Cheetah Chrome in The Bandshell

Here’s another surprising find off Tumblr, this one found on Zombies En El Ghetto, although I sadly have no idea who took the photograph. Here’s a shot of Dead Boys guitarist Cheetah Chrome in the throes of radical riffage. Nothing odd about that. What is surprising is that he’s playing in broad daylight in what appears to be the Central Park bandshell.

In my rose-tinted backwards-glancing, the Dead Boys were an exclusively nocturnal gaggle of punk rock n’erdowells who’d rather have gargled with their own – or other people’s – vomit than dare play outside during the day, let alone above 14th street, but go know! The actual truth of the matter, as it turns out, is that by 1979, the Dead Boys had all but broken up, barring the odd live gig to record for their posthumous contractual-filler album, Night of the Living Dead Boys (which completely fuckin' rocks). Cheetah Chrome played this 1979 Central Park show in cahoots with Rock Against Racism, which was damn righteous of him. Who says a guy partly responsible for such rudely nihilist anthems as “Caught With the Meat in Your Mouth” and “Son of Sam” couldn’t do the right thing?

Turning to YouTube, I found the below footage featuring Patti Smith guitarist/Nuggets archivist Lenny Kaye and a band I must confess to being unfamiliar with called The Heat (not to be confused with This Heat) playing at what I’m guessing was the same event. In a blink-and-you’ll-miss it snippet, you can see Cheetah again appear at the 0:40 mark.

Nowadays, the bandshell isn't often utilized in this fashion, and most of the concerts in Central Park happen up around the bend at the Summerstage. I've seen a couple of bands play in the bandshell in my day, but not very recently, the last being Skeleton Key sometime in the late 90s.

In 1979, Central Park was a much more rough n' tumble place. The areas around the bandshell and around Bethesda Fountain were primarily populated by folks shopping for weed. I actually had my bike stolen out from under me about a stone's throw from where the picture above was taken. Central Park received a major overhaul in the ensuing years. Below is a shot I took from inside the bandshell looking out in 1998, and below that is a shot of my little son Oliver, conducting an imaginary orchestra in front of it in the summer of 2010.

Cheetah Chrome, meanwhile, is still alive and well. I was lucky enough to catch the Dead Boys a couple of times in the late 80s before Stiv Bators was killed in Paris. By that point, Cheetah was completely bald. Here he is below from a fairly recent clip, explaining how to play "Sonic Reducer." Crank it.

Comments

[rick mcginnis]

I know it wasn't at the Bandshell, but I saw Sun Ra and Sonic Youth share a bill in Central Park, at the dawn of the '90s, I think. (EV Grieve says it was July 4, 1992. So there.) I met two of my guitar heroes, Arto Lindsay and Robert Quine, the same weekend. It was the New Yorkiest of New York trips.

(I met Lindsay backstage at the gig; I met Quine in a guitar store in the Village. When my buddy and I approached him, he was typically wry but apparently flattered: "Hey, you guys know who I am? Nobody knows who the fuck I am!")

[Alex in NYC]

I was at that show too, and you can see some video of it on this post:

http://vassifer.blogs.com/alexinnyc/2010/07/wednesday-morning-wakeup-call.html

[the G]

Great post!
The Heat was sort of an off-shoot of the Planets (Tally) & I think the drummer (Jeff) may have been in the Dots.
Saw lotsa good stuff at the bandshell--Konk, Mitch Ryder, Scott Morgan band, Kraut, etc., and my High School's (A & D) field day was there every year--meet up at the fountain!