In recent weeks, I’ve penned a couple of posts about storied New York City bands – namely The Lounge Lizards and SWANS -- and was very surprised to have had members of both of those bands weigh in down in the comments section (specifically John Lurie and Jarboe, respectively). Here’s another post about a New York City band, albeit a significantly more infamous one. The last twotimes I written about them, a former band member (Chris Egan) has weighed in. A new trend? We’ll see.
My enduring fascination with the notorious Missing Foundation of the 80's and 90's has been well documented with threewindyposts here on Flaming Pablum and a fourth on The New York Nobody Sings. I don't honestly have a tremendously new reason to post about them again here, apart from re-finding this nice post by former Born Against vocalist Sam McPheeters about his own impressions about Missing Foundation. I also found this more recent piece via Souciant, although there aren’t many revelations therein.
Like Sam McPheeters, however, the appeal of Missing Foundation for me remains largely rooted in their menacing mystique, their impenetrably difficult music and the fact that their fearsome notoriety managed to eclipse the band itself. Abated by their inventive campaign of ubiquitous and cryptic graffiti, Missing Foundation palpably managed to strike fear into the hearts of the entire city, largely thanks to a rather laughably alarmist local news story that unintentionally inflated their legitimately blackened reputation into the stuff of legend (see that clip here).
As I wrote back in 2010, Missing Foundation brainchild Peter Missing went on to transform his art and his message into entirely different mediums, abandoning New York City in a rash of alleged F.B.I. harassment, relocating to Berlin and delving into electronic music.
Again, when I posted about them back then, I was taken to task in the comments section by a Missing acolyte for not staying current with Peter's more contemporary doings. Fair enough, but from what I could tell, the man's more recent work seemed to lack the incendiary power that fueled early Missing Foundation's ferocious reputation. To be fair, I haven't heard his latest project, Missing Seven Hazard, so I can't speak credibly about it. You can find out more about it, however, via the Humanity Records website (which admittedly doesn't look to have been updated since about 2010).
While sniffing around for other bits of Missing Foundation ephemera to exhume, however, it seems more material of theirs has surfaced on the web in recent years. Via Tumblr, I was excited to find the flyer to the right (click on it to enlarge) of a Missing Foundation show in 1992 (playing alongside the similarly-inclined Black Rain) at a venue dubbed Sweet Jane's. The name didn't register with me at first (apart from the obvious Velvet Underground allusion), but the address did -- 113 Jane Street! Loyal readers of Flaming Pablum and NYC hardcore denizens might recognize that address as the former site of the original Rock Hotel (which I posted about a couple of times, but most notably here). I suppose sometime between its tenure as the Rock Hotel and its time hosting the original incarnation of "Hedwig & the Angry Inch," the space was re-christened Sweet Jane's. One can only speculate how long that lasted.
Below is video footage of what I would assume is the show advertised on the flyer. It probably is the same show, given that Missing Foundation amassed a reputation for rarely being invited back to a venue, given their pronounced penchant for inciting destruction. Years later, that same space has morphed into "The Jane," a boisterously posh bar renowned for bothering its neighbors in a far more dispiriting way than Missing Foundation would ever be able to muster. That said, when they kick into "Burn Trees" at the nine minute mark in the clip below, things get do get a bit hectic.
In more recent years, I started seeing the MF symbol (the iconic upended martini glass) used in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which makes a degree of sense, given the more extreme pockets of Occupy's contingency.
What are YOUR recollections about Missing Foundation?
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Missing Pieces
In recent weeks, I’ve penned a couple of posts about storied New York City bands – namely The Lounge Lizards and SWANS -- and was very surprised to have had members of both of those bands weigh in down in the comments section (specifically John Lurie and Jarboe, respectively). Here’s another post about a New York City band, albeit a significantly more infamous one. The last twotimes I written about them, a former band member (Chris Egan) has weighed in. A new trend? We’ll see.
My enduring fascination with the notorious Missing Foundation of the 80's and 90's has been well documented with threewindyposts here on Flaming Pablum and a fourth on The New York Nobody Sings. I don't honestly have a tremendously new reason to post about them again here, apart from re-finding this nice post by former Born Against vocalist Sam McPheeters about his own impressions about Missing Foundation. I also found this more recent piece via Souciant, although there aren’t many revelations therein.
Like Sam McPheeters, however, the appeal of Missing Foundation for me remains largely rooted in their menacing mystique, their impenetrably difficult music and the fact that their fearsome notoriety managed to eclipse the band itself. Abated by their inventive campaign of ubiquitous and cryptic graffiti, Missing Foundation palpably managed to strike fear into the hearts of the entire city, largely thanks to a rather laughably alarmist local news story that unintentionally inflated their legitimately blackened reputation into the stuff of legend (see that clip here).
As I wrote back in 2010, Missing Foundation brainchild Peter Missing went on to transform his art and his message into entirely different mediums, abandoning New York City in a rash of alleged F.B.I. harassment, relocating to Berlin and delving into electronic music.
Again, when I posted about them back then, I was taken to task in the comments section by a Missing acolyte for not staying current with Peter's more contemporary doings. Fair enough, but from what I could tell, the man's more recent work seemed to lack the incendiary power that fueled early Missing Foundation's ferocious reputation. To be fair, I haven't heard his latest project, Missing Seven Hazard, so I can't speak credibly about it. You can find out more about it, however, via the Humanity Records website (which admittedly doesn't look to have been updated since about 2010).
While sniffing around for other bits of Missing Foundation ephemera to exhume, however, it seems more material of theirs has surfaced on the web in recent years. Via Tumblr, I was excited to find the flyer to the right (click on it to enlarge) of a Missing Foundation show in 1992 (playing alongside the similarly-inclined Black Rain) at a venue dubbed Sweet Jane's. The name didn't register with me at first (apart from the obvious Velvet Underground allusion), but the address did -- 113 Jane Street! Loyal readers of Flaming Pablum and NYC hardcore denizens might recognize that address as the former site of the original Rock Hotel (which I posted about a couple of times, but most notably here). I suppose sometime between its tenure as the Rock Hotel and its time hosting the original incarnation of "Hedwig & the Angry Inch," the space was re-christened Sweet Jane's. One can only speculate how long that lasted.
Below is video footage of what I would assume is the show advertised on the flyer. It probably is the same show, given that Missing Foundation amassed a reputation for rarely being invited back to a venue, given their pronounced penchant for inciting destruction. Years later, that same space has morphed into "The Jane," a boisterously posh bar renowned for bothering its neighbors in a far more dispiriting way than Missing Foundation would ever be able to muster. That said, when they kick into "Burn Trees" at the nine minute mark in the clip below, things get do get a bit hectic.
In more recent years, I started seeing the MF symbol (the iconic upended martini glass) used in conjunction with the Occupy Wall Street movement, which makes a degree of sense, given the more extreme pockets of Occupy's contingency.
What are YOUR recollections about Missing Foundation?
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