Not enough people know Anni Rossi, the singer/ songwriter/ violonist. She plays with her instrument like you’d play the guitar, indeed, she isn’t scared to strum the string, making it a perfect tool for RNR.

Meet with Anni

a place (I won’t name for some personal reason) in Williamsburg

On Friday night, following an evening of drinking cheap beer with colleagues, I joined my new roommate, Andy, a New-Yorker and member of an anarchist organization called The Base. I knew that he knew the place where I needed to be. It was his friend’s birthday, and their musician friends were playing for her. Those kinds of friends are very precious, between tours, they will certainly animate your greatest parties.

That said, the gigs were very pleasant. First line, a guitarist and a drummer nostalgic of Kurt , second, a band from the past future, I mean like the people during the eighties pretending to be from the future. ( I’m not sure if you know what I mean, I’m stoned.) Anyway, those guys freaked me out, they were really good, but I just couldn’t take it, it took me back to … a night in Budapest, it was November, We were waiting for the bus in Nyugati station, I was wearing somebody else’s hat and he loved it… I was mentally preparing for the long tricky way back home (since I live in the extremities of Bushwick, just on the border with Bedstuy…) when I heard the name of Anni Rossi, which surprised me for the reason I mentioned before. So I asked around: what about Annie? She’s here? Really??? Where? (Turned out she was there all the time.) Is she going to perform? She’s great, isn’t she? I was, let’s say, suddenly a little overwhelmed and turned straight back to shake her hand: Are you Anni Rossi? Yes, and what’s your name? Line. Line who? Line ** ******. Curious and nice, she seemed unfamiliar with this kind of devotion, yes because I confessed my passion for one of her song, it was playing in my headphones in Thailand, Scotland, and on various trips here and there.

I asked her insistingly to play it, she said she’d try as she didn’t bring her violon (maybe she was upset with it), that night she preferred an electric banjo, accompaigned by the classic bass and drum combo. The concert was like a Rob, Ryan and Anni family reunion. Her belly button proudly displayed, she performed with a nonchalant attitude and voice like a cool Cold War Kid. Sipping her whiskey in between songs, she took it slow, inspiring air, expiring it, creating beautifully contained bluesy waves.

And finally the way back home wasn’t that bad at all, walking with magical bubbles in my head. Anni Rossi is just Loveli, check it out!

*

Bushwick

is located in the center of Brooklyn, where I live. It is full of brownish little 2 storey houses with flat rooftops and old factories transformed into lofts. It wasn’t such a nice neighbourhood (criiiiime) a couple of years ago, but as the rental price is cheaper than in other shiny and trendy places such as Williamsburg (headquarter of the hipster community), a lot of young and poor artists/ professionals like me are living in there. In my street seems to live many repented, retired gangsters, so it’s kind of quiet, apart from loud conversations and tooting at 2 am.

The mentioned neighbouring Bed-Stuy (Bedford-Stuyvesant) is the land of heavyweight rappers and boxers. For example Mike Tyson, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, but the chess world champion, Bobby Fischer also lived here.