Next month will mark the two year anniversary of the death of storied New York rock icon, Lou Reed. That’s not the reason I’m posting this, but I suppose it’s as good a reason as any.
Some might remember an entry I posted back in 2013 wherein I exhumed the video for Lou’s uncharacteristically slick 1984 single, “I Love You, Suzanne.” It was a perfectly reasonable pop song, but considering it came from the same man who'd written stuff like “Venus in Furs,” “Sister Ray,” “Berlin,” “Street Hassle,” etc. etc., it seemed like quite a departure, although, it should be remembered that Lou got his start penning pop songs under the tutelage of icon Doc Pomus. I’m not equating “I Love You, Suzanne” with that stuff, but still … pop is pop. Perhaps he was just following the lucrative example set by his old sparring partner David Bowie, who’d made a similarly unlikely move towards mainstream accessibility the previous year with Let’s Dance.
Regardless, my entry wasn’t about the song so much as the video, which featured Lou posing with signature disaffected cool around various Manhattan locales. That stuff always captivates me, as I’m constantly on the lookout for images of the New York City of my youth.
In any case, for no readily apparent reason, I re-watched the clip for “My Red Joystick” off the same album — that being New Sensations — and was again captivated with trying to divine the location of the action.
I want to say I’m reasonably certain that this was shot in and around an actual Manhattan address, despite the fact that in several instances it looks like a stage set.
Even casual viewers will notice the signage citing that the corner in question is on Sixth Avenue somewhere. I want to say it’s somewhere between Houston and Canal, but — obviously — cannot be certain. Take another look at the distinctive facade of Lou’s girlfriend’s building.
That newsstand is probably long gone, but I bet those rounded, corner steps on the entrance are still there.
Those who have — to my eternal amazement and gratitude — spent way too much time reading this weblog may remember a windy post I penned back in the balmy, carefree days of 2009 about the re-mastering of the Beastie Boys’ 1989 masterpiece Paul’s Boutique (inarguably the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club goddamn Band of sampling … WHAT? AM I WRONG??) If it’s not one of your favorite albums of all time, there is a greater than average chance that I think considerably less of you as a person.
In any case, my friend and former colleague Jem unearthed a great, telling interview with the surviving Beasties that was recently conducted, I believe, by Capitol Records (the major label they famously jumped ship for from the confining parameters of Def Jam). If you’re a Beasties fan and acolyte of Paul’s Boutique, it’s well worth your time. Check it out below.
The photo up top, meanwhile, was taken of the Beastie Boys by the great Ricky Powell on the intersection of Mulberry and Spring … just steps away from the spot photographer Arabella Field captured them as a fledgling hardcore punk band some years earlier (see this post and this post for those details).
Meanwhile, here's the Paul's Boutique record release party clip, discussed in the interview above...
Although immortalized in the first reel of my favorite film, “After Hours,” I believe the first time I ever spent any meaningful amount of time on Crosby Street in SoHo — beyond just occasionally walking down it — was in about 1990.
I was writing, at the time, for a tiny, independent music `zine, and my favorite band of all time — that being, of course, Killing Joke — were on the precipice of releasing their heroic return to splenetic form, Extremities, Dirt and Various Repressed Emotions. Having been forcibly recused from the services of their major label deal after the fraught, proggy opus that was their previous album, Outside the Gate, Killing Joke had been newly signed by an independent metal label called Noise International. Their offices were at 5 Crosby Street.
Through the auspices of the label’s publicist, an endearingly gregarious hardcore punk/metal veteran named Yana — a bleach-blonde bombshell who'd played in NYC bands like Wench and P.M.S. — I managed to secure an interview with Martin Atkins, the fabled punk rocker recently drafted from the ranks of Public Image Ltd. and Brian Brain to assume the Killing Joke drum stool following the departure of band-founder, Big Paul Ferguson (who, you might remember, I spoke at great length with here).
This being the first time interviewing a member of Killing Joke, I was incredibly nervous. I’m sure I paced up and down Crosby Street for a good forty minutes before my scheduled appointment. When the time came, Yana buzzed me up to the Noise International offices, which occupied a loft in a former raw industrial space. True to both the origins of the building and the indie record label’s thorny aesthetic, I seem to recall lots of exposed metal elements (geddit?) in the office decor. They may have been an indie label, but this felt like the big time for this wide-eyed fanboy.
All was going swimmingly until Yana directed me to a desk … with a phone on it. As it turned out, I wasn’t going to actually meet Martin Atkins. It was just going to be a phoner. Beyond being disappointing, this also posed a problem given my inability to record the call and my shoddy short-hand skills, to say nothing of the fact that Martin spoke with an enthusiasm best described as “rapid.”
