PLEASE KNOW: Since friggin' EARLY NOVEMBER, 2020, my blogging service, Typepad, has been grappling with a recurring cacheing issue that is manifesting itself with multiple broken images across fifteen plus years of posts, here. In the grand scheme of things, it’s not a huge deal, but it’s really burning my fuckin’ toast.
I’ve been liaising with Typepad for weeks and weeks, now, but they don’t yet seem to have a grasp on the magnitude of the problem, much less a timeline as to when it might be solved. All I know is that it’s a bad user experience for you, the reader. Please just know that I’m aware of it, and trying to remedy the issue with all stealth, although it’s largely out of my hands.
I first posted the video below almost exactly ten years ago to the day (off by about ten days, I'll admit). It's been a crazy week at work, and I'm juggling multiple projects and also trying to find the time to bring certain posts to life here. Please bear with me.
In the interim, why not travel back in time to Rick Liss' "No York City"?
This month, my kids Charlotte and Oliver turn 17 and 15, respectively.
Evey typing that sentence feels entirely unreal. To me, it was like yesterday that I could pick them both up at once with only a modicum of effort. Were I to attempt that now, it would mean a swift trip to the chiropractor.
But, y’know, as I mentioned way back in 2013, as time went on, I felt less comfortable subjecting them to my weird little whims. They were no longer my models. Now, I can pretty much forget about asking them to strike a pose in front of some arguably significant address that Joey Ramone once slouched in front of, lest I get a lot of eye-rolling and pushback. Charlotte absolutely demands the right to vet any photo I take of her, let alone post. Oliver isn’t quite as bothered, but he still wants to see pictures before they go live, so to speak. Fair enough, but the spontaneity and, sadly, the fun has been largely syhphoned out of it.
My kids have their own lives and their own identities, and while I remain their father, they’re certainly entitled to their privacy. As such, don’t expect another “stop shot” from them any time soon.
It’s been a very tough year for the younger generation, when ya think about it. Both kids have been pretty stoic through it all and have just gotten on with it, but my wife and I feel like apologizing to them every day for missing out on what would otherwise have been pivotal eras for them. They’re both doing exceptionally well in school, and we could not be prouder of them, but these were not the high school experiences they were promised.
Very soon, we start looking at colleges for Charlotte, the prospect of which is too emotionally engulfing for me to even begin to process. And no-longer-little Oliver will follow close behind her in that trajectory.
At that point, I lost the ability to fathom how life will be.
Hot on the heels of exhuming the Motions in New York in 1969, I stumbled upon this clip of the mighty Loaded-era Velvet Underground playing at a camp ground at White Rock Lake, Texas that very same year. Forgive me if this is old news to you, but I thought it was pretty damn remarkable.
While I was fully aware of who Lou Reed was, at the time, I didn’t discover the Velvet Underground until I got to college in 1985. This came via my friendship with a fellow scowly music geek named Jay (`twas Jay that also turned me onto the glory of The Stooges). With a single airing of “Waiting for The Man,” Jay had me entirely captivated by the Velvet Underground, opening up a whole new, crucial chapter of music discovery for me that led to further revelations like The Modern Lovers, The MC5, Berlin-era Bowie, King Crimson and beyond. Were it not for Jay, I’d probably still be subsiding on a strict sonic diet of Alien Sex Fiend, Venom and the Cro-Mags today.
In any case, one seemed pretty hard-pressed to find any evidence that the Velvets existed in anything other than a strictly gritty, black & white world, perpetually behind impenetrable black sunglasses and summarily decked out in stylishly funereal attire. Though well ahead of their time in most respects, they seemed to inescapably inhabit an era prior to the technicolor and Kodachrome.
Not entirely so, as it turns out.
Here’s the official description:
The film footage was first revealed to the world about a year ago courtesy of the G. WILLIAMS JONES FILM AND VIDEO ARCHIVE AT SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY (SMU). It is a recording of elements of ‘Dallas Peace Day’ which was part of a nationwide day of protest called the ‘Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam’ on 15 October 1969 at White Rock Lake, Dallas TX.
