Flaming Pablum

Gahan in Sixty Seconds

Time was when I would post an inordinate amount of frankly stupid, incidental shit here on Flaming Pablum, be it a passing observation, an ill-considered rant or a windy manifesto. I’d take that a step further, once again, and say that the first couple of years were almost a complete waste of time. I don’t think I really found my voice here until 2007 or so.

I think a big factor in the topical streamlining of this weblog was social media. With multiple outlets wherein to express those observations, rants and idiotic asides, I could trim a bit of the fat on Flaming Pablum and keep it more cohesive and thematically sound, despite it essentially being a topically open-ended blog. Don’t get me wrong — I still post an unwieldy amount of trivial nonsense here, but I like to think it’s at least in keeping with an established vein.


This all said, I had a couple of instances in the last couple of days wherein I posted a pair of status updates on Facebook that both sorta blew up, relatively speaking. Upon reflection, I figured that one of them could be expounded upon here, so that’s what I’m doing.

Now that you’ve made it through the needlessly lengthy and entirely inconsequential preamble, let’s get down to it, shall we?

If you live in New York City, you should probably be used to seeing celebs out in the streets (if you’re paying attention, that is). Living downtown, especially, finds me spotting famous actors, musicians and public figures out on the street on a fairly regular basis. Over the weekend, for example, within the course of a single block, I walked past actor Ron Pearlman (he of “Hellboy,” “The City of Lost Children,” and myriad other roles) and Alec Baldwin. Actually, Baldwin lives a block away from me, so I see him and Hilaria quite regularly. He looks a lot older in person, by the way.


Nine times out of ten, I don’t say anything when I spot a star, although — of course — that depends on who it is. Regular readers might remember an old post wherein I recounted the cringe-worthy tale of accosting Joe Jackson (he of, say, “Steppin’ Out” and “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” fame, not Michael Jackson’s dad) on the 6 train and inadvertently ruining his day. Usually, it’s better just to leave them alone.

On Wednesday, however, I was walking east on 8th Street (on my way back from buying a new pair of running shoes), and I noticed a curiously familiar-looking figure walking my way. Otherwise lost in my headphones (listening to Earth A.D. by The Misfits) and the gorgeousness of the spring day, it didn’t dawn on me who this individual was until he was about three feet from me.


It was Dave Gahan, the lead singer of Depeche Mode.


While Depeche Mode may not be as divisive a name as, say, KISS, I know opinions are largely divided regarding their merits. Personally speaking, I’ve always really liked them, ever since my first viewing of the video for “Everything Counts” back in the balmy days of 1983. I followed them fairly ardently up through, I’d say, 1997’s Ultra. I sort of fell off after that record, but I still solidly count myself as a fan.

So, yeah, upon recognizing that it was Gahan, I couldn’t stop myself from exclaiming “Dave!” right when we were parallel. He turned with a bit of a start in my direction and caught me giving him a sort of half-wave, half-salute. “Hey, man,” he said with a smile and kept on walking west — maybe towards Electric Lady studios? Who knows? I’m entirely projecting, of course. Maybe he actually lives here.

That was it. There was no big meaningful exchange. He didn’t invite me along to a recording session or sign my copy of Speak & Spell. I neglected to disclose that “New Life” is my little boy’s favorite song. I didn’t get a scoop on anything.


That all said, spotting Dave Gahan on the streets of Manhattan seems like the perfect reason to exhume the video for Depeche Mode’s “Policy of Truth,” featuring a lovely, relatively vintage view of Manhattan as shot by iconic dutch shutterbug Anton Corbijn.

Here's that video now....

I actually wrote about this stylish clip back in 2008, in a round-up of NYC-centric rock videos. Here's what I had to say about it then.

