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BROTHER CLEVE
Philosophically inclined to dance, discover and drink well
By CHRISTINE LIU
del.ico.us
reddit!
If you have ever experienced a properly mixed drink in Boston, it's probably a good bet that Brother Cleve had something to do with that.
You'd be hard-pressed to deny the influence on the nightlife scene by this music obsessive and cocktail connoisseur-a lifetime Bostonian with heaps of worldly wanderlust. Inspiring some of the city's most influential bartenders-Patrick Sullivan, Joe McGuirk, Jackson Cannon, Misty Kalkofen, Dylan Black, and John Gertsen to name a few-with his passion for vintage drinks, Brother Cleve planted the seeds of cocktail culture in the late '90s by DJing Saturnalia nights at the Lizard Lounge with his properly hip "exotica, spy jazz, cop-fu" sets and working the bar at the then-nascent B-Side Lounge. You know it's serious when Campari was a sponsor of his band, Combustible Edison. Explains Brother Cleve upon the origins of his mania, "I got interested in cocktail stuff in the mid-'80s, beginning with drinks my family drank: sidecars, pink squirrels, rusty nails." He spends his current days playing keyboard for the St. Barts-based rock band Dragonfly, spinning eclectic DJ sets around Boston, "reviewing strange DVDs" for the Brooklyn Rail and booking music for the Beehive. Lounge, yes; languid, absolutely not.
"I like to call this the Museum of Cultural Debris," Brother Cleve says, his living space teeming with fantastic objects of mid-century splendor. There's the floor-to-ceiling shelf packed with LPs (5,000 at last estimate), a hulking hair dryer chair in the den ("found in a Salvation army in Rhode Island for $10") and a custom-designed bar offsetting the copious compilation of vintage shakers, novelty flasks and cocktail books. Every object seemingly has a story: an ashtray from the Playboy Club, a late-1800s absinthe spoon from New Orleans, furniture culled from the best-kept-secret antique stores of Warren, Rhode Island. "That's me and Frank Zappa ... a long time ago," he says, pointing to a slightly blurry snapshot. A mid-'60s illustrated map of New York City ("I found that in a dead guy's house") balances a well-loved pinball machine and Elvis paraphernalia. But India is his clear obsession as he's traveled there about a half-dozen times, smuggling back discoveries like dirt-cheap Bollywood albums and Old Monk rum.
Keep 'em coming, brother.
Catch Brother Cleve spinning next Sun.11.4 and Sun.11.15 at Zuzu's [474 Mass. Ave., Central Sq., Cambridge. 617.864.3278. mideastclub.com] and every Saturday at Devlin's [332 Washington St., Brighton. 617.779.8822. edevlins.com]