs but also lots of wanky goodness, and they definitely know how to entertain. They have a lot of that reckless abandon that’s at the heart of all great rock’n'roll music. The bass player plays this half bass-half guitar thing in the tradition of the Presidents of the United States of America. And their album Pizza Hero comes with a really beautiful zine with all these really nice drawings. A lot of bang for your buck.”
March 30, 2010
SXSW was a blast! our party with impose magazine sold out about half way into the show and shit got crazy. check out photos on the impose site
http://www.imposemagazine.com/photos/the-austin-imposition-night-one
March 8, 2010
Darlings have some SXSW show lined up, come drink a beer with us!
Check the Darlings Show date for details
March 1, 2010
We’re mixing the album now, should have some tracks to play soon and a new LP this summer!
February 28, 2010
Both bands went to the studio at breakthruradio.com and recorded some jamz last fall. old news yes but still fun!
February 27, 2010
As Winter continues to keep its chilly grasp fastened tightly upon our fair city, Darlings have hunkered down and are combating the cold with a barrage of Brooklyn-brewed garage pop. Last weekend, the band convened with their guru Nick Smeraski at Headgear Studio to record six new tracks. We’re in the mixing stage, so these songs will be coming at you sooner than you think.
February 27, 2010
Vanity Fair used “Teenage Girl” in a behind-the-scenes video of a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz and a bunch of Hollywood starlets. Check it out at the end of this article. Unfortunately it’s not a photo shoot of Hollywood starlets AND Darlings, they’re just mugging for the camera while our song plays. Plus we would never agree to share the spotlight like that.
February 27, 2010
We recorded some new jamz that we’ll be slowly giving away for free on the site. New things are brewing here…
July 2, 2010
Tony Castles do great justice to dream pop with this simmering and sweet six-plus minute demo “Pirates.” They’re a Brooklyn band who’ve been floating around Brooklyn lineups anywhere between Effi Briest, Darlings, and Dinowalrus. They were only a blip on our radar until recently, and now for they’re playing a shit-ton of CMJ dates, including a date tomorrow at Webster Hall with Das Racist and Suckers, as well as a spot on our 5-day Imposition, for the Famous Class day show.
April 18, 2010
Tough Knuckles is kind of like a cross between Gary Wilson and Ariel Pink if you substitute all the mental disorder with sweetness. Instead of dressing as a sultry woman or having some kind of body-dysmorphic dysfunction, Calvin LeCompte is a lo-fi charmer, and that’s jazzy—Greek jazzy!
MAGGIE LEE
April 1, 2010
its been a year since L magazine told you to watch Darlings. they did a nice recap of the year..
“As we write this, one or more members of Darlings are currently watching MTV’s Teen Cribs (again, Twitter), but in the past 12 months, their slouchy, hooky garage rock has found its way all over the city. First there was praise for their debut album, Yeah I Know, on every conceivable local music blog this summer, then the mothership of press – The New York Times — got on board with a few nice things to say. Next came Urban Outfitters, who included their song “Eviction Party” in an in-store store playlist/blog mix along the likes of Girls and The xx. Things got weirder when Vanity Fair used “Teenage Girl” to soundtrack abehind-the-scenes photo shoot teaser for their Hollywood issue. While the year concluded with Yeah I Know on more than a few “best of” lists (The L’s included), Darlings kicked off 2010 with their first trip to SXSW where they played a load of shows at places like thrift stores and tattoo shops. Their band name is getting easier to Google, too. To keep it going, they’ll be opening for the Smith Westerns at Market Hotel on April 3 and playing Brooklyn Bowl on the 15th, where they’ll share the stage with ‘09 honorable mention, Sisters.”
February 28, 2010
“I saw Brian crowd-surfing on some people/But there was no band at all.” That’s Peter Rynsky, singer of Darlings, at the outset of “Eviction Party,” a splash of lo-fi elegance that, like most Darlings songs, squeezes meaning from the inconsequential. On its winning debut album “Yeah I Know” (Famous Class), this young New York band — Mr. Rynsky, the guitarist Joe Tirabassi, the keyboardist Maura Lynch and the drummer Matt Solomon — plays casually rendered garage-pop that’s masking an arched eyebrow: they’re all working harder than they appear to be. Among the best here is “Friends Forever,” a dry love letter that’s part surf-rock, part musical theater. “I can’t wait to see your skinny legs again,” Mr. Rynsky sings, “because we’re more than friends/and I need you.” During the unprintable chorus, the affair moves from the park to a literal dark room to a metaphorical one. “Don’t make me get down on my knees,” Mr. Rynsky sings, though it sounds like he wouldn’t mind.