The video footage (perhaps the only high-quality colour footage that exists of the band pre the 1993 reunion) is obviously of stunningly good quality, but unfortunately, the audio track was virtually non-existent although faint snippets of ‘I’m Waiting For The Man’ and ‘Beginning To See The Light’ can be discerned. So in the spirit of that, I crudely overlaid the audio of the latter song that was recorded originally as part of a bootleg of the famous ‘Matrix’ shows in San Francisco, 26-27 November, 1969 that I liberated from Disc 5 of the 45th Anniversary/Super-Deluxe edition of the 1969 self-titled/grey album. I selected it based on sonic quality, although it is virtually indistinguishable from the version that appeared on the ‘1969: Velvet Underground Live /Volume 1’ album that indeed had been recorded in Dallas within a few days of this peace-day. So, I am confident that what I present here is authentically close to what would have been seen and heard that day and have I have kept virtually every frame of footage that included either the band or the audience during their set.
The band quite evidently had shed some of the noir appearance of the Andy Warhol/John Cale period and this Mark II/rebooted version has a lot more sunshine about them in every sense and along with Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison and Moe Tucker is newly recruited Doug Yule, who seems to get most of the camera’s attention.
Intriguingly, I’ve since been told that the footage was recorded for/by Stoney Burns (seen alongside Sterling wearing sheriff’s hat) who was a well-known counter-culture journalist running a publication called ‘Dallas Notes’ at the time, that was in effect shut down the following year after a heavy-handed Police raid where virtually everything was seized (typewriters, credit-cards, telephones etc etc) including camera equipment and rolls of film which may explain it’s the disappearance and remarkable standard of preservation ...apparently there had been an unsuccessful challenge to get all this material returned that had reached as high as the US Supreme Court!
NB: By the way ...Should one be tempted to share with the world, one's opinion that the Velvets were "just a garage band" (a common enough motif in comments on the original 'up' to become irritating); first-of-all, dig out your static-cloth to wipe the baby batter from your prog-rock LPs and then perhaps explain why you clicked on this in the first place …just saying!
At first glance, you might be forgiven for thinking the hirsute young men in the clips below are The Strokes or someone comparable, but no …. these videos date back to 1969, and the band featured is a little beat combo from Holland called The Motions, depicted cavorting around midtown Manhattan in a style popularized by “A Hard Day’s Night” and “The Monkees” — who, coincidentally, make a cameo in the third clip.
If the name doesn’t ring a bell with you, don’t feel too bad. The band never made a major dent here and were done and dusted shortly after this was all filmed. They were evidently in town to play a venue at 301 West 46th Street called The Scene. One can’t help feel a little bad for them watching this, knowing that their stars were crossed.
In any case, it’s still an interesting glimpse of a lost New York City. I would have been about two years old, while this was going on.
Don’t go looking for The Scene today. The building that housed it was razed and in its footprint now stands The Riu Plaza New York Times Square Hotel.
I first spoke about this documentary in 2015, when Yukie posted a link to is on SoHo Memory Project that, at the time, was not embeddable. As it happens, someone posted it to YouTube only late last year, so here it is now.
After this was filmed, of course, most of the the manufacturing interests left Crosby Street for good, and it became a haven for artists, only later to become wholly gentrified. For a while after that, Crosby — like the rest of SoHo — became renowned for bespoke retail boutiques and costly residential real estate.
These days, as with the rest of the city, the financial hardships brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic have taken their toll on the businesses of Crosby Street, but it’s still a compelling little street.
But, again, 46 years ago? The living wasn’t quite so easy.
Despite, as mentioned in my last update, finding a large swathe of my first run of stickers missing, pulled down, scratched off and/or, in a couple of amusing instances, profanely defaced, I decided to keep at it. I decided to switch up the design a little — inconsequentially — and continued to furtively smack them up around town. I should re-assert, as this stage, that this is a completely silly waste of time, but I’ve cultivated a taste for it, and fun is in short supply these days, so indulge me.