It all worked out. Martin spoke effusively, but understood my plight, obliging me with brief breaks so that I could frantically scribble my notes and keep up. Both he and Yana also saw their way clear to inviting me to future Killing Joke events later that year in the city. I left Noise International’s offices smiling broadly. To this day, I can’t hear that album without thinking of that afternoon.
Crosby Street is also just one of the more atmospheric strips of SoHo. In the `80’s and `90’s, its narrow corridor was entirely slathered in cryptic street art. I took hundreds of photos of it over the years (that's one of them at the very top of this post, circa 1998). Not unlike the similarly bleak Cortlandt Alley off Canal Street, Crosby used to exude a beguilingly dark vibe, landing it as a prime location in the afore-cited “After Hours,” “Downtown `81,” “Ghost,” “Basquiat" and countless other flicks. Michael Lavine took some now-iconic shots of Sonic Youth (below) loitering on the same strip. It was just that sorta street.
Today, of course, that portion of SoHo is an entirely different scene. The building once occupied by the punky metalheads at Noise International now plays host to a ridiculously well appointed furniture company called BDDW. Crosby Street is no longer a desolate backwater off the beaten track, but rather a posh destination for the well-heeled.
The only reason I’m discussing any of this, meanwhile, is because of an entry recently posted on Yukie Ohta’s brilliant SoHo Memory Project. Yukie recently unearthed an archival film from the early 1970’s that casts Crosby Street in a completely different light from both my recollections and the current, monied incarnation of the address.
Check out that film, and read what Yukie — who I had the great pleasure of finally meeting earlier this year — had to say by clicking right here.
Here, meanwhile, is the mighty Killing Joke from their fleeting Noise International era…. featuring Martin Atkins in typically feral form behind the drum kit. PLAY THIS VERY LOUD!
My friend Ed exhumed an old Nuclear Assualt clip on Facebook earlier today, which had me falling down the YouTube rabbit hole, revisiting a lot of vintage thrash from my youth, eventually leading me to this old clip for “Brainwashed” from 1988.
Honestly speaking, I was never a huge fan of this band, being that I much preferred bassist Dan Lilker’s former band, Anthrax. That said, they did have their (fleeting) moments, and I applauded Lilker’s turn in the early stages of the Stormtroopers of Death.
Regardless, I thought “Brainwashed” was worth putting up for its endearing NYC-centric vibe. Along with predictable locations like the Brooklyn Bridge and the steps of the New York Public Library (probably not the first institution you’d associate with the hirsute likes of Nuclear Assault), watch the boys flock into Bleecker Bob’s and dutifully assume the stage in attack formation at L’Amour in Brooklyn.
As I’ve mentioned at several points over the last few years, I’ve largely wrung dry my supply of insightful things to say about the events of September 11, 2001. I believe I even pledged at one point that I’d stop commemorating it here to avoid the risk of laboriously rehashing something or diminishing its meaning and impact (so much for that, I guess). But I stumbled across a few relevant items in the past couple of days that I felt were worth sharing.
Although normally renowned for its highbrow brand of absurdist snark, McSweeny’s just published a speech given by writer/comedian John Hodgman, a name you might remember for his contributions to “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” These remarks — made by a man normally known for a dry, erudite brand of wit — date back to a literary reading he participated in just days after the towers fell. The effect is not unlike the atmosphere captured on Laurie Anderson’s document, Live at Town Hall NYC, recorded during those same, fraught days. With poise and eloquence, Hodgman addresses the palpable, harrowing malaise in the wake of unspeakable events, speaking with candor and humility about the significance of the act of storytelling. It’s well worth your time. Click here to read it.
Meanwhile, as I mentioned way back when, on the day the planes struck the towers, I shot an entire roll of film, much like countless others. From a series of vantage points along my home turf of University Place, I snapped photo after photo of the unfolding events. In retrospect, I’m not even sure why I did it, given the enormity of the circumstances. It just seemed like something I should do.
This being the era largely before the absolute ubiquity of digital photography, I dutifully dropped off my film some days (or was it even weeks?) later at my then-favorite lab Spectra (sadly long gone). I came back later that day to pick up the developed roll of film and could barely even look at the photographs. By this point, the images of that day were already indelibly burned into my memory and the memories and psyches of every New Yorker I knew, maddeningly reinforced by instant replays all over television.