For this single from 1989's Violator album, Depeche Mode and noted photographer Anton Corbijn decided to film the video for "Policy of Truth" in good ol' Manhattan. Here, we see the Mode lads flouncing about the near the Central Park Reservoir (when it still boasted the chain-link fence), the Meat Packing District, East River Park and even in the interior of the fabled P&G Bar on the Upper West Side, all the while attempting to imply that they're being cuckolded by the two brunette hotties. While the plot line may be roundly unconvincing, the shots of New York City sure are nice.

Honestly, that pretty much covers it, but in rediscovering it, it seems like Corbijn was really trying to tap into that black n' white sense of wonder about New York City arguably best captured by Woody Allen's "Manhattan." 

Contrast that iconic romantic image with Corbin's shots at the Central Park Reservoir...

..and again with Andy Fletcher's tryst beneath the Williamsburg Bridge....

Maybe I'm reaching, but it certainly wouldn't have been the only video to pay homage to Woody's stylized vision of Manhattan (check out Vampire Weekend's clip for "Step"). 

Regardless, I still think it's an excellent video, not least for its fleeting depiction of the afore-cited P&G Bar on the Upper West Side, which vanished from that corner in 2009.

It soldiered on briefly at another U.W.S. location, but it, too, was forced to close in 2011.

Of course, "Policy of Truth" wasn't the only video Depeche Mode shot in NYC. There's also this one from the same album, which might give some a bit of a chill....

The Big Runaround: Back on Track?

I’m 47 …. and out of shape.

Regular readers may remember a bold series of entries I posted last year under the promising category title, “The Big Runaround.” Prompted by factors of advancing age, neglected health and a desperate initiative to inject a little bit of focussed discipline into a life recently rocked by sudden job-loss and multiple deaths in the family, I started a regimen of running. It seemed like all I could do.

Over the course of the next few months, I brought myself up to speed, streamlined my approach, augmented my routine and was beginning to hit my stride, so to speak. Almost on cue, however, I started developing a pain below my right knee. Not wanting to risk seriously injuring myself, I sharply curtailed my running in the hopes that the pain would subside.

In tandem with the knee pain, I’d also started to feel an old familiar pain in my shoulders flare up again (invariably due to stress). With these two complaints in mind, I started visiting a chiropractor, who swiftly deduced that I was suffering a bit of misalignment (although, truthfully, no one’s perfectly aligned) and that I was putting an inordinate amount of my weight on my right side, which might explain the pressure I was feeling below my right knee.

As a result, I started going in for regular adjustments and traction in the hopes of lessening some of my misalignment issues. This also involved orthotics in my regular walking shoes and, once again, the determination to properly update my running shoes.

Now that winter’s over (….right? Is it safe to say that yet?) and spring hath sprung, I believe I am ready to get back to my running regimen.

I’ve gotten the green light from the doctor, but I’m still a little concerned about my knee. I mean, at my age, it seems like no matter what I do, it might just be too late for my knees.

That all said, I am positively pining to reclaim the peace of mind that running was providing. I realize that sounds awfully melodramatic, but it’s easily been one of the most turbulent periods of my life.

It’s now been ten long months since I was actively employed. I am fortunate enough to currently be in talks with a few specific outlets, but momentum is hard to sustain, and I continue to wait for a solid offer from the right situation. If you know me personally, you know that I am always in something of a state of alert, but being stuck in the round-the-clock state of worry that has basically consumed my life has taken a toll. The runs helped combat that. When I couldn’t run anymore, it all closed in again.

Intent on getting back to it, I checked into my local Super Runners over on the western end of 14th Street today. Not wanting to simply pull a random pair off of a shelf at Foot Locker, I decided to spend a little extra — hopefully not in vain — for a more professionally-assessed fit. I walked out of there with a frankly ludicrous looking pair of new, customized Asics (see above).

While these shoes may indeed be stridently at odds with my own dubious fashion sense, I really don’t give a crap how they look. As long as they fit, responsibly support my feet and enable me to run, I’m good with them.

Tomorrow morning … we find out.

Down Go the Dolls: SOLVED

Well, that certainly didn’t take long.

I posted this photo query over on Facebook, as I’m wont to do, and my friend Chung Wong quickly weighed in.

