Earlier this week, I posted a little entry about a show my friend Drew and I attended at the Cake Shop on Ludlow Street by a band called Pissed Jeans. During the course of same, as I noted in that post, there were at least three photographers present. Given the intimacy of the venue (we're talking SMALL), Drew and I wondered if our pictures would make it into any of the ensuing coverage of the show. A few days later, the video I posted appeared (shot from the same angle where we were standing, alas – we didn't appear). Shortly after that, Brooklyn Vegan (arguably the preeminent site for these sorts of things) ran their typical photo summation of the show. As awesome as their photos were (check'em out by clicking right here), again images of Drew and I sweatily rocking out to the plangent strains of Pissed Jeans failed to materialize. Our hopes of being immortalized like those hirsute heshers on the back cover of Kiss' Alive crumbled.
The whole episode reminded me of a similar incident almost exactly two decades ago. In June of 1990, I was bouncing between a gig as a copy clerk at LIFE Magazine (where I'd dutifully run around the office taking printed hard copies of stories to editors to read – a task that seems laughably primitive by today's standards) and writing and copy-editing for a tiny, independent music `zine. I was also contributing to a handful of other periodicals, writing about music. As such, I'd managed to weasel my way onto the regular guest lists of virtually every significant record label. And as New York City was still a thriving hotbed of live music at the time, my nights were regularly spent out at a variety of clubs and venues soaking it all in. Honestly, it didn't suck.
Anyway, one night in early June, my friend and former colleague from my days interning at SPIN, Brent, and I decided to go check out this band from Seattle called The Fluid at Ron Wood's East Village rock club, Woody's. Though situated right in the heart of the E.V. (I want to say it was on East 5th, just off of 2nd Avenue, but I might be mistaken), the interior of Woody's owed nothing to the surrounding neighborhood. Inside the dark venue were potted plants, zebra-striped couches and framed portraits of rock luminaries scribbled by Ron Wood himself. It was essentially an 80's hangover. In any case, The Fluid was an up-&-coming grunge band on SubPop that boasted a slightly more conventional, accessible sound than their peers in Soundgarden, Tad et al. True to the style of the times and their genre, the Fluid assumed the stage in a frenzy of hair, flannel, frayed denim and Doc Martens and played an energetic set to a receptive audience. Brent and I had a good time, then took off to consume beers somewhere else in the East Village.
A day or two later, a fellow former SPIN employee, Karen Schoemer wrote a piece for The New York Times titled "In Rocking East Village, The Beat Never Stops." The morning that the issue hit the stands, Brent rang me up and told me to check it out. There at the top of the article was a photograph of The Fluid rocking out at Woody's. More importantly to us, Brent and I were pictured in the crowd, immortalized in the smudgy ink of the New York Times.
While I'm sure I kept a copy of that article somewhere safe, I'll be damned where it's gotten to in the ensuing twenty years. I'd actually forgotten about it until the Pissed Jeans show the other night. So, this week, I hit the web to try and find it. Sure enough, the Times website has the article online, but it comes without the photo. I glanced at the bottom of the piece and learned that the picture in question was snapped by none other than storied NYC Punk shutterbug Ebet Roberts (better known for iconic photos like these). After fruitlessly scouring the web for the photo, I decided to fire off a note to Ms. Roberts herself, asking if she'd be interested in selling me a print of the shot. I have yet to hear back from her, but my hopes are high.
In the interim, you can read Karen's piece by clicking right here, although the East Village is, of course, a decidedly different scene today than it was then. And for a little extra context, here's a bit of The Fluid. If I ever get the photo, I'll post it.
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