Drew & The Medicinal Pen mentioned on the front page of the New York Times

Photo: Christian Hansen for The New York Times

It's not an album review or anything, but still, it's cool. Drew (last name Henkels or Henkel depending on which paragraph you're reading, way to go Times) was interviewed for a piece about the McKibbin lofts, where he lays his head. It's a pretty compelling piece, actually, about the squalor some NYC artists are willing (or eager) to endure for cheap rent and some semblance of community. Reading it, you can almost smell the pee.

“When I first moved in, I thought it was awesome, a mecca, like the documentaries I watched about CBGB,” said Drew Henkels, 23, a musician who lives in 255. But, he said, he was really getting tired of moving into poor neighborhoods and waiting until the locals got angry and then moving out.
...
Still, Mr. Henkel, the musician, says local teenagers have shot him with paintballs and called him “cracker.” He plans to move out of the McKibbin after touring with his band, Drew & the Medicinal Pen, this summer. Another resident, Brian Belukha, a 23-year-old musician who describes his look as “intergalactic space castaway,” decided to leave after someone threw a 40-ounce beer bottle at his head.

True story: I tried to go to a party at Drew's loft one time last year but I scrawled the building number down wrong so I never found it, despite managing (without much effort) to infiltrate the building he wasn't in, and have a good look around. It was, at first glance, a mecca of sorts: a series of open spaces, brimming with creative (or at least, creatively dressed) people. A cool place to visit. Apparently, not the coolest place to actually live.

[Previously: Drew & The Medicinal Pen album review, interview.]