Flaming Pablum

Your Halloween Song for 2011

You may remember, in years past, that I used to put up lists of suitably unsettling songs to play on Halloween. A few years after that, I started expounding on certain tracks  -- Throbbing Gristle's "Hamburger Lady" or the Bonzo Dog Band's "11 Mustachioed Daughters," for example -- in greater detail. This year, I've been kinda crazy busy, but I encountered a perfect song for the occasion on my way back from Seattle on Sunday, so here `tis.

Just before my trip, I found myself in a little indie disc shop in Brooklyn near my in-laws' place in Park Slope. I love that this little shop still exists, so I always make it a point to buy something -- even if I'm not looking for anything in particular -- just as a show on support. In this instance, I picked up Black Flag's Who's Got the 10 1/2? (which I owned on cassette for many years) and the most recent album by SWANS, My Father Will Guide Me Up a Rope To The Sky. These two albums, I thought, should gamely eat up a bunch of time on my flight.

As it happened, I didn't get to spin the SWANS disc until flying back on Friday night. At the tail end of a long week of conferences and corporate chin-wagging, I was a little exhausted and punch-drunk. The purposely repetitive, engulfing strains of SWANS weren't exactly soothing, but they settled my head into a steady state of manageable torpor. But when the fifth track kicked in, "You Fucking People Make Me Sick," I sat up and listened intently. Provocative title notwithstanding, there was something different afoot. Typically, there is no shortage of disturbing content in the estimable oeuvre of SWANS, but this was slightly removed from all that. With vocals provided by Devendra Banhart and SWANS leader Michael Gira's little son Saoirse Daniel, the song emerges as a lilting, delicate lament-of-sorts. True to SWANS, the lyrics are a bit bleak and chilling, but the fun really begins two-thirds through the track. After the ominous intonation "I love you, Young Flower, Now Give Me WHAT IS MINE!," the song suddenly lurches violently into new territory at 03:12.

The sonic terrain after this point becomes akin to a pointedly unfriendly place where gargantuan dinosaurs rape each other while moaning balefully.

Enjoy.

I Remember Halloween...

2006...

2007...

2008...

2009...

2010...

2011...

Next Stop, Grunge City

I'm bound for the Pacific Northwest on Monday for a five day work conference, so you should probably expect a bit of a slowdown in regular posting here until next weekend. Then again, I will have a laptop with me, so ya never know.

In any case, I haven't been out to that part of the world since the mid-90s, when I'd routinely fly over and visit my friend Sam and get my life threatened in various Seattle bars for instigating arguments about the legitimacy of grunge (or something ... being a petulant New Yorker, I was being wilfully difficult). In any case, I always had a great time out there. Sam took me out to storied Seattle hotspots like RCKCNDY (where the clip for Pearl Jam's "Alive" was filmed, I believe) and the Comet bar. My favorite memory of the latter was when I stepped into the storied grunge mecca's men's room. Scrawled across the tiles on the wall was the amusing legend, "Smells Like Teen Urine!" I bought coffee at Pike's Place Market, had my picture taken at the Gasworks and bought a t-shirt a the Sub Pop Shop. Sam and I even went on a grim pilgrimage to the site of Kurt's shotgun suicide. If I recall correctly, after we'd parked outside the property for a depressing few minutes, the headlights on Sam's truly crappy car suddenly died, and we had to drive back home (in the dark) without them. Kurt's revenge? Anyway, go Seattle!

Technically, I'll be heading to Redmond, Washington this time, not Seattle. But close enough. Anyway, there was a great documentary about all things grunge a few years back called "Hype." Lo and behold ... I found it on the web. The whole thing. So, go grab yourself a cup of coffee, put on your best flannel shirt and settle in for an hour and a half of Jet City's best era.

 

Viewer Discretion is Advised

On my swiftly-slouching-towards-obsolete iMac, there's a screen-saving program which randomly presents images I've crammed in a folder in a never-ending montage, with the pictures slowly fading into each other ala the so-called "Ken Burns effect." Periodically, I've added new images to the folder -- just things I found cool or amusing or interesting for a variety of reasons. There are album covers, press photographs of bands, personal snapshots, interesting vintage photography, posters, etc. all in there. When it's on, it has something of a hypnotic effect. One can't help watching it, wondering what the next image will be.

