We decided to go to NYC with only one specific thing planned to do in four days, which was go see Dinosaur Jr, Broken Social Scene, and Radio 4 in Central Park on Thursday. That left us a million good options, which include, but is not limited in any way to:

(Basically, here’s some of the stuff I took pictures of)

Hitting up the free Siren Festival @ Coney Island. We saw Spoon, Q and Not U, Brendan Benson, Saul Williams, The Dears, and, you guessed it: Haunted Pussy (pic). I want to cuss out Q and Not U for not playing “So Many Animal Calls” cause they sucked opening for Interpol, and they owed us redemption. Spoon was just ok again, I guess. Their live show isn’t as good as their studio show. Saul Williams was decent. Definitely worth the price of admission.

More from Brooklyn Vegan

While enjoying the shows, we engulfed three unholy 64-oz Rheingolds each, which made the Coney Island experience, complete with Shoot the Freak, a monstrously good way to spend a hot and hazy Saturday. “Hey curly fry, drinkin’ the holy water….”

Some stupid (Brooklyn) chick at Nathan’s was absolutely freaking out at us because she thought we cut in line, but after being told where could insert her Nathan’s hot dog, then shown that there was a different line, then laughed by Nathan’s employees, she shut up pretty quickly. Then it was a weird / subway / ride home.

Burned part of the Fairfield, CT commuter train station down.

Hit up Gray’s Papaya @ 6th & 8th and just about every other place within a five block radius at 4 AM. But not Bombalulu’s.

As for the Central Park show, I give each of those three bands a 75 each. None of them were at peak form at all, who cares. It was an outdoor summer gig. Kevin Drew of BSS was pretty freaked out by two of the band’s peeps getting arrested for buying pot and getting beat up by 4 cops (daaaamn, that’s a whoopin!) in Washington Square.

BSS recap 1, 2.

Ol’ J. from Dinosaur Jr. wailed and sounded really good, but they locked into a broken record setlist and put us all to sleep. Gweeter style.

More, more, more

Short days and long nights. A 100% puro weekend. All things came together pretty well, and we even survived all five of the homeless attacks.