41 St Marks is a good candidate. Facade, window and number of steps matches. Layout matches too. Different railing tho.

And then again….

The railings have been known to change on St Marks. The steps, window and window sill as well as the facade pattern is similar at 41 St Marks...hope to find an older photo. 39 and 41 were once twins but had a fair bit of renovations 

And then once more, with the crucial, final bit of business!

41 St Marks is looking better now....because 43 St Marks was once "Peter Cooper" Nursing Home.

Convinced by Chung’s ace detective work, I strolled over to check it out. Here’s that very spot this afternoon.

Now, obviously, a lot has changed since the early 70’s, but check out the lower frame on the window box. I definitely think we have a match.

As it happens, the building that now stands to the east of 41 St. Marks looks to be newer (i.e. the structure that once housed the Peter Cooper Nursing home and that had “AID” carved into its facade has been replaced), but I’d be willing to concede that 41 St. Marks is indeed the building in Gruen’s picture.

Now what they were doing at 41, I have no idea.

Nice work, all.

Down Go the Dolls

When it comes to iconic rock photography, you’re hard pressed to cite a more significant name than Bob Gruen. I’ve sung his praises here innumerable times. From his work documenting John Lennon, The New York Dolls and KISS through The Clash, Ramones and Sex Pistols, his pictures are inexorably woven into rock history. On top of that, he’s a genuinely cool, chatty guy to boot. I’ve spoken with him a couple of times over the past few years, and he’s always been gracious.

Just when I think I’ve seen all his work, I stumble upon some new image that I’d never laid eyes on before and it captures my imagination. Such was the case this morning when I spotted this photo of Gruen’s in Rolling Stone of members of the New York Dolls descending a stoop. That immediately got the wheels turning…..where is this stoop?

Those with a keen eye for detail will doubtlessly spot the awning on the right side of the photograph spelling out “Peter Cooper.” A crucial clue?

I’m thinking East Village. St. Mark’s Place? East 14th Street? What do YOU think?

Meanwhile, to help jog your memory, here's some vintage footage of the band playing in the heroically unlikely environs of the Waldorf Astoria in 1973. 

Valk On Zee Vild Side

A friend of mine posted this on Facebook this morning, and I was so utterly flummoxed by it, that I feel obligated to pass it on.

I don’t know who Gerty Molzen was, but I gather she was a German actress of some renown. Five years before the great lady's death in 1990 at the age of 84, someone convinced her to pursue a sideline singing cover versions of popular tunes — although, honestly, they’re more like clipped, Teutonic recitations.

I'm not quite sure why "Walk on the Wild Side," Lou Reed's hallowed hymn about transgression and reinvention, seemed like a good fit, but here we are. And who the gentleman accompanying her with the entirely incongruous rap is, I have absolutely no idea.

It must be heard to be believed.

I'm curious how Lou reacted.

This also seems like a handy excuse to exhume the tastefully shot Honda Scooter ad from around the same era as Gerty's cover. Don’t settle for walkin’.

Closing the Loop on Polly Wog Stew

If you’re a regular reader, you might remember an entry I posted back in November of 2014 in which I tried to divine the location of the photograph on the back cover of Polly Wog Stew, the debut 7” single by the then-fledgling Beastie Boys from 1982. Here’s the back cover in question.

Here, meanwhile, is a better representation of the original photograph — crucially providing a tiny bit more detail with which to help solve the puzzle. This photograph was taken by a friend of the band, one Ms. Arabella Field.

I came up with the theory that the photograph was probably taken in front of The Rat Cage, a record store that also put out the Beastie Boys’ first foray into hardcore. The sticking point there, however, was that there were actually two incarnations of the Rat Cage; one on East 9th just steps off of Second Avenue and another over on Avenue A. Based on some STRIKINGLY TENUOUS architectural minutia (specifically the lower, double-lipped trim of a door jam pictured on the left hand side of the photo), I suggested that the photo had probably been taken in front of the 9th Street incarnation.

