Flaming Pablum

Re-Revisiting 'Summertime Blues'

As far as I'm concerned, this summer has sucked a sizable amount of balls. As such, what better tune to close out the season than the uproariously applicable "Summertime Blues"?

As I mentioned back on this ancient post, while Eddie Cochran's hallowed anthem to frustrated deliquency has been covered by everyone from The Who through the Black Keys, my very favorite rendition is by the ludicrously amusing Japanese garage punk ensemble Guitar Wolf. If you are unfamiliar with them, that is a tragedy to be remedied with all stealth. Here's their endearingly over-the-top rendition, best experienced at a VERY HIGH VOLUME.

Awesome, right?

Well, were it not already strenuously enjoyable, here comes Bug TV's homage to same, addressing Guitar Wolf's heroically incomprehensible Japanglish with suitably explosive aplomb. ENJOY AGAIN:

Circle Jerks at the Mudd Club in `81

Not a lot preamble necessary for this one. I randomly stumbled across this clip on YouTube and felt compelled to share it here. 

Initially filmed for a cable access television program called "Inner Tube" (which I wrote about back here in 2011), herewith the mighty Circle Jerks -- in their original line-up, no less -- performing at the Mudd Club in 1981.

Today, the Cirlce Jerks are no more (vocalist Keith Morris now sings with OFF!, Greg Hetson plays with Bad Religion, Roger Rogerson is dead, and I have no idea what Lucky Lehrer is doing). The Mudd Club at 77 White Street is also no more, having closed in 1983. In 2014, the building that was the Mudd Club is now a pricey condo.

But once upon a time, this happened....

Into the Black Hole

Last night, in case you missed it, was the MTV Video Music Awards. My Facebook feed has been flooded all day with rapturous accounts from myriad media outlets about the antics therefrom, largely centered around the usual suspects like Taylor Swift, Iggy Azalia, Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Sam Smith, Jennifer Lopez, Jay-Z and -- oh wait for it, won't you? -- Beyonce.

If, like me, you're left wanting something more from your music, herewith a vindictive live reading of "Black Hole Man," a new/as-yet-unreleased track by SWANS. I saw them perform this a couple of months back at the Bowery Ballroom, and it was transcendent, engulfing and cathartic.

Like much of the band's work, there is a lengthy passage of explosive preamble...but they really get cooking at around 08:32. Enjoy.

Chloe vs. the 'Fashion Goths'

You know you're old school -- and not in a cool way -- when relative squirts like Chloe Sevigny (pictured at right in the fetching Siouxsie t-shirt) start moaning about how the East Village is a sad shadow of its former self.

I've waxed vitriolic about Miss Sevigny here before, although in retrospect, I'm not exactly sure why. I mean, no, she's not really a great actress, but all I've ever seen her in was "Kids" and "The Last Days of Disco." While both those films were fairly undercooked for a variety of reasons, I gather she's gone on to more accomplished work in recent years. I haven't seen any of that, so I shouldn't really judge her there.

Sevigny's championing of the noxious Beatrice Inn in the West Village a few years back certainly didn't endear her to me, but I understand that she was just being supportive to her brother, who was a stakeholder there at the time. Furthermore, I've heard her interviewed about music on occasion, and she seems to know her stuff in that department. I'm sure she could hold her own in any annoying debate about tune-minutia that idiots like myself are prone to get into.

Anyway, Chloe recently chatted with The Daily Beast and joined the ranks of folks like myself, EV Grieve and Jeremiah Moss in the decrying of changes downtown. While there's still the wafting aroma of insufferable hipness about her (or ... wait ... maybe that's just my own blinkered projection and thinly-veiled hostility towards people who are younger than me), she seems like a perfectly reasonable lady.

That all said, I do wish she's stop saying "hating on." One doesn't hate on anything, one just HATES. There is no surface required for the verb to be put into action. One doesn't hate on or under or over or adjacent to to. One just HATES! Let's drop that silly, stupid shit, shall we?

In any case, while Chloe laments the preponderance of jocks, frat boys and "fashion goths" in her former East Village environs, I'm still that sad guy in the vintage Cop Shoot Cop shirt, strolling around the neighborhood, vainly scouring the freshly scrubbed brickface for antiquated Missing Foundation graffiti and yellowing shreds of Rock Hotel flyers. So who's the insufferable one now, eh?

Carry on, Chloe!

Back to Bonaparte

Here's a quick one I've been meaning to put up.

When Bleecker Bob's at 118 West Third Street closed back in 2013, there was much hue and cry over its untimely and unfortunate demise. Many of us in the NYC bloggy community suggested the place should be given landmark status. I penned many a weepy post that looked back fondly at my own experiences of shopping at that fabled spot. But, in due course, it was shuttered .... then said to shortly become yet another frozen yogurt emporium.