Even though it's been doing this for the last several years, my wife took me aside this morning to ask me to remove a specific image from it, being that the kids were sitting in front of it and curiously mesmerized by it. The image in question was a photograph my colleague Drew took of me about two years ago, emphatically flipping the bird at the camera. Begrudgingly, I started filtering through the folder and decided to excise a few similarly objectionable shots. Not wanting them to go to waste, however, I'm presenting them here for posterity. Shoo your little ones out of the room and enjoy.

 

11th & B Circa 1983

I’m completely swiping this from Bowery Boogie, but it’s far too cool not to share here on Flaming Pablum, being that I’m an absolute sucker for this type of stuff.

11th & B from J. Sprig on Vimeo.

Dig this? Then you might also enjoy this.

Sharply Dressed on West 23rd

As much as they've become a crippling embarrassment to the species today, Kiss will always be counted as one of my favorite bands. Yes, even after myriad betrayals and crass sell-outs and reality television shows and face-lifts, I still cannot deny them my fandom. Sure, there were/are other favorite bands -- Pink Floyd, Devo, The Ramones, Iron Maiden, The Circle Jerks, Motorhead, The Stranglers, Killing Joke, Cop Shoot Cop -- but Kiss? They were my first. Dressed to Kill (their criminally undersung third album from 1975) was the first LP I ever purchased with my own money. I prized it from Sam's Record Shack on Main Street in posh-o Westhampton Beach as a wee lad for all of three or four dollars, I believe (and that was the exorbitant going sticker price at the time -- how things have changed!)

Shortly before their make-over as an aspiring all-thing-to-all-people-sorta band, the Kiss captured on Dressed to Kill was still a comparatively rough-hewn garage act, inspired by the Detroit ramalama of the MC5 and the campily over-the-top theatrics of the New York Dolls. They were also lurid, libidinous and lethally loud. I cherished my copy of Dressed to Kill -- and still do. Beyond the make-up and all the rest of it, it's the music on that record that still moves me. While I was never a giant fan of "Rock and Roll All Night," the mere inclusion of tracks like "Getaway," "C'mon and Love Me", "Anything for My Baby" and "She" make it essential. Hell, "Love Her All I Can" was almost my wife and I's goddamn wedding song. Forget what you may despise about Gene Simmons et al. today. Dressed to Kill by Kiss is a fucking massive rock `n roll album, full stop.

Anyway, blah blah blah. Why am I talking about it now? Because my friend NYCDreamin at This Ain't the Summer of Love exhumed a larger version of a photo from the mighty Bob Gruen's iconic cover shot. I've talked about it before here, of course, and you may even remember last Summer when I went on a bit of a pilgrimage-of-sorts to many a rock photo shoot location, including this one. Anyway, I'd never seen this larger version (see top of post), so I thought I'd share it with ya too.

Occupation Observation

Lots of people seem to have lots to say about the Occupy Wall Street movement. I'm no exception, of course. While I stand with most of the myriad sentiments expressed amidst the OWS contingent, there are still aspects of it that I can't fully support. I'm sorry, but drum circles and puppets don't solve anything. Remember how we all laughed at the idiots who showed up at the Tea Party rallies dressed like Revolutionary War-era militia men? It's the same thing. Dress like one of the Banana Splits, and people are only going to laugh at you and write off your cause. That's only my opinion, of course, but I find it frustrating to see a worthy endeavor undermined by dingbats looking for cheap laughs.

Of course, the media plays right into it by serving up the freakier aspects on a silver platter (despite the fact that nine out of every ten of the protestors don't actually sport purple, dreadlocked mohawks). They're simply looking for what will catch the eye and capture the attention. Maybe that's the point, but again -- don't serious concerns warrant a more serious approach? There's got to be a place for humor in the discourse, of course, but don't let it cloud the message. Again -- these are just my own opinions, and they're not necessarily carved in stone.

Consider the two placards below (click on them to enlarge...both prized off of Tumblr). I'm just curious --- Which sign do you think is more effective?

