Earlier this week, my pals over at the mighty Bowery Boogie put up a nice post (later picked up by Gothamist) regarding the amazing street photography of one Steve Butcher.
In his own words, Butcher is “an artist and designer who lives and works in New York.” His work is “informed by a lifelong interest in the history of art.”
The man’s website is a rich treasure for the eye, but what caught Bowery Boogie & Gothamist’s attention were his period-specific photographs of lower Manhattan in the 80’s and 90’s (also a favorite era for this weblog, of course).
As you doubtlessly know by now, I’m always looking for visual documentation of those incarnations of my home town. While I’m fully aware of the grim realities of those respective eras, my associations with that city are ones of vibrancy and excitement. At the risk of playing squarely into the hands of those who’d paint me as solely a blinkered nostalgist, I just don’t feel the same sensations of curiosity, intrigue and adventure on the streets of 2015’s New York City. Sorry, there it is.
In any case, while perusing Butcher’s pics, I came across a couple that speak directly to this blog’s preoccupation with NYC-centric music. First up is this one from “New York Then - 80’s"…..
Taken, according to Butcher, somewhere on East Houston, the shot obviously features some seriously distressed car wreckage. What struck me about it was the graffiti on the mangled car door — DRUNK DRIVING. Fellow NYC noiseniks and underground rock fans might recognize that as the name of Peter Missing’s pre- Missing Foundation ensemble, which also counted future Sonic Youth/Pussy Galore drummer Bob Bert in its ranks. I don’t believe they ever released anything.
As detailed in this interview I conducted a couple of years back with Chris Egan of Missing Foundation, Drunk Driving fell apart, leaving Peter to hook up with Egan, Mark Ashwill and droves of others to form Missing Foundation,….who, at their best, sounded like the clip below. Not for the timid.
And because, why not? Here’s another great chunk of Missing Foundation. The casual layperson may recognize the band’s notorious insignia here. Both of these tracks, I should mention, come from Missing Foundation’s album, 1933/Your House is Mine, which only exists at a tactile artifact on vinyl. Enjoy the niceness….
Another shot of Butcher’s that struck a similar chord is this one of East 3rd Street between Avenue A and B. It’s a compelling photograph no matter how ya slice it, but I love the primitive Cro-Mags tag at the bottom.
Another frequent subject of this blog, the Cro-Mags arguably single-hadedly embodied the best of NYHC before the most celebrated line-up fractured messily in an implosion that is still a sore spot for the concerned parties today (read more about that saga here and here).
Here’s the Age of Quarrel-era Cro-Mags firing on all cylinders circa November of 1986.
More recently, of course, lead singer John Joseph has been tirelessly active as a writer, health advocate, Ironman triathlete and rock’n’roll tour guide. Here he is doin’ his thing circa 2011…..
All this talk of NYC punk and graffiti reminded me of a shot a gentleman named Tom Langston recently posted on the Facebook group Manhattan before 1990. That’s this one here…
I’m reasonably certain that this is the same graffito I remember from East 8th Street between Broadway and Astor Place. You can’t quite make it out from the shot, but the figures wielding the spears were life-sized. I remember enjoying the cryptic, explanation-free nature of this art (see also Missing Foundation and, for that matter, Shepherd Fairey’s old Obey Giant campaign). Only later did I learn that it was specifically relating to a band, this one called Modern Clix.
Existing around the same time and playing some of the same venues as the NYHC bands, Modern Clix were actually something entirely different from Agnostic Front et al., playing more of a ska-punk-pop-reggae-funk hybrid that seemed to owe more to the dubby experimentalism of earlier bands like Liquid Liquid, Konk, ESG etc.
Here they are circa 1983, playing at the Peppermint Lounge (featuring some initial extrapolation from primary strategist Fran Powers).
Modern Clix evidently went through a variety of incarnations, later morphing simply into Clix and then Whole Wide World, I believe.
In a weird moment of happenstance, I actually ran into Fran Powers fairly recently. I was invited to an event in SoHo by fellow blogger Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project to celebrate the launch of her Kickstarter project (read more about that here). My wife and I hung out at this amazing loft space for a while before we decided to go out to grab a bite to eat. On our way out, I ran smack dab into Powers who was on his way in. Unable to stop myself in these situations, I said “You’re the Modern Clix guy,” which pretty much blew a new part in his hair.
We had a nice chat. These days, Fran’s encouragingly still making music with a band called Box of Crayons. Find out more here.
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