Once upon a time, pretty much *ALL* of SoHo looked like 23 Wooster Street. But as the neighborhood was gradually scrubbed of all its artsy eccentricity and bohemian character, somehow 23 Wooster became one of the last bastions of wildly expressive, untethered street art. I honestly have no idea what purpose the building used to serve upon its inception, but it handily served as versatile canvas for street artists, taggers and practitioners of various other media even as recently as this year.
I took a long walk with my kids through SoHo and TriBeCa earlier today (see post below for a similarly weepy rumination) and was surprised and depressed to find the exterior of 23 Wooster covered by tell-tale scaffolding and wooden shedding. Something is definitely happening there, and I wouldn't be surprised it's going to be turned into another luxury high-rise or needless hotel.
I've spoken about the intersection of Thompson and Broome Streets a couple of times here (notably here and here). But I took a stroll down there today and looked up. The view never fails to dissapoint me these days.
Here it was in the 1980's:
And here it is today....
I don't know about you, but I'll take the Mona Lisa over Christina Aguielera every damn time.
Happy Friday, campers. Here's a quick one to take you into the weekend.
Here's the late Johnny Thunders hittin' the street with his guitar in hand. And yes, I know -- the caption below already says 8th street @ St. Marks Place .... but who can name the precise address?
I actually asserted this observation on Facebook earlier in the week, so apologies if it's old news to you already.
I picked up a slew of new releases in the last couple of weeks, and have been itching to post a sort of rundown, but haven't had the time, as yet. But the one album I've been pretty much living inside since purchasing is the sprawling new opus from SWANS, that being The Seer.
It's certainly the first album by Michael Gira and company in a long, long time to have garnered so much press. I started following the band back in the early 90s, and for most of that period, their music was met with contempt, confusion and indifference. No less weighty and sensory-engulfing than their previous efforts, The Seer -- the band's second post-resumption effort -- landed like a bowling ball in a placid swimming pool earlier this summer, and Gira's sterny visage (beneath his signature cowboy hat) is suddenly everywhere. Tickets go on sale today for their New York dates in October, and I dare say, they're going fast (if not already sold out). Seemingly after decades in exile from coolsville, SWANS are actually hip.
In any case, The Seer still isn't for everyone. My estimable comrade Phil Freeman took the album to task recently in Burning Ambulance for being ... well ... rife with virtually every other grievance previously leveled at the SWANS catalog. In a way, he's absolutely right. To paraphrase Michael Gira himself, The Seer is sonically the culmination of the band's thirty-someodd years. To my ears, though, that's why its acclaim is so remarkable. SWANS didn't move the mountain. The mountain -- finally -- came to SWANS.
Anyway, purple prose notwithstanding, there have been a few aspects of the album that I've wanted to discuss, and this next one if foremost among them. While it's an allusion that would probably make Michael Gira choke up a hairball, when the rhythm kicks into the album's fifth track, "The Seer Returns" (far and away my favorite moment on the album) at approximately 0:42, my ears cannot help but hear a classic track by another revered squad of Lower East Side alumni..... notably "So Whatcha Want" by ye olde Beastie Boys. Hear for yourselves....
I smell a mash-up!
It's actually not that far out a comparison. Gira's flock actually rubbed elbows with the fledgling Beasties on a an amazing (and now amazingly rare) live compilation from the early 80's called Speed Trials (find out more here). While the hardcore-era Beasite Boys were running amok on Avenue A, Gira and Jarboe were one block over on Avenue B, their stay immortalized on The Seer by a frankly discordant and harrowing instrumental dubbed "93 Avenue B Blues."
I know, I know ... keeping you waiting for fresh, new Flaming Pablum content is not impressive, but with a new school season underway, time is tight . Fret not -- there'll be new stuff coming soon. In the interim, why not feast your senses on my Tumblr, Get Back to Work.
Hey all. I hope everyone had a nice, long Labor Day Weekend.
In any case, before I dive back into the daily shenanigans of this blog as a new season begins, I should settle up with the previous quiz. As suspected, the ill-fated "Some Like It Hot" star is indeed captured in front of the Harlem Meer. Intrepid Bob Egan of PopSpots confirmed that. Here's what he had to say....
HI Alex,
I think you hit it on the nose. That's a Mt. Sinai building in the background on Fifth between 105-106.
I'd say she's sitting next to the building where where the Charles DanaDiscovery Center is which is on the north side of the Harlem Meer at CentralPark North between Malcolm X Blvd. and Fifth Ave.
P.s. I tried to figure out what "meer" means and when I typed "body of watermeer" into Google the first result I got was your Flaming Pablum quiz.
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