THE RIDER: Petite League's Top 10
The band on Xbox nostalgia, Adopting Your Spot and the niche NYC hack that is bringing your own pasta to Mets games
HELLO!
Thank you for graciously re-welcoming us into your inbox, where we’ve arrived with an urgent invitation to disassociate — via DANCE.
Whether it’s a post-dumping dougie, some tango to avoid your taxes or the ol’ pop-lock-and-drop-til-you-forget-about-the-fall-of-democracy … well! There’s never been a better time to turn off that brain (+ maybe your NYT notifications) and move that body, baby.
Which, here we are, brings us to “Paradise Park”—the new single from BdBK faves Petite League—which is pretty much about doing just that!
“‘Paradise Park’ is about going out dancing and not wanting to leave because that means you’re going to have to face whatever bad shit is still there waiting for you outside,” Petite League’s Lorenzo Cook shared of the band’s newest song. “It’s a very New York approach to self-love by running towards the distraction while fully knowing that’s what it is. The city is too fun to be sad all the time. Sometimes this can actually work, too!”
As for some behind-the-scenes intel on the making of the new track:
“This is the first single off our new record Dead Star City Tours. It was my first venture into using synths and drum machines which really brought back a sort of teenage excitement to writing music. Kind of new and baby-brained about the whole thing. We wrote a lot of this new record as a band and that played a part in some new structural choices and things that I just wouldn’t have come up with on my own like the old records.”
TBD on when you can catch the band live, but the new Petite League album drops in June, and you can get ahead of the game while showing your love for the band by pre-ordering a sweet bundle today.
Now pair your dancing shoes with your reading glasses and READ ON for Petite League’s Top 10 — a list featuring competitive-eating videos, New Mexico’s best bar and the store where (god bless Brooklyn) you can simultaneously shop for records and fishing rods.
Support music! Support local businesses! And — seriously — support each other!
Now please go forth have the best day/night/week that you possibly can. Catch ya lata <3
PETITE LEAGUE’S TOP 10
1. LA Beast
The LA Beast is a professional eater on Youtube who specializes in, but is not limited to, eating unopened very expired nostalgia foods he buys online. I know it sounds gross, and it kind of is, but he’s a 90s pop culture historian with a focus on things he liked when he was 13. He’s one of my favorite YouTube Guys, I can’t recommend him enough.
2. Dream Fish and Tackle
Great record shop and antique shop in Greenpoint. The guy who runs it knows a ton about music and I’ll go in just to eavesdrop on his conversations with the regular record heads. He used to sell fishing gear and I bought a rod there a couple of years ago when I thought I should get a hobby that wasn’t related to music. I left it at my grandma's house and I have yet to catch a fish.
3. Daniel Romano’s Outfit Do (What Could Have Been) Infidels by Bob Dylan & The Plugz
Bob Dylan went on Letterman in 1984 with The Plugz as his backing band and they performed a very uncharacteristically punky version of a few songs off Infidels. Daniel Romano recorded an album covering all of Infidels recreating the specific style played on TV. It’s so fucking fun and I listen to it often.
4. Halo 2
The band lived together in a house in college with four other friends and we played Halo 2 A LOT. It got very competitive to the point where people would come over to hang and want to play and we wouldn’t let them because it was not fun to play with casuals. Excellent game, I recently hooked up my Xbox to my TV and walked around the map alone reminiscing on the carnage.
5. Anchored Inn chicken sandwich
We go to Anchored Inn every Wednesday after band practice and get the fried chicken sandwich. It’s pretty good and I think we have a sort of pavlovian call to it after so many years of going. It used to be a very punk bar but we held our Petite League Holiday Party there a few weeks ago so maybe it isn’t anymore. Much love to Lolo and Sierra, our favorite bartenders!
6. Chrysler Pacifica
We’ve only ever toured in Chrysler Pacificas, the crown jewel of minivans. They comfortably fit all of our gear, including the drum kit, bags, and 4-5 bodies depending if anyone is joining us on the road. The Pacifica really is a home on wheels. I got my license a few years ago and my first real tour drive after I got it was from KC to Denver and I did it all in a Pacifica.
7. Adopt Your Spot NYC
I love living in New York but nothing makes my blood boil like the unabashed littering. I see red every time, especially when people do it out of their car windows because it’s even more cowardly. Even writing this has me heated.
I’ve had a few unproductive confrontations about it so I just signed up for Adopt Your Spot NYC. You can pick a spot in the city that you’re tasked with keeping clean and they send you a trash picker and some trash bags. If this is my Old Man era activity, that’s completely fine with me. Keep your neighborhood clean, it’s kinda fun too.
8. Tango beers
I grew up in Brussels where the drinking age of 16 is more of a guideline than an actual rule and, as a kid, your first drink is usually something called a Tango which is a light beer mixed with grenadine. It’s really good and way better than Spaghett (an actual bad drink).
9. Bringing your own food to Mets games
You’re allowed to bring your own food to Citi Field and everyone should be doing this. My brother started a tradition of bringing bags of pasta to Mets games and it’s beautiful and good.
10. Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House
We were in New Mexico a couple of years ago and had a really great night in Pinos Altos, outside of Silver City. Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House is the one restaurant in the area and our waitress had one of our songs saved on her Spotify so they kept the place open for us late. It was a really warm welcome to New Mexico and we had a blast hanging with the staff. There is an arrow in the ceiling of the bar and they claim it was from a fight in the 1860s. I don’t know if I believe it but I did that night.
Top 10 written + submitted by Petite League. Follow the band at @petiteleague, buy music on Bandcamp and add the songs to your Spotify playlists!
Feature image provided by the band.