Flaming Pablum

My Favorite New Tunes of 2011

I can't do year-end music lists with any credibility anymore, as I'm way too out of the loop. That said, I did hear a lot of genuinely newer stuff this year that I really dug. I'm probably forgetting a couple, but here they are in no particular order: The Flaming Pablum New Music Favorites of 2011! Soak'em up.

1. "Nothing But Heart" by Low
2. "Somebody that I Used to Know" by Gotye (I only heard this for this first time this week, and I love it)
3. "He Gets Me High" by the Dum Dum Girls
4. "San Pedro" by Mogwai (which is also notable for its incongruously NYC-centric video)
5. "Recharge & Revolt" by the Raveonettes
6. "Future Starts Slow" by The Kills
7. "White Rune" by Iceage
8. "Hoot Owl" by Life in a Blender
9. "Get Back in Line" by Motorhead *
10. "Able" by Gavin Friday 

*Alright, this album came out in 2010, but it was December of 2010, so I basically consider it form 2011. Sue me.

Vince & Shelly on West 31st Street

After watching an entirely dreadful film called "Tamara Drewe" (misdirected by Stephen Frears) on Wednesday night, we stumbled upon the beginning of Arthur Hiller's "The In-Laws" from 1979, staring Alan Arkin and the late, great Peter Falk. "Now THIS is a proper goddamn movie," I announced, throwing the remote control well out of my wife's grasp. I hadn't seen the film in a few years, but it's always been a favorite and easily Falk's finest hour (with the possible exception of his role in "Murder By Death"). They, of course, re-made it a couple of years back, but don't trouble yourself with that bullshit. Seek out the original, laugh and thank me later.

In any case, while watching it again, I thrilled to the fleeting footage of Manhattan circa 1979. There's a great chase scene wherein hapless dentist Sheldon Kornpett (played by Arkin) is pursued by gun-toting gangsters through midtown. The scene below presages that one, but provides a quick glimpse of Greeley Square in the grotty late 70's. The bar they pull up in front of on 31st street is still there, if memory serves.

 

ADDENDUM: Whoops, looks like that clip's been dismantled. Shitty. Anyway, here's the original trailer:

All Boxed Out

In a perfect world, I'd have posted this yesterday -- Boxing Day -- but it's not a perfect world and inspiration doesn't strike that way.

For a Christmas present, my mother very graciously gave me a sizable gift card to Barnes & Noble. As it happens, I already have two or three books that I'm struggling to get through, so I thought I'd go blow it in their ever-shrinking, ever-dwindling and increasingly less relevant and even lesser-lamented music section. Time was when Barnes & Noble's selection of compact discs was, at the very least, passably respectable. That time is no longer with us.

As I've laboriously mentioned in countless other posts here, if you catch in me in one of the few remaining retail outlets here in New York City that actually sells compact discs these days, you're probably more likely to find me in the "re-issue" section than in the "new releases" aisle. There are certainly new artists whose music I'm aware of and I espouse, but I'd be fibbing with ornately flourished aplomb to say I'm "keeping up" with the latest stuff. I don't know my Adele from my Mumford & Sons or my LMFAO from my Feist and -- quite frankly -- couldn't possibly give less of a rolling rat fuck about any/all of the above. I am quite comfortably ensconced, music-wise, in the unfashionable realm of the old fart. 

In any case, there I was this afternoon, helplessly wandering around Barnes & Noble's anaemic music department, vainly hoping to prize something new for my ears. I spied the brand new Smiths box set, picked it up and walked around with it for a while before deducing that I already own all the material contained therein several times over. As such, despite its lovingly assembled re-packaging (cue predictable "Paint a Vulgar Picture" allusion here), I put it back. I also slid my fingers passionlessly across the ENTIRELY NEEDLESS and garishly obscene new Pink Floyd re-issues (rife with ridiculous titles like "The Immersion Box Set" and "The Discovery Box Set"). I didn't spot it, but I knew Elvis Costello's admittedly overpriced new box set was also somewhere close by. I held the new Rolling Stones re-mastered edition of the excellent Some Girls, but also put it back. I furrowed my brow with bemusement at the unwieldy array of new-old AC/DC product (the latest shameless vault-foraging being Backtracks, an item actually own courtesy of a Christmas raffle at work ... although I had to swap with a co-worker a fitness club gift-certificate for it). The trouble was, I wasn't spotting anything I really needed, let alone wanted.

