Flaming Pablum

Clownin' Around

Wisenheimer local band, Clowns For Progress....boppin' around the East Village & Coney Island circa 1994

Funky Lafayette

A little while back, EV Grieve and I got in a little bout of seeing who could post more album covers and/or music videos featuring depictions of New York City, the more esoteric the better. In the end, both of us wound up putting up some pretty obscure shit. In any case, there was one video I always wanted to put up, but I couldn't for the life of me remember the song title or the artist in question, only that it was by some New Jack Swing cat (i.e. not my usual fare). My searches came up empty, and eventually I gave up. The reason I wanted to post it was because it featured the dude & his posse of high-steppers singing and dancing right at the crossing divide where Bleecker Street, Lafayette Street and Mulberry Street all intersect. It's one of my favorite little strips of Manhattan, actually.

Today, meanwhile, a colleague of mine felt inclined to celebrate the arrival of Friday by posting a suitably celebratory clip from 1988 called "Just Got Paid" by a dude named Johnny Kemp on Facebook, and lo and behold – that was the clip! To watch the video in question, you'd never know it was the same plot of real estate. The photo at the top of this post (taken by one Jeremy Meyers) gives a bit of a clue as to what that area looked like in the late 80s and into the early 90s (before they covered the original mural with billboards). Click here to see what it looked like in 1979. Today, meanwhile, it's been built out and covered with scaffolding (here's what it looked like earlier this year). It's a busy little intersection.

In any case, thanks to Tahirih, here's a rather idealized glimpse of what it looked like circa 1988 (although I certainly don't remember this neighborhood being quite so festive). Fetch thyself thy dancing pants and hit play.

Lower Manhattan Loiterin'

Yep, time for another one. Isn't Flickr just the awesome? For a photo-fetishist like myself, it's absolutely the biggest possible time-suck imaginable. In any case, I stumbled upon yet another amazing cache of amazing, old timey photographs of NYC, culled together by one Christian Montone into a set titled, appropriately enough, "Vintage New York City." There are just some amazing shots therein, but I particularly warmed to the two below.

First up, if you think St. Marks Place is a hotbed of hooliganism today, you should take some solace in the fact that it's been that way for a very long time. Witness this shot from sometime in the 60's. These kids are parked just in front of what was then the Filmore East. Note the (long-since vanished) St. Mark's Cinema in the background.

Meanwhile, across town on MacDougal Street, it evidently wasn't much better. These hirsute hellions are hanging out in front of Cafe Wha, owned & operated at the time -- legend has it -- by the uncle of Van Halen's David Lee Roth. Cafe Wha is still open today, although I have no idea of the shape it might be in. I believe I set foot in it once in the 90's. I always imagined it looking a bit like this in its heyday.

To see the rest of this amazing collection, CLICK RIGHT HERE.

Walking West Broadway

If you walk down this strip today, you'll barely recognize it from this photograph taken in 1976 by one Nicolai Connetti, originally from a book or collection of some sort called "The Pavements of New York." This is, of course, West Broadway, looking South from just above Prince Street. I found it amidst this set of pictures of New York City from the 1970s. Enjoy.

Stuff You Might Have Missed: Specials Edition

So first off, I went to go check out The Specials' return to New York City last night. Finally making it here after announcing their resumption of duty in 2008 (albeit without founder/organist/madman Jerry Dammers), I wasn't originally planning on going, being that they were playing Terminal 5 (which, as I may have mentioned in my report on the Stooges show there in 2008, sucks some very serious eggs). But, my next door neighbor Bruce twisted my rubber arm and convinced me to go. After all, it's the goddamn Specials! How could it not be excellent? I did have a moment of panic after ordering tickets, though, after reading that they'd canceled a few shows (though not this one) due to some health problems. But away we went.

Still smarting from the early start of that Stooges show, Bruce & I hoofed it over to friggin' 12th Avenue and entered the venue only a half hour after the 7pm door. We secured a great spot right in the center from the bar barricade, bought ourselves a couple of (very) pricey beers for ourselves and waited. And waited. And waited. With no opening band, the hours moved pretty slowly as the venue slowly filled up. I'd been expecting a more colorful crowd, honestly, but apart from a few pork pie hats, there were only sporadic sightings of full-on Rude Boy and/or skinhead finery. Mostly, it was just middle-aged folks (like…er…ourselves). As I mentioned over at The New York Nobody Sings, it seems the once-thriving NYC Ska scene has thinned out a bit.

In any case, the band hit the stage around 9:35 and launched right into it. Though a bit older and burlier looking, the patented Specials' brand of explosive stage presence remained largely intact. Guitarist Roddy Radiation still looks like a punky Eddie Chochran prone to throwing all sorts of heroic, splay-legged poses. Lynval & Neville still symmetrically bounce around with infectious energy. I'm not sure who Jerry's replacement on the organ was, but he did a fantastic job. The real star attraction was, of course, the return of original vocalist Terry Hall. While even in the band's heyday, Hall wasn't exactly happy-go-lucky, the man's onstage demeanor remains a puzzling one. Skulking around the stage in a depressive funk (despite the kinetic frenzy around him), Hall comes off like a bemused, latter-day Peter Sellers, making the odd aside to the audience. It was hard to tell at certain points if he was actually enjoying himself or not. He's like the Eeyore of Ska. His voice, meanwhile, was a distinctive as ever.

