Union Pool was the name on everybody’s lips when The Cut published a feature chock-full of tales framing the Williamsburg bar and venue as a notorious (and often beloved) hookup bar, even going as far as calling it a “boyfriend store.” While all this is surely true (I wasn’t a Williamsburg frequenter during the bar’s sexual heyday, so I can only rely on hearsay), heavy petting isn’t the only reason people go to Union Pool. There’s also music. Specifically, dance-noise-art-rock-punk-etc band Guerilla Toss will be playing a weekly show there each Tuesday for the month of June, starting tonight. More →
union pool
New Yorkers Share Stories of Union Pool, Williamsburg’s Notorious ‘Boyfriend Store’

(Photo: Andrew Karcie for NY Mag)
In a story for The Cut that describes Union Pool as the “horny utopia of 2000s Williamsburg,” Allison P. Davis highlights what’s probably the main attraction of the bar: the potential for hookups. Since there’s nothing New Yorkers love more than bonding over a dive, Twitter exploded with users sharing their own Union Pool stories– it was even a trending topic on Wednesday. Which goes to show just how pivotal the former pool supply store is for getting laid, if you’re a hipster of a certain age. Below, some of the best (and worst!) reactions to the story on Twitter.
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Performance Picks: Stigma Unbound, Alaskan Journey, Moon Juice
WEDNESDAY
The Juice!
Wednesday, October 25 at Union Pool, 7:30 pm: $5 advance, $7 doors
What is The Juice? Is it pressed and does it cost $9 for some reason? I do not know about how pressing the situation is, but I do know that this juice costs $5 in advance and $7 at the door. It is also a comedy show hosted by Carmen Christopher, which seems more enjoyable than sipping some green and/or pulpy liquid through a straw, which we were recently reminded are bad. Tonight, the show welcomes stand-up from Liza Treyger, Casey James Salengo, Dan Licata, and Greta Titelman, and improv from John Reynolds, Zack Pearlman, Monique Moses, Meghan Strickland, Matt Barats, and Zach Cherry. If you’re already tired of all the spooky and Halloween-themed goings-on around, why not check out something loosely themed around uh, juice. More →
California Invasion, Pop. 1280’s First Gig of the Year, and More Good Shows
Fred Thomas, Kyle Forester, What Next?
Wednesday March 29, 8 pm at Union Pool: $12
Back in 2007 when Saturday Looks Good to Me had found its way into CMJ, the Detroit Metro Times wondered, “Will Success Spoil Fred Thomas?” The short answer has turned out to be, no, not really. The slightly longer one is that Fred Thomas is a nice guy. So nice is Fred Thomas, that even after finding some well-deserved recognition in a fast-shrinking corner of music that is still confoundingly known as “indie rock,” he still does normal cool-dude stuff. He recently even stooped to record the lowliest trash-life punk that Detroit has to offer: the K9 Sniffies, whose members I hesitate to even call “musicians” (but who I am obligated to admit are my friends, or whatever).
Four Shows: Neon Spandex and Hair Metal Redux, Thurston Moore & John Zorn’s Dream Team
Ereptile Destruction, Growler, Shitkill
Tuesday November 22, 9 pm at Union Pool: $8
Once in a while, it helps to forget everything that’s happened to metal since nu metal hit, and take a trip back to our roots. Growler, a Brooklyn-based act that describes itself simply as “hard and loud” helps get us there, mainly by defying the trend toward increasingly humorless, doomed and/or blackened what-have-you. Lately, it feels like we’re so chin-deep in sludgy muck that it’s easy to forget where we started. Growler’s throwback sound plops us back in the early ’80s, with their high-pitched, falsetto, bordering on operatic vocals that recall Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.
This Here Sonic Crystal Ball Reveals Five Killer Shows in Your Future
SUUNS, Eaters, John Congolton and the Nighty Nite
Thursday April 28, 7 pm at the Marlin Room at Webster Hall: $15
The Marlin Room inspires a sense of foreboding in me: visions of an antechamber filled with clamoring sea beasts who’d like nothing more than to pierce my and your flesh with their Samurai snouts, then placidly inspect our writhing, tortured remains with their lifeless, black membranes-for-eyes. But I’m sure that people have made it in and out of shows at this Marlin Room before. Right? Could be a trap, or it could be worth it. If you can get past all this, then by all means go see Suuns and friends.
Week in Shows: Classic Rock Gets a Time Machine and the Party Boys Come to Town
The Men, Fur Helmet, Wrung, Barbed Wire
Wednesday April 6, 8 pm at Union Pool: $8
If you were always hanging out in the garage as a kid, wearing your favorite motor-grease-stained “Daddy’s Little Girl” sweatshirt, munchin’ on Cheetos (only when your mom was out back in the hot tub sippin’ wine coolers with her gals, though), and sneaking sips of your pops’s Bud, then the soundtrack to your childhood was no doubt the same ’70s and ’80s proto-metal, classic-rawk sounds that have inspired NYC rock-n’-roll revival band Barbed Wire. As the evening’s openers, they’ll set the tone with their familiar brand of brawny, Lizard-King-not-dead rock rippers. Is this nostalgia tripping or high-concept performance? You be the judge.
4 Good Shows to See This Week
Wolf Eyes: Trip Metal Residency
Thursday February 4 through Saturday February 6 at Union Pool: $12 – $14
Vape with the dirty dogs and witness half of Detroit’s noise music scene take over Brooklyn this weekend. The Poppa Bear old timers of Wolf Eyes will lead their little pack of trip metal prodigy puppies– all of whom you’re guaranteed only to have heard from if you lurk around shows in Detroit occasionally, or can claim at least a few drunken years of crashing/ trolling, pissing on pool tables at co-ed parties in Ann Arbor. Or maybe you just read the internet a lot. Who knows? Let’s go with internet underground music dweeb, that way everyone’s invited. More →
Best Behavior’s Debut Album Came Out of a ‘Montel Williams-Style Breakup’
Bushwick band Best Behavior is already catching attention and touring nationally — even though it only formed in January. A self-described “60s garage rock, surf punk” band, the four guys are preparing for the release of their debut LP, Good Luck Bad Karma, which drops today via Money Fire Records. As is required of any self-respecting garage-rock band, a celebration of the release will ensue at Union Pool on Saturday night. They’ll perform with Haybaby, The Rizzos, and Surf Rock Is Dead, which released a new single today.
Wolf Eyes, Blazer Sound System
The last time we saw Wolf Eyes it was in the cavernous depths of 285 Kent when the place was in the midst of its death rattles. It was the perfect environs for the Michigan-born death noise band, as cold, dark, and dank as a Detroit warehouse party, the natural habitat for this particular brand of Trip Metal (TM). It’s hard to picture how we’re going to grapple with the heaping portion of sensory dissonance that is a Wolf Eyes show happening at North Brooklyn’s most notorious meat market. As part of its backyard Summer Thunder series, Union Pool will provide the backdrop for a sunny afternoon replete with punishing noise. But wait, perhaps we’ve mentioned this before, but we’ll say it again — nay, we’ll sing it to the heavens: this show is free as hell. Meaning you’d be a dummy to spend your Saturday sleeping in and risk getting trapped in the refrigerator section of the meat market, if you catch our drift.
Read more here.