Famous Fat Dave: The Hungry Cabbie

All the great ones have theme songs.  John Williams wrote Darth Vader a classic.  The Greatest American Hero’s theme song was better than the show.  And Sergei Prokofiev gave every character in Peter and The Wolf his own.  So, being a megalomaniac, I wanted a theme song for myself.

Last week the stars aligned and the gods smiled, and my theme song was recorded.  The two most gifted musical talents I know happened to be in New York City simultaneously for the first time in quite a while, though they met and became friends many years ago.   

My cousin, Aaron Weinstein, is the best jazz violinist since Stephane Grapelli (and I’m not just saying that because I’m related to him and I’m prouder of him than I thought humanly possible).  Before he graduated from high school, he was touted as the next big thing in music and played regularly with Les Paul, Bucky Pizzarelli, and the late, great Skitch Henderson.  Now that he has reached the ripe old age of 20, he has redefined the way both the violin and mandolin are played.  Even Nat Hentoff, the famously judicious and discerning jazz critic, recently called him “an unmistakably personal improviser who can be intimately tender as well as so fierily invigorating that you have to move to his music” in the Wall Street Journal.  And most importantly, Aaron is my eager partner in gluttony whenever he comes to New York for a gig.

My best friend, Jack Dolgen, is a character who has come in and out of this blog since the beginning.  Though he appreciates jazz, he is more of a rock n’ roller than Aaron is.  His pop band, Sam Champion, is a high energy, bass driven explosion of sound and fun that puts on one of the best shows in New York City every time they take the stage.  Yet, Jack reveals a soft, folksier side when he does his solo music.  He is an accomplished song writer, and he used all of his skills to write my theme song one afternoon after I took him and his family on an eating tour.  Like Aaron, Jack is one of the most serious, adventurous eaters I know.

Aaron was flying in for a day to play at Bucky Pizzarelli’s 80th birthday tribute show, so Jack, Melissa, and I picked him up at Laguardia after midnight.  I figured I just needed to get the two prodigies in the same room for a couple of hours and the magic would happen.  I was right.

(Jack’s bedroom is basically a recording studio)

I dropped them off at Jack’s apartment after a harrowing trip to DUMBO to pick up Jack’s acoustic guitar (I had to pull off the BQE to reattach a piece of metal that had been dislodged from the bottom of my car by a monster pot hole and was kicking up sparks.  Then we were assaulted by a gang of monster rats in the stairwell on the way down to Sam Champion’s studio - welcome back to New York Aaron).  It was close to 2 a.m. by that point, and it was up to Melissa and me to bring back the sustenance to keep the geniuses going for what was sure to be an all night session (Jack called his downstairs neighbor to warn him of the emergency recording session and tell him not to be alarmed by the ruckus).

Last year, only after unpacking all of her belongings in her 6th floor walk-up SoHo apartment, Melissa informed me that she’d moved to New York mostly because she wanted the luxury of ordering sushi in the middle of the night.  I asked her who told her that she could do that, because it wasn’t me.  She had made an assumption, and she was sorely mistaken I believed.  Once the clock strikes 2 a.m., I told her, even on the weekends, freshly prepared sushi is just not an option.  She considered packing up and moving back to D.C.

It was my cousin Aaron who discovered the only open sushi bar (that I know of) with me at 4:30 a.m. one Monday night earlier this year after a long show at the Algonquin’s Oak Room.  On MacDougal Street, a strip I’ve walked and driven countless times, we saw, to my amazement, a shining beacon in the night called Yummy Village Sushi.  Open until at least 4 and sometimes as late as 6 a.m., the Yummy Village sushi chef work tirelessly cutting large, moist pieces of nigiri and constructing hefty, tender maki.  

The discovery has changed Melissa’s impression of this town, and she is training to surpass the mark set on pieces eaten in a twenty minute period (the number stands only in the low 20s for women, whereas the men’s benchmark is the stuff of legend that only a real man like my heros Takeru or Joey Chestnut could hope to challenge).  Aaron and I are convinced that Melissa can beat the record, get the meal on the house (and if she fails, the meal would be on Aunt Linda anyway), and have her polaroid mounted on the wall of fame.

(This is where we stood more than half way through the session)

When we returned with a couple of party platters for the group, the recording session was well under way.  Sushi was a perfect food for the occasion since it wouldn’t make anyone’s string fingers greasy, and every person involved was a great lover of Japanese cuisine.

(I felt bad putting my little cousin to work all night long, but this sight eased my conscience)

My entire being was consumed with unadulterated joy as I watched two of my favorite people (who also happen to be two of my favorite musicians) collaborate musically for the first time and gorge themselves on sushi until the sun came up.

(Eat a little, work a little, pick a little, talk a little)

Aaron laid down violin tracks, did a mandolin chuck (I learned that term that night), and even played the music stand with those drum sticks that have metal spokes like a rake called brushes.  Jack, who’d just spent endless hours in the studio cutting Sam Champion’s much anticipated second record, did the producing and worked the sound board.  He was also responsible for the lead vocals, backup vocals, acoustic guitar, bass, bongos, maracas, and snaps.  Melissa and I basically just watched in awe.  You can also hear us singing backup along with them on the “ON THE WHEELS OF STEEEEEEEL” line.

(Notice one of Aaron’s biggest fans watching intensely)

Adam B. was given a sneak peek at the song and called it “The best theme song since the It’s The Gary Shandling Show theme song.”  Another person close to the project called it, “The greatest song ever.”  My dad has it on his ipod.  Let us know what you think.  And Nat Hentoff, if you are reading, we’d like to know if you think this song is as fierily invigorating as Aaron’s last album. 

Listen by going to www.famousfatdave.com, scrolling to the bottom of the page, pumping up the volume, and pressing play.

And do yourself a favor by going to Sam Champion’s website, Sam Champion’s MySpace page, Gothamist’s take on Sam Champion, Aaron Weinstein’s website, and Aaron’s MySpace page. 

Yummy Village Sushi, MacDougal Street btwn Minetta and Bleeker, West Village, Manhattan

(The Mick watches over an historic recording session that would impress even Danny Elfman or, more appropriately, Django Reinhart)