Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson likes Union Pool
For Ringing Endorsement, The A.V. Club asks local characters of note for their recommendation of an event, restaurant, or whatever else strikes their fancy. This week, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson—a hard-living troubadour from Brooklyn whose second album, Summer Of Fear, was recently released on the label Saddle Creek—talks about a Williamsburg bar he knows all too well.
I first got introduced to Union Pool (484 Union Ave, 718-609-0484) when I was around 21, so that would have been around 2004. I’d started hanging out in Brooklyn, recording and working with a band up the street, and we’d go there afterwards. I swore off bars for a couple years, and it wasn’t until 2006 that I just kind of said, “fuck it” and started going there wholeheartedly again.
I started playing a lot of shows there in 2006, in the back room. I was playing there almost every week, and I played a lot of really terrible shows. I had a record-release party once, and I blacked out during the third song. There was some big buzz, and I was on the cover of Fader. All these people showed up and I totally just crashed and burned. But I still showed up the next day.
I ended up pulling pretty long shifts there. I’d show up at happy hour and just sort of stay there and get drunk—drinking by myself and drawing on a bar napkin all night. I like the anonymous tide of people washing over you. So I became a quasi-employee of the bar. It became a home away from home, which had some adverse affects on my life, but it made a lot of sense at the time. I got to know the bartenders and I got some free beers, which is economically prudent if you’re a full-time drunk like I was. I’ve pulled a couple of 5 p.m. to 4 a.m. shifts there, for sure. The bartenders would tell me, “You’ve been here longer than I have.” I used to call it the office. My office hours began at 5 p.m. every day at Union Pool.