That, however, never happened (although there are still too many goddamn fro-yo places).

The enterprise that forced the closure of Bleecker Bob's divested, and it became nothing but a sad, empty space for a great while. I believe 118 West Third Street  is currently slated to soon become a sushi bar.

In any case, my good friend Howard "How Weird" Forbes posted an image on Facebook that caught my eye: A still from a shlocky movie from 1982 called "The Last Horror Film" (brought to you by Troma, the same folks responsible for "The Toxic Avenger"). Here is the still in question:

Howard caption it with:

Watching THE LAST HORROR FILM from 1982. Jerry Ohlinger's Movie Materials store is still where I first discovered it, but Bleecker Bob's has not yet moved in to their space.

This pretty much blew a new part in my hair.

Pictured in the space where Bleecker Bob's would soon occupy is an establishment called Bonaparte. I was intrigued. We've all heard that 118 West Third had originally been a beatnik nightclub called The Night Owl back in the day, but I was ignorant as to its incarnations other than as Bleecker Bob's.

Wrongly assuming Bonaparte was a French restaurant, I discovered that Bonaparte had also been a record store (as fleetingly detailed in this blog post about a U2 fan who spilled chocolate milk on a copy of the Circle Jerks debut LP). Go figure.

If you have any recollections of Bonaparte, please share them!

"The Last Horror Film," meanwhile, looks fairly worth avoiding (with all due respect to the predilections of my friend Howard). The only notable factor I can assess from the trailer below is that the film stars an absurdly sexy actress named Caroline Munro. You might remember her as the reporter lady/love interest in Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" video.

Meanwhile, here's what the strip pictured in Howard's still of 118 West Third Street looks like today. Jerry Ohlinger's moved to West 14th Street after this, then to West 35th streeet and then eventually closed.

And, should you care, here's a taste of "The Last Horror Film."

Re-exhuming Blind Blake

As I continue to cryptically allude, it's been something of a tremendous bummer of a summer for my family for a variety of reasons. As it happens, we've been spending large swathes of it out on Long Island, basically mooching off my equally opinionated (but mercifully forgiving) mother at her place here in Quogue. That part of it has been nice. The other parts? Not so much.

In any case, while out here, we routinely commandeer my mom's crappy Ford Taurus. It's falling apart and is something of an eyesore, but it gets us where we need to go, and comes equipped with a compact disc deck, which essentially makes it indispensable for me. I mean, sure -- it's a piece-of-dung car, but I can get from here to there in it whilst cranking my favorite music -- what's not to like?

Anyway, whilst tear-assing around the well-appointed lanes of Quogue in my mom's endearingly shitty Taurus, I've been known to play a divisive selection of music -- from the impenetrable prog noodlery of King Crimson to the tear-stained melancholia of This Mortal Coil through the blunt-force-trauma-horror-punk of the Misfits. This year, I've been subjecting my kids to a zealous menu of my favorite music. Some of it they've loved ("New Life" by Depeche Mode, "California Sun" as covered by the Ramones" and ... oddly ... "Calling Dr. Love" by Kiss have all become favorites of theirs). There is, however, one unlikely disc that they've become especially fond of, and it's one that comes with a long history for me.

Disarmingly loyal readers may remember a post of mine from 2009 wherein I recounted my long-held love for an esoteric musician named Blind Blake. Not to be confused with a Chicago bluesman with the same moniker, this Blind Blake (a.k.a. Alfonso Higgs) hailed from the Bahamas, and played a goofy blend of folksy calypso (prefiguring cats like Harry Belafonte). I was only familiar with him as my grandparents used to routinely play a record of his for my sister and I as little children, and we thought it was so goddamn hilarious that we took it home with us one day and never returned it. You can read the rest of that particular saga here.

In any case, sometime I after I penned that post, I found a more authoritative compilation disc of Blind Blake's. I was over the moon about it, and thought I'd buy a copy for my mom, imagining that she too would remember this peculiarly charming music. I gave it to her the following Christmas. She laughed upon opening it, but I don't believe she ever played it more than once. I was a little bummed about that, but you can't expect everyone to cherish music the same way you do (and believe me, I've gotten into more than a couple of fights about that).

Anyway, after a few weeks of the Ramones, The Cult and seemingly endless airings of the afore-cited "New Life" by Depeche Mode this particualr summer, I was feeling that a new addition to the car's musical-menu was feverishly in order. I repaired to my mom's basement (her compact discs having long since been relegated there after newer technology had rendered them -- to her mind -- obsolete) and dug out that shamefully neglected Blind Blake compilation. Honestly not expecting anyone to really dig it beyond me, I shoved it into the disc player one morning on the way to the beach and started zealously singing along to "My Pigeon Gone Wild," much to the pronounced bemusement of my children in the backseat.