I was never entirely positive that I was correct, but I didn’t have much else to go on. Because we have a mutual friend on Facebook, I shot Ms. Field a note asking if she could shed some light, but I initially didn’t hear back from her. As such, I sort of just left it there.

In retrospect, it seems ridiculous to have just jumped to the conclusion that they snapped the band photo in front of the Rat Cage. I mean, they certainly could have, but they could also have taken it virtually ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE CITY.

Months later, much to my considerable surprise, Ms. Field — possibly goaded by our mutual friend — very kindly responded, suggesting that the location of the photograph was not either site of the Rat Cage, but rather somewhere in Chinatown. After doing some more checking, she wrote the following…

Yes, definitely Chinatown. You can see the take-out containers in the window behind. Most of it was Chinatown and then we walked a bit up Lafayette to the old police building and we also may have started or ended up on Wooster street. That may actually be Canal street--during a quiet moment. And it was a long time ago so there were less people or if not it is one of the side streets off Canal but definitely Chinatown….

Sure enough, many other shots from conceivably that very same day were also taken in Chinatown (see below).

This one below was certainly snapped in the diner that used to be on southeast corner of Canal and West Broadway

I love this one as it featured a Konk stencil in the background....

Now, where in Chinatown was the back cover shot taken? Was it indeed somewhere on Canal? I’m not even going to try to pinpoint that at this stage.

If you want to, though, please feel free.

Here, meanwhile, are the Beasties from that same era….

Follow That Cab

Back in 2000, my wife gave me a copy of “Drive-By Shootings,” a curious collection of black and white photographs snapped by a gent named David Bradford, a New York City taxi driver. While that might sound somewhat shticky and predictable, Bradford’s pictures were actually quite striking, capturing New York City’s many moods and faces. I believe there have been further editions of his work published since then, and it’s well worth investigating, if you’re a fan of street photography.

In any case, I stumbled upon this little nine-minute film about Bradford this afternoon. It’s a pretty self-explanatory profile, but what I was so struck by was how comparatively deserted the city streets look — and this was only shot in 1997. To me, that doesn’t feel like that long ago, but I suppose it was.

Another nice aspect of the clip is spotting locales that no longer exist like, for example, the old Broadway incarnation of Canal Street Jean Co. above.

Anyway, check it out below. The soundtrack is pretty dreadful, but it’s easily enough ignored...

Immortalized

At this stage of the proceedings, pretty much everyone has an opinion about the band KISS, and it seems — more often than not — it’s a negative one. That’s fine. But for all their insufferably avaricious shenanigans, KISS achieved things that simply cannot be taken away from them.

One such achievement, in my opinion, would be helping cement the significance of the live album. They were already three studio LPs into their frankly flailing career before Alive finally captured the bombastic blitz of the live KISS experience and put them solidly on the map. And Alive was just the perfect document. To this day, it is routinely cited as a landmark album.

There's an aspect of Alive that's always struck me (and one I’d also credit KISS for inspiring), that being the decision to feature the fabled fan shot on the back cover. In case you're unfamiliar, here it is....

Amidst a throng of curiously disinterested-looking Midwestern heshers, two fans proudly display their homemade KISS banner. Little did they know, I’d suspect, that this incidental moment would be forever immortalized on what was to become the back cover of one of most celebrated live albums of all time.

Now, once again, if you think KISS is a load of ridiculous bullshit, that’s entirely fine, and you’re doubtlessly not alone in that capacity. I still happen to cherish my KISS records, regardless of the band's innumerable lapses into abject douchebaggery since about, oh, 1979. But ever since I first laid eyes on the back cover of Alive — and I’m dead sure a nation of music geeks can empathize with this — I’ve always been jealous of those hirsute, banner-brandishing fans. I mean, how goddamn cool would that be, right?

