Flaming Pablum

Exploring New York City with The Clean in 1989

In advance of this post, I originally wrote a lengthier version, wherein I described the circumstances I was in when I first heard The Clean. As arguably fascinating as that might have been, upon later scrutiny, it just read like I was bending over backwards – like the consummate music snob – to demonstrate how I was hip to them way back when, maaaan.

Let’s cut out the filler, then, and sum up by saying that I while I was both interning at SPIN and laboring paylessly at an independent music mag called The New York Review of Records at the dawn of the 90’s, I was fortunate to have gotten exposed to a dizzying amount of new music, and one small part of that was Vehicle, the debut long-player by New Zealand’s The Clean.

If you’re not familiar with The Clean or their accompanying “Kiwipop” scene, they played a spirited blend of guitar-based pop that was a little jangly, a little punky and endearingly unpolished. Following in the grand tradition of bands like Big Star, The Modern Lovers and The Mekons, The Clean became one of those bands that seemingly only rock critics and hipsters got excited about. Regardless, I thought Vehicle was simply great, and tracks from thereupon found their way onto many a mixtape I unsolicitedly pressed into the palms and tape decks of innumerable friends.

Somewhat amazingly, Vehicle -- this humble little album by this tiny little indie band from New Zealand -- was treated to an 20-year-anniversary re-issue back in August. To mark the occasion, the band released a video of archival footage of their first visit to New York City in 1989. Pitchfork ran a story about it back in early September, but my friend Erik spotted it recently and e-mailed me, and it’s just the type of clip that makes me lose my mind.

Even if you’re not a fan of The Clean (personally speaking, this song is not my favorite on the album, that being either “Someone” or “Diamond Shines”), as you watch this clip for “Dunes,” you’ll take in a surprisingly thorough view of the rock geek’s New York City. At around 00:44 into, you’ll see the band walked north on Broadway, probably having just exited 611 Broadway, the then-home to indie labels like Matador, 4AD and The Clean’s label, Rough Trade. Catch a glimpse of the old Bottom Line at 01:07 (now a soulless NYU facility). Check out the facades of CBGB and the CBGB Record Canteen at 1:46. See the front of the old Knitting Factory during its tenure on East Houston at 02:01. And catch a last glimpse of the front of Maxwell’s in Hoboken at 02:27.

In the Pitchforck article, Clean songwriter David Kilgour writes that the day he filmed that footage, The Cult were filming a video inside CBGB. That would have been the video for “Edie (Ciao Baby)” (which also featured the exterior of Billy’s Topless on Sixth Avenue and 24th Street).

Speaking of the old Knitting Factory, though, I found the below shot of its old exterior on Gregoire Alessandrini’s ever-excellent New York in the 1990’s blog. As great as its TriBeCa incarnation was, I was a bigger fan of this weird, cramped little club, and saw a few amazing performances there, not least by the Meat Puppets and Sonic Youth (performing under the alias “Sonic Death”). After it closed, the bar downstairs became Botanica, and the upstairs space was briefly a compact disc shop of no real distinction and then a restaurant.

Before The Ritz

I've spent many a post on my fond reminiscences of the old Ritz on East 11th Street (now Webster Hall). For me, it was simply a pivotal spot for live music. Favorite performances I was lucky enough to witness there include a raging quadruple bill of the Circle Jerks, D.O.A, Toxic Reasons and Redd Kross, a couple of Dead Boys reunion shows, the Ramones circa Halfway to Sanity, The Mission UK, Murphy's Law, The Toasters, Urban Blight, Fishbone, Big Audio Dynamite, Squeeze, Bad Brains and an unholy slew of others.

In 1992, when the space turned into Webster Hall (reverting to the venue's original name, dating back to 1886), I was less enthused, but still went onto see a few shows there, including Redd Kross again, the Secret Machines (with David Bowie in attendance, smiling approvingly from the balcony) and even my beloved Killing Joke.

These days, it's fairly uncommon that I darken this particular venue's doors, but I do walk down that street on a fairly regular basis. The last show I was tempted to go to there was the infamous Cro-Mags gig that ended up in a bloody fracas.

In any case, I spotted the below photo from an excellent Facebook group called "Manhattan before 1990" and felt compelled to share it. This photo must have been taken at some point in the 1970s. As Casa Galicia, the space (which had formerly been a performance hall that hosted folks like Julie Andrews, Harry Belafonte and Carol Channing), became an operation devoted to presenting cultural events for people from Galicia, Spain. It was reborn as The Ritz in 1980.

