Flaming Pablum

'Back When Manhattan was a Real Place and Brooklyn Didn't Exist'

I’m sure this is purely young, harmless fun under the guise of somewhat revisionist nostalgia, but for some reason, I just find the promotional copy for this event depressing…but that’s invariably because I’m a bitter old poop*. I should probably get over it, though.

Remember that time you accidentally took a disco nap for 30 years, woke up with a beard, your lover was dead, the most famous artist you knew had transformed into a mannequin, and NYC had turned into a luxury shopping mall? We sure do.

CHERYL invites you to take a seat in a time-traveling wheelchair. Put on your darkest sunglasses and get into the groove.

Back when Manhattan was a real place and Brooklyn didn’t exist.
Back when graffiti was cool, heroin was cheap, and crack was whack.
Back when girls just wanted to have fun, people were dancing on the ceiling, and George Michael was straight.

Join us for a night of pure NYC fantasy. April 5, 2013. Music Hall of Williamsburg. Then go home to your luxury condo on the waterfront. 

If you’re curious, click here for more.

*Handily summed up by the image below.

Vampire State of Mind

I believe I expressed as much the last time I wrote about them, but, for some reason, I initially wanted to hate Vampire Weekend before ever hearing a note of their music. Something about their preppy pin-up aesthetic just irked me. Then, of course, all it took was one viewing of their video for “Cousins” (featuring the band inventively cavorting around Cordlandt Alley opposite 77 White Street, the former site of the Mudd Club) that got me to change my tune. I almost immediately warmed to them (although the placement of their song, “Holiday” in a Tommy Hilfiger ad still gets my goat). Sure, there’s still something a bit precious about them, but they remain a great band.

The band’s been silent for the last couple of years, but this morning, my colleague Drew e-mailed me a link to the video below, the first single off Vampire Weekend’s forthcoming album, Modern Vampires of the City (oy! Enough with the vampire bullshit already!)

A striking homage to the opening credit sequence of Woody Allen’s “Manhattan,” “Step” is another great, visual love-letter to the band’s native New York City. The Astor Place big glass box of black, sun-obfuscating death even makes a cameo. Enjoy.

Hanging in the Park with the Velvets

If you do a Google image search for the name Donald Greenhaus, you'll invariably be presented with a clutch of images of the fledgling Velvet Underground -- perched on the roof of their Ludlow Street apartment with housing projects in the background and standing on the stoop of that building. Greenhaus was once of the first shutterbugs to capture the band, then still with original member and oddly nautical-looking Angus MacLise in its ranks, prior to the arrival of Moe Tucker. In Greenhaus' photographs, they don't look quite as cool, cocky and sure of themselves as they would in later incarnations.

I was thumbing through some ancient copies of SPIN recently (which is where I found that fleeting shot of Freebeing Records in the last post) and came across a photo of the Velvets by Greenhaus that I don't ever remember seeing before. See that photo below (and click on it to enlarge).

Invariably taken from the same shoot the resulted with those more widely-distributed images, this picture finds the foursome holding court in a park somewhere. As I look at it, however, I'm having a hard time placing it. I want to say that it's the Jefferson Market Library in the heart of the Village that looms behind them (appended with the since-torn-down prison structure that formerly abutted it). To the right, you can see the signage of a luncheonette. I'm entirely guessing, but is that the corner of West 11th Street, where Greenwhich Avenue meets 7th Avenue, which would put the Velvets in what is now the derelict power island that used to feed St. Vincent's Hospital. 

Am I right? What say you?

Back to Freebeing

Been meaning to put up another big, sweeping round-up of vanished NYC record and disc shops (more photo-driven, this time), but just haven't had the time. To whet your appetite for that, however, enjoy this fleeting shot (prized from an ancient issue of SPIN) of Freebeing on Second Avenue, just south of St. Marks Place (now a shawarma stand, if memory serves).