Over the years as a rabid rockhead, believe it or not, I’ve actually come close to that laughably unrealistic goal. In 2000, my good friend Rob B. and I flew over to London to see a couple of anniversary shows by The Wonder Stuff (yes, you read that correctly). Unsurprisingly, the band released a live album recorded at those shows shortly thereafter. I remember Rob excitedly calling me and telling me to check out the front cover of the resulting document, that being Cursed with Insincerity. Rob seemed to think that one of the figures depicted on that sleeve was him (we were indeed pressed against the front barriers for the first gig). Under closer scrutiny, it didn’t seem like a match, but we can’t be totally sure.

Meanwhile, I managed to work my way into at least one litearlly-blink-and-you’ll-fucking-miss-me moment on a piece of output by my very favorite band, that being — of course — the mighty Killing Joke.

Ten years back, Killing Joke followed the Wonder Stuff’s lead and played a pair of 25th anniversary shows at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire. Being the obsessed fanboy I was (and remain), I KNEW I had to be there. Mercifully, both my wife and my office empathized, and I was let off my leash for a few days to go and pay homage to my favorite band on their home turf. You can imagine how excited I was.

The trip was a complete blast and the two concerts were drunkenly festive religious experiences. Put simply, it was everything I’d ever wanted. Apart from being scarily hassled by U.S. customs upon my return home to New York City (a long story for another day), it was just a perfectly great time.

Sure enough, some months later, Killing Joke released XXV Gathering: Let Us Prey as a sumptuous live album and an accompanying DVD, culling a rousing performance from bits of the two nights I attended.

As you can well imagine, I snapped up copies of both the album and DVD immediately upon release, eager to not only relive the experience, but check to see — on the very slimmest of chances — if I was somehow captured in the mix.

If you can hear me hoarsely sing along at any point on the live album, then you assuredly have sharper ears than I. But, imagine my glee upon finding myself FLEETINGLY featured in the crowd just before the band launched into “Wardance.”

If you’re quick, you can spot me at about nine seconds into this cilp.

In case you missed it, here I am (my face obscured — naturally — by someone’s fist).

Not exactly the back cover of Alive, but I’ll take it.

Stuff You Might Have Missed

Hey again, all. Apologies for the relative slowdown in posts this week, but it’s been a busy one. Lots of stuff going on. Maybe more about that in the days to come. Or not. We’ll see. Fate is a fickle bitch, so who knows what she has in store?

Anyway, in the interim, I’m always setting aside little items that I think are of interest. Here are a few topically-relavant things that caught my eye.

Nick Carr’s routinely spectacular Scouting New York blog recently set its sights on Flaming Pablum favorites, The Ramones (pictured above in 1979, as captured by Alan Berkovitz), charting their trajectory back to their geographic roots. I believe this is only the first installment of The Ramones Guide to New York City, but it’s well worth your time if you’re a fan (and if you’re not, …. what’s wrong with you?)

I almost found this article too depressing to finish, but the great Oliver Sacks wrote a lengthy piece for The New Yorker on the unexpected tribulations and heartbreaking final days of the great Spalding Gray, pictured at right circa 1986 by Susan Shacter.

Also gleaned from The New Yorker: Frequent Flaming Pablum target-of-rididcule, Chloë Sevigny, is evidently celebrating her crossing of the perilous Rubicon of her 40th year by publishing a fan book about herself. No, nothing lamentable or abjectly ridiculous about that at all.

It’s not a new article, but The Quietus published an excellent round-up of its writers’ favorite live albums back in 2013 that really caught my eye. Not only was I pleased to see several of my favorites cited, but their encapsulations (notably Julian Marszalek’s summation of It’s Alive by, once again, the Ramones and my friend Ned Ragget’s thoughtful handling of Earth Inferno by Fields of the Nephilim) more often than not are entirely spot-on.

My friend Chung Wong unearthed a great vintage clip of David Johansen interviewing his former bandmate Johnny Thunders in front of CBGB on the eve of the star-crossed Anarchy tour Thunders’ Heartbreakers would take with the Sex Pistols and the Damned in 1976. Lots of punk history crammed into 2:29 minutes of video. Check it out....