More about The Ritz on Flaming Pablum:

Ritz Redux
Puttin' on the Ritz
Slaytanic Fitz at the Ritz in `86
Which Way to the Rock Hotel?
The Heart of the Summer
The Metromen Take the Ritz

 

Manhattan Manners

A busy weekend is already underway, and I'll be away from my computer for most of it, but I thought I'd leave you with a handy guide of pointers with which to help navigate the perilous byways NYC etiquette. Click here and study up.

Back to the Ludlow Street Cafe

Earlier today, news came down via Bowery Boogie that The Hat, the storied Mexican restaurant on the corner of Ludlow and Stanton in the heart of the Lower East Side was slated to soon close its doors. In my usual fashion, I re-posted the news on my Facebook page, appended with this weepy preamble…

In the footsteps of the original Baramundi, the original Ludlow Street Cafe, the Luna Lounge, the Pink Pony, Motor City and -- wait for it -- Max Fish, so vanishes another reason to ever go back to Ludlow Street. Well, I guess Cake Shop's still there. And Katz’s, of course.

Honestly speaking, I stopped being a Ludlow Street regular quite some time ago, and I can’t recall the last time I actually darkened the doors of El Sombrero, but I still have many fond, beery memories of the place. You may remember this post from several years back, wherein I read off a similar laundry list of preferred bars, eateries and live music venues on Ludlow that couldn’t meet the demands of their respective rents. It’s indeed been many years since that street looked like the strip I reminisce about, but it still stings that most of the joints I cared about have vanished. This particular phenomenon is sadly not limited to Ludlow Street either.

Anyway, in the throes of my mourning, I stumbled upon a clip of the place I probably miss that most, that being the Ludlow Street Café. As I wrote in that earlier post, this spot was indeed a great live music venue, but what I loved about it was the Cajun food and the bar. In any case, there’s no year cited on this video, but here’s a walk inside the Ludow Street Café from probably sometime in the very late `80s or early `90s. Note the Missing Foundation graffito at 00:24, before you climb down the steps and into the Café.

I have no idea who George Gilmore is/was, but Beat Rodeo was a band that frequently graced the stage at the Ludlow Street Café. Not exactly my cup of tea -– kinda proto alt.country/NYC cowpunks, for lack of a better description. Check out one of their proper videos beneath (also shot, or so it looks, somewhere on a Lower East Side rooftop).

Back to Supersnipe

By this point, you're invariably sick to death of hearing me moan about New York City's myriad since-vanished record stores. As such, here's a minor diversion on a similar theme.

Prior to and alongside being a slavishly pedantic, feverishly committed music freak, I was also quite enamored of comic books. I was predominantly a fan of Marvel titles like "X-men," "Howard the Duck" and "Ghost Rider" (all three series having since been respectively degraded by cinematic adaptation), but pursued a few D.C. titles like "The New Teen Titans," "Sgt. Rock" and "The Green Lantern Corps." I was also into a few arguably esoteric, indie comics like "Elfquest," "American Flagg," "Cerebus the Aardvark," "Captain Canuck" and the original "Judge Dredd" books (lovingly illustrated by the great Brian Bolland). This stuff meant the world to me.

Initially, when I was first getting into comics, I just got my latest issues at a local newspaper joint on Lexington Avenue, but I soon changed my tune. I was over at my pal Sean's place, and he'd started keeping his comics in crisp, neat plastic bags (instead of just storing them in sloppy stacks under his bed, like I'd been doing). In my gradual transformation into a full-on comic collector, Sean and I started seeking out the specialty shops. 

Unlike NYC's dwindling community of mom'n'pop record and disc shops, there are still quite a few comic shops scattered around the city today, but most of my original favorites are gone. I've spoken about it before, but Sean and I were particularly fond of an establishment on East 58th Street between Lexington and Park called The Comic Art Gallery. Despite the cache of the address, the Comic Art Gallery was through a suspicious-looking doorway and up a graffiti-slathered flight of stairs. Once you were inside, the place was a cramped, chilly little cell (I remember the sales staff all wearing down vests to stay warm in the winter months). They may have skimped on paying the heating bill, but the dudes behind The Comic Art Gallery knew how to utilize every square inch of their space. The place was packed from floor to ceiling with lovingly presented troves of carefully-preserved comic books. It felt like such a clandestine operation. Our furtive missions to the Comic Art Gallery to procure vintage issues of "The Fantastic Four" and such made us feel like we were involved in some covert drug ring. Fittingly, we were indeed addicted.