The one memory I have of this incarnation of Freebeing (before it moved West to a fleeting spot on Carmine Street before vanishing for good) was that it was always LOUD. My friend Rob B. and I used to refer to it as DEAFWRECKASTOW (as in the record store wherein you'd go deaf). Oh what cards we were.

During the first Gulf War, I worked at an offshoot of LIFE Magazine titled LIFE Goes to War, and worked alongside this one elderly copyeditor lady. At some point she and I were talking about downtown Manhattan, and she started bragging about how she helped get "this horrible record shop that was a front for drugs and crime" evicted and closed. That shop, it turned out, was Freebeing. I stopped talking to her shortly afterwards.

 

The Influx of Office Vocab

I entered the workforce pretty promptly after I graduated from college (landing my first quasi-official "job" as an upaid intern at SPIN in the summer of 1989). Since those balmy, carefree days, however, as I've gradually climbed the ladder towards more respectable titles, I've noticed a recent uptick in insufferable corporate lingo. It's been more rife at certain organizations than at others, but I'm worryingly starting to notice it that it's slowly spilling out of the office environment and starting to infect the lexicon of everyday, out-of-office speak. This will not do. As such, here's a handy guide of terms and phrases you need to stop earnestly using at once, whether you're standing in a monolithic, corporate tower of imposing glass and steel or reaching into your friend's fridge for a cold beer on a Saturday night. You'll thank me later.

In no order....

• Sweet spot
• Iterative
• Wheelhouse
• Granular
• Offerings
• Bandwidth
• Evangelize
• Ask (used as a friggin' noun instead of question, query or request)
• Learning (used as a friggin' noun) 
• Effort (used as a friggin' verb)
• "Moving the dial"
• Ping
• Powow
• "Gentle reminder"
• "Own it" 
• Jenky
• "Low hanging fruit" (I've been combatting this with "easily accessible vegetables")
• "Drill down"
• "Net net"
• "Apples to apples"
• "Shitshow"

Which ones am I missing?

Beers, Blarney, Bullets & Bloodshed

As someone who’s much fonder of beer than he probably should be, it’s fair to say that there are precious few things I enjoy more than settling down in one of New York City’s many distinctive Irish pubs for a pint or ….five. Unless, of course, that day happens to be St. Patrick’s Day, in which case even the most tenuously authentic Irish bars become slavishly overrun with hordes of pugnacious, malodorous yahoos in varying states of cripplingly unsubtle inebriation, hell bent on reinforcing every conceivable negative Gaelic stereotype.

As I’ve expressed numerous times over the years on this weblog, despite the fact that I’m half-Irish on my mother’s side, I find the American celebration of St. Patrick’s day to be pretty contemptible. But y’know, blah blah blah, and pour me another Guinness, boys.

Below please find the very shooty denouement of one of my favorite films, “State of Grace.” Loosely based on “The Westies,” T.J. English’s awesome history of the Irish Mob in Hell’s Kitchen, “State of Grace” pits Sean Penn as a reformed Irish gangster-turned-cop who goes undercover to bust up Ed Harris’ emerald crime ring. Gary Oldman also features prominently as an endearingly drunken and violent loose cannon.

This is the final showdown between Penn and Harris, all goin’ down on St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s what I don’t understand, though: If it’s St. Patrick’s Day …. why is the bar so empty?

The Clash City Shopper

A little while back, I re-posed the challenge to pinpoint the corner a strikingly bequiffed Mick Jones of The Clash waits on in the photograph by Pennie Smith at left (click on it to enarlge). I originally spotted this picture lovingly framed on the wall of Trash & Vaudeville and later re-printed in the book accompanying the boxed set, Clash on Broadway). I first cited it in this quiz from 2011, but never solved the riddle. To my mind, it just doesn't seem like there's enough detail in the photograph to nail it down. Obviously, Mick's fresh from having procured some items from Trash & Vaudeville on St. Marks, which might place him somewhere nearby, but it's still pretty sketchy.