As before, some managed to stick around (pardon the pun) longer, this time, based on some further best practices gleaned from previous trial and error. Others, meanwhile, continued to vanish from specific spots only a day or so after first being affixed. Why certain points on the map of Manhattan are more diligently preferred (and summarily policed) by the sticker community remains something of a mystery, but that only enhances the challenge. If I could manage to keep my stickers up on certain key streets, …. it was like I won.
This all said, as Blood, Sweat & Tears once so sagely sang, “what goes up, must come down.” It is simply sheer luck — if that’s even the right word — if any of my stupid stickers will stay put for the conceivable future. It’s ultimately a pointless endeavor.
Then the election happened, swiftly followed by all the political drama drummed up by the losing side, culminating with the shameful events of January 6. I probably don’t need to re-hash any of that.
But back on the mean streets of Manhattan, there was suddenly an uptick .. even here in the allegedly liberal bubble of New York City … of propaganda for “The Big Lie.” All around Greenwich Village, I started spying little yellow stickers emblazoned with the laughably farcical legend, “TRUMP WON.” Suddenly, my stickers took on a new purpose, as I demonstrated here.
As such, more recently, if you spot one of my dumb stickers out there, there’s a greater than likely chance that underneath it, there’s a “TRUMP WON” sticker being denied its mission of misinformation. I also started covering up the unspeakable one’s face whenever I encountered it.
In any case, the only reason I’m bringing any of this otherwise juvenile, ill-considered and embarrassing bullshit up now is because I’m now somewhat conditioned to studying the topography of NYC streets as I walk them. I mean, I already was, but my eyes are now trained to seek out stickers — both my own and the work of others — when traversing pavement. I can spy a sticker of mine from practically a block away, at this point. I’m also looking and learning how my peers and competitors are fairing at the same game, constantly trying to unspool the riddle of why some stickers stay put and some vanish instantly.
On Friday, meanwhile, I was returning home from a quick visit to my office down at the bottom of TriBeCa, and was strolling north of Crosby Street (this was the same trek that prompted this post). About a block after I paused at 40 Crosby, I was struck by another sticker that I almost completely missed.
Stuck to a yellow no-parking pylon of some kind was a sticker that, at first glance, looked like the old Canal Jeans Co. logo against a checkerboard field. Canal Jeans used to give away basketfuls of pins with that same design that were invariably later sported on the lapels of every hip kid worth their salt. I still have mine in a mason jar in my closet.
Closer scrutiny, however, revealed different words...
I immediately assumed that this was the handiwork of my fellow NYC blogger, Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project, who I’ve mentioned many times here (notably here, here and here). I loved the idea of Yukie similarly branching out on the sticker front, especially with a design that spoke so directly to the heart of her whole concept (Canal Jeans was verily a SoHo institution, which you can learn more about here). I also dug the notion of Yukie doing it as, much like myself, she’s otherwise a respectable parent.
I shot Yukie a note, but — it turns out — this was not her doing, which begs further questions which will doubtlessly continue to distract me as I continue to wander these city streets, sticking things on the sides of other things.
For as long back as I can currently remember, there’s been a strange little doorway at 40 Crosby Street that has been an enigmatic magnet for all stripes of street art. Regularly camouflaged by stickers, flyers, graffiti, posters and scribbles, it is a different visual experience every time I walk by it. And when I do, I frequently take a picture for posterity. This week, on my way back from a quick trip to my office, I walked by it, and its dazzling colors stopped me dead in my tracks. Here it is.
So impressed with the image (not that I had anything to do with — I just raised my camera), I posted it on social media and comments immediately came in its wake. More than a couple of people assumed it was CBGB. A third friend suggested it might be the former site of The Magic Shop, the recording studio where icons like Lou Reed and David Bowie recorded. As it turns out, that site (now permanently closed) is on the same strip, but across the street. I still have no idea what goes on behind that door and why the exterior looks the way it does.
About 12 or 13 years back, a compatriot of mine named Tim B., who used to host his own excellent blog, Stupefaction, launched a collective blog called The New York Nobody Sings, which was ostensibly designed as place where the merits of less celebrated songs about New York City could be floridly extolled. Myself and a clutch of other likely suspects regularly contributed to the project until, one day, Tim decided it was time to close up shop. In short order, The New York Nobody Sings stopped singing and vanished from the web. Or so I thought.
