Ever heard of Kickstarter? It’s a site you can use to raise money for a project – music, art, journalism, technology, a whole host of categories – through online backers that pledge money. The project creator sets a goal, and people pledge money. It’s all-or-nothing funding, which means if the project doesn’t meet a goal [...]

Andras Gipp came to New York from Hungary 14 years ago to build pianos for Klavierhouse. In his spare time, he also makes electric bass guitars. Ball park figure for a custom-made bass guitar is $2,500. Gipp said it’s about a 40-hour investment in terms of labor, but doesn’t include the drying time for the [...]

Dirty Hands went to visit The Silent Barn in Ridgewood, Queens. The space has been home to many eclectic musical performance in recent years including Dan Deacon, These Are Powers, and Marnie Stern. Click here for a slideshow on the space.

DIY music fans in Brooklyn got some disappointing news this weekend from uber-promoter Todd Patrick: “so…. Market Hotel got into some police trouble. What does this mean? Hard to tell. Places have survived such things before, including Market Hotel, but every situation is different and we will have to wait and see. For the near [...]

What do Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, The Cure, and Queen all have in common? Ground breaking hits and major success during the 80s. This is what gives Zubin Ramnani his momentum to create his beats. It started back in high school in Newburgh, NY where Zubin was a member of a rock band. He says [...]

We here at Dirty Hands NY love music (in case you haven’t noticed). We especially love live, independent, local music because, well, it’s awesome. No other reason needed, right? None of us were lucky enough to attend South by Southwest, and we certainly won’t be able to afford CMJ badges come fall, but we’re definitely [...]

Allen Cohen created his own bluegrass festival in the most unlikely of places — Staten Island. For 11 years Cohen ran the Bluegrass Festival at Historic Richmond Town until funding ran dry in 2008. He has now put together a group of musicians from on and around Staten Island. Cross, Allen, Cohen and Wright are [...]

Guitar pedals, amplifiers, synthesizers, an organ, a room crammed with a drum set, and closet filled with small tools that can tweak or fix any small or large problem you have with your musical equipment. Stephen Messina runs a guitar repair shop out of a basement in the Greenridge section of Staten Island. He buys, [...]

Astoria musician Jamie Stellini writes and records her own original songs every week, then uploads them to her blog, the Weekly Song. She has completed 34 of her 52 weeks, and is looking forward to being done. Several weeks in, Stellini started a band, the Jamies, to play her weekly songs live. They plan to [...]

Biggie and Jay-Z…Say these names to anyone who follows hip hop and almost always, eyes light up and a signature verse made famous by these bigwigs in the rap game is recited. But for Brooklynites, hearing names like these make it even special since Brooklyn, New York is where many rappers, including Biggie and Jay-Z, [...]