The set itself was all a Specials fan could have asked for. "Do The Dog," "Concrete Jungle" (my favorite), "Stupid Marriage," "Rat Race," "Nite Klub," "A Message to You Rudy," "Too Much Too Young" & many more were dusted off to huge fanfare and high, communal stepping. The encore was the obligatory run through "Ghost Town" (with an odd flute accompaniment in place of the ghostly chorus) and a spirited romp through "Enjoy Yourself." Overall, it was a great – if somewhat exhausting – show (and they're doing it again tonight). There's already video up on YouTube and you can check out Brooklyn Vegan's review (which I haven't read yet) by clicking right here.

In other comeback news of sorts, fans of Adam & the Ants took heart recently upon reports that Adam was recording a new album. In light of the poor man's relatively recent lapses into, well, insanity, that was encouraging news. Well, not so fast, Ant people. Brace yourselves, this story is da diddley qua-quite a disappointment (sorry).

Elsewhere, during some random `Net trawling recently, I stumbled upon this rather awesome looking trailer for a new documentary on the mighty hardcore phenomenon that are Bad Brains (note, not the Bad Brains, mind you). Sadly, like so many other cool documentaries currently "in the works" (like, say, I don't know, that Killing Joke one), who knows if/when it'll ever see the light of day?

Next up, check out this fascinating piece on one of my favorite strips of Manhattan real estate, Cortlandt Alley, courtesy of the scrupulously detail-oriented Scouting New York. Regular readers may remember that I've alluded to the same little ode to the same slab of pavement here on The New York Nobody Sings a couple of times.

Elsewhere in NYC-related news, my friend Rob spotted a curious piece in Animal recently. Evidently, a guerrilla artist is putting up handy little reminders about proper etiquette around New York City's notoriously rough-hewn subway system. Study up, cretins!

Meanwhile, a little while back, I got in an unfortunately heated exchange on Facebook after I posted a relatively tame piece of agitprop about Sarah Palin scoring a TV deal with the Learning Channel. A friend of mine who leans rather pointedly to the right took great exception to me using Facebook as a bully pulpit in this way, and viscerally took me to task for it. Fair enough … Facebook is an open forum where differing opinions should be able to mingle in an exchange of ideas that is ideally bias. I recanted, promising I'd reign in my lefty exhorting. And I have done. Still, this isn't Facebook. This is my blog. As such, please enjoy this piece wherein Jon Stewart takes fatuously pompous Bernie Goldberg and Fox News as whole to the fuckin' pavement.

In cinema doings, I hasten to point out that while I count myself as a fan of horror, even I have my standards and parameters. If anything, I tend to like a bit of plausibility in my horror films, being that it lends an extra degree of tension to the proceedings. That all said, when I saw this trailer for a movie called "The Human Centipede," I found its inherent ludicrousness and utter repulsiveness so genuinely vile that – whether plausible or not – I wasn't even able to watch the whole thing. Maybe I'm just a big p_ssy, but you give it a try and see if you can keep your lunch down.

In small screen developments, the good news is that "Mad Men," the show that single-handedly restored my faith in the possibility of worthwhile television, is coming back. The bad news is that it's probably going to end after this season. Boo!

Lastly, while out fetching lunch this afternoon, my colleague Drew and I spotted a food truck branded with the moniker, "Kosher Oasis." I mentioned that it sounded like a Jewish Britpop cover band. This somehow led to us discussing the strenuously lamentable Matisyahu, which then triggered the fond reminiscence of this bit from 'SNL.' Enjoy. Irie.

Heartbreak on Broadway

On 11th Street

Word on The Street

Record Store Day 2010

For last year's weepy chapter, click here.

There was an album I was quite fond of during my freshman year of college called Maximum Security by Alien Sex Fiend. In all honestly, it wasn't their finest effort (that would be Acid Bath, which I talked about here), but having been so enthused by that afore-cited album that preceded it, I snatched up a copy of Maximum Security with all speed upon its release in 1985 and proceeded to play it to death, much to the pronounced disdain of my then-roommate. While this was the mid-80's, a.k.a. the golden age of "college rock" (an umbrella term that encompassed everything from punk to hardcore to new wave to post-punk to new wave to power-pop to gothic rock and all things in between), the lion's share of the student body at my particular college -- Denison University in Granville, Ohio -- was still steeped in an illogical obsession with rote, yawnsome crap like The Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead and virtually all things Woodstock-affiliated. Suffice to say, as an easily-riled punk rock fan with many an unsolicited opinion to share about the entirely subjective appreciation of music, this did not go over at all well with me. With precious few exceptions, the stuff I held dear was still considered fairly freakish. In the early weeks of my fresman year, there was a guy named Rod who lived in my dorm that practically stopped talking to me after he saw that I was wearing a Stranglers t-shirt. Ironically, by 1985, the Stranglers had become pretty damn tame in the grand scheme of things, but that's another matter.