As it turns out, just because a website is dismantled, that doesn’t mean there aren't still shadowy vestiges of it still out there. While foraging for content for the officially unofficial Cop Shoot Cop Facebook page (which I run), I stumbled upon the excellent Internet Archive Wayback Machine, a handy little site that does pretty much just what you expect from it. If you have the original URL of the site you’re searching for, you just plug it in and — if the fates are smiling — that lost, inaccessible website wakes from the proverbial dead, more or less.
As such, I dialed up The New York Nobody Sings and was able to exhume a few of the pieces I’d written for it way back when. Many of them are floridly overwritten, but what were you expecting? I've tried to spruce them up with some of my photographs. If possible…. enjoy.
PIE IN THE FACE
I first heard of The Pop-O-Pies in the summer of 1984 during a bike trip through Massachusetts, staying at a succession of slug-laden camp sites and dreary youth hostels. One of the guides was this hirsute stoner named Mike who, upon learning that I was a big fan of hardcore bands like MDC and the Circle Jerks, asked if I'd ever heard of this strange San Francisco punk band renowned for doing idiotic cover versions of the Grateful Dead's "Truckin'." This being an era long before the dawn of the iPod, Mike proceeded to regale me with warbling a cappella renditions of Pop-O-Pies songs like "The Catholics Are Attacking" and "Fascists Eat Donuts." Suffice to say, my curiosity was piqued.
When I got back to the city, I immediately set out to find the Pop-O-Pies on vinyl. In very short order, I tracked down a copy of their 1983 debut, The White EP (featuring the above songs as well as two needless versions of "Truckin'") at long-since-departed 99 Records on MacDougal Street. Not so much a proper band as a loose collective of musicians rotating around one Joe "Pie" Callahan, the Pop-O-Pies fleetingly counted future members of Faith No More, Mr. Bungle and Dead Kennedys in their ranks. Later that same year, The Pop-O-Pies' second slab of vinyl, Joe's Second Record was released on San Francisco hardcore label, Subterranean Records. Along with yet another rendition of "Truckin'" and some truly dubious forays into rap, Joe included a quick little ditty called "I Love New York," sort of San Francisco's answer to The Randoms' "Let's Get Rid of New York."Though the Pop-O-Pies were Bay Area to the bone, the song's lyrical insights totally captured the New York experience. Here they are in full:
You work your ass off around the clock just to pay for a place to live. You think you might have a real good time if you had some time to give.
The people treat you ugly and they act like royal snot. They think it's chic to be a geek, and get taken for everything they've got.
New York, New York, New York.
I pay extra for those piss-stench halls, $10 for a six of Bud. Blow a hundred at CBGBs, just to check out the local crud.
I hate those hipster idiots that cop junk in the heroin parks. And all those idle wealthy brats that hang out on St. Marks.
New York, New York, New York.
OK, I'm a hard core punk from NYU and I can tell first hand about the poor, politically oppressed, working-class peoples of the world. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4.
Lost landmarks like CBGBs notwithstanding, I'd say the sentiments expressed herein still ring true today. Incidentally, you can find out more about the history of the mighty Pop-O-Pies on their official website.
I WILL WAIT, … EVEN IF IT TAKES A LIFETIME
Personally speaking, I never considered The Bee Gees the enemy. Oh sure, growing up as a nascent rock head in my tween years during the late 70s, I'd been dutifully conditioned by my chosen subculture to hate all things disco (despite the fact that my then-favorite bands in KISS, Queen & Pink Floyd would all cut their own disco-informed singles shortly thereafter), but I also lived in a household with an older sister. Oblivious to the narrow mores and thinly-veiled prejudices of strident rock fandom, my sister had more than her fair share of disco records, most notably the oeuvre of Donna Summer, the fabled soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever" and several records by the brothers Gibb -- all of which she'd play regularly. I never considered that stuff a threat of any kind. My folks even had an eight-track of one of the `Gees' early, pre-disco albums, that being Idea (the cover of which used to freak me out). So while much of the the rest of the world may have reviled them, I always kinda dug the Bee Gees. It wasn't until the early 90s, however, that I realized that they were prophets.
