Banjos, BBQs Take Brooklyn

Morgan Avenue is far away from rural Appalachia, but you wouldn’t have known it at Sunday’s Bluegrass Barbeque at 3rd Ward. Barbeque seekers were greeted indoors with a lemonade stand and an invitation to play horseshoes inside one of the venue’s cavernous rooms but, as 3rd Warder Allison Wall advised, “All the good stuff is outside.” And indeed, the narrow, alley-like patio outside of the building had enough pulled pork, malt liquor, and banjo pickin’ to make the likes of Earl Scruggs feel right at home.

Of course, there were a couple signs that this wasn’t your average backyard hootenanny. For one, there was nary a pair of overalls in sight. For another, there was the food. Jeremy Spector, a chef who earned his culinary reputation at restaurants like Employees Only and his own Dogmatic Dogs, headed the grill team. Offerings included frankfurters and pulled pork sandwiches, along with less familiar fare like herb-roasted potatoes and green beans, cooked with onions and served in a creamy vinaigrette. At one point, the line for food stretched all the way back to the musicians playing at the end of the patio.

The grill tent also served up plenty of cold beer to cut the heat of the sweaty August afternoon, giving away free miniature bottles of malt liquor for the first hour of the event. As one barbeque-goer remarked, “I love seeing this much Colt 45 around.” And while giving alcohol away is always a good way to attract people to a party, most also came for the music. “I wanted to learn about the banjo bluegrass style,” said barbeque attendee Zack Katz.

Musical festivities kicked off with a performance by Free Advice, a banjo and snare drum duo (joined at 3rd Ward by another banjo player) that cites Bill Monroe and His Bluegrass Boys and the fourth of July—yes, the holiday—among their influences. They were followed by the Strung Out String Band, who played “work songs, murder ballads, jigs, rags,[and] square dances,” at one point introducing a song by announcing “this next song is about huntin’ rabbits.”

Multi-instrumentalist Jefferson Hamer played with fiddler Stephanie Coleman, and Melody Allegra and Friends rounded off the scheduled music portion. All four bluegrass acts hailed from Brooklyn, “not too far from here,” as one member of Free Advice said.

As the strains of banjos, fiddles, and harmonicas drifted over their heads, barbeque attendees sat on the fire escape and pulled at their beers or tried their hand at apple bobbing (without much success, for the most part). A dog wandered around the patio, sniffing at recently emptied plates, and settling down in the shade of a banjo case.