Scene and Heard

Star Fucking Hipsters album release at Tompkins Square Park, New York NY

Photos by Alex Nathanson » Scott Sturgeon, Star Fucking Hipsters, and the NYPD squared off for a classic rematch.

Text by Alex Nathanson
Posted on October 02, 2008

Sturgeon, rousing the water-logged rabble.

On Saturday, the Star Fucking Hipsters played their album release show in Tompkins Square Park to a small crowd of people who braved the crappy weather.

As has been the case recently, the show was only allowed to reach to 80 decibels at 100 feet, or the organizers would receive summons. Unlike last time, there were no all night protests or rampant arrests.

Selective enforcement of noise regulations and recent police harassment of Star Fucking Hipsters guitarist Scott Sturgeon has led to a number of protests and an ongoing legal battle that has become about more than the concerts and Sturgeon's various bands, and become about public space, free speech, police harassment and the right to assemble in a city where our civil liberties have steadily eroded in recent years.

For a very comprehensive piece on Sturgeon's complicated relationship with the police, you can read an article over at the Village Voice about the Leftover Crack's frontman's frustrated anger, and his antics.

The blog Neither More Nor Less also covers a central moment in the unfolding conflict, in which Sturgeon caused a day of arrests and protests after getting himself thrown in jail for threatening cops/throwing donuts.

There were a number of openers including Wombat in Combat and Two Man Advantage, and a hockey punk band whose lead singer starts the show wearing, yes, full hockey pads, reducing his costume by the end of the set to little but a large, hairy, sweaty mess. Star Fucking Hipsters ended the amplified part of the show at six in the evening and were followed by Casa De Chihuahua, who played an acoustic set.