Bob Egan of Popspots, however, was keen to offer some suggestions. Here was his first stab:

Hi Alex, This is my guess on the Mick Jones photo, since he has a Trash/Vaudeville bag in his hands and the store is about 5 stores down from the corner. I thought I sent this once, or it is it that you are not 100% sure? Frankly I’m not 100% sure, but it fits in a pinch.

I countered that the big building behind Mick couldn't be the big brown building cited in the St. Marks picture, as that's the Cooper Union dormitory, which wasn't built until about 1991 (a good decade or so after this photo was snapped). I actually spent a few nights sleeping in that place in 1992 (read that saga here).

Bob came back with another shot:

I've attached Third aVe and ninth St from Tenth Street looking south (froma shot of Red Grooms the painter from my John Cohen/Dlan entry) . Those windows seem to match up, Was that where the dorm was that came later? Or was that on the left of the Jones picture?

Unfortunately, in the passage of time, I now now longer remember what building predated the Cooper Union dorm on that sliver of Third Avenue, so perhaps it is that corner. Could Bob be correct here? What do you think?

Tune Talk for a Wednesday

I spotted the photo above of a disarmingly young Siouxsie Sioux via the Facebook page of my old colleague Kris Needs (more about him here) and felt compelled to share it. I love the expression on her face, as if to suggest she is SORELY in need of being rescued from the beery-breathed fanboy gurgling in her comely ear. This many years later, it’s strange to conceive of Siouxsie Sioux having drinks and ciggies at a bar.

Other tidbits…

Clive Burr of Iron Maiden passed away. I've been a massive and unapologetic fan of Iron Maiden ever since first hearing Killers at my friend Duer's place in 1982. Clive only played drums on Maiden’s first three records (to be replaced circa Piece of Mind by Nicko McBrain). I love the band’s later eras as well, but I especially thrilled to their harder-edged, almost-punky origins of those first two records. Also always admired how the band helped Burr in later years as he struggled with Multiple Sclerosis. Good gentlemen, those Maiden boys.

Strange news today that Gang of Four are soldiering on now without vocalist Jon King (leaving the estimable Andy Gill the sole original member). Gang of Four will always remain one of my very favorites, but I cannot say I’m entirely thrilled with this development.

Lastly, Richard Hell will be reading tomorrow night at the Union Square Barnes & Noble. I’d love to be there – and am hugely looking forward to reading his autobiography, but I doubt my work schedule will allow (I work a PM shift). In any case, if you hadn’t heard, you should get down there for that.

Hell’s been doing a lot of press in advance of the release of his book. The New York Post caught up with him earlier this week and got him to list his favorite spots in New York City. Check it out here. You’ll doubtlessly be surprised by some of his picks.

Tumblr of the Day

Stumbled upon via the always great J.Yuenger, click here to get to the truly inspired Liar Town USA, which had me furtively weeping with mirth all day (especially the "Trending Now" headlines). Go check it out at once. 

Gray's Geography: Finding Spalding's Corner

Hey all. You may remember a while back I posted a still from Spalding Gray's 1987 film "Swimming to Cambodia," simply because it was so evocative of the SoHo of old. I was also captivated by it as it featured a fleeting glimpse of an old bit of street art I remember seeing all the time back then (which I've yet to be able to find other evidence of, but I'm still working on it). In any case, I then became interested in pinpointing the exact corner Spalding's waiting on, but couldn't seem to track it down. I spent a large part of a very rainy Sunday wandering around SoHo looking for it. I found a lot of corners that resembled it, but the specific architectural flourished didn't match up.

So, once again, leave it to the intrepid Bob Egan of Popspots NYC to do the actual research and figure it out. Turns out Spalding's depicted waiting on the northeast corner of Wooster and Grand. Part of my problem tracking it down was that the building behind Spalding (the one featuring the stencil I'm intrigued by) no longer exists.

Follow Bob's visual legwork below. Click on each to enlarge.

So, there you have it. Another one solved. Nice work, Bob!