Meet the Artists: REMS-A-PALOOZA
- lusterlit
- Mar 27
- 7 min read
Updated: Mar 28
ARTIST RESPONDING TO
Errin Jean New In Town
Salted Baked Goods Our voracious appetite for Emily's writing
Penny Arcade
Penny Arcade is a poetic context provider and a map maker. "I deal in a cartography of the poetics of being, in what it means to be human."
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Penny_Arcade
Ellia Bisker
Singer/songwriter Ellia Bisker is half of the nationally touring goth-folk duo Charming Disaster and is the lyricist and lead vocalist for NYC brass-punk ensemble Funkrust Brass Band. Her life in showbiz was launched when she quit a job in book publishing to run away with the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus. A few years and a ukulele later, she began her musical career performing original songs about doomed love, books, and existential mysteries under the name Sweet Soubrette. She has been participating in Bushwick Book Club since 2010. Outside of music, she is into urban foraging, visible mending, genre fiction, and Tarot (even though she would describe herself as "not very woo").
Sea Griffin
Sea is a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/art weirdo. They co-front Boy Meets Pearl, a DC-based carousel punk cabaret band, are one of the curators of Queering Sound, DC's scruffy, alt Pride Festival, and run the DC Chapter of the Bushwick Book Club, as well as a songwriting duo series called “Why Don’t We Duet?” that matches songwriters by the turn of a tarot card and charges them to write a song together that will then be played at a show to raise money for local nonprofits.
John S. Hall
John S. Hall is an invisible koala bear from Latvia. He's made out of sunshine and moonshine. He makes potholders for a living and in his spare time, he makes more potholders. He lives with seven goldfish in an enormous goldfish bowl near the east river.
FB: @JSHJohnSHall
IG: @john_s_hall
Rufus Hickok
I'm a writer and pizzaiolo who lives in NYC, after living in Canada for 18 years, and growing up in Virginia. I have known Emily for 35 years.
Susan Hwang
Susan Hwang tells stories and makes collapsible things like songs and times. She plays accordion, janggu (Korean drum) and piano, but physical objects she can’t play, wear or eat intimidate her. She’s the founder/producer of international, literature-inspired arts non-profit, The Bushwick Book Club. Not a great vacationer, she leaves NYC for theater and with bands like The Debutante Hour, Lusterlit, Soozee Hwang & The Relastics and King Missile Dog Fly Religion . You can read her first illustrated story in “Coinky Dink” , a zine by Yoko Oji Kikuchi. Read her cover story on Maya Hawke in BUST Magazine. Susan plays accordions because they’re lighter than pianos (barely) and drums because it's healthy for a girl to hit things.
Phoebe Kreutz
Phoebe Kreutz is a singer/songwriter/bookwriter/lyricist/glockenspielist, born and raised on the then-mean streets of New York City.
Hailed by the New Yorker as “the Kingpin of the Joke Folk genre”, she's brought her irreverent tunes to a million bars, clubs and castles all over America and Europe and has released 4 albums and 3 EPs— including Ma’am of Action on Lose/Lose Records and Leaky Canoe on Frankfurt's Lousy Moon Records.
Website: https://www.therealphoebekreutz.com/
Mya Byrne
A bold, bluesy, glammed-up spin on timeless Americana. -Apple Music
Mya Byrne is a celebrated Americana singer-songwriter and firecracker guitarist, combining influences from countrypolitan to glam-pop, blues, and ghostly incantations into a singular voice and vision, with elements of John Prine’s whimsy, Leonard Cohen’s spiritual gravitas, Dylan’s wit, and Lucinda Williams’ aching sensuality. Like a crackling backyard fire outside of a city at dusk, stars on one side of the sky and light pollution on the other, Mya’s music is in the pocket of traditional country and Americana, yet firmly rooted in the modern world.
IG: @myabyrne
Mandy Mayhem
Mandy Mayhem is a force of nature, shattering age, gender, and industry stereotypes in hip-hop. At 49, with gray hair and an undeniable passion, she has earned recognition from icons and inspired a passionate community of followers. Her viral freestyles have amassed millions of views, proving that raw talent and dedication stand out, even in today’s barrage of content.
