LEAVING BIRTH MARKS

My introduction to Bambara, the Brooklyn post-punk trio, began roughly two years ago above a trash-ridden side street in Chinatown. It was early March— frigid and leonine—and my brother had dragged me and another friend to a DIY show in a busted-up loft that used to house an internet café and one of those seedy, all-neon karaoke bars. A brief stretch of the Manhattan Bridge was visible from down the block—all ugly concrete on-ramp, nothing romantic. The building itself was unremarkable, dull beige sandstone marred by dozens of graffiti tags, and its only notable characteristic was the main entrance, a large gray marquee with flickering red fluorescent lights contorted into Chinese lettering. A few years prior, when the internet café was still operating, a couple of people had been stabbed inside; the NY Post reported that they’d been arguing over “some sort of gambling dispute.”