There is this re-mastered edition of The Jesus & Mary Chain's masterpiece, Psycocandy that I've been hungrily coveting, but -- honestly -- despite its lovely (again) re-packaging, I don't think there's anything on it that I don't already possess (especially in the wake of this long-since-forgotten collection of theirs I found buried in a discount bin last year). Regardless, Barnes & Noble didn't have it. Likewise, I'm forever on the hunt for copies of Best Before by Crass and Live Official Bootleg by Venom to supplant vinyl copies long-since imprisoned in a storage space on Vandam Street (you can read a tear-stained account of my search for the latter here), but they, unsurprisingly, didn't have either. They did have the relatively new best-of by The Mekons, but that didn't move me enough to pick it up.

I then started thinking about how my front hall closet is already spilling over with rarely-opened box sets (being that I've ripped all the crucial bits to my iTunes ages ago), and how that afore-cited storage space on Vandam Street is loaded to the rafters with crap I can barely remember.

Forsaking my mission, I opted to use part of my gift card to procure the new P.D. James book for the wife and promptly exited Barnes & Noble, making a silent vow to myself to try to spend 2012 getting rid of some of my stuff rather than just adding to the grotesque pile.

Have a Merry Flaming Pablum Christmas

Hey all. I'm imagining no one's in front of their computer right now, opting instead to either loiter perilously around the egg-nog bowl or doing some last-minute Christmas shopping. In any event, here's wishing you and yours a very happy, festive and safe holiday! Yes, that's a gingerbread CBGB's. No, I didn't make it (prized it off Tumblr). Cheers.

Nine Years Gone Today

Lest we forget.

The late Joe Strummer (and, of course, the still living Paul Simonon) as captured by photographer Mark Jordan in 1978.

Dance Down the Decades

Back in January of this year, I stumbled upon a clip of a very young Bauhaus performing on a New York City public access cable program I wrongly cited as “New York Band Stand.” As it turns out, the show in question was actually “New York Dance Stand.” In all honestly, while I do remember watching lots of public access stuff at the time, I sadly have no recollection of it. In any case, while further searching around recently (inspired by the clip of Siouxsie & the Banshees singing “Il est Ne, Le Divin Enfant”), I happened upon a clip of the Banshees performing on the show as well. Check that out here.

Below is a full episode on “New York Dance Stand” from 1983. This particular episode is notable for its footage shot within the fabled interiors of West 22nd street’s Danceteria (you can read more about my interaction with that late, lamented club here). Keep your eyes out for a vintage Klaus Nomi video and some breakdancing in front of Trash & Vaudeville on a still-endearingly-grotty St. Marks Place.

Step back in time…

Slamination

I’m shamelessly ripping this off of my pal Glen’s excellent blog, but it’s too cool not to share. Remember the Radio Soulwax project? Well, they’ve turned their attention to hardcore!! And the finished product is an hour long. So grab yourself a cup of coffee, settle in and soak it up. Ready? Set? GO!

Hardcore or die from Radio Soulwax on Vimeo.

Finding the Cure

Regular readers here may remember a spate of photo quizzes I put up last summer, wherein I tried to pinpoint the exact locations of several images shot in or around New York City of some of my favorite bands. While I was fairly successful in doing so, there were a couple of shots that still managed to elude me. One such photo was the shot by Ebet Roberts of The Cure above, an image that prompted no less than five consecutive posts. Over the course of same, Bob Egan of PopSpots NYC got involved (who I recently wrote about here). While I was somewhat content to chalk the photo up as "unsolvable," the intrepid Mr. Egan -- who, by his own admission, isn't even really a fan of the Cure -- got straight to work. And when Bob Egan gets to pop-spottin', you best look out.

