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Arts & Entertainment

Yoni Gordon Sings for His Ice Cream

The Carroll Gardens-based singer has a musical residency at Brooklyn Farmacy.

For emerging musicians, it is commonplace to perform at either a bar, café or subway station. But for singer and Carroll Gardens resident Yoni Gordon, the place where he plays is probably the most unusual of music venues: an ice cream parlor.

Since June 2010, Gordon, 31, has performed regularly at the , a place that serves not alcohol or lattes, but sundaes and egg creams. He has performed residencies at there and will again play there for two dates this month, including

Gordon’s association with the Farmacy goes back to last year when he passed by it as it was being built.

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“For whatever reason,” he said, “every time I walked by, I felt this was going to be my spot. I am going to be their house musician.’

When the Farmacy opened, as Gordon remembers, the store’s owner, Peter Freeman, was outside and spotted Gordon carrying his guitar case.

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“He was like ‘Hey you should play here,’” said Gordon. “Just like that. I was like, ‘I always wanted to. Since I moved to the neighborhood, I wanted to play this spot.’ He [asked], ‘What are doing Thursday?’ So I showed up and I played. I think they dug it and gave me a couple of nights’ residency.”

“He’s a neighborhood guy,” said Freeman about Gordon, “and we’re a neighborhood joint. The combination made a lot of sense. One of the things we try and do is get the community involved and one of the best ways is through music. It just kind of worked out. He approached us and right from the start we were totally into it. The first time we heard him play, we were like, ‘Yeah, that works.’

In the last ten years, Gordon has recorded albums with his band the Goods and as a solo artist. His latest record is called "Country for The Timid", and is an intimate, folk-rock sounding work. Living in a Carroll Gardens building whose neighbors include a family and an older gentlemen, Gordon can’t play loud — thus, his music had to adjust to that, he said.

 “I think now the music I make is a lot quieter,” Gordon explained, “but the goal for me has been to bring the volume down but keep the intensity level where it was when I was playing with a full band. What I am doing now is I’m playing music that rooted a lot more in folk and gospel. Campfire soul music is a good way to describe it.”

Asked what it was like to perform at the Farmacy that first time, Gordon says he had to determine whether he was being either too loud or not loud enough as he hit the first notes.

“I wanted the ice cream to be the main attaction,” he said. “The last thing I would want to do is take away someone’s experience of going there and enjoying something like ice cream.”

Freeman describes Gordon as having a comfortable style. 

“He can read the crowd very nicely,” he said. “We’re not a bar, we’re not a music venue. Right from the start, he was very much in tune with where people were at -- not being too over in-their-face, but not being so quiet that it just seems like someone was strumming on a guitar. It’s a cross between having a jam and playing a show.”

Originally born in Israel, Gordon had lived in Los Angeles and Massachusetts before moving to New York in 2008. He and his wife ended up in Carroll Gardens when he learned that friends of friends were moving out of their apartment.

“[It] was perfect-sized for us,” he said of the apartment, “so she could have her workspace in the apartment and I can have a little room for my music and then enough space for us to live with that as well. It ended up being a perfect spot.

“On top of that, there are all these awesome little places for music that are usually free or very cheap and accessible, like the Jalopy Theatre is right here."

Gordon says that he has played many shows at strange venues, so performing at an ice cream parlor “is just one more that’s been chalked up on the board."

And the Farmacy's young crowd appeals to him, too.

"I like playing shows for all-ages audiences," he said. "My ideal audience is young people, old people, little kids — that is going to appreciate music that is delivered with some kind of passion and joy.”

As far as ranking the Farmacy compared to the other places he has performed at, Gordon describes the experience as nice and laid back.

“If I [mess] up too bad, nobody really notices it,” he said, “because they’re there to have ice cream. I’m constantly there trying to win people over. It’s a good place to play where the pressure is off and there is a steady stream of patrons. You’re playing to someone new every 10-15 minutes."

Ironically, Gordon has only sampled the ice cream at the Farmacy maybe twice, though he says the store offers him something every time that he plays there.

“The dairy doesn’t go well with the singing voice,” he explained. "I just stick with water.”

 

Yoni Gordon will be playing at the Brooklyn Farmacy and Soda Fountain, 513 Henry St., Friday at 7 p.m. and on July 27 at 7 p.m. He is also playing July 19 at the Mercury Lounge in Manhattan at 7 p.m. 

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