Let's rewind a bit. In the Summer of 1992, I made the ill-considered decision to involve myself in an office romance. I was working at a glossy monthly magazine at the time -- I was in editorial, she worked in production -- what could go wrong? For a fleeting few, sweet weeks, life was good. The girl -- let's call her Faith -- rented a somewhat squalid apartment over on Upper Broadway, a neighborhood I wasn't at all familiar with. As such, Faith and I spent many a balmy, beatific summer evening strolling up and down those streets, holding hands and gazing moonily into each other's eyes. It was, of course, way too good to last.
In exceptionally short order, Faith decided that it would be a good idea for us to go back to being "friends." Needless to say, I wasn't exactly chuffed with this idea, but what choice did I have? I played nice for a while, secretly crushed that our status had changed so dramatically, but it became increasingly more difficult with each passing month. Having to work together didn't make matters any easier. During my downtime, I found myself taking entirely needless bike rides over to the Upper West Side. My friends were getting concerned. Things reached a fever pitch at the magazine's Christmas party (great choice for a confrontation, eh?) when I dramatically exclaimed my dissatisfaction with the arrangement. It did not go at all well.
Life got quite grim after that. Going to work was a heartbreaking chore. I spent most of my time sulking, listening to Nine Inch Nails' then-recently released Broken e.p. (a fitting cocktail of spite) and wallowing in self-pity. My friends tried to shake me out of it, but it was little use. I was committed to fixing what now seemed hopelessly beyond repair. When I saw Faith at the office, it was dreadful and awkward. On a good day she was passively polite. On a bad day, she was rude bordering on hostile. Still, I was hopelessly committed to putting it back to the way it was.
My friend Rob reached the end of his tether. He and some of my other comrades grabbed me by the lapels and dragged me out one evening to try to knock some sense into me. Over a meal at a cheap-o Chinese restaurant (also on Broadway) during a snowy January evening, my pals read me the riot act, trying to shock some sense into my love-clouded mind. Repairing to a nearby dive bar on Broadway, my boys crowded around me, berating my futile, torch-carrying tendencies as I pumped coins into the jukebox. I still wasn't listening. All I wanted was to get this girl back. Nothing else mattered.
Poetically, "Nights on Broadway" by the Bee Gees -- from their 1975 album, Main Course -- came trilling out of the jukebox. Sure, it's a classic, but when was the last time you really sat down and listened to it? After that rockin', piano-charged intro that sounds like the theme song to a 70's cop show, Barry Gibb and his brothers launched into an uncharacteristically dark narrative that hit me in a whole new way. If you excise that funky bass, those mellifluous harmonies, Robin Gibb's angelic falsetto and those treacly pianos in the middle-eight, what you're essentially left with is the creepy manifesto of the jilted stalker.
Let's review, shall we?
Here we are In a room full of strangers Standing in the dark where your eyes couldn't see me
Well I had to follow you Though you did not want me to That won't stop my loving you I can't stay away
Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singin' them love songs Singin' them straight to the heart songs Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singing them sweet sounds To that crazy, crazy town
Now in my place There are so many others Standing in the line; How long will they stand between us?
Well I had to follow you Though you did not want me to That won't stop my loving you I can't stay away
Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singin' them love songs Singin' them straight to the heart songs Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singing them sweet sounds To that crazy, crazy town
I will wait Even if it takes forever I will wait Even if it takes a life time Somehow I feel inside You never ever left my side Make it like it was before Even if it takes a life time, takes a life time
Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singin' them love songs Singin' them straight to the heart songs Blamin' it all on the nights on Broadway Singing them sweet sounds To that crazy, crazy town
In all his grimacey days, Trent Reznor could never come up with anything as desperate and disturbing as that stuff. It seemed to come right out of the pages of John Hinkley's diary, replete with a disquieting patina of denial on the part of the high-piped protagonist. Whose fault is it? Why, it's those crazy New York City nights' fault, of course. Even more creepy, it seemed that the Bee Gees were singing my own sordid story right back to me in worryingly vivid detail. I stood at the jukebox, staring incredulously into the machine while my friends assumed comedy Travolta poses behind me. It was, as they say, a moment of clarity.
