Dive Bar Jukebox with Gaby Scelzo
"Single, drinkin' doubles. Teardrops turnin' into bubbles."
Welcome to Dive Bar Jukebox, a LAST CALL paid subscriber exclusive where bartenders, writers, chefs, musicians, and a cast of cool characters answer the question: If we were hanging out together at a bar and I put ten credits on the jukebox, what songs would you punch in and why? Their responses reveal thoughts on their favorite dive bars along with a hand-picked, annotated playlist for your weekend listening pleasure. In the spirit of the season, today’s DBJ is free to all readers.
Please join me in welcoming today’s special guest…
Gaby Scelzo
I first met native New Yorker, Carroll Gardens neighbor, and fellow lifelong Knicks fan Gaby Scelzo in the fall of 2022 at one of her inaugural pop-up bake sales at The Six Bells in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. She offered three delicious homemade treats that Saturday afternoon—a Caramel Apple Cinnamon Bun, an Upside-Down Pumpkin Crumb Cake, and an Everything Bagel Scone—and I purchased one of each as they were all on the verge of selling out.
Since then, in addition to being a writer, Gaby has added full-time baker to her resume. Along with the sweet and savory treats she regularly turns out—like Almond Croissant Coffee Cake, Jambon Beurre Scones, Salty Chocolate Hazelnut Tart, and a festive Chocolate Peppermint Yule Log—she’s now an in-demand baker of “the cakes of people’s dreams.” Her Insta is filled with many of her creative confections, including a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough-Frosted Layer Cake; a S'mores Sheet Cake with chocolate cake, fudge frosting, cinnamon graham crumble, and a torched brown sugar marshmallow meringue; and a Funfetti Sheet Cake layered with funfetti cake, raspberry jam, and vanilla brown-butter cream cheese frosting. If you’re in NYC and need a bespoke cake for any occasion, Gaby should be in your Contacts.
She also writes a highly entertaining, opinionated, and always informative New York City restaurant advice column called on Substack, guiding readers on where to eat if someone else is picking up the check, date spots, where to celebrate a birthday, navigating alternate options eat when you can’t score that impossible resy, and other reader restaurant-related conundrums.
Read on for Gaby’s Dive Bar Jukebox debut, where she shares what the platonic ideal of a dive bar bathroom should look like, talks about the importance of duct tape, the reliability of a dive bar Vodka Soda, and drops an annotated self-described “country-esque” playlist that lands a groove somewhere between The Chicks and Morgan Wallen to Jonathan Richman and Fleetwood Mac.
Talking Dives with Gaby Scelzo
What is your favorite dive bar and why do you love it?
Gaby: I wanted to say Max Fish—rest in ultimate peace to a perfect establishment—but my best friend who frequented it with me argued that calling it a dive bar was “just disrespectful to the variety of experience the establishment offered.” She’s absolutely correct, dive bars don’t have a downstairs bar with a playlist built for dancing and booths designed for making out.
What makes a dive bar a dive bar?
Gaby: A dive bar is simple and bare bones. It has to be dark and serve cheap, strong drinks. There should be at least one stool, chair, or booth patched up with duct tape. It should never be too crowded and the bartenders should never be too nice. The bathroom should look like this:
What is the strangest or most interesting thing you ever witnessed go down at a dive bar?
Gaby: I know somebody who got punched in the face at a dive bar—I wish it had happened to me so that I’d have a better answer to this question. The strangest thing I’ve experienced first-hand was a bartender responding to my Vodka Soda order by exasperatedly saying “please, no, that’s so boring” and making me a Manhattan instead. I drank it.
Do you have a go-to karaoke song and why is that your favorite?
Gaby: My voice is abominable, so I don’t really do karaoke, but if I had been blessed with a more angelic voice, I would definitely use it to sing “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood. [BTP: Read more of Gaby’s thoughts on karaoke in “Karaoke Night at Montero’s”]
Do you have a favorite bar jukebox and what makes it special?
Gaby: I’m so ashamed to admit that the only jukebox I’ve ever used was a digital one at a bar in Austin or Boston or Chicago. It was a touchscreen that you could search for basically any song on—there’s no world in which it should have been called a jukebox.
What is your go-to drink at a dive bar?
Gaby: Well Vodka Soda. The ones that are served in small, thick glasses with just a little too much ice so that they spill everywhere as you grab them off the bar. They come with laughably minuscule lime wedges that are helpless against their moonshine taste and have you buzzed two sips in.
Dive Bar Jukebox: Gaby Scelzo
I have pretty famously bad taste in music. My friends never give me aux access. I’m either listening to popstar bops from Sabrina Carpenter, Olivia Rodrigo, Chappell Roan, Taylor Swift, Tate McRae, Gracie Abrams, Charli XCX, or I’m listening to a random shuffle of the country music I grew up listening to. The latter is definitely more interesting than the Top 40 stuff that you hear everywhere, so the theme of my DBJ playlist will lean country… let’s call it country-esque.
