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“Pinc Louds Saved Summer”: How One NYC Busking Band Helped Fill This Year's Live Music Void
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Dec 29, 2020
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Courtesy of Pinc Louds
By
Jake Offenhartz
Published Dec 29, 2020
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One of the many soul-crushing things about a deadly virus that makes it illegal to gather with other people is that live music can’t really exist. It’s the cultural loss I’ve felt most acutely this year, and the pre-plague memory I spend the most time revisiting. Never again, I promise myself, will I take for granted the chance to swap harmonies and respiratory droplets with a room full of sweaty strangers.
Under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, many performers did their best to give New Yorkers a taste of music responsibly. Nightly live-streams offered an escape during the harshest days of lockdown. As we slowly emerged, the city’s parks and sidewalks came alive with distanced performance: the funky brass ensemble on a porch, the nightly jam session in Prospect Park, the impromptu Philharmonic in the streets.
It was better than silence, and far better than sirens. Still, for those of missing the kinetic energy of a packed punk show, the absence gnawed.
And then Pinc Louds started playing Tompkins Square Park. Fronted by guitarist and kalimba player Claudi, the self-described “hardcore acoustic doowop” group arrived in the park in late June, seemingly designed for the current moment. Claudi, in a messy black wig and pink flowered dress, belted riotous anthems to city grit — “roaches in my hair/roaches in my hair and I don’t care” — while instructing the crowd in the art of a socially distanced "forcefield" mosh pit.
Before long, the unofficial Tompkins residency had grown into a community mainstay, with hours-long sets multiple times each week. Concert-starved teenagers and crusty East Village denizens spun joyously in circles alongside young children and local drug dealers. “Pinc Louds saved summer,” observed one Tompkins-fixture, who goes by Grim. “The best thing to happen to this park in a long time.”
The three-piece — which includes Rai Mundo (drums) and Marc Mosteirin (bass) — first met at a Day of the Dead party in 2015, a year after Claudi arrived in NYC from San Juan, Puerto Rico. They spent much of the next five years honing their craft in the city's subway system. A revolving cast of artists and weirdos soon attached themselves to the project, so that a typical set might include ballet dancers cloaked in plastic bags, elaborate puppets, runaway F trains, and smoking, dancing rats.
When the pandemic struck, the group ventured into Tompkins for the first time, finding a welcome audience of New Yorkers with an unexpected craving for their particular brand of absurd.
“People who generally wouldn’t listen to our kind of music, people from all walks of life, were in the park enjoying it,” Claudi told Gothamist. "There’s a real sense of community here that I haven’t felt in awhile."
If the spectacle caught the eye of park-goers, it was the music — ecstatic, disarming and raw — that kept the crowd coming back.
A fan favorite, “Dream Catcher,” is about a hunky minor league catcher on the Brooklyn Cyclones. Another track explores the experience of being so lonely that you fall in love with a storefront mannequin. ("Once you’ve been with a mannequin/you’ll never want a man again").
When I talked to Claudi, they were in the process of recording two projects: an EP of songs in Spanish, out next month, and a full album expected later in 2021. “In a sense we’ve been really lucky,” the singer, who uses they/them pronouns, said by phone. “Because we’ve been a busking band since the beginning, it’s almost like we were preparing for this moment forever.”
Not that they've been immune to the destabilizing effects of the pandemic. The group was scheduled to tour Mexico last April, but was forced to cancel. While the band's other two members have day jobs, Pinc Louds is now a full-time occupation for Claudi.
These days, they're spending more time indoors, working on a play, and layering ambient sounds on top of recordings — tea kettles, songbirds, the din of traffic, and its sudden disappearance.
Semáforo, a song on the forthcoming EP, is about a traffic cop confronting the empty streets of the pandemic. “There was no one trying to cross the street,” Claudi recalled. “But they were still there, and the lights kept changing.”
More than anything, the singer said, they miss performing, connecting with strangers, "having moments that feel magical."
"We’re in the most diverse city full of the most interesting people, and people have never been more isolated. It’s something we need, but not only because of the pandemic — it’s a necessity to be human, to feel alive. I think we all have this thing where we all want to have fun again."
Pinc Louds can be found on Spotify and Bandcamp. Come springtime, you can find them in Tompkins Square Park.
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COVID-19
Music
coronavirus
Jake Offenhartz
Jake Offenhartz is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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