It was obviously a good deal more complicated than this, but I do feel I owe some credit to the Bee Gees in shocking me out of my self-destructive stupor of unrequited love. I moved on. Faith moved on and eventually away. We saw each other again a few years later, and I wondered how I'd ever gotten to that crazy point to begin with. Time healed the wounds. But I still don't think I could have gotten there myself had it not been for the Bee Gees.
Crank it.
HANGIN' OUT DOWN IN THE CITY
In recent weeks, we lost one of New York City’s most beloved bohemians, Jim Carroll. While Carroll is remembered as a renaissance man of effortless cool, he first found fame documenting his life as a delinquent druggie teen (albeit an eloquent one) in “The Basketball Diaries,” a watershed effort that acted as a catalyst for later exploits in poetry, art and music. Beyond its placement in the pantheon of New York City cool for its hip cache, it should also be required reading for its gritty depiction of hopeless teenage degeneracy. Carroll willfully lived through hard times, and captured them vividly.
But Jim Carroll wasn’t the only bad-boy-made-good from New York City’s mean streets. Though his vocation took him off in an entirely different direction, flamboyant KISS guitarist Ace Frehley walked a very similar line. Born only a couple of years after Carroll, one wonders if they ever crossed paths on their respective, substance-assisted trajectories. Though Carroll was from Manhattan and Frehley hailed from the Bronx, might the Catholic Boy and the Space Ace and have encountered one another and compared notes?
In any case, where Carroll exorcised the demons of his youth in print, Ace chose to put them into song via “Hard Times” on Kiss’ somewhat strenuously maligned 1979 album, Dynasty (notorious for the band’s universally-loathed “disco” single, “I Was Made For Loving You.”) Though it boasts one of the lamest, most laughable rhyme schemes in all recorded history, “Hard Times” does manage to paint a convincing portrait of aimless juvenile depravity of the sort still readily on display today. I believe Ace intended the song to be a cautionary tale, being that he asserts towards the tune’s crescendo that he’s finally “on the right track,” but the truth of the matter wasn’t quite so rosy. The notoriously booze-friendly guitar-slinger was ousted from Kiss’ ranks only a few short years after the release of Dynasty, following a 1982 car accident (I’ve heard that he drove his car through the plate-glass window of a Westchester liquor store in leafy Pleasantville, but that might be purely conjecture.) But in 1979, Ace’s hard times were a distant memory.
GET UP, GET OUT…
Sure, there are plenty of Rolling Stones songs that cite New York City ("Honky Tonk Woman," "Harlem Shuffle," "Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo [Heartbreaker]," "Shattered" and, of course, "MIss You" spring immediately to mind), but, to my recollection, they've never cut a song that references such a specific New York address as they did on "Dance Pt. 1," the opening number off their transitional album from 1980, Emotional Rescue. Ten seconds into the somewhat strenuously funky track, Jagger starts lipping off to Keith, rhetorically postulating as to why they're "standing on the corner of West 8th Street and Sixth Avenue." Why indeed?
It's a fair question, I suppose, being that said main drag into the most traveled area of Greenwich Village hardly seems like the hippest stretch of real estate for the fabled Glimmer Twins to be loitering (although they were known to favor a block just across town a couple of years later). I'd imagine the explanation for the location is that portions of the Emotional Rescue album were recorded just up the street at Electric Lady studios. Still, I've always loved the image of Mick & Keith in full on flouncy rock fopp mode, striking any number of ridiculous outlaw poses in front of Gray's Papaya, wondering what to do with their evening.
The previous album, Some Girls, had found the Stones capably keeping up with the times, crafting soon-to-be classic rock radio staples like the afore-cited "Miss You" and "Shattered" that stylistically borrowed from the pulsing disco and raging punk rock of that era. Emotional Rescue, however, was lambasted as more of a forced effort, one that breathlessly strove to mimic the more organic sound of its predecessor. While not as maligned as later tepid endeavors like Dirty Work or the entirely needless A Bigger Bang, Emotional Rescue is rarely touted as a stand-out effort in the burly Stones catalog.
