17 years ago, I walked into the hallowed doors of CBGB, grabbed my guitar, and began a music career on the Lower East Side. While I've been blessed that my projects have had incredible success, not all of them have survived. Fortunately, the memories do. Thanks to Bands Do BK, some of my music history is officially in print forever. From living in a van on tour, opening for Nine Days, to starting a solo career called Thaddeus Lowe.
As a native New Yorker, sometimes we're overlooked, or perhaps, the people doing the looking leave, wind up in jail, overdose, or just plain fall out of love with this city and return to whatever part of the world they knew to be comfortable.
For me, I had no say in the matter. I was born in a hospital in Brownsville, Brooklyn, and raised in a small apartment with my siblings in Park Slope before eventually moving to the ghetto side of Long Island. It was fate or luck that my neighbors were kids of working-class immigrants, new to a once bustling Italian suburb. Thanks to them, I asked the existential question you're only lucky to be asked in life, "How is it that you've never heard of The Ramones or Jimi Hendrix? Listen to this!" And I never looked back.
I'm honored to have some of my legacy in my city recognized, please go to a local bookstore and pick up a copy of Bands Do BK, a book that explores Brooklyn from the unique perspective of the bands who live it and love it. Equal parts oral history, guidebook, and music-fan memoir, writer Sam Sumpter shares behind-the-scenes stories, sound bites, and recommendations on places to visit from hundreds of featured interviewed bands—a hot slice of New York City indie chronicling the people and places that define it.
