Since Escort’s latest single Barbarians is being looped in the Notion offices, we asked New York’s favourite disco band to tell us about their favourite things from Brooklyn and beyond.
Stylist: Irini Arakas is a good friend of mine, and the stylist to the band. Her fashion line, Prova, is amazing, and she’s very much part of creating the image for Escort.
Our look changes depending on the show (and how many of our 17 members are playing at once. When we played London recently, I was wearing this huge head-piece from Jennifer Behr, who’s worked with Rihanna: it was like a climbing rope, which we turned into a hair-piece. Image is a big deal in dance music, and we don’t want to be throwback in our look. We won’t wear sequins or don fake afros, for instance.
Album: Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall, hands down.
Everything we love about music is in that record. We were listening to the demos whilst travelling the other day, which involve Michael, Tito and Janet singing and playing hand-claps, and just some basic percussion over the guitar of Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough. It’s impeccably arranged as an album, and even when it’s stripped down like those demos, it’s still absolutely amazing
Song: I Want Your Love by Chic.
We just discovered this new guitar part in it, which is Nile Rogers giving the listener an absolute lesson in groove. Some of the best moments in Escort are those bits where all 17 of us are playing that one simple riff: it’s the power-point of the show, and something very much inspired by Chic.
Record Shop: It’s tough, as they’ve all closed. Alycon is the only dance music shop left in New York: it’s a big store with lots of interesting people. And there’s Downtown 161, which is more of a record distributor, but they have days where you can go in and just buy records from this huge warehouse.
Restaurant: Chavela’s is the most amazing Mexican restaurant, neighbouring us in Brooklyn. It’s cheap and they make a great Sangria for brunch. Those guys sell unbelievably good Tacos for around $3.
Bar/Club: Weather Up in Tribeca is a great cocktail bar that takes their drinks very seriously.
They’re very precise and nerdy about it, but that’s just the way we like it. They make a great Sazerac, which is a New Orleans drink: a little rye whiskey, a little absinthe…it’s the mark of a good bartender, generally, if they can make a good Sazerac, and Weather Up pass that test.
Film: Computer Chess
It’s an awesome movie about people programming computers in the early days of artificial intelligence. They filmed it using cameras from that era, and it’s directed by Andrew Bujalski, who’s been called ‘The Godfather of Mumblecore’…though he’s much more than that.
- Luke Langlands