It's rare, but it happens. This is one of those times.
The album was released in June of 1980. At the time, I was thirteen years old and had been sequestered largely against my will to a camp in the verdant environs of Maine called Great Oaks. All of the kids at the camp were split up into a dozen cabins, each named after a state (I lived in "West Virginia," a cabin almost-immediately re-christened "West Vagina" for the purposes of tirelessly prurient juvenile comedy). Each cabin was commandeered by a counselor. My cabin's counselor was a Swedish twentysomething named Eric, who had long, shaggy blonde hair much like that of his more celebrated countryman, Bjorn Borg. Eric was also a Stones freak. While he tolerated the endless airings of Pink Floyd and Ramones tapes that we'd insist on playing, there were fewer things Eric enjoyed more than hearing the Stones. So when he got his hands on a cassette of Emotional Rescue during a field trip, it was pretty much solidified that we'd be listening to precious little else for the remainder of the summer (although Joe's Garage Act I was also a West Vagina favorite, if memory serves). By the end of the summer, I knew Emotional Rescue back to front. To this day, I still think it's an excellent album.
While "Dance Pt. 1" has never been my favorite song on the record (that honor goes to "Where The Boys Go"), I've always dug it. Not just for the shoutout to West 8th Street -- a strip I'd soon-after become a regular on thanks to its then-thriving (and now vanished) network of record stores -- but for its shameless espousal of grooving. While many would decry the band for trying to jump on some sort of disco-rock bandwagon, "Dance Pt. 1" (which was evidently recorded several times -- there are seemingly handfuls of alternate versions floating around out there) is a million times funkier -- and more legitimately danceable -- than similarly-inclined efforts by, say, KISS ("I Was Made for Loving You") or Pink Floyd ("Another Brick in The Wall Pt. II"). I'd suggest that Queen surpassed them in the credible funk department with "Another One Bites The Dust" (released the same year), but blame it on that bassline. And while gratuitously hedonistic, "Dance Pt. 1" still retains Keef's signature dirty guitar, sneerily reminding you at every turn that even when wearing their boogie trousers, the Stones still rocked harder than you.
Twenty-nine years (!!!!) later, Electric Lady still stands on a West 8th Street that is entirely unrecognizable from its 1980 incarnation. Without fail, though, I absolutely cannot cross that corner of 6th Avenue without the opening of "Dance Pt. 1" shimmying into my head. Get up, get out….
OH MY GRACE, I’VE GOT NO HIDING PLACE...
In 1979, I was in 7th grade at a private Catholic boys' school on the Upper East Side. My teacher was this individual I'll call Mr. B, a comparatively hip, young dude whose teaching methods were endearingly less conventional than those of his peers on the faculty. Mr. B's class was a very open environment where spirited discussion was encouraged. A lot of the stuffy formalities of the rest of the school were practically verboten. My fellow students and I were routinely prodded to express ourselves in ways that were unheard of in the rest of the school. If you've seen "Dead Poet's Society," that's a pretty fair representation of the type of atmosphere Mr. B sought to establish. It was a great experience, and we all learned a great deal.
One Friday afternoon, Mr. B had us put our desks into a circle all facing each other (we frequently did this). In the center of the circle Mr. B had a small record player. At the time, most of us were fans of predictable stuff like the Ramones, Black Sabbath, Kiss and the like. Pink Floyd had only just released The Wall, and it was, somewhat unsurprisingly, a huge hit with us, particularly the school-bashing "Another Brick In The Wall Pt. II." Mr. B, however, wanted to turn us onto a record from his relatively recent youth, namely Simon & Garfunkel's 1968 opus, Bookends. We collectively snorted with low expectation.
I had listened to some of my parents' Simon & Garfunkel albums, notably Bridge Over Troubled Water, and found them to be perfectly pleasant, but they didn't speak to my twelve-year-old imagination in the same way that, say, Destroyer by KISS did. In any case, Mr. B dropped the needle on side one and we dutifully listened up. After the few delicate, folky strains of the "Bookends Theme," this unexpected synthesizer blast knocked us back in our seats, followed by a propulsive, loping bass line. The song in question was titled "Save the Life of My Child," and it was uncharacteristically discordant and menacing. We were immediately captivated.
