Yacht Rock Revue at Pier 17

At a certain point, the music alternately known as “adult contemporary” or “easy listening” got rebranded, for some inexplicable reason, as “yacht rock.” I discovered this by accident as I was watching PBS one evening and saw a concert by Yacht Rock Revue, a band that mainly covers songs from the late ’70s and early ’80s. I was impressed by their ability to replicate the musical and vocal arrangements of some of my favorite songs and there was a certain kitschy charm to their Huk-a-Poo shirts, hip-hugger bell bottoms and aviator sunglasses.

When I saw them perform tonight at Pier 17, Nicholas Niespodziani, one of their singers, had a cold, which is unfortunate because he has a good voice and sang most of the songs in the PBS concert. Luckily, they have several other singers (most notably Peter Olson) who were able to fill in.

I don’t know if they have a deep repertoire for emergencies like this or they had to rejigger their set list at the last minute, but there were still a few songs I recognized from their PBS show. One stand-out was Sade’s “Smooth Operator.” Kourtney Jackson does great justice to Sade’s vocals and the saxophone player, David B. Freeman, nailed the sax part. Freeman was also featured on another showstopper, Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.” The even performed ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which was great since I missed ELO when they played at Madison Square Garden this week. (I suppose “yacht rock” is a loose organizing principal. Some of their songs might qualify as “classic rock.”)

Yacht Rock Revue may be the world’s best cover band. They do have a few original songs but, as they say, just play the hits—or, in this case, other people’s hits.

A Gap Salesperson Explains Global Trade to Me

I just had a very detailed discussion about tariffs, global trade, the economy and America vs. China with a salesperson at the Gap!

It all started when I wanted to buy a belt.

When I walked into the Gap store on Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District, the salesperson explained that they didn’t have very many belts and they wouldn’t be getting any more in until November. He said I could go to the Gap flagship store in Times Square and, furthermore, they were converting the Flatiron location into a “Gap Factory” store. (It sounds like an outlet store but it basically just means they’d be selling cheaper merchandise.) I explained to him that I was a longtime Gap customer, but that recently I found that their prices had gone up while their quality had gone down and that’s why I now shopped at Men’s Wearhouse. (I’m also no longer a teenager.)

The salesperson went on to say that that was the trend in the clothing industry in general: more merchandise at cheaper quality. (Think Shein and Temu.)

I told him that there was a story in the New York Times that day about how President Biden was imposing more tariffs on China, which was surprising to me because I had just tweeted that those costs are passed on to the American consumer after the last presidential debate. A recent story on the PBS News Hour said that tariffs don’t really work because not that many jobs are saved and prices still go up.

The salesperson compared what’s happening in the clothing industry to what was happening in the auto industry. He said that in the future we’d all have to buy electric cars and unless we imposed tariffs on China, they’d take over the auto industry (as they’ve already done with the clothing industry). Furthermore, he went on to compare both these industries to the real estate industry, which he claimed China was also taking over, and that ultimately the goal was to make the dollar obsolete because China only wanted to trade in gold. (He emphasized that it was the Chinese government that was at fault, not the Chinese people.)

I’m not an economist, but a lot of what he said made sense to me.

All I know is that if I want to buy a belt, I now have to go to Times Square.

UPDATE: Success! (See photo above.)