Speaking of vintage punk, Dangerous Minds exhumed a long-lost promo video The Cramps’ shot for “Human Fly,” featuring some grainy footage of lovely Poison Ivy Rorschach strutting around what looks to be the L.E.S. of the late `70.s Read Dangerous Minds’ piece here, but here’s the video in question.

Staying with the vintage punk theme, here’s a nine minute trailer for a documentary about Punk Magazine, featuring Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom. This seems to have been uploaded onto YouTube in 2012, so I’m not sure of the status of the doc at this stage of the proceedings. What’s striking to me is the footage of Legs and Holmstrom sitting together, as last I remember they’d fallen out with each other.

More stuff comin' soon. Stay tuned!

 

Back to the Mill

Back in 2010, I wrote up a weepy little post detailing a variety of since-vanished Manhattan locales that, as of then, I’d been unable to track down photographic evidence of.

As I explained in that entry, these weren’t so much pictures of storied landmarks, but rather shots of less celebrated, more esoteric places. In the ensuing five years, I’ve had some luck, having since discovered more photos of both the original Forbidden Planet and the old Trans-Lux movie theatre that used to stand on Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. There are still a couple, however, that have continued to elude my search.

One of the spots I detailed was a place I’d referred to as “the old Burlington Mills attraction on 6th Avenue.” Here’s what I had to say about it.

The old Burlington Mills attraction on 6th Avenue: This, if I recall correctly, was a block-long "ride" in the lobby of an office building in midtown that my mother took me to a few times in the mid-to-late 1970s. You'd step onto a conveyor belt, and it would slowly take you through a few rooms that showed film-strips of how Burlington textiles were made, including a big, bright room filled with hundreds of whirling sewing machines. It's sounds odd, yes, but my memories of riding it are pretty vivid, and I'd love some verification of it. I have, thus far, found none.

Indeed, I had spent many hours typing “Burlington Mills” into search engines and always came up empty. I couldn’t get my head around it, but started reluctantly thinking that maybe — just maybe — it wasn’t quite as significant an attraction as I’d remembered. Maybe it was just one of those particular things that you recall from your childhood that end up being no big deal when you re-examine them with the eyes of an adult decades later. I didn’t really want to believe that, but it seemed like the only answer.

How could that be, though? I mean, sure, there are things that I've probably embellished in my mind over the years, but this was something so big and specific. How could there be no record of it, let alone a picture or two?

Well, the reason I was continually coming up empty, of course, was because I HAD THE DAMN NAME OF THE PLACE WRONG.

Purely by chance, I was following a thread on a page on Facebook regarding a photograph of a certain fountain on Sixth Avenue. Sure enough, someone commented that it was part of Burlington House, which triggered someone invoking the OFFICIAL name of the damn thing I’ve been looking for. It’s not “Burlington Mills” (which is inevitably what my mom called in), but rather “The Mill at Burlington House.”

Now, type that into the search engine of your choice, and up come some goddamn results. AT LAST!!!

So, yeah, I was first brought to, ahem, The Mill at Burlington House at some point in the mid 1970’s, or around the same era this photo of me was taken….

Funnily enough, the Burlington House building is notable for its distinctive twin fountains. That's one of them at the top of this post circa 2007, courtesy of Daily Photo Stream. There’s a famous photo of my then-beloved KISS taken in front of them around the mid 70’s as well, that being this one.

Of course, me being me, I had to replicate this shot with my own kids back in 2013...

Little did I realize, of course, that it was in this same building where The Mill was once located.

There’s not a lot of documentation about the Mill at Burlington House, but I did find this authoritative page, which pretty much gives its full history. Evidently it was open for ten years, and ceased operation in 1980.

So, yeah, the Mill is long gone, much like the John Street Light Tunnel, the Children's Zoo Whale and several other touchstones from my childhood. 

One wonders, what will my children remember?