The Brooklyn-based, New York City-bred band members of Stylofone (with the exception of drummer Will Stone, who’s from Northampton, Massachusetts) started playing together five years ago. For the last two years they have focused heavily on playing shows (they played 96 shows this past year alone), touring England, where they have a single out, and writing material for their upcoming first album, produced by Chris Sanchez of The Fever.
Around 20 minutes into the trial, a sampling of appetizers arrived: Fontina cheese wrapped in prosciutto; eggplant and peppers with Mozzarella; and an order of clams requested by bassist Max Heel. “I love frutta da sea!” he declared. Lead singer Jason Maartens Klauber, who is lactose-intolerant, dipped into the garlicky clams: “I am lactose extremely tolerant. I will eat cheese in any form. Liquid, hot or cold,” O’Connor stated, digging into the mozzarella, made fresh daily at the restaurant.
“Fontina is one of my favorite cheeses. That’s why I’m enjoying this. Is this supposed to be melted?” Heel asked of the Fontina cheese appetizer. “It’s not a dip. And don’t fill up on appetizers,” Klauber warned while focusing on an arugula and baked-pear salad.
Talk turned to whether Cronkite is an appetizing name, and the time O’Connor made out with a 45-year-old professor when he was a freshman at Wesleyan. “We were both wasted,” O’Connor explained. “Cronkite sounds like a 1917 name. It should be called Sam Champion,” Heel declared over the restaurant’s loudspeakers. (Sam Champion also happens to be the name of the band playing tomorrow night with Stylofone at Club Midway.) “Did you know Sam Champion is the only openly-gay weatherman in broadcast news history?” O’Connor added.
Cronkite divides its hefty selections of pizza and wine into three generations – Napoli (1st), Italy (2nd) and Cronkite (3rd). Stylofone ordered three from generation two and three, as well as a special no-cheese pizza for Jason. “Asparagus is my favorite-shaped vegetable. There are hardly any on this pizza,” Heel notices as he checks out the Asparagi E Proscuitto (asparagus, prosciutto, Fontina cheese, Mozzarella, onion and cherry tomatoes). Stone gave the simplest pie of the night, Monzese (tomato, mozzarella, parmesan, and fennel sausage), his vote: “I have pedestrian taste.” Everyone agreed on the Patate E Salsiccia (fennel sausage, fingerling potatoes, roasted peppers, Fontina cheese and tomato). But the Tartufo (black winter truffles, Fontina, Ricotta, Mozzarella and olive oil) received the most attention. “I like it. It’s really heavy. It’s like a dessert pizza,” said O’Connor.
Leftovers were boxed, and the waitress brought out a pile of pink cotton candy. “I made cotton candy during the summer when I was 18-21 at Yankee Stadium,” O’Connor said as he tore some off and threw it in the air. “They also made me the mayor of lemonade.”
At 11 pm Heel was busy text-messaging plans, and O’Connor was heading upstairs to call his girlfriend of the last eight days. “It’s going pretty fast. I already have keys to her house.”
Plans for band practice had to be cancelled. “We knew we’d be too loaded up on pizza and booze,” Klauber said as he threw back the last Peroni. Tom Petty’s “American Girl” played on the stereo as Stylofone made their exit, chanting “pizza” in unison to the song’s chorus.
~Sara Costello
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