Simon & Garfunkel have written volumes of great New York City songs ("The Boxer," "The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)" and, of course, "The Only Living Boy in New York" come to mind initially), but this was different. A dark, cynical narrative about teenage suicide seemingly ripped from the front page of a local tabloid, "Save The Life…" captured that same, strange taste of the city as similarly depicted in films like "The Taking of Pelham 123," "Marathon Man" and "Midnight Cowboy." A scary slice of life from a grim, cynical place. The cacophony and confusion of the song culminate with a teenage boy jumping off a ledge. "At the Zoo" this ain’t.
I went home that day and dug out my mom's copy of Bookends and have cherished it ever since.
MESMERIZED BY WHAT MY EYES HAVE SEEN
A little while back, my fellow contributor EV Grieve and I engaged in a little bloggy competition to see who could cite the most videos filmed in and around New York City. I'm quite surprised that neither of us cited the one I'm presenting below. That might have something to do with the fact that Natalie Merchant is largely frowned upon by tinnitus-addled, beer-swiggin' rockheads like ourselves. That said, I think this video -- and, more importantly, the song itself -- fits this project to a tee.
Sure, Natalie Merchant may be somewhat insufferably pious, but I have a soft spot for this track. I actually saw Natalie perform with 10,000 Maniacs circa the release of their breakout 1988 album, In My Tribe. I was a junior at Denison University outside of Columbus, Ohio and the band played at the Newport Music Hall on High Street (with a quiet, humble and unknown opening act who'd later go onto her own fame and fortune as Tracy Chapman). Immediately following the 10,000 Maniacs' opening number, Merchant informed the gathered throng that Columbus was a filthy city and that we should all be deeply ashamed of ourselves. This castigation prompted a hearty, beery cheer from the audience, much to Merchant's sniffy chagrin. Proceedings went downhill from there, but she still danced like a whirling dervish.
After she unceremoniously dumped the `Maniacs in the early `90s (invariably letting her less-celebrated band mates rediscover the myriad joys of their day jobs), Merchant carved out a comfortable little solo niche for herself, crafting pleasantly plaintive ballads for fans of chick lit, herbal tea and Merchant Ivory films. A good friend of mine acted as a technical assistant on one of her later video shoots and said Merchant spent much of the day berating the crew for smoking. Good times.
So, yeah, maybe Natalie Merchant is indefensibly twee and worthy of strenuous ridicule, but once again, I find "Carnival" to be a keeper, not least for Merchant's lilting vocals but also for its damn fine guitar parts. The song itself, of course, laments the "all that glitters is not gold" fallacy of the urban experience. I can only imagine the city she's so poetically decrying is our own. The video itself features some lovely, grainy, black n' white footage of midtown Manhattan, Chinatown, Tompkins Square Park and Coney Island. Enjoy.
It’s one of those work days ruled by technical problems, connectivity issues and the seemingly endless wait for elusive assets from marginally communicative colleagues who clearly do not share the same priorities. As such, I’ve had some down time, and this post – dear readers – is the fruit of that down time.
If I’m being honest, I was entirely unfamiliar with the oeuvre of Unit 3 + Venus until earlier today, but I gather this particular track (here captured by Dutch documentarians, if I glean my hearsay correctly) was included on several arguably seminal, early `80s West Coast punk compilations. Despite it not being technically “No Wave,” someone saw fit to post it on the contentious-but-illuminating “No Wave” Facebook group, as it does inarguably share a lot of the same aesthetic as said New York scene.
Enough of my meandering preamble… here’s “I Don’t Like Beer” by Unit 3 with Venus….
Now, as it happens, I very much do like beer, so the fact that this track was able to vault over my firm preconceptions about it is a testament to … something.
In any event, as I dimly understand it, the band was Unit 3, and they did other stuff that did not involve little Venus. That said, Venus later grew up and reprised her moment on the mic with the Long Beach Stingers, who – I believe – count at least a former member or two from Unit 3. This was posted in 2012.
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