Jonah Bayer is a music journalist who’s served as music editor of Alternative Press and head writer of Stephen’s Untitled Rock Show (MTV). He is co-host of the Going Off Track podcast and co-creator of the Sound Advice web series.
What was the food highlight of your year?
This is a tough one for me since I mainly subsist on take-out within a two-block radius of my apartment, but earlier this year I ventured to Asia and had some amazing meals in South Korea. I got extremely lucky by making some friends who lived there on my connecting flight from Taiwan and they helped me have some super authentic dining experiences that ranged from Korean BBQ joints to nondescript food stalls on the street. From my experiences you can’t go wrong with anything that’s served on a stick. Plus you don’t have to deal with utensils, which is a huge bonus for me.
What was the music highlight of your year?
Seeing Saves The Day play a super late secret show at Saint Vitus Bar in Brooklyn was pretty incredible. I wrote my first cover story on them for Alternative Press over a decade ago so it was pretty surreal to be able to hear them play a lot of that material again live in a small club setting. They performed Through Being Cool in its entirety and Chris even dedicated my favorite song “Banned From The Back Porch” to me since it was my birthday. I still kind of can’t believe this happened but I’ve seen a bunch of photos from that night so I’m pretty sure it did.
Was there a moment when food and music came together in a memorable way?
A few months ago my band United Nations played Fest in Gainesville and had some amazing meals at a place called The Jones, which served a ton of delicious local food. Better yet since so many bands were in town for the festival, every time we went we’d run into someone that we knew and hadn’t seen in a while. I remember one meal in particular where I had some amazing biscuits alongside the guys from Paint It Black and Octaves. Oh also some band called Knapsack played at one point, you should check them out. I think they’re pretty new.