My pictures weren’t really very different. I didn’t know what to do with them. I didn’t want to look at them, and I certainly didn’t feel like putting them in a photo album (remember when we all kept photo albums?). I put them in a blank envelope and filed them away somewhere. They’re now here in my home or storage space downstairs, but I’ll be damned if I could locate them if I tried. Regardless, I didn’t find my pictures — or even my own story of what I’d been doing that day — especially different from millions of others’. My images and the minutia of my banal activities that day don’t begin capture the weight of the event. In terms of what I was doing that day, as John Hodgman so succinctly put it in his afore-cited remarks, "personalizing an event that has touched so many and so cruelly, announcing by byline our own survival, feels shamefully self-involved."
Obviously, there were photographers who really did capture the tone of that day. My friend Karen Gehres’ husband Phil is one of those folks. He’s recently collected his images from September 11th into a truly disarming gallery. More so than any pictures of flapping flags or crying bald eagles or George W. Bush with a goddamn bullhorn, these images effortlessly and artfully convey the weight, enormity and absolute horror. Click here to see them.
Next up, I remember while we were all trying to make sense — or simply get our heads around — the experience, lots of media outlets did their best to condense stories into some sort of comforting, narrative arch. Some were, obviously, better than others. I’m reminded of a ham-fisted, overblown audio-collage of significant snippets spliced together by Glenn Beck’s radio program that felt like a “greatest hits medley.” I suppose you couldn’t blame folks for wanting to put things in linear perspective, but it was hard to manage without succumbing to treacle or chest-thumping xenophobia.
Around this same time, MTV kept playing a music video — hey, remember when they used to play music videos? — of a song by the strenuously earnest Pennsylvanian alt.rock band Live called “Overcome,” featuring images of firemen, police officers, doctors and first responders struggling to do their jobs in the snow-like hail of cinders, papers and debris. While their music wasn’t really my cup of tea, I thought it actually managed to strike the right balance at the time.
In thinking back to that, I did a bit of searching for the clip, but what I found cast proceedings in kind of a different light for me. Here’s the video now.
I’m assuming I either misremembered the particulars or that this is a different cut of the video I recall, but there’s a crucial difference here. The clip I remember was comprised exclusively of shots of the first responders, almost suggesting that it was some variety of homemade tribute (i.e. one not made by the band). This version, however, features footage of lead singer Ed Something-or-Other from Live actually on the scene himself and lip-synching to his pop single amidst the debris of Ground Zero. Perhaps I’m overreacting, but that just strikes me as ickily uncomfortable opportunism, no?
I know, I know — it’s a ridiculous grievance, but seriously….a bit fucking tasteless, as far as I’m concerned.
Lastly, in walking around yesterday, I was struck by all the things that have spouted up and, well, infected our culture, society and way of life since that day, and started to compose a list. I mean, they are the obvious things like having to take our shoes off at airports and such, but take another step back.
On a purely trivial level, in September of 2001, there was no Facebook. There was no Twitter. There was no Instagram. Hell, there wasn't even MySpace or Friendster. No one had an iPhone. There weren't even goddamn iPODS!!!
People still read books, listened to CD's, used phone booths and the only Kardashian anyone could name was that schmuck who helped O.J. Simpson walk.
Just a fleeting observation.
In any case, take a moment today to remember the genuinely important things, and maybe give an unsolicited hug to someone you care about.
As it turns out, today — September 10, 2015 — is the fortieth anniversary of the release of KISS’ breakout opus, Alive.
Nine tenths of you are probably doing the “whoop-de-doo” face right now. That’s fine. In that instance, why don’t you take your Joni Mitchell albums and your satin Michael Jackson jacket and go into a closet and suck a carton of rotten eggs?
Sorry, maybe I’m overstating my defensiveness. It’s just that — regardless of how many quadrillions of times they’ve gone on to betray, let down, tarnish and/or flat-out decimate their once proud legacy — KISS will always be my first love.
In terms of Alive, while I was all of only 7 years old when it was released, it still defined a moment. I vividly recall first spying the now-iconic album cover shortly after its release at some podunk department store during a trip to visit family in the Berkshires (of all places). Even then, I knew I needed it.
Some time later, I remember being over at my friend Spencer’s house, and his older sister Jennifer had cut up the inner booklet and taped some of the pics from same to her wall (alongside a giant poster of Robert Plant holding a dove).
Certain skeptical friends of mine looked at the way Ace is brandishing his signature Gibson Les Paul on the sleeve and balked "He's not even holding it the right way!!!'
The first KISS album I would ever own would turn out to be the mighty Dressed to Kill (purchased with my own dubiously-earned allowance from a tiny record shop on Main Street in Westhampton Beach called Sam’s Record Shack — which, today, is a shoe store), but once I finally got hold of my own copy of Alive sometime thereafter, it felt almost too powerful to possess. If memory serves, I actually started saving up for a better record player JUST TO DO THE ALBUM JUSTICE.
