Our Hometown #0001 - Barrie tell us tales of New York City

Photo credit: Joanna Sullivan

Let us introduce you to Barrie, Dom, Noah, Sabine, and Spurge – collectively known as Barrie, recently they shared their new single "Tal Uno” and we had a chat with the band about their home city of New York. 

You are from the big city of New York, what the best three things about it?

Sabine: The people, the speed, and Chinatown.

Noah: Breakfast sandwiches, house music, and people (-watching).

Sabine: Constantly running into friends when you're just walking down the street to get groceries etc. Walking by or returning to memories from previous areas you've lived/worked in. The entire summer.

Barrie: What Spurge said, it's cool how in Manhattan it's so condensed that the memories kind of just layer on top of each other. And yeah, the people, the ones you know and the ones you don't.

Is there a specific New York record shop you like to go shopping in?

Noah: I buy half of my records and spend like an eighth of my life at Halcyon the Shop.

Sabine: Yeah, agreed. Halcyon was one of the first shops I went to back when it was in Dumbo.

Where is the best place to eat in New York and why?

Sabine: Chinatown, you can find amazing food for cheap.

Noah: I agree with Sabine. The dollar to dumpling exchange rate in Chinatown is out of this world.

Sabine: That Chinatown to Soho area’s top. I recommend Bahn Mi Saigon off grand for a cheap, good lunch which is harder to find in Soho.

Dom: I’m actually gonna chime in here and say that Flushing Queens has the best dumplings for price and quality. You have to slog the 7 [train line] all the way to the end, but if you walk straight three or four blocks there’s an indoor food court type thing. Delightful. Otherwise right out of the Main St subway on the left you can get 8 steamed buns or the shanghai soup dumplings for 1$. My fav online gaming cafe is around the corner too, heh.

What is your favorite venue to play in New York?

Noah: We haven't played live at these places (yet) but Spurge and I DJ sometimes at Magick City and Black Flamingo. Both are amazing spaces with an even more amazing crew behind them.

Sabine: With Barrie, Niagara in LES was a fun show. Super small room that sounded great and is a historical punk rock venue. 

[*B: spurge, do you mean Niagara?]

Dom: My other band (from the UK) played in this awesome venue called Palisades that’s shut down now, I liked it there a lot. Saw Naomi Punk play there too, which was one of my favourite shows of all time. But it’s worth walking around Bushwick and going in all these random plywood DIY venues. Secret Project Robot and a place in South Brooklyn called Pioneer Works are worth following.

Apart from yourselves, is there any other New York bands we should be checking out?

Noah: Tmboy, Takuya Nakamura, Ghost Piss, Melanie Charles (AKA D’Flower), O Mer, Brother Michael (who mixed our first two tracks and plays in my other band, Psymon Spine) and way too many others to mention. Also, Dom plays in one of my all-time favorite bands, Is Tropical, and Sabine and Spurge have amazing solo projects. There's a ton of cross pollination between all of our various projects.

Sabine: Noah plugged it! Other homies like snny, Cautious Clay, Hundreds Thousands & Sedona all are more than worth checking out.

Feature by Ant Adams