Back to Chumley's

A quick one: Jeremiah Moss unearthed a clip from a late 80's Woody Allen film this morning that featured the interiors of late, lamented speak-easy Chumley's (see above, shot by me circa 1998 or so), however fleetingly. It indeed captures the warmth of that room in the cruelest of ways. If I'm not mistaken, the story went that Woody had always had designs on filming inside the fabled West Village watering hole, but when he got there, he somehow felt that it still wasn't "rustic" enough. As such, he had rafters installed (although they're not visible in this clip). I remember going there with some high school friends sometime in `89 or so and thinking "hmmm.... I don't remember those!" They ultimately served no purpose beyond creating the ambiance Allen was striving for. That's the story I heard, at least.

Chumley's is long gone now, of course. Following a wall collapse and then a ruthlessly efficient gutting, there's been talk of it reopening (probably as some godawful sports bar or velvet rope establishment). In any case, the old Chumley's is gone, but lives on in clips like the one JM found. Drink it in.

All That is Seen and Unsane

Here's one that's bound to bother, deeply offend and/or spook the crap out of someone.

Given our mutual fondness for the disagreeable skronk of NYC noise-rock of the late 80's and 90's, my comrade EV Grieve shot me the below clip from the viscerally monochromatic Unsane circa 1993. I actually saw the Unsane play a handful of times in the 90s -- most notably opening for Cop Shoot Cop and Foetus at the late, lamented Palladium on 14th Street (now an N.Y.U. dorm ... oh goodie). While I liked the Unsane's tireless dedication to unrelenting punishment and gratuitous gore (every album sleeve came with a grisly cover image), they did get a bit samey after awhile (more so than their peers in bands like Surgery, Barkmarket, Prong, Helmet et al). Sonically speaking, "Body Bomb" below is no exception to the Unsane aesthetic. The video clip, however, is notable for a couple of other reasons.

While you may remember the Unsane's video for "Scrape" -- a hilarious/horrific (depending on your sensibility) montage of egregious skateboard accident footage that landed them a spot on "Beavis & Butthead" -- the video for "Body Bomb" is decidedly less celebrated. I'm fascinated by it as its disgruntled Travis Bickle-esque protagonist is portrayed by none other than Chris Nantz a.k.a. Jack Natz. Natz is a seasoned NYC rock veteran, having played bass for The Undead, Virus, the Black Snakes and -- wait for it -- Cop Shoot Cop. Fans of transgressive cinema might also recognize Natz from his bloody performance in photographer and erstwhile Black Snakes band-mate Richard Kern's "Submit to Me Now" (a disturbing little film wherein our Jack seems to wrap himself up in barbed-wire). Maybe not exactly a renaissance man, but Natz did make his mark.

I don't want to give away the ending and ruin everybody's day, but suffice to say that eighteen years after it was filmed, the very final scene of this video might very well give one -- especially a New Yorker -- a palpable chill. I'd be curious to hear what they'd say about it today. Anyway, watch it if you're curious.

The Unsane carry on today, I believe. Natz was playing bass with them himself, actually, along with serving in the ranks of Lubricated Goat for a while. I'm not at all sure what he's up to these days, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a Cop Shoot Cop reunion tour.

 

Sucking Up the Crumbs

As my pal EV Grieve recently reported, the rock photography gallery that was Morrison Hotel which took up residence in the former footprint of CB's 313 Gallery (which, for years prior to that, was the Capitol Silver Co.), has closed up shop and moved on, now replaced by a clothing store called Rift. Unfortunately, its neighbor to the immediate north, John Varvatos, shows zero sign of moving thus far. Not that it really matters anymore, I guess.

In any case, for those who still pine for the Bowery of yore, my friend Drew unearthed the clip below yesterday which you might find solace in. In all honesty, I was never a fan of the Crumbsuckers. Sure, they were NYHC, but I never considered them more than c-listers at best. They were just too mookish for my taste (not that mookishness was exactly in small supply around the NYHC scene). To be fair, they are better than I remember them, but I'm more enthused about the video below for capturing the era. I'm guessing, but this was probably filmed between `86 and `88.

Enjoy.