Bob Egan of PopSpots nailed this one pretty quickly, identifying the location of Michael Putland’s sulky portrait of those fashion-forwaerd fops in Japan circa `81 as being West 57th Street. Conceivably after this photo was taken, the boys may have supped some tea at the Russian Tea Room, perused the aisles at Bergdorf Goodman and held court at the Oak Room over at the Plaza.
In any case, the kids and I were in midtown this morning to see the family accountant, and as such — I couldn’t resist the urge to replicate the shot. Here are my ever-patient kinder giving it their best in roughly the same spot …. 38 years later.
Evidently, later the day, the band did make it over to Central Park...
As I may have mentioned in this post, I have a couple of friends who have a hard time reconciling how I can appreciate canonically cool bands like, say, The Feelies, Television and The Velvet Underground and still heartily espouse comparatively populist, arguably slack-jawed heavy metal. This is a post that is invariably going to piss those people off.
Earlier this week, my college classmate Jill posted on her Facebook page the video for “Hot Rockin’” by Judas Priest, a clip rife with so much endearingly ludicrous excellence that it never fails to make my goddamn day. From the footage of the brazenly bare-chested (and decidedly un-toned) lads lifting weights, to the truly special flicking-glitter-at-the-camera-in-slo-mo-whilst-striking-a-power-chord bits to the point where they set all their gear on fire – as one does -- while an enthusiastic gaggle of bedenimed cretins gathers to furiously headbang, it’s really a delightful document on so many levels. In fact, fuck it, let’s go there now…
I know different people like different things and taste is all relative and we’re all cool, ironic and indie and whatnot, but c’mon … if you can’t appreciate Judas Priest, I’m afraid I really have absolutely zero respect for you. Should the video above not convince you of their brilliance, I would also present their unassailable 1982 single, “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’.” Yes, it’s by-the-books heavy metal to its very core (no accident, that), but it’s also a rock-solid pop tune AND you can fucking damn well dance to it. Here’s a refresher. If this doesn’t get you moving in some capacity, check your damn pulse.
The band’s catalog is pretty immense, and no – it’s not all gold, but I’d emphatically assert that Screaming for Vengeance and British Steel are nigh on perfect records. I mean, if you can seriously listen to tracks like “Breakin’ the Law” or “Hell Bent for Leather” and not, at least, fuckin’ smile, I’d suggest there’s a more than sizable likelihood that you’re a complete jackass and no one likes you.
Then, of course, there’s the great story of Rob Halford, and the seriously worst-kept-secret in heavy metal. And when he finally came out in the 90’s, it only made him more heroic and endearing. He’s also incredibly hilarious. God bless’im.
Anyway, … whatever. Judas Priest don’t need me to defend them. The only reason I thought of posting about them here, though, is because of the photos below. Again courtesy of rock photographer par excellance Michal Putland (the man responsible for those fetching shots of Japan), here we see the Judas Priest gents in our very own Central Park circa 1981. By the looks of it, I’d confidently suggest they are depicted in the environs of Sheep’s Meadow (not to be confused with the Great Lawn to its north). And, yes … they’re on goddamn roller skates.
They were probably in town for this show at the Palladium (now an NYU dormitory with a Trader Joe's in its ground floor)...
Okay, first up – I’m back sooner than doomily expected. Mercifully, the setback I alluded to turned out not to be as dire as initially dreaded (although it did involve a lot of unpleasantness). Regardless, we are all back out of the woods again. Onward and, hopefully, upward. Back to the usual silliness…
If I’m being honest, I was never a big fan of the band Japan. I quite liked their quasi-reunion album in 1991, Rain Tree Crow, but that was kind of a different beast altogether. I realize they were quite influential towards things that came after them (as much as Duran Duran like to cite the Sex Pistols and Chic, I’d suggest Japan played just as formative a role in the inspiration for their image, if not sound), but they were never really my cup of proto-New Romantic tea. Not sure why. I guess I just thought they looked too much like the New York Dolls and early Roxy Music and summarily dismissed them –- later to miss out on their more celebrated and mature work like Oil on Canvas, Tin Drum, etc. They went from being glammy, nasty and trashy to being kinda svelte, synthy and classy. Either way … I didn’t invest that much time in them.
Be that as it may, I spotted the photo up top and this photo of them from 1978 (captured by the incomparable Michael Putland) and I was immediately captivated -- THAT’S NEW YORK CITY -> WHERE ARE THEY STANDING?
I have a hunch or two, but what do you think?
Here they are from the same era …seemingly poised at the crossroads of a couple of conflicting genres. If you’re not familiar with them, don’t be put off by this … they ended up sounding vastly different.
We've just endured another surprise of the variety that I can't really talk about here. Suffice to say, a member of my family is not well and just experienced another hugely unexpected setback (just another in a series of setbacks, really). It really sucks quite significantly, but we will get through it. Anyway, it's something I have to deal with, so sit tight. I'll be back as soon as I can.
Sort of the next logical step from the Sleeveface phenomenon of a few years back, a young, keen-eyed graphic artist named Eisen Bernardo has started a cool Instagram page dubbed albumplusart (or Album + Art). The concept is pretty simple, but it’s really Bernardo’s execution that is so stunning.
