Reggie Watts, Tuesday at Fort Greene Park

Did the rain keep you from some of this past weekend’s hottest events? Make up for it with the usual chock-full week of free and cheap tunes. Show your love for Brooklyn based musician/comedian Reggie Watts at Fort Greene Park. And while you’re at it, stop by Zebulon for some jazzy improvisationals with Mostly Other People do the killing. Nearly everything we’ve listed this week is free, so get out there and listen to something new already. (more…)

The Pioneers of Seduction, Aug. 31 at Bruar Falls

Not the most hopping week ever for cheap music in the BK atmosphere, but there’s still plenty to keep your attention. Definitely head out to tonight’s open jam session (Aug. 30) at the Slope’s Puppets Jazz Club. We hear it’s facing some hard times and could use the support. What else? Go ahead and wake up beautiful with the Pioneers of Seduction, or get into some do-it-yourself, home-studio-sound head sway with Family Lumber. (more…)

FRIDAY
8pm: Talk dirty to me: get tips and hints for keeping us your partner hot in the bedroom. bonus: free lube samples! Babeland (Park Slope), free.

9pm: The Machine (honing their Pink Floyd skills for 20+ years) perform a mix of Floyd standards @ Brooklyn Bowl, $15

5pm-3am (thru Saturday): Puppets Jazz Bar (South Park Slope) is facing the possibility they may have to close their doors. help to keep them open at this two-day fundraiser. no cover, pay what you can. (more…)

The Press, Wednesday at The Woods

In case the recent saga of the Pool Parties doused your faith a bit in the music gratis, it’s time to get back on track (they did). This week, wile out to free psychedelic riffs by Dinowalrus at Bruar Falls or get freaky with some fresh tunage by The Press at The Woods. As usual, nothing tops $5.

Monday, Aug. 23
MLK Concert Series Caribbean Night with Sean Paul and the Mighty Sparrow: Wingate Field, Brooklyn Ave. between Rutland Rd. and Winthrop St., free, 7:30 p.m. (more…)

We're pretty sure Ben Lerman is posing here.

Here are two things we love: comedy and secrets. Or at least the whiff of secrecy that comes from calling something “underground.” Starting tonight, there are some really unique and hilarious acts coming to Public Assembly as part of the BK Underground Comedy Festival. The mini-series, which starts tonight and runs through Wednesday, features Stacy Mayer’s Funeralogues, the puppet artist Nick Jones‘ “Smart Phone,” Dr. Steam Whipple and the Prescriptions (with “deep roots in southern voodoo and eastern confusion”), and the hilarious and talented Ben Lerman*, tinkling away at his ukelele. Tickets are $10 a night, and you can see all of the shows  here.

*Um, just saying… Ben Lerman will also be peforming this Wednesday at the awesome storytelling show at The Sackett Bar called The NutSackett. Just in case you don’t get enough of him Monday night … or want to see me as well.

Underground Comedy Festival at Public Assembly, 70 N. Sixth St. Williamsburg, 11211, (718) 384-4586, Sunday, Monday & Wednesday at 8 p.m.

See Neon Indian at the Governor's Island Beach shows

The days of the Northside Festival have long passed and Siren came and went with the Coney Island breeze, but there’s no need to have your endless summer of free Brooklyn concerts come to a halt. There’s more than enough music (indoors and out) to tide you over until CMJ Music Marathon madness arrives in late October. From Aretha Franklin to Neon Indian, here’s the best of what’s left. (more…)

Yes, the concerts at Celebrate Brooklyn are free. But go for one of the summer’s biggies, and free probably gets you an afternoon of line-waiting sunburn for nothing but a lumpy, bumpy seat on the distant grass. That doesn’t have to be you. LimeWire Store, the sponsor behind Sonic Youth’s Jul. 31 CB show, is giving away two VIP tickets for right up in front of the stage—so close, LimeWire says, that you’ll “see the settings on Thurston Moore’s amp stack.” If that doesn’t say “very important person,” we don’t know what does. To enter the giveaway, email LimeWire Store at contests@limewire.com by midnight, Jul. 29. Include the name of your favorite Sonic Youth album and why you like it. All the contest rules are here.

Summer music’s already in full-swing around the borough, but today, the tunes will be inescapable. This first day of summer is Make Music NY 2010, a day of free, public concerts around the city to celebrate the start of the new season. Hundreds of concerts, in every genre imaginable, are going on until 10 p.m. over all five boroughs, with 140 venues in Brooklyn alone. We can’t begin to give you the highlights, but here’s the full Brooklyn listing with great stuff from BK Bridge Park to Brownsville. And if you’re inspired, you can get out there and jam yourself, on one of Brooklyn’s 10 public pianos from the Play Me, I’m Yours installation through Jul. 5.

Vivian Girls, via MySpace

Have you heard about the new showcase at Brooklyn Bowl obsessing over all things local? It kicked off last month with a free Phenomenal Handclap Band show, along with other offerings from local farmers and artists.

The venue just announced its next event for March 28, and it will feature a free show by the Vivian Girls, those lo-fi, noise popsters who shot from being another obscure Brooklyn band to a Pitchfork-lauded sensation doing shows with TV on the Radio in just a few months.

The band German Measles, another Brooklyn catch, will also be performing. More details about the event, like what other local fare will be featured, will be released next week. For now, you can check out the event page, and the Vivian Girls MySpace.

John Munnelly sings the blues.

“I was laid off last week, don’t know what I will do, I’m gonna go online with the unemployment blues…” Sound familiar? If so, at least be comforted by the fact that you’re in the good company of fellow Brooklynite and singer/songwriter John Munnelly. Bensonhurst-by-way-of-Ireland musician Munnelly recently won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Foundation’s Jay Gorney Award for his recession-era lament “The Unemployment Blues.” Written in a contemporary “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” vein, the song touches on all your standard laid-off woes: sending out 346 bajillion resumes to no avail, college degree with nothing to show for it, and of course, food stamps. (more…)