• The Hook

  18 Commerce Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn, 718-797-3007
  thehookmusic.com

  On the night of a show here by legendary post-punkers ESG, a group of revelers piled out of a shuttle bus—not exactly a common sight at an event like this. Amazingly, it turned out that the off-the-beaten-path club had chartered the bus that freezing evening to deliver ticket holders from the Carroll Street F stop. That, in a nutshell, explains the Hook’s inclusion here: What other establishment cares so much about its patrons? But in clubland, as elsewhere, good intentions get you only so far, and the Hook has also assembled some of the smartest double, triple, and quadruple bills anyone’s thought up in years: ESG, for example, shared the stage with adventurous New York rockers TV on the Radio and D.J. Tim Sweeney of dance-rock label DFA Records. There’s lots of space to move and dance—particularly in the huge, rec-room-like basement, where you may feel as if you’ve stumbled upon the coolest house party in town.

From the 2004 Best of New York issue of New York Magazine