So, over the last couple of weeks, Bob managed to solve the riddle. Here's a bit of his own explanation:

Hi Alex, I’m 99.9% sure I have it, The Cure, so to speak. (Just need to find a picture of a building that was knocked down). I have photos with about 5 very substantial clues circled which I can send to you. (But I thought you might want to guess first) Here’s a hint: I think they walked from Hurrah’s to the Museum of Natural History, bought some gifts at the gift shop (they all have white bags, one has a blow-up plane), then walked back, and had their photo taken on the way. (UPDATe: I think they went to a Toy Store on Columbus)) Another hint: The building that contained #406 is no longer with us. Best, Bob

P.s. 406 Columbus is gone. For Google maps use: 410 Columbus (bet 79-80) Pps. I am also trying to find a picture of the 1/2 block of stores behind them that has now been replaced by a tall apartment building. There’s a bar with an awning that says “Publick House” Not sure if it’s the name of the bar though, or a description. PPS: By the way they are standing outside of what is today a toy store called Homboms. That wasn’t open then according to the people in the store, but a famous toy store existed in the neighborhood called Pennywhistle owned by Tom Brokow’s wife, Meredith, for many years. Maybe that’s what’s in the bags and the blow up airplane.

And like a good mathematician, Bob is admirably able to show his work in typically exhaustively thorough detail. See below, and click on each to enlarge:

 

 

So, anyway, hats off again to Bob Egan. He promises a post of his own devoted to same on PopShots sometime in January, so keep your eyes open for that. In the interim, here are the Cure from the same era as the photograph above:

Non-Christmas Music That Reminds Me of Christmas #3: "This Corrosion" by The Sisters of Mercy

November 1987: I remember being picked up at LaGuardia Airport by my pal Rob B. I am home for Thanksgiving vacation, and Rob and I proceed to drive directly back into Manhattan, bypassing my home in favor of a (long since shuttered) record store on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side, Vinyl Mania (it had some sibling outlets down on Carmine Street ... they're now gone as well). Having read that our beloved and long-dormant Sisters of Mercy had resumed active duty, our mission was an urgent one, as the band's second full LP, Floodland, had just been released (notcie I didn't say "dropped'?) We needed to possess and hear it a once!

The album's sprawling centerpiece, "This Corrosion" (pointedly over-produced by Meat Loaf knob-twiddler Jim Steinem) swiftly came to define the next couple of chilly months, scoring the ensuing Yuletide season with its spiraling opening chorale, brittle synths, tastefully-plucked guitars and emphatically-barked orders to "SING!"  25 years later (good lord), the witheringly groovy stomp of "This Corrosion" still evokes memories of snowy Decembers.

The video, alas, hasn't aged quite so well (as you'll see below).

The Sisters of Mercy - This Corrosion by kalmar

A Cheap Trick Indeed

Okay, here's a half-assed one, but in the interest of consistency, I feel compelled to post about it. For a start, I should point out that I don't have anything against fitness. Prior to subjecting the world to my offspring, I myself was even a member of a gym or two and even worked out on a regular basis. I'm not a big fan of gym culture, but I understand the respect the compulsion and the discipline of keeping fit (even though I'm not really doing that at the moment). I'm not knocking health clubs

That said, I cannot for the life of me figure out why the Equinox on Broadway at 19th Street is selling "vintage" Cheap Trick t-shirts (see mannequin above -- click to enlarge). I just don't see the connection. I mean, no -- it's not like I'm being protective and antsy (again) about some quasi-obscure band whose iconography is being shamelessly appropriated (like, say, Flipper or Void, etc. etc.). Cheap Trick were stadium-fillers -- for a short while -- after all (At Budokan anyone?), and their soppy 1988 ballad "The Flame" was nigh on inescapable and practically defined "mainstream" for its time. But for some reason, this still gets my dander up. It makes me want to march into Equinox and quiz the first person I see wearing one about the finer points of Cheap Trick's sprawling discography.

I know I know, it's just a silly waste of time... but t just bugs me.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite Cheap Trick tunes. This is the opening cut from the band's largely ignored 1980 album, All Shook Up. Word at the time was that the slow-building opening note was the same as the climactic final note of the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band (y'know, if you ignore that whole "inner groove" business). Anyway,... enjoy.