nytimes
February 28, 2010
Possibly the least well-known band on this year’s list, Darlings is a Brooklyn-based four-piece that sounds pretty much exactly how you always wanted your high school garage band to sound. They’re surprisingly impressive on a technical level, with all sorts of meandering guitar melodies and interesting interplay between instruments. The recording is far from polished, but it’s got this perfect level of fidelity that keeps things clear enough but also seems to say, “We could have made this sound better, but we didn’t feel like it, you fucking square.” They call to mind a sloppier Teenage Fanclub or Sloan at times, with whimsical melodies that feel completely timeless. Then, out of nowhere, they turn into a loud, screamy rock band, like early Replacements or the Jason Lowenstein contributions to Sebadoh, or maybe even… Nirvana? Basically, they’ve held onto the idea that this whole music thing was always supposed to be fun because you get to bang on shit really, really hard — it just so happens they bring an awful lot of other stuff to the table as well.
L Magazine
February 28, 2010
Assuming for a moment that our beloved Ponytail had a large share in resurrecting good vibes and positive music through amazing chops and challenging, weird music, then let us postulate Boogie Boarder as another band filling in the natural order that begs for music with bigger Vibes and greater positivity that still retains the crunchy guitars and aharmonic progress left to us from our great detuned forefathers. If you were always amused and confused as to how Phish could cite Sonic Youth as an influence, Boogie Boarder’s new album Pizza Hero takes us one more step closer to knocking some righteous sense into the equation.
-impose
February 28, 2010
This is Ed Zipco’s friend’s band. Ed says they have been “really killing shows lately” and that they’ve “become the really dependable, really good vibes backbone of most rock shows since spring.” He says that the drummer, Cyrus, is “one of the most solid guys in the Brooklyn show community.” Furthermore, Cyrus runs this label called Famous Class that puts out cute CDs that come with little comic books. If that’s not enough to make you go, “Holy balls!” and run out and buy this, I officially throw my hands up in the air in the universal sign of “Your loss, loser.”
February 28, 2010
Sometimes people talk about how they picked up a record only because they loved the cover art. They’ll talk about how they had never heard the music, how just based on what their eyeballs were saying, that record was for them. If I was browsing and ready to make a selection based on nothing but names or titling, Boogie Boarder records would be leaving the store with me. Best band name I’ve heard in a while. Name of the Brooklyn foursome’s full-length? Pizza Hero. You’d have to be nuts not to want to hear it. The fact that their grungy stripe of surf rock rules doesn’t hurt either.
-rcrdlbl.com
February 27, 2010
Their electronic indie pop music has real bite. “I Control the Wind” sashays in synth and flirts with a line of falsetto aah-haas. Snakes shed this skin on other tracks, though, trading Franz Ferdinand sheen for softer blips with the Postal Service’s punctuation. Snakes have settled with fellow bands Boogie Boarder and the Huxtables in a collective called Famous Class, which includes group of other artists working in DIY mediums like DVDs, comics, shirts, and zines.
- Spin.com
February 27, 2010
This is exactly what I always hoped all those Paper Rad/Load bands would sound like instead of just bad noise-jazz—casual little guitar melodies with broken-y keyboards and extended Cosby Show samples.
-Vice
February 27, 2010
Their album A Touch of Wonder proves the goofy twosome put a whole lotta love, along with the laughter, into their funky mix of synthe pop, exploratory electronica, and indie rock.
-Amp Camp
February 27, 2010
Be prepared for 42 pages of madness. The Huxtables have paired their CD with a mini-booklet featuring drawings such as a creature that appears to be half human, a crown on what looks like a superhero and a computer screen smoking a pipe. This combustion of awkward images best describes the mood of the album. A Touch of Wonder is a synth pop meets sampling meets indie rock delight.
-Exclaim
February 27, 2010
This is the third of the exuberantly packaged Famous Class albums I have received in the last few months, and it doesn’t come close to disappointing. First came the infectious synth-pop of Snakes Say Hisss!, then the raucous surf of Boogie Boarder and now we have basement party-noise of The Huxtables…
With twelve songs in just over twenty minutes, A Touch of Wonder is the best kind of party there is: brief and to the point.