In exceptionally short order -- much as my own sister and I had done -- my little Charlotte and Oliver quickly warmed to Blind Blake's catchy, deceptively bawdy ditties, and I was amazed to hear them unsolicitedly singing them to each other -- notably the delightfully violent "Jones (Oh Jones)" and "J.P. Morgan" -- later that week. In no time, both kids were demanding to hear Blind Blake instead of Depeche Mode when we got in the car (although "New Life" does still hold "song of the summer" status).

So despite all the strife, sorrow and turmoil of this summer, my heart has been newly warmed by this weird little record that has now been passed down a few generations in my family. I can still hear my grandparents singing along to "J.P. Morgan" in their kitchen when I hear it today, now echoed out of the mouths of my own little ones. 

Here's a little more of it. Please enjoy.

Lee on the Bowery

Hey again, all. Just a very quick one. I'm currently deeply ensconced in familial matters (see previous post) and taking care of a dizzying amount of logistics, but I spotted this whilst quickly perusing the `Net, and thought it was something worth sharing here.

I'm a member, on Facebook, of a group called Manhattan Before 1990 -- which is pretty self-explanatory in terms of the subject matter of the discussion. Essentially, members post their favorite pictures and ephemera of the city from ages past (much like I do here). This morning, a fellow member named Ruben posted the following picture, prefaced with the accompanying information:

Marilyn Monroe Wasn' t The Only Beauty That Sam Shaw Photographed On The Streets Of New York. (Sam Shaw - Lee Remick, The Bowery, New York City, 1960.)

Indeed, few could argue that Lee Remick wasn't an entirely fabulous babe, as this picture handily demonstrates. But can anyone name the street she's giving it some serious smolder on? Weigh in.

Meanwhile, the second I spotted this, my head immediately filled with the strains of this favorite from the old Go-Betweens. Crank it.

 

Rest in Peace, John

In recent months, I've been cryptically alluding to some troubles on the home front. Indeed, in the past year and change, we've seen illness, death and job loss, but my family was recently hit with another blow.

We lost my step-father on Sunday.

John E. Newman lived a rich, full life and was beloved by many for his quick wit, big heart and (sometimes disarmingly) blunt style.  While technically not my father by blood, John was an inexhaustible source of love and support to me, my wife and my children.

Though separated by differing generational sensibilities and conflicting opinions on myriad subjects, we still shared a profound admiration and understanding of each other, and bonded over a mutual love of simple things like a well-told joke, an expertly griled steak, the irreverent comedy of Tom Lehrer, a well executed movie and ... oddly ... the singular pop genius of Abba.

When my children were born, John truly blossomed in his role as their grandfather. Contrary to his reputation as something of a curmudgeon, nothing seemed to please John more than having our little Charlotte and Oliver run amok around his house and in his backyard. He was slavishly devoted to them and they to him.

I cannot put into words how much I will miss him.

 More:

John's obituary in the New Canaan Advertiser.

John's obituary in the New York Times.

Summer Days

People don't like to worry about shit in the summer. It's just a fact. 

I don't have that luxury. I'm worried all the time these days, regardless of the season or the temperature. That said, I can't complain too much, as I'm spending loads of time out on Long Island during these hot, verdant days. I'm still stressing my scalp silver and whatnot, but that doesn't change the calendar.

In any case, while I attempt to sort shit out, herewith a festive reminder to make the most of your summer. 

Your serve! 

Ludlow Laid Low: Slight Return

Back in 2008, I wrote a weepy little post about my drunken nights on Ludlow Street in the 90's, noting that I no longer spent that much time on that particular strip of the Lower East Side. Well, now that Max Fish, the Luna Lounge, Barramundi, Motor City, the Pink Pony, El Sombrero and the Ludlow Street Cafe are all but a memory (in some jarring instances replaced my imposing new high rises), I have even less reason to go there.

That all said, I'd read recently about a Beastie Boys mural being painted on the east-facing facde of the corner shop originally featured on the cover of Paul's Boutique (where Ludlow intersects with Rivington), and felt obligated to go check it out. Below is my capture of same. 

It's impressive, but the Ludlow Street of the Beastie Boys' era is a distant memory by this point, replaced by what my comrade Jeremiah Moss once again described to as a "world of vocal frying dumb talk." 

Still, it's a nice mural. By the way, if you're a fan of Paul's Boutique (and if you're not -- you're pretty much dead to me), you might enjoy this.