The other big spot to get our comics fix was a little shop on the corner of East 84th Street and Second Avenue. Supersnipe -- named after the secret identity of fictional Koppy McFad, the kid with the most comic books in America -- was another richly-attended shrine to all things comics.  Much like the Comic Art Gallery to its south, Supersnipe occupied a pretty small space, but made the most of it. I remember the walls being red and the shop having a surprisingly high ceiling, or maybe that's because I was just much shorter at the time. But once you were inside, the visual stimuli was almost overwhelming. There were comics and meticulously framed comic book art absolutely everywhere. It was hard to know where to even begin looking for whatever rarified title you were after. 

There were other places. I remember place further north on Second Avenue that was there for a bit called Action Comics. Then, of course, there was my beloved Forbidden Planet way downtown. But Supersnipe was really a special one. 

I don't remember when Supersnipe closed its doors, but I have to guess at some point in the mid-to-late `80s. I was pretty bummed out. The Comic Art Gallery closed around the same era, only those guys ended up moving downtown to a bigger space on Sullivan Street, which hung on until the late 90's so. But still have nothing but fondness for those original shops.

 

Today, the building that housed the 58th street Comic Art Gallery is no more, and a parking facility stands in its footprint. Up on East 84th, meanwhile, the address that hosted Supersnipe now rents space to a Two Boots pizza outlet.

I'd searched for years for photographic evidence of both of these shops, but to no avail. It's not surprising that I've never found an image of the old Comic Art Gallery, given how hidden away it was (no sign on the door or on the street-facing window ... you either knew where to find it, or you didn't). But just the other day, I randomly found the picture below of the old Supersnipe storefront, and I practically wept.  Eagle-eyed comic geeks could probably slap a year on this given the titles on display in the window (click on it to enlarge). But, anyway, this was Supersnipe, image courtesy of this blog.

 

A Sock in the Jaw & the City

Cited by the late, great Frank Zappa as the piece that inspired him to become a musician, "Ionisation" by French noise-as-music pioneer Edgard Varese is a remarkable demonstration of the complex organization of subtle space and crashing percussive sound to form a propulsive work of art. Lend an ear to its unsettling cacophony and you can hear everyone from Stravinsky through Einsturzende Neubauten in the mix. One critic is widely reported to have characterized "Ionisation" as "a sock in the jaw." Zappa, meanwhile, claimed it was the first album he ever bought. Its liner notes (written by one Sidney Finkelstein) describe it this way:

[Ionisation] is built on a most sensitive handling and contrast of different kinds of percussive sounds. There are those indefinite in pitch, like the bass drum, snare drum, wood blocks, and cymbals; those of relatively definite musical pitch, such as the piano and chimes; those of continually moving pitch, like the sirens and 'lion's roar.' It is an example of 'spatial construction,' building up to a great complexity of interlocking 'planes' of rhythm and timbre, and then relaxing the tension with the slowing of rhythm, the entrance of the chimes, and the enlargement of the 'silences' between sounds. There are suggestions of the characteristic sounds of modern city life.

Personally speaking, as a curious novice in regards to the work of Varese, I'm intrigued by the jarring, ominous atmosphere of "Ionisation." To Finkelstein's point, it does indeed evoke the sounds of modern city life, but I'm not sure the city in question is a particularly pleasant place to live. According to Wikipedia, later in Varese's life, he was working on a piece called "L'Astronome," which evolved into a "futuristic drama of world catastrophe." Clearly, "easy listening" was not the French composer's primary concern.

It's fitting, then, that some cheeky chappy thought to re-imagine a snippet of "Ionisation" as the theme music to "Sex & the City," replacing the cloyingly cartoonish, pizzicato strings of the original with Varere's gaping maw of proto-industrial bedlam. Given how the influence of Carrie Bradshaw and her vile, vacuous, Manolo Blahnik-fixated ilk has basically recast Manhattan, I find Varese's sonic Hellscape to be far more appropriate to the proceedings.

Resurrecting Joe

Time for a bit of heresy, then.

I was a huge fan of the original Joe Strummer tribute mural (which you can see on this post) that graced the north-facing corner of East 7th Street and Avenue A, as it, well, genuinely looked like him. I can't remember exactly why, but when they touched it up a few years later, it stopped resembling the storied Clash frontman and looked a bit more like Max Headroom.

More recently, of course, the mural was sandblasted by developers doing work on the upper portion of the building. After much hue & cry, the mural was very recently restored, and was completed with much fanfare last week. 

