Brooklyn Skeptic

I make fun, but on the inside I’m actually superdeeduper excited about this upcoming event…

Indie folk dreamboat Sufjan Stevens, composer of the incredible albums “Greetings from Michigan: The Great Lakes State” and “Come on Feel the Illinoise,” (who says he plans to write an album about each of the 50 states, which at the unrealistic pace of an album per year is a project that should be complete by the time he’s 80) is scheduled to perform his newest opus, “The BQE” in November at Emeril Lagasse’s favorite venue, the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

“Sufjan Stevens reveals the epic in the everyday in songs infusing the vernacular of Midwestern folk with a distinctly orchestral grandeur. Stevens pairs orchestrated selections of both new and old material with the 25th Next Wave Festival commission/world premiere of The BQE—a symphonic and cinematic exploration of one of New York’s least celebrated monuments: the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.

“Robert Moses’ controversial 11.7-mile roadway tears through neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens with the brute force of modern urban planning, and in Stevens’ hands becomes an evocation of the intersection of intimate experience and the American Dream. Merging a virtual road trip shot on film with a live band and orchestral ensemble, The BQE discovers abstract patterns and stories in the snaking traffic, potholed pavement, billboards, badly marked exits, and beautiful city views, revealing what happens when Manifest Destiny converges with urban blight.“

Heavy.

Anyway, while I pitch my tent tonight to wait in a ticket line that will eventually wrap around Fort Greene (tix go on sale September 4th), I’ll start guessing song titles.

Track 1: Neverending (A)stori(a)
Track 4: Baby on Board! (Dear Park Slope, The Gowanus Canal Needs its Diaper Changed)
Track 8: Williamsburg (Where Crazy Hipsters Are Actually Naming Their Babies “Sufjan”)

P.S. - I really want to see this 50 states project get done, but I’m afraid I won’t live to see it, so I propose Sufeepoo contract some states out to other Americana acts…I reckon he should finish the midwest himself, give Iron & Wine the deep south, Calexico the southwest, Bonnie “Prince” Billy the Northwest, Brown Bird New England…and let Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi fight over the Tri-State area.