Flaming Pablum

My Favorite Albums of 2021

I honestly don’t know why I keep doing these year in and year out. I mean, yes, obviously music plays a massive role in my life and, summarily, this blog, but at my relatively advanced stage of life, I’m not actively pursuing bona fide “new music” so much as “new-to-me” music. As such, most of the stuff I spent my year tracking down and enjoying wasn’t necessarily freshly produced, cutting-edge music just released in 2021. I could cite at least six or seven albums I acquired in the last twelve months that I slavishly enjoyed from top to bottom, but aren’t in any way recent. But, y’know, there were indeed a few new albums I got quite fired up about, so let’s concentrate on those, then, I guess.

But even much of the genuinely “new music” I seek out is often somehow couched in the past. This isn’t to say that there aren’t wholly new artists doing entirely different things that capture my attention and fire my imagination, but I find that stuff harder to discover and hear above the tinny buzz of mediocrity that — to my mind — dominates the rest of the music marketplace. I suppose it’s always been that way, but time was when I had more time and energy to pursue the credibly good stuff. I mean, if one Googles the "most-streamed" acts of 2021, up comes names like Taylor Swift, BTS, Drake, Justin Bieber and some ridiculous clown who calls himself Bad Bunny. I mean, seriously, FUCK all that awful shit.

But, again, that’s pretty much always been the case. Mainstream pop has pretty much always been shit (although it seems especially shitty, these days). And there’s great music made every year. It just takes more work to find it, sometimes.

It should also be noted that I also don’t always get to the new albums the second they’re released, rendering their citations ineligible for credible placement. I mean, I played the crap out of the new Secret Machine album this year, Awake in The Brain Chamber, but that was still from 2020. Other records I found myself spinning quite a bit in 2021 included, inexplicably, Our Love to Admire by Interpol (released in 2007), Retrovirus by Lydia Lunch (a super-crucial live recording from 2012, released in 2013, featuring Lydia backed by Weasel Walter of the Flying Lutenbachers on explosive guitar, Algis Kyzis from SWANS on bass and Bob Bert of Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore on drums), Big Heart/Live in Tokyo by the Lounge Lizards (released in 1986) and a compilation of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band, released in 2018, but rife with selections from the early `70s. Technically, none of this stuff is new.

So, after unduly agonizing over it, here are my three favorite albums of 2021. I’m not going to put them in any ranking, nor should you read any hierarchy into this. I love each of these. Here they are….

Live - Friday March 15, 2020
The Art Gray Noizz Quintet
Yes, I realize I just wrote about them. Released in September of this year, this bristling live document — issued on fucking cassette in a limited edition of only 200 — was recorded in Brooklyn just as the apocalyptic shroud of COVID-19 was being draped over New York City. A suitably slovenly cocktail of clangy guitars, bludgeoning bass and roiling grooves over which Art Gray (formerly Stu Spasm of Lubricated Goat) exhorts like a possessed town-crier, it’s all gold from start to finish, honestly. For me the standout tracks are the ominous march of “A Call to You,” the constabulary-besmirching “Calling All Cars” and a noise-rock re-wiring of David Shire's theme to quintessential grimy New York City movie, “The Taking of Pelham 123.” As brilliantly summed up as “one last night of noise in a city on the brink of silence,” it is seriously worth your time. Go fucking get it and improve your miserable life.

Yeah, I know — cassette? A true testament to the band’s ballsy audacity to release music on a format most folks don’t possess the hardware to actually play, Live - Friday March 15, 2020 can be obtained via Bandcamp, who thoughtfully provide the option of downloading the music into more electronically manageable files for all you forward-thinking gadget-heads. As a fun coda, when I ordered the cassette from Bandcamp, I literally received the tactile artifact the very same day. Sometime around 11pm, someone — possibly bassist Ryan Skeleton Boy or Art Gray himself?? — showed up downstairs and dropped off a bag containing the cassette, a poster of the album art I also sprang for … and three tallboys of Modelo Especial Cerveza emblazoned with the band’s stickers. TRY GETTING BAD BUNNY TO PROVIDE THAT KINDA SERVICE!!!