WFMU’s Facebook page put up an interesting image today, that being the one above by one Michael Angelo Alago, captioned thusly….
PiL outside the Ritz the day of the '81 riot.
I’ve written about the Public Image Riot before (most recently here). I wasn’t at that show, nor at their equally celebrated turn at Great Gildersleeves (which I wrote about here). Nope, I wouldn’t see Public Image Ltd. onstage until sometime in `86, when they played the Palladium. By this point, Keith Levene was well out of the band, his part taken by John McGeough and Lu Edmonds (the former sadly now deceased and the latter back in the band, having also served in the ranks of the Damned, the Mekons and Spizzenergi).
In any case, in looking at this shot, I tried to figure out where, exactly, Johnny "Rotten" Lydon and company are pictured sitting. I’m guessing it’s 117, just steps to the west. That's Keith in the hat, John with the inexplicable epaulets, Jeanette Lee standing, and possibly John's wife Nora (mother of the Slits' Ari Up) sitting next to him.
Compare and contrast and see what ya think. The door is different, but the window moldings to the left match up, no?
One final thought about that Palladium show in `86. The band's first song (without Johnny onstage) was an instrumental romp through Zeppelin's "Kashmir," oddly enough. Here's a clip I found of them playing it in Geneva on that same tour.
I only interned there for about six months, but I managed to milk a lot out of my time at SPIN Magazine in 1989 (which I’ve written about and alluded to countless times via this post). I met a slew of people I still count as friends and mentors. My association with SPIN led to the opening of several other doors down the line. I only got one fleeting little news item published, and was never paid a thin, red dime (hey… I was an intern), but the experience and the contacts more than made up for that. To be fair, I also made off with a ton of discarded albums, more than a few black SPIN t-shirts and one or two SPIN coffee mugs. Sure, it would have been nice to have been hired on full-time, but that, alas, was not to be.
This year, SPIN — or what’s left of it — is celebrating its 30th Anniversary. I’ve certainly followed it over the years, through its hills and valleys of quality. Some of my friends and former colleagues went onto become staff members for a time. More recently, I’m sad to say that I’ve found the caliber of their writing dipping (witness this rant I posted not too long back). But I’ll always have a soft spot for the place.
In observance of the anniversary, founding editor/publisher Bob Guccione Jr. has returned to the fold to do some guest editing, and he recently appeared on Marc Maron’s excellent WTF podcast.
As a lowly intern, my interactions with Bob Guccione Jr. were fleeting and often intimidating. Sure, he could be entirely hilarious, but he also had something of a hot temper and a frankly unreasonable streak. I watched him tell an underling to fire one of my fellow interns on the spot for delivering his lunch too late (sushi from across town). I remember manning the (very busy) switchboard one day during the receptionist’s lunch hour, and I picked up one line to find Bob on the end of it, screaming `til hoarse at me for taking too long to answer. What if he’d been a potential advertiser? Brusque and abrasive as he may have been at the time, he did have a point.
Sure, he may have been a bit egomaniacal, but this was still the heady `80’s. My only lasting grievance with the man probably has more to do with his unwavering allegiance to the music of John Cougar Mellencamp. Small potatoes, at the end of the day.
In any case, give Maron’s chat with Guccione Jr. a listen. Check it out here.
Disarmingly loyal readers with a lot of time on their hands may remember a lengthy post I did here back in 2013 wherein I endeavored to pinpoint the cover location of Gavin Friday’s debut solo album from 1989, Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves. I managed to track down the spot — formerly a restaurant on Broadway and Bleecker called The Blue Willow and now a somewhat noxious men’s clothiers. You can read that whole saga here.
In any case, I was walking past that building again today with my kids, and I was saddened to see that even further elements from its previous incarnation have gone missing. The handsome marble trim that leads to the rear chambers are now completely covered, and the back rooms that played host to Gavin and Maurice “The Man” Seezer for Anton Corbijn’s cover shoot are no longer recognizable, currently playing host to a pricey sneaker concern called “KITH.”
I mean, yeah, it was already dead and gone, but I loved that you could still see that marble trim along the doorways to the rear rooms. Today, those stately portals are covered by a gaudy wall that looks like a rumpled sheet.
I’ve been hearing about the impending release of her book for some time, but this week, author Ada Calhoun put up a tantalizing teaser image for “St. Marks is Dead” on Facebook, that being the one below — a slide she purchased on eBay of St. Marks and Third circa 1963. Not a bong shop, cell phone emporium or froyo parlor in sight, eh? Click on it to enlarge.
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