Now, I'm not saying I could have done a better job, but I can't help thinking that this latest iteration doesn't so much look like Joe Strummer as it does, well....sorry,  Andrew Dice Clay.

Still, it's the thought that counts. 

The Cult on West 8th Street

Unless I'm stuck at the airport with a dead iPhone, there's never really a reason to read Rolling Stone anymore, but I spotted this article, "Rick Rubin, Ian Astbury Recall 1987 Sessions: 'New York Was on Fire," on Facebook and it struck a chord.

Both the beardy producer and the Cult vocalist wax rhapsodic about their days recording the Cult's very metal Electric at Electric Lady Studios on West 8th Street (where U2 are rumored to be holding court these days). The pair also spout a load of laughable nonsense about Kanye's new record, but I loved this little nugget from Ian:

Astbury: There was an amazing store called Rock and Roll Heaven across the street [from Electric Lady Studios, where the album was recorded]. We'd go on a pilgrimage in there, perusing old magazines, posters, paraphernalia. They had the Led Zeppelin tree, Rick Griffin posters, obscure vinyl. It was a Holy Grail of this period we were enamored with. We'd take these artifacts back to the studio, like, "Check out this picture of Jimmy Page in Creem magazine from 1975!" We even had Zoso t-shirts made up.

Ian's actually talking about It's Only Rock N' Roll, of course, the shrine to all things rawk and metal that formerly held sway on a second-floor perch on West 8th, indeed across the street from Electric Lady (it's now a foot-rub emporium, I believe). I spoke at greater length about it here.

Weirdly, both Rolling Stone and Rubin himself assert that Electric by the Cult was Rubin's "first non-rap record – my first rock record," despite the fact the Rubin produced Slayer's watershed Reign in Blood in 1986. While Slayer's brand of satanic thrash might not as conventionally "rock" as Electric, it still remains very much a rock record -- and very decidedly a "non-rap record." Yet again, Rolling Stone doesn't bother doing their homework.

That all said, give it a click. Despite the errors and the rose-tinted revisionism, it's still worth a read.

And here's a taste of that record.

Forgiving "Funky Man"

With fairly few exceptions, just about every band has released one turkey at one point or another (though even most of those turkeys have their defenders). Both The Clash and their fans alike wish 1985’s Cut the Crap never happened. Black metal acolytes unanimously agree that Celtic Frost’s 1988 foray into all things “glam,” Cold Lake, was a strenuous mistake. My own beloved Killing Joke still invariably wince at invocations of their troubled, numerology-informed ersatz-prog opus, Outside the Gate. Nobody mentions Lou Reed’s first solo, post-Velvet Underground album, and with good reason. Ministry dearly wishes With Sympathy was no longer available. The list goes on.

For The Ramones, there were arguably a few embarrassing chapters (much like their fellow New Yorkers in KISS), but across the board, most fans would probably agree that their darkest hour would be Dee Dee’s ill-considered detour into Hip Hop under the unfortunate nom-de-plume, “Dee Dee King.”

That all being said, the video for ….god, help us,… “Funky Man” does come rife with many a scene of the Lower East Side of yore (the yore in this instance being 1989). Though rigorously un-funky, it’s a lovely-albeit-lead-footed limp through a downtown that’s just not really there anymore. Thanks, once again, to the NYHC Chronicles for unearthing this one. It’s better with the sound down.

The View from Up Here

Yesterday, I put up a weepy little post about the impending cosmetic surgery that's going to -- to my mind, at least -- further disfigure Astor Place, and a reader named Howard chimed in with a somewhat bitchy comment about how the photo I selected boasted a view that was evidently too distant to serve any discernible function. I countered that it demonstrated the formerly wide open space of Astor Place. Postulating that it was probably taken from the vantage point of the Zeckendorf Towers at Union Square, I said that I'd love to present a photo from that same spot today to compare and contrast.

As such, I started doing a little searching. I wasn't able to find a comparable shot, but I did find this somewhat nauseating little promotional clip about the exclusive splendor of the Zeckendorf Towers.

Listen to the languidly seductive voiceover as she whispers sweet nothings about the proximity of "designer boutiques" and "highly rated restaurants" and invokes the names of Whole Foods and Trader Joe's as if to bring listening aspirationals to the veritable precipice of ecstasy.

Peppering this digitally animated splice of soft-core real estate pornography come predictable adjectives like "fashionable, "most popular," "spacious," "elegant" and "private."

I have no giant point to make here. I guess I'm just shocked by how brazen it seems to me.