I hear a lot of a band called The National around the apartment because they’re one of my son’s favorite’s. They will be playing a benefit for Celebrate Brooklyn on Tuesday, July 27th at 6PM and they have a much awaited new album called High Violet coming out in May that has been leaked out slowly.

All of the band members live in Brooklyn. Matt Berninger, the band’s singer and lyricist, lives in Ditmas Park and he had this to say about the band’s Brooklyn roots: “I don’t know how much of the music scene here has to do with Brooklyn, other than the fact that there are so many venues and places to grow and learn and perform in front of a crowd,” he says. “There’s a big difference between writing music in your garage and standing up in front of a hostile room of people who don’t give a shit about you, and doing that over and over again until someone, somewhere, finally starts to care. If we weren’t in New York, music might have turned into a dad-rock hobby, something to do on weekends. But here, there’s always new and exciting stuff you want to chase.”

Read more about the band in Black Book.