Flaming Pablum

"It's Rubbish!"

Johnny Rotten on Juke Box Jury in 1979. Brilliant.

Rock Pics

I seem to be experiencing a bit of writer's block lately, honestly. There's a lot going on in terms of my work situation and certain things are disconcertingly up in the air. As such, I'm a little preoccupied with worrying about my future. This hasn't left me with a lot of time to concentrate on my bloggin', so apologies for that.

In the interim, however, herewith another place-holder that I've been meaning to utilize for some time. Being both a self-styled amateur photographer and a massive fan of rock photographers like Bob Gruen, Glen E. Friedman, Eugene Merinov, Rikki Ercoli,  Allan Tannenbaum and scores of others, I've often endeavored to capture my adoration for the live music experience on film. It's tougher than it seems. For a start, it's not always easy getting a camera into a venue. In any case, I thought I'd showcase a few of my more arguably successful forays into live music photography. Enjoy.

Firewater at Coney Island High, March 25th 1999. That's the late George Javori on drums behind Tod [A]

These next two are of Corey Parks, the flame-throwing Amazonian bass player formerly from Nashville Pussy. This was taken at Tramp's in May of 1998

 

This is Joey Ramone & Jerry Only of the Misfits performing at Coney Island High in May of 1998.

These below are from U2's arguably abortive PopMart tour when it rolled into Giant's Stadium in June of 1997. We had excellent seats.

This is ol' Keef Richards from ye olde Stones. I honestly forget the venue, but it was in October of 1997.

That's enough for now.

Brooklyn Becomes Bangkok?

I spotted this story on Slate this morning and found it intriguing. And I predicted as much back in April.

New York—with major new towers in Lower Manhattan, Midtown, and Brooklyn on hold—has at least 30 sites where work has stopped.

Who Hasn't Wanted to Do This?

Spotted this on Curbed this morning and was inspired by the image. Bravo to the tape-wielder! Bravo!

Unmasked

It's quite hard to get excited about this after the news broke that the Cedar Tavern was never coming back, but I couldn't help noticing this past weekend that the wooden boards had come down, revealing the new yawnsomely antiseptic face of 82 University Place (see below). Thrills. Just to jog your memory, here's what it used to look like.

Spinning My Wheels

Last Sunday afternoon, as I sat watching my little boy happily running amuck at a local playground, I spotted a familiar face on the other side of the monkey bars. It was a gent named Brendan who I knew from my days as an editorial intern at SPIN Magazine. I went over and introduced myself and he was truly amazed that I'd recognized him after so many years. I told him that he hadn't aged a bit. We chatted, updated each other on our respective career trajectories, commiserated about the economy and showed off our respective kids. Afterwards, we smiled and exchanged contact info and said goodbye.

As Oliver and I made our way home, I started recalling my brief period at SPIN and it hit me why Brendan had been so shocked that I'd recognized him. I interned at SPIN as a twenty-one year old in the balmy summer and fall of 1989 …. effectively half my life ago, give or take a year. I'd just graduated college the previous May. George H.W. Bush was president. Paul's Boutique by the Beastie Boys had just come out. Skid Row and Paula Abdul were all over the radio. People were still buying vinyl LPs and cassettes. Compact discs came in long cardboard boxes. Michael Keaton was 'Batman' and Spike Lee was doing the right thing. New York City was still rife with big clubs like The Palladium and The Limelight, the streets were still gritty and Ed Koch was the mayor. The Berlin Wall was still up. Iraq hadn't invaded Kuwait yet. In other words, this was all a long damn time ago.

But SPIN was a good time. While, true, I didn't get paid, I got piles of free albums -- ones that were discarded by then-editors like Legs McNeil (original Punk and author of "Please Kill Me"), Joe Levy (who later went onto Rolling Stone and Blender), Karen Schoemer (fellow Nick Cave fan and future New York Times music writer) and John Leland. Leland was the guy that really led to me the magazine initially. I'd started reading it during my freshman year of college after a friend erroneously told me they'd published an article about one of my then-fave bands 7 Seconds. In any case, John Leland's writing was smart, funny, informative and didn't pull any punches. Hell, Public Enemy's "Bring the Noise" was purportedly written about him. This guy had it all, I surmised.

As a lowly intern, I was probably pretty starry-eyed when I first got to the magazine. I'd yet to glean that the odious realm of "music journalism" was one of the least respected and summarily least lucrative fields one could possibly pursue, but it was something I knew and loved. After I'd graduated from college, I'd fired off my paltry resume to every magazine I actively read, and it just so happened that SPIN -- my favorite at the time -- had some openings. I'd moved back home after college, so the fact that the position in question was an unpaid internship wasn't a deal-breaker. I figured I'd get my foot in the door and then it'd be up to me to make the in-roads.

The reality of SPIN at the time wasn't exactly all that glamourous. Sure, the place was crawling with incredibly cool folks with impeccable taste, hip haircuts and awesome social lives, but no one was especially well paid. John Leland didn't seem especially happy to be there (nor was he especially chatty with the interns, but no one ever is, I suppose). The magazine seemed to be in a constant state of flux. Staffers came and went.