Essentially Bernardo inserts album cover art into classic paintings (he uses the term “mashup,” but I’ve always loathed that term, so I shan’t be employing it here). In many instances, the fusion of images is absolutely seamless. I applaud Bernardo’s resourceful eye for minutia and scale, and his enthusiastic imagination.
This all said, I really wish his record collection was a little deeper. Apart from a few exceptions of canonical rock (Pink Floyd, the Doors, Kiss, Springsteen, the Eagles, Dylan), most of the album covers he features concentrate on contemporary pop and R&B bullshit of the variety that makes my teeth grind like Beyonce, Zayn, Rihanna, Bieber, Gaga, etc. I guess there’s no accounting for taste.
Quibble aside, you should really check it out. Do so here.
Hey again, all. Well, after posting this question yesterday, I took it over to Facebook, and my estimable colleagues Chung Wong and Bob Egan took up the cause. In disarmingly short order, it was deduced that the venue depicted in “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts was a little club called Private’s. Oddly enough, Private’s was on the Upper East Side, at 150 East 85th Street. Not exactly the badlands of rock abandon by any conceivable stretch of the imagination. My high school was two blocks away, and my classmate Kevin Sullivan lived down the street from it. I lived eight blocks away from it.
That said, in their fleeting tenure, Private’s also played host to a number of great bands like Joe “King” Carrasco & the Crowns, the Revillos, Cyndi Lauper’s Blue Angel, Richard Lloyd from Television, a late, Frampton-less iteration of Humble Pie, and even Flaming Pablum favorites like XTC, The Stranglers and Bauhaus. The whole concept of that last trio of punky bands playing on my childhood home turf of East 85th Street completely blows my mind.
True to form, Chung and Bob were able to specifically pinpoint the corner accurately (see below).
Again, it seems so strange that this stuff was going on on the Upper East Side. Sure, the Upper West Side had Hurrah, but that doesn’t seem quite as incongruous, for whatever reason. This patch of the U.E.S. has pretty much always been sleepy and residential.
In any case, Private’s was evidently not to last. I’m not sure when it closed — nor have I found any pictures of it — but the building that currently stands on that corner went up in 1986. I can’t picture the original corner for the life of me. But it once played host to leather-clad rocker types … in a neighborhood otherwise known for blazer-clad Catholic school kids … and Paul McCartney’s favorite pizza place.
I always liked Joan Jett. Unlike so many of her female peers of the early `80s, Joan didn’t seem to waste a lot of time trying to make herself seem ludicrously sexy. Sure, towards the middle part of her career, there was a bit of a step towards a slightly glammier image (I’m thinking of the big hair and form-fitting spandex circa 1988’s “I Hate Myself for Loving You”), but upon her solo debut (after the implosion of the Runaways), she was just being herself -– effortlessly sexy, all the same -– but in an entirely organic way. Regardless, Joan wasn’t trying to be sexy, she was trying to fucking rock. And handily succeeding.
I remember hearing a live recording of “Bad Reputation” from around `81 or so and first thinking it was the Plasmatics (which would have been sort of a huge leap, being that as much as I absolutely loved the Plasmatics, they simply were not capable of crafting anything that immediately catchy). After that song finished, I heard the vocalist grab the mic and emphatically assert, “THERE’S A LOT OF THINGS I LIKE….BUT THERE’S ONLY ONE THING I LOVE…” and then I realized exactly who it was.
Heresy time: I have never really liked the song “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll.” I just thought it was too populist and too dumb, but not in a cool way. I realize Joan didn’t write it. I can’t say I’ve ever listened to the original (by a band called the Arrows), but I doubt I’d like that, either. It basically could have been a song by the Ramones (who Joan also loved), but for some reason, it just never clicked for me. “Bad Reputation” was fast and punky and her cover of Tommy James’ “Crimson & Clover” (arguably her finest hour, for my money) was equally in your face, but “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” felt like she was sucking up to the Billy Squier and Pat Benatar crowd. I wanted her to say with the `Pistols and Ramones crowd. Oh well.
Anyway, overlooking of my misgivings for that particular single, Joan Jett is, was and e’er shall be entirely cool. The only reason I’m bringing it up now is because in the wake of my post about Vazac’s Horseshoe bar and its many cameos in movies and tv shows, I started to re-address a question that I’d always meant to post here but never got around to. What bar is the video for “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” filmed in?
"I Love Rock 'n' Roll"'s black-and-white music video received heavy play from the just-launched MTV network. In it, Jett and the Blackhearts travel to a small, dingy bar and proceed to excite the drunken crowd by performing the song and yelling out its chorus. A snippet of Jett's 1981 "Bad Reputation" is featured at the beginning of the video. The video was originally in color, but it was converted to black and white because Jett was ultimately displeased with the look of her red leather jumpsuit in color.
I love that the only reason it was later switched to the now-iconic black and white version was because Joan thought her leather jumpsuit looked shitty.
In any case, as much as the bar in question seems to be set on a corner (much like Vazac’s Horseshoe bar on the corner of East 7th Street and Avenue B), the layout of the room just isn’t the same. The bar where her henchmen in the Blackhearts are seen loitering like louche lotharios appears to be perpendicular to the entrance, which negates it from being 7B. This all said, it certainly looks like a genuine bar (and not a stage set), especially given the fact that Joan is seen entering off what looks very much like a New York City street.
There’s also the big picture window behind the stage…
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