In any case, hidden within the ransom-note-styled collage of artwork on the original gatefold sleeve of ASF's Maximum Security, I discovered a bold proposition that became my battle cry; "Fuck the Sixties, Let's Bring Back The Eighties!" As I was a sort of self-appointed champion of the bold, new music of the era, this profane declaration completely appealed to my churlishly juvenile "us vs. them" mentality. "What're ya doing listening to that old, boring bullshit?" I invariably asked classmates at the time, "You need to forget that hippie crap and start listening to this stuff!" and I'd clobber them over the head with the latest slab of vinyl by the Screaming Blue Messiahs or Die Kreuzen or We've Got a Fuzzbox And We're Going to Use It or Code of Honor or The Lime Spiders or T.S.O.L. or The March Violets or Saccharine Trust or The Three O' Clock or Gaye Bykers on Acid or _________ (fill in your favorite 80's also-ran here), etc. etc. etc. "Fuck the Sixties, LET'S BRING BACK THE EIGHTIES!!!" Blah blah blah.

Well, twenty-five (!!!!) years late, guess who's a big fuckin' hypocrite? I'm now in my forties and while I do try to keep up with a lot of the new stuff, most of my favorite music still dates back to the late 70's, 80's and 90's. In fact, a lot of the music I listen to today is now as old (and, in some cases, even older) than the music I chastised my classmates for listening to was then (if that makes any sense). But y'know, sue me.

So, today being Record Store Day, I dutifully took some time this afternoon and hit a few of my few remaining local shops (you can find a sadly no-longer-comprehensive list of since-closed NYC record shops here). I strolled into the East Village and went to the new-ish Kim's on 1st Avenue, wherein I picked up the re-mastered editions of Devo's sophomore album, Duty Now for the Future (originally from 1979) and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds' Tender Prey (originally from 1988). I also picked up the new White Stripes live album, Under The Great Northern Lights, but I don't really think that makes me especially cutting edge.

Anyway, if an aging, cranky old hypocritical fart can get out there and support his local record stores, SO CAN YOU! Get going!

Clenched Lists

Honesty just gets ya in trouble, ever notice that? So, a little while back, I posted a not-entirely-inspired list of my favorite songs of the past ten years. Little fanfare ensued. In any case, more recently, my friend Oliver of Radio Schizo fame posted his own list on the Gathering (an online forum of zealous Killing Joke acolytes like m'self). This prompted me to revive mine. A surprisingly heated and not-just-a-little-juvenile debate summarily ensued regarding the merits of various artists cited on our respective lists. Somehow, the whole thing boiled down to a rather disproportionate battle between the late Jay Reatard & age-old British anarchist combo Rudimentary Peni (from his list) against The Shins and Busta Rhymes (from my list). Oh, and I also caught a lot of arguably deserved shite for citing "Helena" by the otherwise strenuously lamentable My Chemical Romance. But, y'know, ya can't please everybody.

Despite a surprising amount of blustery talk, it all came out in the wash, and we're all buds again, but it just goes to show ya how something as comparatively trivial and subjective as the appreciation of music can spark an argument. Anyway, since we're on the subject, I thought I might as well highlight a few that slipped my mind during the invariably beer-assisted compiling of the original list. Let's see if these provoke any outrage.

"Centuries of Sin" by Probot

"No Pussy Blues" by Grinderman

"Babe, I'm On Fire" (part 1) (part 2) by Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

"The Art of Stopping" by Wire

"Here to Stay" by New Order

"Believe" by Frank Potente

"Judith" by A Perfect Circle

"Interstate 5" by The Wedding Present

Meanwhile, here's one of the songs that got me in trouble. I still think it's great, so y'all can bite me. Don't forget! Tomorrow is Record Store Day! Get out there and spend your dough on more things to fight about!

Flippin' Out

As a nascent hardcore fan in the mid-80s, there were precious few music periodicals on offer that dared cover the then-thriving underground network of bands. Sure, maybe SPIN magazine threw the odd bone towards the hardcore crowd, but you'd be hard pressed to find any really meaningful mentions in the mainstream media (and those that you did find were invariably derisive, misinformed and sensationalist). A such, independent `zines became crucial. There were several notable ones, but I was a devoted reader of San Francisco's Maximumrockn'roll, Massachusetts' Forced Exposure and my personal favorite, Los Angeles' Flipside.

I remember poring through the pages of every issue of Flipside I could get my hands on, hungry to hear about new bands, new scenes and new releases. I often bought two copies, just so I could cut out some of the photographs and tape them up on my wall. `Zines like Flipside managed to truly capture the urgency of hardcore and my imagination along with it. I still have a case of all my old issues (although said case now resides in a cramped storage space in Lower Manhanttan).

In any case, a little while back I stumbled upon an amazing collection of photographs by photographer Jospeh Henderson on Facebook. As you might remember, I posted a little entry about it to hopefully direct like-minded fans to it. In turn, Joe got back to me and thanked me for my kind words. He then asked if he could appropriate my text for a special project. Happy to help, of course I said yes.

That special project, it turned out, was the resumption of active duty for Flipside. You can read and download Volume 1 – Spring 2010 edition right here. Go get it!