I ended up staying there for about six months. In the fall, the rest of my fellow interns all ended up going back to their respective colleges. As such, I was the lone intern for a while. While this was good for my exposure and experience, it also meant running a host of unsavory errands like manning the switch-board, transcribing interminable interviews and getting certain notoriously thorny editors-in-chief their sushi for lunch from a very specific restaurant about thirty blocks away. I was lucky, though. When I handled this task, I was able to execute it in a timely fashion. A fellow intern was sent on the same mission a day or so later and got snarled in traffic. When she returned to the office forty minutes later, she was fired on the spot.

The bloom was soon off the rose. Sure, I'd made several new friends, accrued a bunch of new albums, swiped more than a few black SPIN t-shirts, met a couple of dubious rock stars and got invited to the annual party at Nell's on 14th Street (the musical guest was a fledgling Tribe Called Quest) but I was getting impatient. I'd managed to convince one editor to let me write a tiny item for the news page (which ended up being my first published piece of writing outside of my college newspaper -- it was a tiny blurb about Public Enemy). But it got my name in print for the first time. After that, though, it felt like I was just spinning my wheels, pardon the pun.

Through the auspices of my associate editor boss, I was hooked up with a freelance writer who was looking to start his own magazine. With plenty of free time on my hands, I volunteered to help out and soon became ensconced in a grassroots project called The New York Review of Records (but that's a long saga for another day). But I kept chugging along at SPIN all the same.

December came and the managing editor called me into his office. He asked me what my future plans were. I told him I'd been very happy working at SPIN and that I felt I was ready for the next phase and wanted to contribute more. "Great," he said, "I have a meeting with the editor-in-chief later today, but let's sit down next week and work something full-time out for you." I was elated. It seemed like my six months of labor were finally about to pay off. I wasn't sure if it was going to be an editorial assistant position or maybe something more, but it seemed like I was about to become a SPIN staffer.

As it turned out, that managing editor was fired that afternoon. The following week arrived, and a new guy was brought in to fill his position. In turn, he hand-picked someone from outside the magazine to fill the editorial assistant position that had fleetingly been dangled in front of me. My boss spoke up in my defense. "Well, I'll talk to him," the new guy said, "but my mind's already made up."

When I did end up talking to the new guy, he blithely asked me if I could show the new editorial assistant the ropes. I stayed for a couple of more days, took the new editorial assistant out for a very awkward lunch down the street from the office at the Old Town Bar & Grill. A day or so later, I packed up my things and left SPIN for good.

In time, the new managing editor was fired for one thing or another and the notorious editor-in-chief was forcibly removed from the operation. The mag moved offices and has shuffled a nation of aspiring music journalists through its doors since. I don't believe a single name from my brief tenure still works there. The magazine itself has gone through myriad changes and now flounders to keep up with the same amorphous curve it once effortlessly stayed ahead of. I can't remember the last issue of it I bought.

I went onto several other things and have long since gotten over the initial disappointment of not getting a staff position at SPIN (one could argue that I should be grateful for same). In looking back, I can't complain too much. It was indeed a lot of fun. I've met so many people as a result of those months that I can't imagine what my life would be like today had they not happened. 

It's Saturday Night....

... go put on yer dancing pants.

Luminous Times

I've had a bunch of posts "on the cooker," so to speak, but I haven't had the time to bring them to fruition. In the interim, here's a nice place holder that I've been meaning to put up for some time. Joergen Geerds is a local photographer who takes truly spectacular panoramic shots of New York City (it's his shot of the Empire State building above). His photographs are dazzlingly distorted and sometimes barely recognizable, but I find them to be truly stunning. Check out his blogs: Luminous New York and New York Panorama. Really exceptional pictures.

I Throw Thy Name Against The Bruising Stones

In these quarrelsome times, who among us doesn't revel in a cutting rejoinder? And who better than to deliver the imaginative barb than the Bard himself? Find a full quiver of William Shakespeare's poetic put-downs by clicking here. Enjoy, you earth-vexing fustilarians.

Woody's Manhattan

My wife made a startling confession recently by saying that she'd never seen Woody Allen's arguable meisterwork "Annie Hall." We rented it with all speed. Peg loved it, of course. Personally speaking, I'm partial to Woody's more absurdist work ala "Sleeper," "Bananas" and "Take the Money & Run" (yes, I know, he didn't direct that one, pedants). In any case, this episode started us on a bit of a Woody Allen kick. Earlier this week, when Peg went out to visit some family, I popped in the DVD of another of Woody's more celebrated films, "Manhattan." Still co-starring Diane Keaton as his primary foil (Mia Farrow hadn't crept into the scene yet, though her sister Tisa has a fleeting cameo in a party scene), "Manhattan" isn't half the film "Annie Hall" is, but it's still pretty compelling. I don't totally buy the sexual chemistry and romance between Woody's character Ike and 17-year-old Tracey, played with smoldering cuteness by Mariel Hemingway. I also found it somewhat sobering that I'm virtually the same age as Woody's crisis-laden protagonist.

While the film may be inherently flawed, it's still a lovely depiction of Manhattan from a bygone era (see also Woody's images of a since radically facelifted Soho in "Hannah & Her Sisters"). And there is simply no arguing with the film's opening montage (see below).