Dark Matters
The Stranglers
I already spoke about the backstory here, but I genuinely think Dark Matters was the most astonishing album for me this year. It’s not necessarily that it was a huge departure from The band's established trajectory, but rather that it’s just such a brilliantly executed collection of songs. I mean, if you weren’t already predisposed to liking the music of The Stranglers, there’s no real reason you should necessarily care about this record, but given the band’s long history and their recent losses (most notably the tragic death of keyboardist Dave Greenfield), there was absolutely zero reason to believe this 18th studio album was going to deliver in any meaningful way. I almost picked it up just out of sheer loyalty. Put simply, though, Dark Matters is way better than it should have any right to be, showcasing the band’s signature assets, but with depth, nuance and a songwriting exuberance that is far from tired. I love all the singles (cited on that earlier post), but album cuts like “No Man’s Land,” “Payday” and “White Stallion” continually get my blood flowing. For a legacy band many were writing off as a fading self-tribute act, Dark Matters is a bracing reminder that the Stranglers will be the ones who’ll decide when they’re actually done, not the critics.

Crawler
IDLES
Upon hearing news of a new, impending album from IDLES, my first thought was “TOO SOON!” I felt like their third album, Ultra Mono had only just landed, and I was still kind of experiencing it. While not as immediate as their second disc (the one that hooked me in), that being the excellent Joy as an Act of Resistance, Ultra Mono provided several tracks I was still loving tracks like “Mr. Motivator” and “Model Village.” But, I’m not gonna lie – as much as I was digging that album, there was indeed a bit of a feeling that they’d sort of thematically and stylistically run aground, somewhat succumbing, in spots, to almost self-parody. Along comes Crawler, then, and I was slightly trepidatious. My first encounters with this band had left such a massively positive impression on me that I was reluctant to immediately rush out for this one, worried it might further dim that initial rush I felt upon first hearing their musc.

As it happens, Crawler is a refreshing deviation from the previous trajectory. While, no, IDLES have not completely shifted gears and embraced a whole new sound, there is a nuance and …. dare I suggest … a degree of restraint to these new songs. The bendy, staccato riffs from the previous few records are more judiciously employed here. Songs arrive and slowly reveal themselves rather than simply detonate on command. This all said, … don’t get me wrong. Crawler is still a pounding, clangy ride, and vocalist Joe Talbot still exhorts like an apoplectic drill sergeant. The dichotomy between the band’s violent sound and vulnerable sensibility remains a bit of a tightrope that they continue to manage (although heavy-handed tracks on Ultra Mono like “Kill Them with Kindness” and “Ne Touch Pas Moi” really put that formula to the test), but this album has reigned in the preachiness. I’m still exploring it, but it has thus far rendered my concerns moot.

HONORABLE MENTION:
Human Impact – “Recognition”
Antidote – “Think For Yourself”
Saint Agnes – “REPENT”
The Horrors “Twisted Skin”
Low – “Days Like These”
The Armed – “All Futures”
Morly – “Dance to You”

After All These Hours: Griffin Dunne Looks Back

Vulture’s Matthew Jacobs’ intro to this interview with Griffin Dunne is glibly threadbare, but since I’ve devoted such an inordinate amount of bandwidth to this particular film, I figured it was worth sharing. Read Griffin Dunne Asks Every Question We Have About “After Hours.”

I’ve probably mentioned this on any one of the qaudrillion entries I’ve posted about the film, but Griffin Dunne and I used to live on the same block (that being East 12th Street between Broadway and University Place – don’t look for either of us there today, however, as we’ve both vacated our respective apartments there). I used to routinely see the man traversing this way and that and, on occasion (usually fueled by copious amounts of alcohol consumed at the then-nearby Cedar Tavern, also long gone and over-documented here), I would duly accost Dunne and badger him with logistical quandaries about the plotlines of “After Hours” and why a proper Criterion Collection release of the film had never transpired. After one of these encounters, the man used to pointedly look away from me when he spotted me walking in his direction. Can’t blame him, really.

Here was my last post on the subject, with full list of earlier entries.

Actually, that’s not true. This was the final post about it.

… And May All Your Christmases Be … Black

While I technically have a Twitter account, I am not in the habit of regularly tweeting, much less reading others’ tweets, so I only heard about this in passing, but evidently Anton Newcombe of The Brian Jonestown Massacre posted last week that he was launching a campaign to prevent Elton John and Ed Sheeran’s new Christmas song from attaining the coveted UK Christmas No.1 position (y’know, like that Bill Nighy thread in the otherwise strenuously indefensible “Love Actually”) by emphatically advocating for that position to instead be taken by 1985’s “Black Planet” by the Sisters of Mercy. While he was invariably just being snarky, suffice to say, I support this endeavor with every fibre of my very being.

For the uninitiated, here it is now. Tune in, Turn out, Burn Out!

Catching Up with Stu Spasm/Art Gray

The great RB Korbet posted the video below on Facebook the other day, and it dates back a few months, but I figured it was well worth sharing here.

Regular readers here might remember a couple of posts I dedicated to the band Lubricated Goat here back in 2016 and 2019. In a nutshell, the band – led by the inimitable Stu Spasm – were Aussie ex-pats and NYC contemporaries of favorites of mine like Cop Shoot Cop and Foetus, even sharing members from personnel of both endeavors here and there over the years. As mentioned in this recent post, meanwhile, after a comparatively brief stint in a band called Crunt in the `90s with his then-wife Kat Bjelland of Babes in Toyland and, following that, another iteration of Lubricated Goat in the early 2000s, Stu – who now trades under the nom de guerre Art Gray -- has since channeled his musical impulses into an outfit called the Art Gray Noizz Quintet, featuring “Bloody” Rich Hutchins of Live Skull on drums and Ryan Skeltonboy of the band Woman on bass. They make a glorious racket, but seem to only release their music on vinyl and …er… cassette. Check out their site here, and their YouTube channel here.

Suffice to say, however, Art Gray’s musical oeuvre enjoys the adoration of an audience that can be best described as niche. Coupled with the crippling compromises put on touring musicians by the pandemic – let alone the artist-hostile, streaming-dominated music business of today – Art has sought out other ways to make ends meet. Boasting a distinctive aesthetic and keen eye, Stu/Art had always handled the design aspects for his musical projects and has since embraced studio art.

Check out what he’s up to these days…

Hardcore for the Holidays

Hey again, all....

Just a quick one. Now that the holidays are upon us, I thought I'd evangelize some pertinent links, should you be on the hunt for Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/whatever presents for the little n'erdowells in your own family.

If you're curious about the book, “The New York Hardcore Chronicles Vol. 1 (1989 - 1989): A Flyer Oral History,” which I spoke about here, you can now order your own copy of the second printing by clicking right here. 

And, on a similar tip, if you're interested in that Bad Brains print by Glen E. Friedman (or other bits of his work), click here. 

Merry Merry. 

Back to The Pit

I realize I said I wasn’t going to post again until Thanksgiving, but I just spotted this, so thought I’d quickly share it. 

Back in 2019, some might remember a quick entry about a long-lost concern called The Pit, which was — if my memory correctly served — a tiny boutique that sold gear for biker types. If you were in the market for leather duds, a black t-shirt with a skull on it or some ominous sartorial invocation of the superiority of Harley-Davidson motorcycles, the Pit had you covered. My memory of it was triggered by some photographs of one of my favorite bands, the Sisters of Mercy, sporting some finery they’d evidently procured at the Pit.

Well, as it happens, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has a photo of the Pit during its tenure on St. Marks Place. See it below, and read more about the photo right here.

Today, the spot that had been The Pit is, I believe, now a Chinese noodle shop. 

Happy Thanksgiving & Pass the P.M.A.

Hey all. It’s the week of Thanksgiving, and life is busy, busy, busy. We’re doing college application stuff with my daughter, work is fairly demanding right now and I’ve got some medical issues I’m trying to nip in the bud, so to speak, before the looming Christmas holidays. I probably won’t have much else to post here prior to Thanksgiving, so I thought I share these two items and wish you a happy Turkey Day.

The first is the flyer above, which I believe dates back to this date in 1982. The mighty Bad Brains played at CBGB a ton of times in 1982 — some of its famously on video, but not this show, as far as I could glean. In November of 1982, I would have been a sophomore in high school — the same age my son is now. I was not, however, at this show. While I was certainly aware of Bad Brains, by this stage, I would not have been in a position to be venturing down to the Bowery during Thanksgiving week, although I know I couple of folks who were probably there.

The video below, meanwhile, is not from the show in question. This is some genuinely amazing footage from 1979 that looks to have only been uploaded as recently as this past October, and it’s really a striking document of the band’s earlier incarnation. The crowd is comparatively sedate -- more "pogo" than "pit," but you can see where Bad Brains were headed. 

Please enjoy and remember not to spar with your relatives about politics, this Thanksgiving. It’s simply not worth it. Stay safe, smart, healthy and keep that Positive Mental Attitude, as Bad Brains would say.

ADDENDUM: Right after I posted this entry, I emailed it over to my friend Glen E. Friedman, who'd recently discovered that ancient Minor Threat video. As if by fate, I ended up once again running into Glen the next day on University Place, and we did our usual chinwag wherein both of us start multiple narratives and rarely finish any of them. In any case, in the course of discussing this Bad Brains video, he mentioned that he'd recently put one of his own photos of Bad Brains up for sale in a limited run on high quality paper. If you're familiar with Glen's work at all, you know he very rarely does this sort of thing. In any event, if you're interested in buying one, details and ordering information can be found right here. 

 

Rest in Peace, Hank Von Hell

A hard band to explain to the uninitiated for a rich variety of reasons, Turbonego was (and remains) a so-called “deathpunk” ensemble from Oslo driven by razor-sharp satire and a tireless dedication to flaunting the mores of political correctness at every conceivable juncture. While certainly not the first nor even the most notorious band to take this perilous tack, these Norwegians truly excelled at courting outrage and controversy at every turn, although song titles like “Hobbit Motherfuckers,” “Blow Me (Like The Wind)” and — wait for it — “Midnight NAMBLA” ought to have tipped off even the most po-faced of listeners that they weren’t entirely serious. But, y’know, humor is ultimately subjective, I guess.

I was first introduced to Turbonegro — allegedly thus-named to imply “very fast” and “jet black,” and not a racial allusion in any capacity, but do have fun trying to defend that — by way of my friend Dean. Dean boldly asserted, one beery evening, that the band’s fourth album, 1998’s Apocalypse Dudes was one of his favorite albums of all time. Given Dean’s encyclopedic knowledge and appreciation of rock music in all its permutations, this was not an anemic endorsement, and I dutifully picked up a copy of the record to experience it for myself.

Indeed, with even a cursory spin of Apocalypse Dudes, it was quite evident that beyond the band’s pointedly provocative prurience, the music itself was just this incredible amalgam of the best elements of glam, punk, metal and thrash, all deceptively executed with some stylish chops behind all the campy sailor outfits, black leather and smeared lipstick. While Turbonegro’s shtick was an inexorable ingredient to their whole aesthetic, the tunes were undeniable. If I’m doing a crap job of explaining this, I’ll defer to Brandon Stosuy’s summation of their early records for Pitchfork from 2003. While very much not for everyone, Turbonegro could deliver the goods.

On Friday, sad news arrived that former vocalist Hank Von Helvete (aka Hank Von Hell) had passed away at the age of 49. The voice of those early Turbonegro records like Ass Cobra, Scandinavian Leather and Apocalypse Dudes, Hank had a history of depression and addiction, as detailed in the band documentary ResErection. A cause of death was not disclosed.

Below is my favorite track of theirs with Hank on vocals. The video is, of course, age-restricted and very much not for everyone, but it amply showcases what a fucking great band they were. Pour one out.

Rest in Peace, Mick Rock

It’s almost hard to fathom the sheer volume of Mick Rock’s work. From Syd to Lou to Bowie to Iggy to Debbie to Queen to The Ramones … His images have become very literally iconic, transforming (pardon the pun) the photographer into just as significant an artist as the storied subjects he captured and immortalized.

There will never be another like him.

Rest in peace.

Lit From The Pit: Drew Stone's Oral History of NYHC

Just a quick plug. I was tremendously blown away, yesterday, to receive my copy of filmmaker/archivist/musician Drew Stone's excellent new book, “The New York Hardcore Chronicles Vol. 1 (1989 - 1989): A Flyer Oral History.” I've invoked Drew several times here before (notably here, here, here and here, among others) but he gamely asked me, some time back, to pen a piece for this project, and I am truly honored to see my contribution so prominently placed as the forward to the book. While probably a niche concern to most, this book is a genuine labor of love and a crucial document for any fan of New York City's rich and vibrant history of underground music and culture. I was thrilled to be a small part of it.