Flaming Pablum

Capital (It Fails Us Now)

Certainly a song for these times....

Even More NYC Record Covers

Just to knock the ball back in EV's court, herewith some more album covers featuring the C of NY (following up from here).

First up is Julian Cope's odds n' sods collection, Floored Genius 2. The cover shot was taken in the figurative shadow of Cleopatra's Needle in Central Park (I took this picture of same a few years ago).

 

 Next up, since EV cited Joe Jackon's Night & Day, here's Night & Day II, finding our Joe in the backseat of a cab evidently driving towards the World Trade Center. This probably won't happen today, being that the towers are now long gone and, as I've found, Joe prefers the subway.

 

I was surprised no one on that Gotham thread had cited this one. The Doors' Strange Days was filmed on a tiny, uncharacteristically Euro little strip in midtown Manhattan called Sniffen Court (I took a picture of it a few years back).

 

The Beastie Boys, of course, have slapped Manhattan on a few of their sleeves (notably on Paul's Boutique and To the Five Boroughs), but here's the trio from the gatefold of their debut, License to Ill, striking a pose in front of the Geosphere at the World's Fair in Flushing, Queens.

 

 

 Lastly, NYC has played a role on several album back covers. On the back cover of Among the Living by Anthrax, the boys are seen on a subway platform. The back cover of Dreamtime by Tom Verlaine features a stunning black and white shot of Central Park. The back of Come Out and Play by Twisted Sister finds the band hanging around graffiti-splattered lot (not sure where, sadly). The back cover of Murphy's Law's debut album finds the band  sitting on the steps of – I think – the old rock venue The World. The back cover of Some Product by The Sex Pistols is a tight shot of sign for the Chelsea Hotel. The back cover of the recently re-released edition of Big Science by Laurie Anderson finds her walking the West Side Highway in the shadow of the World Trade Center. Lastly, the back cover of Double Fantasy by John Lennon & Yoko Ono finds the couple standing on the northeast corner of West 72nd street & Central Park West (a few feet away from where Lennon was shot).

Word on The Street

 

 

More NYC Record Covers

 

Following up on yesterday's post, I thought I'd throw a few more less celebrated contenders into the mix. First up is the cover of Too Tough to Die by the Ramones. I know what you're thinking – how the hell can you tell what city this album cover was shot in? Well, the cover photo in question was snapped on the East side of Central Park from inside the tunnel adjacent to The Children's Zoo (you can read about the album cover's origins here). I actually have an autographed copy of this album that my friend Rob B. prized for me at a Tower record-signing. While it's not my fave record of theirs (by a loooooong shot), I'll always cherish it.

 

Next up, The Who. Now, I'd always assumed –- given their rampant Britishness -– that this iconic shot from the cover of The Kids are Alright was shot somewhere in London, like at Trafalgar Square or something. Not so. Legend has it that this fabled picture was taken along the circumference of Grant's Tomb up in Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan. I have never found the exact spot, but I plan to at some point.

 

The album below was the first record I ever bought with my own dough (which, at the time, meant about four dollars). I've talked about it here before, but the cover photograph of Dressed to Kill by Kiss was originally shot as part of a fumetti (photographic comic-strip) for Creem magazine (who I'd briefly write for two decades later). The pic was taken by ass-whuppin' photog/rock scenester par excellence, Bob Gruen, who also shot iconic images of The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The New York Dolls. In any case, the pic was snapped on the corner of 8th Avenue and West 23rd street.

 

Not really much to say about this one, other than it was quite obviously shot in Times Square (which, in its 1995 incarnation, was still endearingly sleazy). Like most Foetus records, Gash is awesome – and features Tod [A] of Cop Shoot Cop/Firewater on bass. Go fetch.

 

Not entirely sure about the back story of this one, but the 12" single of the title track of INXS' 1985 album, Listen Like Thieves (which rocks mightily, by the way  -yeah, I said it) inexplicably features a wide shot of 3rd Avenue, looking south from about 70th street. On the right hand side, check out the old 68th Street Playhouse, a great little movie theatre that showed proto-"art house" flicks and foreign films. It's gone now, of course.

 

Lastly, the sleeve of my very favorite song of all time, "Eighties" by Killing Joke, is based on a photograph taken right here in NYC. The building in question is part of Rockefeller Center and stands imposingly on the corner of 6th Avenue and 51st street. Below the sleeve is a shot of how it looks today.

 

 

 

 

 

NYC on the Record(s)

A little while back, my similarly inclined blogger pal over at EV Grieve and I tried to good naturedly one-up each other in citing videos that were filmed on the streets of New York City, which led to invocations of artists ranging from Biohazard through Sade. Inspired, I gather, by a thread on Gothamist, EV is now turning his sights on album covers that feature New York City.

Lots of the obvious ones have been cited, but I thought I'd up the ante. I should point out that I don't own or espouse the album pictured below. In fact, I'd probably rather eat a hot piping bowl of orangutan dung that subject my long-suffering ears to it, but the fact remains that it's cover photograph was taken on the streets of New York City. Here, Southside Johnny and his deplorable Asbury Jukes attempt to look badass as they pose in back of the Fat Black Pussycat (long since moved, this spot is now a Mexican restaurant) on Minetta Lane in Greenwich Village (just up the block from Serpico's apartment).

 

 

 

Your turn, EV.

The Death of Album Cover Art

One Year Later

Today marks the one year anniversary of the death of Paul Raven. When his surviving band mates in Killing Joke stormed through New York City last weekend, they dedicated "Love Like Blood" to their fallen brother. It was quite something, especially when Jaz invoked his name (at exactly 05:35 into the track below).

A fellow KJ die-hard graciously furnished me with live recording. Play it loud and hoist a glass to the great man.

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Dichotomy Street

I walked down to Chinatown this morning for the purposes a prizing a child-sized Hello Kitty! apron like the one I'd bought for my daughter about six months ago. We're going to one of her little classmates' birthdays later today and couldn't think of a better gift, so off I was dispatched to the southern reaches of Elizabeth Street to procure the item. I certainly didn't mind the walk, being that it's a sparkling Autumn day. En route, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a building that I no longer recognized. 

11 Spring Street, for years, was a mysterious building on the corner of Elizabeth that acted as an open canvas for local street art. Every time I strolled by it, there was something new to look at, and watching the old art gradually deteriorate on its facade leant the entire building a captivating identity. It was an ever-shifting work in progress. Of course, that all came to a close at the end of 2006, when one real estate developer or another sold the building for the purposes of turning it into yet another pricey condo. Scaffolding went up immediately after a colorfully riotous last gasp of art both inside the massive building and outside of it. For the last year and half, it was sheathed in a boring shell of construction.

Today, I was almost bowled over at how it looks now. A striking dichotomy to its former self to be sure.

Here it is today.

Here's how it looked about fifteen years ago.

NYC: 1999

When I first started posting my old NYC photographs here, my intention was to showcase images of places and things that had since vanished in the tsunami of gentrification. Gradually, I expanded that theme to include random pics of street art and other (to my mind) captivating New York imagery. I even dug out old boxes of photographs from my closet that hadn't made it into any of my photo albums. Once I exhausted those, I thought I'd go back through the albums one more time. If you've been following these posts, you may recognize some of places and things featured in these shots, but these particular photos didn't make the cut the first time around. These pictures all date back to Spring through Fall of 1999. As always, some are better than others. To see all of my photos, just click here and scroll down. Enjoy.

They're JUST Cupcakes, People!

Dingbat tourists fuckin' lining up for cupcakes at the new midtown Magnolia Bakery.