Before her rap breakthrough, Mandy was a world-class choreographer, an actress, and the writer and creator of the hip-hop comedy series MUTHA, streaming on HBO Max. She has performed in legendary venues like Carnegie Hall and Times Square, and is set to release music with Chuck D and DMC in 2025.
Mandy’s journey is one of relentless reinvention. Whether headlining shows, collaborating with hip-hop pioneers, or inspiring her generation, she embodies the message that passion knows no limits. Mandy Mayhem isn’t just breaking barriers—she’s proving they never mattered in the first place.
IG: @mandymurhead
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/mandamurhead
TikTok: @msmandymaycheetham
Youtube: www.youtube.com/@MandaMurhead
Salted Baked Goods
Salted Baked Goods is all about the interplay between salty and sweet, and how one enhances the other. We offer a sophisticated take on the traditional brownie in a guilt-free, bite-sized portion, delivering the perfect balance of salty and sweet in a decadent, mouth-watering fudgy texture. Handmade in Brooklyn with only the finest ingredients imported
from around the world.
The Founder: Kathy Mucciolo
Can a brownie change a life?
After working for over 25 years in a visual merchandising career, things were getting
stagnant. My creativity was being limited. I knew I needed a new creative outlet, so I
took my life-long passion for baking and enrolled in a 12-week Baking and Pastry course
at ICE. It was there that I found my culinary voice, and with these newly acquired tools
and skills I came up with a recipe for brownies that takes them from the standard, overly sweet flavor profile, into an elevated taste experience with a perfect balance of salty and sweet. Baking is a proven therapeutic activity, and it helped get me through a divorce, the death of my beloved dog, and most of all, the devastating and untimely loss of my older brother. Reflecting on the fragility of life made me take a long and hard look at why I was staying at a job that no longer seemed to value me. This, coupled with the fact that so many friends, family members, and complete strangers kept insisting that I should sell my brownies, gave me the courage to take a leap of faith to start my own business.
Kathy Mucciolo, 51, Baker/Founder Salted Baked Goods, Brooklyn, NY
Sumac Magazine, “Community & Memories” Summer 2019
Troy Ogilvie
Troy makes dances for children and adults in Lenapehoking, currently known as Brooklyn. She hosts Emergent Improvisation dance sessions and recently learned how to cross stitch. Troy is so grateful to Susan Hwang and the community at Bushwick Book Club!
IG: @troyanosaurus
Karen Pittelman / Karen & the Sorrows
Queer country trailblazers Karen & the Sorrows, the project of singer/songwriter Karen Pittelman, have been featured in Billboard, WNYC’s The Takeaway, Rolling Stone, and No Depression, who wrote that, “Like Gram Parsons, Pittelman peels away the superficiality that much of country music has embraced and looks deep into its soul, its history, and its stories and makes it all her own." Their most recent record Why Do We Want What We Want was released at the end of 2023. Pittelman was also at the heart of creating queer country community for over a decade, running the Gay Ole Opry Festival and the Queer Country Quarterly from 2012 to 2022. Since the pandemic, Pittelman, who is immunocompromised, has been unable to tour or perform live, but she continues to write, record, and share her songs online.
IG: @kandthewsorrows
Ruminators w/ Patti Rothberg
The Ruminators with Patti Rothberg’s music is about dating life from a woman's perspective. Similar to Garfunkel and Oates or Weird Al meets Taylor Swift, they also write indie comedy pop/rock.
Patti toured the US, supporting the Wallflowers, Chris Isaak, Midnight Oil, and Garbage, and she toured Europe supporting the Black Crowes with her debut album, Between the 1and 9.
Just Jill's music was played on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and in Suzanne Vega's collection of songs related to 9/11, Vigil. Jill has a photo in the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of NY.
They’ve been played regularly on WFMU, WHUS, WRFG, RockConnection77, and WOWD radio.
Errin Jean
Errin Jean is a doctor of physical therapy, artist and musician. She’s been a handful of NYC indie bands including the ones most dear to her heart, Royal Pink and The Dashing Wildes. Although Errin has shifted her artistic focus primarily to photography and visual art, music is always in her soul. She enjoys making up personalized songs for her pediatric patients and playing lonely ukulele songs for her appreciative cats.
IG: @errinjean
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