Mohawks in Chinatown

I didn’t think I’d be unveiling another post about the Plasmatics so soon after the last one, but I spotted a photo on Facebook that just begged for greater extrapolation, so here we go.

I know I just hinted about another impending photo quiz (involving The Misfits), but this is not that. Like I said, that one’s a little more complicated, but all will be revealed. This one is pretty tough too, but for different reasons. Enough preamble.

It’s 1982 when Capitol Records unleashes Coup d’Etat, the third full LP by the Plasmatics, on a largely disintered world. Capitol themselves would also lose interest, dropping the band almost immediately after the record’s release. Showcasing a pointedly more metallic side to the band's oeuvre, the record makes previous efforts by the Plasmatics sound like easy-listening. Frontwoman Wendy O. Williams’ vocal chords are virtually unrecognizable in their larynx-shredding attack. Despite the legitimately bold new direction (the metal/punk crossover hadn’t officially been much of a thing, as yet, at least not here in the States), some of the same problems remain, and Coup d’Etat essentially becomes the band’s final album. There will be a later record with the legend Plasmatics stamped on it, that being 1987’s Maggots: The Record, but that will not feature original members like guitarist Richie Stotts. For all intents and purposes, Coup d’Etat is the largenly unsung band’s swan song.

Meanwhile, sequestered out amidst the leafy, Long Island byways of Quogue that summer, the petulant, 15-year-old me special-orders a copy of Coup d’Etat from a tiny, long-shuttered record store on Main Street in Westhampton Beach called Sam’s Record Shack. They order two copies. I bike over there and buy one, and they display the other copy in their window, and there it remains -– telllingly untouched and unpurchased -– until the shop’s demise about two years later.

While not quite as captivating, for me, as previous records like Beyond the Valley of 1984 and the Metal Priestess E.P. (their finest hour, as far as I’m concerned), I routinely blast tracks from Coup d’Etat in the house my family’s renting that summer, notably the suitably lumbering cover of Motorhead’s “No Class.” This practice does little to endear me to the rest of my family.

Around this same era, however, as alluded to in this post, I’m becoming less enthused by more conventional punk and metal bands and immersing myself more and more in hardcore punk. Stripped of the sensationalized shock-rock/showbiz antics of bands like The Plasmatics, hardcore punk is a leaner, faster, angrier form of expression that speaks directly to the frustrated adolescent psyche. Ultimately, it renders stuff like The Plasmatics obsolete.

Anyway, blah blah blah … why am I bringing up any of this ancient history now? Well, again, I spotted a certain photo of the Coup d’Etat-era Plasmatics on Facebook today in a larger format than I’d previously seen, and it begged a few questions.

I can’t find anything to verify this on the web, but if I’m not mistaken, the eye-catching cover of Coup d’Etat was shot on Charlotte Street in the South Bronx, although I cannot say I know who the photographer was. The particular location was allegedly chosen not because that neighborhood was the most conducisve to a big fuckoff tank, but rather because then President Ronald Reagan had made an appearance on that very spot (or in the vicinity) a couple of years earlier to chide his Democratic predecessor, Jimmy Carter, for failing to curb the encroachment of urban blight. I also want to say that KISS shot the frankly ludicrous video for “Lick It Up” on the same location, though probably not for the same reasons.

The photograph below, meanwhile, was presumably taken during the same shoot (given that the band is depicted sporting the same fetchingly distressed togs), but I’m going to speculate that it was snapped in Manhattan, specifically in -– WAIT FOR IT -– Chinatown.

I immediately assumed that shot was snapped on iconic Doyers Street. And while there is still a barber shop on that distinctive lane (notice the spinning barber’s pole above Wendy’s upstretched right arm?), it doesn’t visually match up, nor is there a hydrant nearby in 2017.

So, I’m putting it to you lot.

Now, there are several barber shops scattered around Chinatown, but 1982 was a long, goddamn time ago.

WHERE WAS THIS PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN?