WHAT TO EAT, DRINK & DO — ACCORDING TO ARTISTS WE LOVE
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Make music magic at The Creamery Studio
“The Creamery is where I recorded my last album. It’s an amazing place, a very inspiring place to make music. The guys that run it are just wonderful humans, wonderful guys. They do such a beautiful job making it an inviting, relaxed space where you just want to create things. And it’s kind of unassuming. It’s what you need it to be, whereas I feel like some studios are kind of flashy because they feel like they need to be fancy to draw you to make music there. Here, the equipment is incredible, but it feels like home. It’s a nice place. It’s where I’ve written and created so much music at this point that it’s special to me.” – Caitlin Mahoney
390 McGuinness Blvd, (347) 403-0660, thecreamerystudio.com
Learn life lessons at McGolrick Park
LAURA: When we get stuffed up, get tired of our surroundings… we’ll go play outside. It’s awesome. It’s clean and beautiful.
CONNOR: There’s a lot of adorable dogs. I love getting to play guitar and watch cute dogs walk by. That is my heaven.
LAURA: My neighborhood is so neighborhood-y. Remember that guy? He came up and asked to play our guitar, and was like, “Have you heard this song? Have you heard this song?” And he started playing and singing to us. And we’re like, “Okay, first of all, give me my guitar back…” But it’s a cool spot in that it’s kind of artsy and people are out there doing different things.
CONNOR: I’m gonna sound like a 50-year-old man, but it’s also cool because there’s a grocery store off of it, so you can go play guitar and then pick up stuff to grill. I’m also just a sucker for nature, and living in New York, any park I can go to is very refreshing. It feels like you can escape for a little bit.
LAURA: [It’s also] a good people-watching spot.
CONNOR: We’ve had times where we’ve gone to rehearse there and really adorable kids are at some daycare thing, and they’ll run up and just be cute. One time one of them had a toy, and one of the others wanted to play with it. He was just like, “You want it? Here, you take it!” It was just a weirdly childish, adorable moment. And I was like, I feel like I just learned something from that. Sharing is caring.
LAURA: We learn lessons at McGolrick Park.
CONNOR: [switches to broadcaster voice] Life lessons, brought to you by McGolrick Park. Sponsored by the grocery store on the corner.
Russell Street & Nassau Ave, nycgovparks.org/parks/msgr-mcgolrick-park/
Enjoy a slice of nostalgia at Paulie Gee’s
“In our two-square mile-town [Pelham], we have like 13 pizzerias and 20 nail salons — that’s about it. That’s pretty much the whole town. It’s a good place, but those are really the two things we have going for us and, ya know, I was only using one of those things. But growing up there was fun. It’s really just assumed that you’re going to have at least one slice of pizza a day.
Paulie Gee’s reminds me of those [places] in such a beautifully authentic way. You walk in, you’ve got the New York Yankees on the TV, they’re yelling your name out on a way too muffle-y microphone…
I think it just brings me back to 11 years old, after a rec baseball game, going to Pelham Pizza, watching Mariano Rivera win the game for the Yankees. While New York is full of pizzerias, I miss that smalltown you’re-in-our-pizzeria kinda feeling a lot of the time, and Paulie Gee’s Slice Shop fully provides that for me.” – Sean Carroll
Get Metal at Saint Vitus Bar
RAY: “It’s the Greenpoint metal bar. I was a metalhead in high school, and I am still to this day.”
KEVIN: “Like, your hat is made out of metal.”
RAY: “It’s aluminum — don’t paint me as a rich man, Kevin. But yeah, we’re definitely not a metal band by any stretch, but that’s kind of my personality that I’ll try to interject every time we write a song — make it heavier, make it heavier. That’s what kind of keeps me in touch still with my heavy, metal-y side of things.
There’s always very interesting shows there. After the Grammys — or whatever it was where they did that shitty bootleg Nirvana reunion with Paul McCartney — they did a secret show there. So they’ll do big shows like that, but like, we played there one Monday night.
It’s really cool. They have the upside down crosses and stuff like that — it’s very tongue-in-cheek. The place has a great sense of what they are. It’s such a fun bar to see a show at or hang out. It’s a good time.”
1120 Manhattan Ave, saintvitusbar.com
Combine liquor and laundry at Sunshine Laundromat
“The most convenient combo out there. I didn’t even live near there, but I used to commute [to Greenpoint] to bring my laundry and sit and drink and read. I don’t really get into [the arcade games] enjoy the energy. One of my favorite activities is drinking alone and reading a book, while also possibly watching sports. This is great for that because, while it’s not sports, people will be playing games around you — I’m near it, but I’m not a part of it.” – Lizzie No
860 Manhattan Ave, (718) 475-2055, sunshinelaundromat.com