Flaming Pablum

These Boots Were Made For ...

My colleague Drew took this picture of my snow-defying Doc Martens this afternoon as we were leavin' work. Check out more of his work here.

Supersnowva 2010!

Some weather-appropriate tunes as we await the blizzard.

Okay, so the Sabbath tune's actually about cocaine, but y'know ... whatever.

The WORST Song/Video EVER

Lately, I've been posting videos of up and coming artists (or at least artists that are new to me) here on Flaming Pablum for the purposes of spreading the gospel, as it were. Certain friends of mine are keen to send me clips of bands they think I'd like or would be intrigued by. My friend Christina, however, shot me something earlier this week that took the wind out of my sails. I wouldn't normally put something this …. well … terrifyingly bad up, but its singularly distinctive awfulness really has to be experienced to be believed. Christina prefaced this video by saying it was "quite possible the worst song/video EVER." I'm of the opinion that she's correct. See if you agree. Also, see if you can make it through the whole thing. I couldn't.

Brace yourselves.

Hot Doggin' on 8th

I was running some errands on Saturday night that found me walking west down 8th Street. I was struck by how many new establishments now pepper the north side of the street, from hookah bar Little Beirut to the newly opened Patty & Bun tavern. By the time I reached the end of the block, I figured I'd stave off my hunger with a quick hot dog at Gray's Papaya (purportedly Lou Reed's favorite NYC restaurant). Fully expecting the usual line, I walked in to find only a couple of people milling around and the floor covered with tiny bits of broken glass. Half the space was cordoned off with yellow police tape. Evidently, just a few hours earlier, someone drove their car into the place. You can read a report here (with a pic).

Something for Your Super Bowl Sunday

Every year around this time, I scour the `Net for an image that sums up how I feel about the so-called Super Bowl, football and, well, sports in general. This year, I think I've finally found one that nails it.

Find the original here.

Dan Smith is Omniscient

I'm shamelessly stealing this from Ally. Chances are that if you're not a New Yorker, this won't make any sense to you, but suffice to say, Dan Smith's tirelessly ubiquitous flyer campaign is a regular fixture in downtown Manhattan.

Alien Sex Fiend Take Manhattan

Quite a while back, EV Grieve and I got in a bit of a competition to see who could cite more album covers that featured depictions of New York City. I'm not exactly sure who won, but this morning, as I was ripping songs to my iTunes (largely an exercise in meaningless futility, as I'm no longer able to synch my iPod to to my iTunes), I started playing a selection of hoary old gothic chestnuts from Alien Sex Fiend and remembered another one.

As it happened, the sleeve art for the original U.S. release of the band's infernally lysergic debut LP, Who's Been Sleeping in My Brain? from 1983 was quite hard to track down online. I actually own a copy of it, but it's locked in a trunk in a storage space on Varick Street. It features a somewhat crude and juvenile picture of Alien Sex Fiend (namely vocalist Nik Fiend, keyboardist Mrs. Fiend, drummer Johnnie Ha Ha and -- if memory serves -- guitarist Yaxi Hirizer), cavorting in front of the smoking ruins of Manhattan (flanked, naturally, by giant skulls and a blow-up sex dolly). The British edition of the album featured a comparatively tamer, abstract image, and the compact disc re-release reprises that version. In any case, after some creative Googling, I managed to find it to submit for your approval.

Oddly, given the placement of Manhattan in the background, one would assume the A.S.F. clan are standing on Ellis Island, but I could be wrong. Either that or Hoboken? Weigh in, geography-trainspotters.

For those unfamiliar with Alien Sex Fiend, they were (and -- somewhat surprisingly -- still are) a ridiculously campy and pruriently naughty British goth band that sprang out of London's fertile Batcave scene alongside similarly-inclined outfits as The Specimen and the Sex Gang Children. As their name might suggest, they took themselves much less seriously than genre peers like Bauhaus and the Sisters of Mercy (owing more to the theatrical shenanigans of vintage Alice Cooper and The Cramps than the stark gloom of Joy Division et al.) but still managed to make some memorable records along the way. For my money, however, Who's Been Sleeping in My Brain? wasn't one of them. As far as I'm concerned, their finest hour remains their second LP, Acid Bath (produced by Killing Joke's Youth). I wrote a needlessly lengthy paean to that album on the ILX discussion boards back in 2004, which you can read here if you give a whoop. Or, you can simply hit play on the video below for a sample. If possible, enjoy!

Chumley's is 86'd

Remember Chumley's? That fabled speak-easy in the West Village? I initially waxed rhapsodic about it here, and fleetingly documented its untimely demise a couple of times in 2007. The picture above was taken some time in 1996 or 1997 within its hallowed walls (I'm the pasty white guy in the mustard-colored denim jacket on the right...the other dude is my friend Mitch). Since then, it's supposedly been under painstaking restoration in preparation of a grand re-opening (they even re-applied for a liquor license not too long back). Well, estimable guerilla blogger Jeremiah Moss paid a visit to the location recently and took a dispiriting picture of the current state of affairs. Click here to read his report. Even if they do re-open the doors, it ain't going to be the Chumley's we all knew and loved. Sad.

The Thermostatic Shuffle

And now, a bit of complaining…..

It's an issue I've discussed here before a couple of times, but not very recently. In any case, for the record, let me re-emphasize the point: If you're looking at a home that comes appointed with a thermostatic shower valve in the master bathroom, grab the nearest heavy and/or sharp object and plunge it into the skull of your real estate agent.

For the second time in four years, I'm having to slip out of work during the middle of the day to breathlessly sprint down to a far-flung, specialized bathroom fixture emporium in Tribeca to pay a bracing two hundred smackers for a rarified Perrin & Rowe ROHL thermostatic shower cartridge. Why am I doing this? Well, it's either the curse of designed obsolescence or simply that my family bathes too often. Either way, the water temperature control in the sole bathroom/shower of our home has fallen grossly out of calibration. In plain English, we have zero hot water. The only solution, according to my building's super, is to get a new cartridge. To suggest that this is inconvenient and unrestful is a Herculean understatement.

A Helpful Reminder