—Gaby
“Not Ready to Make Nice” by The Chicks
This might seem like too slow or intense of a song to play in a dive bar, but I don’t know a bridge that goes harder than this one’s. I heard it for the first time in a SoulCycle class and I still get the same chills I did then every single time I listen. You can’t not bang your head or sing along—it’s the perfect primer for the rest of the playlist.“Since She Started To Ride” by Jonathan Richman
Another song that seems chill but really picks up and makes you want to move. Listening to this song is just fun—the album cover artwork is awesome, Richman’s voice is so special and it’s about a woman who just wants to be left alone to ride her damn horses!“God Made Girls” by RaeLynn
I was introduced to this song in a gender studies class during my freshman year of college. While dissecting how ridiculously misogynistic it was to claim the reason for a woman’s existence is to “wear a pretty skirt” and give men “a reason to wash that truck,” it occurred to me that this song was also, unfortunately, a bop. I could not get it out of my head for months, probably because I started listening to it on my jogs around campus. I love playing it for my friends now and watching them react to the lyrics. They always agree that despite its messaging being straight out of The Handmaid’s Tale, it’s kind of a jam.“Farmer’s Daughter” by Rodney Atkins
This is a song that my friends rarely agree about with me. To me, this is not even a song. It’s a rom-com, it’s a romance novel, it’s an oil painting of true love. When it ends, I feel like I just walked out of the movie theater. The plot, the imagery, it’s all so well done—it’s what so many country songs wish they were. Nobody else in the world thinks this, but it earns a spot on the playlist because my passion for it and Rodney Atkins’ thick country accent usually makes people laugh.“Whiskey Glasses” by Morgan Wallen
We’ve reached the banger portion of the playlist. I love to listen to music about drinking when I’m drinking, and this one from a young Wallen is one of the best songs to do that with.“Heartache Medication” by Jon Pardi
Much like Wallen’s “Whiskey Glasses,” this song is about drinking through getting your heart broken. I heard this in the car one day a few years ago and proclaimed it an instant classic, but Pardi’s earlier album, California Sunrise, is also worth mentioning. It’s a bunch of similarly named, silly love songs: “Head Over Boots,” “Dirt on My Boots,” “Heartache on the Dance Floor.”“Condemned” by Zach Bryan
I think this is the most bar-appropriate Zach Bryan song. I love “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and “Something in the Orange,” but those are songs for an emotional train ride out of town, not a dive bar full of people trying to have a good time. “Condemned,” on the other hand, is fast and fun and easy, and when he laughs his way through the last chorus with his friends, it makes me tear up and want to call my friends to tell them I love them.“Live Like You Were Dying” by Tim McGraw
Listening to country music rocks because it takes you to another universe, one full of boots and tractors and mud and horses and Wrangler jeans. This song takes you to some sort of honky tonk bar, a place where men apparently just start telling you all the things they did after finding out they were going to die. It’s so dramatic and detailed, it reminds me of talking to my grandpa.“Silver Springs (Live at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, CA 5/23/97)” by Fleetwood Mac
Stevie Nicks really did something here, and by something I mean she encapsulated womanhood in 5 minutes and 41 seconds. It’s impossible not to furiously belt this out when it comes on, even if you haven’t been wronged by anyone lately. If you haven’t seen Stevie screaming “THE SOUND OF MY VOICE WILL HAUNT YOU” directly at Lindsey Buckingham, you must watch it.
What Are You Listening To?” by Megan Moroney
This song sounds how Ativan feels. Megan has a lot of her own bangers—”Tennessee Orange” is a masterpiece and Lucky is a no-skips album—but this cover is so beautiful. Her voice is simultaneously powerful and angelic, it’s a perfect country comedown after so many hard-hitting jams.
Hope to See You This Sunday in Brooklyn!
LAST CALL Holiday Gift Guides!
Starting next Tuesday, I’ll be kicking off a week’s worth of LAST CALL Holiday Gift Guides counting down to the annual LAST CALL Thanksgiving Eve Special. You can look forward to holiday gift ideas in the following categories:
Advent Calendars
Food & Provisions
Drinks & Spirits
Books & Cookbooks
The Spirit of Italy
Stocking Stuffers
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The little things provide a lift.
Like being reminded that there is still Jonathan Richman and his music in this world.
And then there are bonuses like Jonathan Richman fans who request deep cuts (well, everything he’s done besides Pablo Picasso and Road Runner are deep cuts, right?) on Dive Bar Jukebox, like Since She Started to Ride, provide a genuine spark of joy to the day. So thanks! And now i gotta get that pumpkin crumb cake!
I remember how great last year’s holiday gift guide was! Looking forward to it.